Spring 1995, Munich, Germany.

Outside the new International Trade Center, large advertisements hang from the roof of the exhibition hall to the ground, and they are printed with some of the most famous international brands: Cartler, Komatsu, Liebherr, Prometheus, Heidingsfeld ....... Outside the 140,000-square-meter indoor exhibition hall, there are as many as 300,000 square meters of open-air booths, densely packed with all kinds of steel giants, long booms, huge digging shovels, wheels several people high, and tracks more than two inches thick, all of which are full of strong heavy metal atmosphere.

This is the triennial International Construction Machinery Expo, where more than 2,000 manufacturers from more than 30 countries around the world gather to show their latest achievements in construction machinery. And buyers from more countries have also rushed to spend a lot of money, and their madness is no less than that of the chopping hands on the Internet in later generations.

"We can't see our ads at all. ”

Next to a 175-ton electric wheel dump truck with a length of 12 meters and a height of 7 meters, Wang Weilong, deputy general manager and chief engineer of Luoqiu Metallurgical Machinery Company, said to Feng Xiaochen beside him with emotion. They were now looking up at the advertisements hanging outside the exhibition hall and identifying the narrow strip that belonged to the Chinese booth. In fact, it is not objective to say that it is not visible at all, and the advertisement is also two feet wide, hanging from the roof to the ground, and the area is quite small. It's just that if you don't look for it seriously, it's easy to be overlooked.

Feng Xiaochen took office and Yin Shi proposed to carry out large-scale technical equipment pre-research, and the biggest problem faced was the problem of funds. In the mid-90s, the country was in the process of transitioning from a planned economy to a market economy, and the state finances were in temporary difficulties because of the change of the mechanism of replacing profits with taxes, and a large number of state-owned enterprises fell into serious losses because they did not adapt to the market economy model. In this case, it is almost a dream to raise hundreds of millions of R&D funds.

Feng Xiaochen is naturally not the kind of person who sits and waits for the rice to be cooked, he proposed that there is a shortage of domestic funds, and he can find a way from abroad, to use a ridiculous statement, that is, to let foreign countries "sponsor".

In the early 80s, he also had an idea to go abroad to find sponsorship, that is, the State Economic Commission came forward to set up a national equipment industry science and technology fund, and then through Feng Hua's Mingbao Bank, the European market issued Chinese equipment industry science and technology bonds to raise funds. Yan Leqin served as the chairman of the fund, and used her reputation as a teacher at the University of Bonn to make a great contribution to the fund's launch.

Up to now, more than a dozen issues of equipment industry science and technology bonds have been issued, and the principal and interest of the previous issues have been repaid on time, allowing investors to obtain rich returns, which in turn has also led to the sales of bonds in the later stage. Many scientific research projects supported by the fund have produced good results, and there is a large surplus from the harvest of various patents to pay the principal and interest of the bonds, and these savings are reinvested in the fund, forming a virtuous circle.

Hao Yawei served as the financial director of the fund back then, and he has a good understanding of the operation of the fund. When Feng Xiaochen first said the word "sponsorship", Hao Yawei's first reaction was that Feng Xiaochen planned to repeat the old trick and go to the European market again to issue bonds and circle money. But Hao Yawei knows that this idea is no longer realistic.

Today's European capital markets are different from those of the mid-80s. At that time, there was a large amount of capital in the European market, eager to find a place to invest, and the issuance of the China Equipment Industry Science and Technology Fund was catering to this demand. By the mid-90s, the European economy was starting to fall into a swamp, with rising fiscal deficits, high unemployment, and difficult to meet internal capital needs.

There are many reasons for the recession in Europe. From the internal cause, it is the drag of the welfare society, the people are unwilling to work, but they demand advanced enjoyment, eat more and more food, and the family is increasingly hollowed out. In terms of external factors, the collapse of the Soviet Union caused the United States to lose its biggest military competitor, the Plaza Accord broke Japan's waist pole and relieved the United States of its economic troubles, and China has not yet reached the level of attracting the attention of the United States, so Europe has become the object of the United States' containment. Under these circumstances, perhaps for the purpose of self-preservation, European countries signed the "Maastricht Treaty" and established the European Union, which was aimed at competing with the United States, which touched the backlash of the United States, and US-European relations began to deteriorate, and Europe's development naturally encountered a crisis.

Feng Xiaochen has always been extremely concerned about the international political and economic situation, and he has an uncle who is a banker in the United States, so he naturally knows the current situation in Europe. He did not intend to replicate the model of the past, but proposed a strategy of organizing groups to go overseas to pan for gold.

Making money overseas is also not a new idea. At least 10 years ago, the Heavy Equipment Office has urged various equipment manufacturing enterprises to go to developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America for equipment sales, and at present, there are still some Chinese-built factories in Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and other places are in full swing. However, Feng Xiaochen's approach this time is more daring than before, and he requires all equipment companies to actively participate in various international equipment exhibitions and compete with international giants on the first-class stage.

"Xiaochen, this idea is a bit too advanced, isn't it? There is still a considerable gap between our technical level and that of European and American countries!" Wu Shican admonished Feng Xiaochen.

"But, our stuff is cheap. Feng Xiaochen replied with a grin.

"People's brand awareness is much higher than ours. Zhong Qifan also reminded.

"But, our stuff is cheap. Feng Xiaochen said.

"Those large foreign companies have mature sales channels, so we are afraid that we can't compete with them, right?" said Zhang Hanyun from the marketing department.

"But, our stuff is cheap. Feng Xiaochen still said this.

"Xiaochen, can we not mention the cheap thing?" Wang Jiji couldn't bear it anymore.

"Then ......" Feng Xiaochen thought for a while, and finally popped up: "Let's be good and cheap." ”

Isn't this still the same thing when everyone collapses? With this newly appointed general manager, he is holding this card in his hand, and he still thinks he has a hard hole card.

Feng Xiaochen also intended to amuse everyone, and when he saw that everyone was driven crazy by himself, he said with a smile:

"Everyone, it's not that I'm convinced, but what you said is right, our technology is not good, the brand is not good, the channel is not good, and there are indeed not many advantages. But in today's world, cheap price is a great competitiveness.

In fact, everyone knows that although the technical level of our products is not as good as that of Western countries, the main performance indicators can meet the needs of users. Where Western products are stronger than ours, they are just more convenient, more environmentally friendly, more durable, and more beautiful. Are these things important? Of course they are. However, for most users, even those in developed countries, it is not worth spending several times the price just for convenience, environmental protection, durability and beauty.

Today's technology is developing at a very fast pace, and products from ten years ago are outdated today. It is neither necessary nor economical to spend several times as much money on a set of equipment that can last for 50 years. It is a rational approach to throw away a piece of equipment after a few years and replace it with a more high-tech device. In this regard, the affordability is very important. Let's just say all of you, are you still using the old refrigerator you bought 10 years ago, have you ever complained that the quality of the refrigerator is too good, so that you have no reason to change the refrigerator?"

One sentence made everyone laugh again. But isn't it, everyone here is considered a successful person, and he is the first person in China who has the money to buy a refrigerator. More than 10 years ago, a refrigerator cost more than 2,000 yuan, and it can be said that it is infinite to buy it home. But in recent years, the refrigerators on the market have become cheaper and cheaper, with more and more functions, and the appearance has become more and more beautiful.

It seems that this is also the case when it is extended to the equipment industry. The steelmaking electric furnaces and gas turbines built in the sixties and seventies are still running very well, but the technology is seriously backward. Steelmaking electric furnaces have developed to ultra-high power, thermal power equipment is ultra-supercritical, and new technologies are more energy-saving and efficient. If you knew that the technology was developing so fast, of course, it was better to pick a bargain and use it first, and then replace it with a new one in a few years, at least the loss would be smaller, right?

China's equipment industry used to lag seriously behind the Western countries, and after more than 10 years of introduction, digestion, and absorption, it has now reached the level of the Western countries in the middle of the 80s or even the late 80s in many fields, and the gap with the West is only about a generation. It can be said that the equipment being used in many enterprises, not to mention the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, even the developed countries in the West, is not more advanced than the equipment that China can currently manufacture. If China can provide cheap and not particularly backward equipment, what reason do these companies have not to update it?

The equipment produced by Western equipment giants is more advanced, but the price is several times that of Chinese products, and changing a set can make the enterprise break its muscles and bones, and it will be outdated in a few years, who is willing to throw all the hard-earned money into this pit?

In this way, Feng Xiaochen successfully persuaded his subordinates, and these subordinates persuaded the domestic equipment companies they were responsible for contacting, so that they realized that it was time to go to sea to pan for gold. This time, led by the Equipment Industry Company, more than 10 complete machine factories and more than 20 parts factories across the country were organized to participate in the International Engineering Equipment Expo in Munich, which was part of Feng Xiaochen's strategy of organizing a group to go to sea.