Eunuchs in the Ming and Qing dynasties, also known as Zhongguan. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoA mass grave outside Yanjing is known locally as the Zhongguan Tomb because thousands of eunuchs were buried. Later, some people settled down and formed a village, which was renamed Zhongguan Village.

The ancient profession of eunuch in modern times has been eliminated, and Zhongguan Village has been renamed Zhongguancun.

At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were only 30 households in Zhongguancun, and the population did not exceed 300.

In 52 years, Yanjing City planned to allocate a large area of land in Zhongguancun to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the 50s, the Chinese Academy of Sciences built a large number of buildings, covering most of the area of Zhongguancun. At that time, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Zhongguancun were almost synonymous geographically.

In the 60s, Zhongguancun merged several nearby natural villages and established Zhongguancun Street.

In 79 years, Zhongguancun has become a well-known electronic product distribution market in Beijing, and by the 80s, it had the reputation of being a street of inverted masters, electronic streets, and scammers.

Lin Qi is in Zhongguancun in 79 years, in addition to the curiosity of witnessing history, but also the excitement of participating in history, because he clearly knows the future, and has an inexplicable sense of superiority.

……

1979, Beijing, Zhongguancun.

"Sir, do you want to buy a second-hand TV? I have a 12-inch black-and-white TV here, more than 400 new TVs, and only 200 second-hand TVs. ”

"Hong Kong's latest trendy electronic watch, 23 yuan a piece, want to buy as soon as possible. ”

The long and narrow streets, which stretch for several kilometers, are occupied by thousands of unscrupulous people and street vendors.

Televisions, radios, electronic watches, calculators, and other products that are out of stock in various state-run shopping malls can be found everywhere here.

In the past few years, traders were still sneaky, like underground workers, and after negotiating the price, they found a place where no one was there to trade secretly. But in recent years, all kinds of black-market traded goods have been sold on the streets almost openly.

"Sir, I'm not selling an ordinary calculator, but a scientific calculator. Ordinary electronic calculators, which only have addition, subtraction, multiplication and division operations, are enough for vendors, but they are far from enough for calculations that require squares, squares, or other functions...... Scientific Computer ......"

Simple awnings, built street stalls, stall owner Lin Qi has a smile on his face that cannot be seen in the state-run shopping mall, and he silently recites in his heart that "the customer is God", "smile service" and other basic professional qualities that future generations of salesmen should have.

Although he didn't know anything about business, these tips alone made customers feel God-like respect for service in this era.

In fact, Lin Qi has not been in Zhongguancun for a long time, less than two months.

But in the past two months, Lin Qi has been in this street, and he has been in the mix. Not only set up stalls for retail, but even wholesale goods to peers.

At present, the best-selling electronic watches sold in Zhongguancun are 23 yuan each, and most of them are wholesaled from Lin Qi's hands. During this time, there were tens of thousands of electronic watches wholesaled from him. The retail price of electronic watches in Beijing was cut in half from 40 yuan to more than 20 yuan.

In addition, Lin Qi also sells some calculators. The ordinary calculator, priced at 58 yuan a piece, is also popular with self-employed people in the neighborhood.

Speaking of calculators, Lin Qi was a little annoyed.

Because, the goods on hand are basically out of stock, and only a batch of scientific calculators are not easy to sell. Ordinary market vendors accept electronic calculators very quickly, and most of them are willing to buy one as long as they taste the convenience brought by electronic calculators. However, many functions of scientific calculators are not used in the market at all, so ...... A batch of scientific calculators that were purchased were not sold.

This reminded him of the commercial fable of selling leather shoes to Africa, and it was a wishful dream for Africans to be barefoot, so they didn't need leather shoes in the first place?

An old gentleman in his early fifties in front of "how much is a ......" is the only customer who is interested in scientific calculators these days.

"298!" Lin Qi cheered up and quoted the price happily.

This price is really not expensive, you know, in the 80s, the 286 computer imported to China was as high as 20,000 yuan. And the 286 computer for 20,000 yuan was taken to Zhongguancun for retail by the backward master with an approval slip, and it could be sold for 30,000 or 40,000 yuan. When I bought a computer with a sky-high price of 30,000 or 40,000 yuan, most of them were used as a more advanced typewriter. And this expensive typewriter actually can't display Chinese, so ...... In the 80s, the first pot of gold for many domestic computer companies was to add a piece of Hanka hardware to 286 and 386 computers. A set of Han cards, but also only added a Chinese display function to the calculator, actually quoted thousands to 10,000 yuan.

As for rudimentary electronics such as calculators and electronic watches, in the 70s and 80s, they were not cheap. In particular, the newly released scientific calculator is quoted at five or six hundred dollars in overseas markets......

"Sir, let's go. The young bodyguard looked impatient, "A broken calculator can be sold for hundreds of dollars!

The old gentleman shook his head and said, "Don't talk nonsense, this price is okay." A few years ago, I saw similar products in foreign countries, which were several times more expensive than this, and the exchange rate for RMB cost 2,000 yuan. I didn't buy it at the time, and now it's hard to buy it in China. ”

"Huh?" the young bodyguard looked incredulous, two thousand dollars, almost equivalent to more than two years of his salary!

The old gentleman was interested in trying out the machine, and after a while, he asked with satisfaction: "Is it really 298 yuan?"

"Really, the original price is 298 yuan, if you buy all 10 units on the stall, you can discount it to 198 yuan. In addition, 10 catties of national food stamps can be given 1 spare battery. Lin Qi said.

"Food stamps?" asked the old gentleman, "how much?"

The old gentleman didn't ask why he wanted food stamps, and in this era, food stamps are known as the second yuan.

In addition to asking for money, grain stores also have to pay for food stamps, and how many food stamps there are before they can take out how much grain they can take from the grain storehouse.

Consumers who buy grain from grain stores also need food stamps.

The pricing of the renminbi is part of it, and the other part of the hidden price is the food stamps. How many catties of food stamps can be bought.

"100 pounds, it's useless if you have more. Lin Qi took the initiative to explain, "The hukou is not in the capital, and the grain relationship is not there, so ......"

In the era of the planned economy, in order to control consumption and supply, according to the household registration, you can receive a certain number of food stamps, meat stamps, cloth stamps, industrial stamps, and so on every month. The relationship between the hukou and the grain is there, and these tickets are collected there.

Without a ticket, it's hard to get around in any city...... In this era, there were very few so-called black households in China, because if you don't have a household registration, you can't get food stamps, and you can't buy food without food stamps.

The price of rice in state-run grain stores is 0.14 yuan per catty of rice, but to buy one catty of rice, one catty of grain stamps must be paid at the same time. With only the renminbi, the rigid state-run stores refuse to sell grain.

Although these tickets are free of charge, everyone can get them for free according to their account. But there will always be people who need to buy something and find that they don't have enough tickets.

As a result, black market trading of various tickets has been born. All kinds of tickets, in the black market, can be exchanged for RMB or other tickets.

For example, the black market price of a pound of grain stamps is often 0.2 yuan, which is almost catching up with the price of a pound of rice.

Therefore, the price of 0.14 yuan a catty of rice is not real, and the value of food stamps is taken into account. The real market price should be 0.34 yuan a catty of rice.

The old gentleman nodded and said, "Okay, the food stamps are no problem." Inspect the goods on the spot, and if the calculator is fine, buy them all. By the way, I haven't seen this brand, which country is it?"

The invention of calculators has a history of hundreds of years, but the invention of the "portable electronic calculator" was invented in 1972 by the Englishman Cliff Sinclair.

However, since this patent was easy to get around, the biggest idea was to come up with the idea of miniaturizing an electronic calculator. Therefore, soon after the invention of the portable electronic calculator, it was quickly imitated by Japanese companies, and relied on the price advantage to catch up and monopolize the market.

The well-known brands of electronic calculators in this era are basically Japanese companies, and the prices are extremely expensive. For example, the scientific calculator sold by Casio, a well-known Japanese brand, sells for as much as $300.

Based on the current black market exchange rate between RMB and USD, RMB 4.2 is exchanged for USD 1. The price of Casio Scientific Calculator has reached a staggering 1,200 yuan.

The retail price of the scientific calculators in Lin Qi's hand is only one-fifth or one-sixth of that of Casio.

It is precisely because it is so cheap that the old gentleman cares about the brand of the calculator, and is ready to inquire about the brand clearly, and then make a report to let the unit purchase an additional batch.

"It's from Tao......" Lin Qi was struck by lightning.

I almost missed my mouth......

Can you say that you bought it on Taobao in this era?

"What are you looking for?" the old gentleman wondered.

"This thing was made by my overseas friend, his surname is Tao, and he is an overseas Chinese. Lin Qi said casually, "All kinds of electronic components are selected by him in the electronics market. Then, he does the processing himself. Of course, don't worry about the quality problem, if there is a bad calculator to bring me, I will definitely replace it with a new one, one-year replacement, lifetime warranty. ”

"Lifetime warranty?" the old gentleman was happy, "Now you are setting up a stall here every day, and I can't find you tomorrow, so I will go up there to warrant?"

Lin Qi ran the train with his mouth full and said: "We are different from those speculators who buy high and sell low, this is a machine independently designed and produced by the Chinese, and we are producing small batches manually at this stage, the goal is not to make money, but to put the goods on the market for testing." If a bug is found, we will not only provide a warranty for replacement, but also consider rewarding customers who find bugs. If the domestic policy allows, we still plan to invest in the construction of factories in China!"

"Are you going to invest in building a factory in China?" the old gentleman was a little interested.

"Hmm...... If the policy allows. Lin Qi said in the tone of the old gentleman.

It is clear that the policy of this era does not allow......

At present, the number of employees in the private sector in the country cannot exceed eight. This limitation alone is enough to stillinstate many entrepreneurial plans.

Of course, foreign-funded enterprises and joint ventures are not restricted. Therefore, in the early days of reform and opening up, the investment environment for domestic entrepreneurs was far less friendly than that for foreign investors to enter the Chinese market.

"Young man, this is my business card!" said the old gentleman after thinking for a moment, "If you have any difficulties, you can try to call me! If your friend really plans to put production in China in the future, you can come to me if you encounter difficulties." ”

More than ten minutes later, the young man carried a thick bundle of money and food stamps and said, "Comrade, please order a little." ”

Lin Qi counted, nodded and said, "Thank you for your patronage! If you can't find me in the future, you can find Sister Gu in the Tianxing Shopping Mall." ”

Lin Qi's stall is placed outside the Tianxing shopping mall.

As a small shopping mall, Tianxing Shopping Mall is a state-owned unit. The business of the mall is not good. In this era, most of the state-owned enterprises were similar, and the workers in them were completely unmotivated, grinding foreign workers all day long. During working hours, many employees are knitting yarn, playing poker and taking care of children. When customers come in, they are lazy and lazy, and it doesn't look like they're doing business at all.

On the street outside the mall, there is a circle of small stalls. The mall has no sense of market competition at all, and it doesn't care at all, and the vendors outside the door have snatched away the customers who originally belonged to the mall.

Lin Qi used ten electronic watches as a price to bribe the employees and managers of the mall. The more extravagant prices of this era were exchanged for the qualification to set up a stall outside the mall.

After seeing the old gentleman leave, Lin Qi looked at the business card - Professor Zeng Dachao of the Institute of Computer Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his contact information was on the business card.

"It's actually a professor, or from the Chinese Academy of Sciences!" Lin Qi felt a little surprised.