Chapter 65 Zhang Yong
The compilation, plate making and printing of review materials and exercises were carried out in an orderly manner with the assistance of the school and the factory.
A few days later, after the hard work of the school teachers, the math exercise materials were first sorted out, and the next step was to make the plate. It took three days to make the plate, which was already very tight, and it was only after Director Ma found a connection and asked someone to work overtime that it was rushed out.
Considering the efficiency of the old letterpress printing press in the factory, Song Yuanchao chose 8-page paper for printing, which is the maximum size that this letterpress printing press can print.
The size of 8K paper is equal to the size of a folded newspaper page, which is commonly known as A3. The summer and winter homework books we received as children were usually this size.
The letterpress printing machine in the factory is definitely much slower than the automatic letterpress printing machines of later generations. You should know that many letterpress printing machines of later generations can reach more than 15,000 prints per hour, and some are even faster than 18,000 prints per hour.
The maximum speed of this old letterpress printing machine is only 2,500 prints per hour, which also excludes the time for adding ink and cleaning. So from this point of view, it can only print about 50,000 prints per hour even if it runs 24 hours a day.
The math question review materials have a total of 39 pages according to the paper size, so a maximum of about 1,300 copies can be printed per day. However, this is only theoretical, because it still requires cutting and binding procedures. In the end, only 966 copies were printed on the first day of trial printing. According to this situation, the actual number of copies printed is about 1,200.
The number of pages of physics and chemistry is less than that of mathematics. The preliminary estimate is about 32 pages, and the number of books published per day is about 1,350.
Time is tight. There are less than two months left before the college entrance examination, and Song Yuanchao must finish this task within a month.
When the math problem review materials came and the first bound book arrived, Song Yuanchao began his non-stop sales work.
According to the previous arrangement, everyone was responsible for their own tasks. Qin Zhengguo took the samples and letters of introduction issued by the school to contact middle schools across the city to promote these review materials.
As for Li Daqi and Gu Jie, they were not idle either. They spread the news early and started to act after getting the samples. Good news came on the same day.
Li Xiaoyun was originally a candidate for this year's college entrance examination. Many of her classmates and friends were also taking the college entrance examination. When she learned that this was a business done by her brother and Song Yuanchao, Li Xiaoyun, who had always been thinking about getting involved in Song Yuanchao's business, became particularly interested. She told many people about this matter before the products came out. When she learned that there were formal and reliable review materials, almost all students were particularly interested in it.
In just one day, Li Xiaoyun helped Song Yuanchao and his team sell more than 30 volumes of materials. That’s not all. Li Xiaoyun excitedly told Song Yuanchao that after receiving the materials, everyone flipped through them and were very satisfied with the exercise materials inside. They were even more looking forward to the exercise materials for physics and chemistry mentioned earlier.
Although the price of this thing is not low, one copy of the study material costs 5 yuan, but can such a thing that can improve one's college entrance examination score be simply measured by money? Although 5 yuan is not a small amount, if the three materials add up to 15 yuan, it is basically equivalent to one-third of the average person's monthly salary, but in the hearts of most people, they are still willing to pay this money.
Previously, those who were engaged in the clothes hanger business set the wholesale price for Song Yuanchao at 4 yuan, leaving them a profit margin of 1 yuan.
The profit that was given up was not low in proportion, but Song Yuanchao didn't care about it, because the selling price he originally determined was already relatively high. Now because of the urgency of time, Song Yuanchao had to sell as many as possible as quickly as possible in a short period of time.
Everyone was busy with this as if they were injected with chicken blood, and their efforts were rewarded.
Qin Zhengguo spent several days visiting almost all the middle schools in Shanghai. Although many middle school leaders showed no interest and refused at first, they could not resist Qin Zhengguo's persuasion and negotiated the terms privately. He sold the products to the schools at a wholesale price of 4 yuan, and the schools then sold them to the students at 5 yuan. The sales channel was completely opened.
Of course, this price was not something Qin Zhengguo said casually. Song Yuanchao had thought of this a long time ago, so he deliberately printed the words "Shanghai No. 2 Middle School's internal college entrance examination review materials" at the bottom of the back page when printing, and also printed the words "Suggested selling price: RMB 5" below.
People in this era were relatively simple-minded. Although they said the price was a bit high, they did not object to the selling price. According to most people, since the price was printed in black and white, it was recognized and it was reasonable to pay for it.
On this day, Song Yuanchao arrived at the workshop early. The workshop had now been divided into two parts.
One part is still used to produce the original products, while the other part is mainly used to arrange printing.
The printing side was extremely busy, with several workers working in three shifts around the clock, with the machines continuing to run while the workers took breaks. At the beginning, Song Yuanchao had played a "killing the chicken to scare the monkey" trick based on Li Daqi's suggestion, so the workers in the factory no longer treated the printing side with their usual indifference.
In addition, after Song Yuanchao and Director Ma discussed and announced that they would give the printing staff a part of the bonus and overtime pay, everyone's enthusiasm was mobilized at once. Now all the workers have applied to work on the printing side, and there is no shortage of manpower.
"Where is Gu Jie?" After looking at the printing situation and then at the booklet that had been cut and bound last night, Song Yuanchao suddenly realized that Gu Jie was not there. Normally, he should have arrived by this time, and he immediately frowned.
"I don't know. Could it be that he came back too late yesterday and couldn't get up?" Li Daqi left early yesterday, and Gu Jie was still there when he left.
"What time did he go back last night?" Song Yuanchao asked.
Li Daqi shook his head and was about to say something when his eyes suddenly lit up, "Here he comes, Gu Jie is here!"
Turning back and looking towards the workshop door, he saw Gu Jie's figure appearing and walking towards them in a hurry.
"Brother Song, I have something to talk to you about." When Gu Jie arrived in front of Song Yuanchao, his face was slightly red and he was breathing heavily. It seemed that he had rushed all the way here.
He whispered something to Song Yuanchao, then Gu Jie nodded to Li Daqi, turned around and walked out.
Not understanding what Gu Jie wanted to say to him or what was going on, Song Yuanchao gave Li Daqi a calm look and then followed Gu Jie out of the workshop.
After they got outside and found a secluded corner, Gu Jie said, "I ran into Zhang Yong when I was about to go out today. He asked me to talk about something, so I was late."
Gu Jie first explained the reason for being late, and then said, "Zhang Yong also made hangers before, but that was after you transferred the business to me, so Brother Song, you haven't met him."
"He is my sister's classmate, three years older than me. He used to be an educated youth in the southwest and came back last year..." Gu Jie introduced Zhang Yong's situation to Song Yuanchao in detail. Zhang Yong is 26 years old this year, three years older than Gu Jie and two years older than Song Yuanchao. He was an educated youth at about the same time as Song Yuanchao, but Song Yuanchao went to the northwest while Zhang Yong went to the southwest.
Zhang Yong has been a ruthless and aggressive person since he was young. He was the leader of the children in the school. He was not at peace even when he arrived in the southwest. He was well-known among the educated youth in Shanghai.
Zhang Yong's home is not too far from Gu Jie's home. After returning to Shanghai, Zhang Yong had no job and had been wandering around at home and in society doing nothing.
Some time ago, Song Yuanchao was doing a clothes hanger business, and Zhang Yong didn't know where he got the news from. But when he learned the news, Song Yuanchao had basically transferred the business to Gu Jie, and the original team had been disbanded.
Zhang Yong was a smart man. He found someone from the team that had worked with Song Yuanchao before. After tinkering with it, he quickly learned how to make clothes hangers. Then he brought together a few people to start this business.
At the beginning, Zhang Yong and his colleagues made some money from this business, but the good times didn't last long. Later, because of the incident between Zhang Bin and Wang Jianjun, the police station took action and the clothes hanger business was suddenly brought to an end, and Zhang Yong no longer had any income.
These days, Zhang Yong and his friends are doing the business of selling eggs, which means buying some eggs from farmers in the suburbs and selling them in the vegetable market. Although this business is not as good as the clothes hanger business, it is still a way to earn some hard-earned money.
At this time, Zhang Yong heard from somewhere that Gu Jie had started selling college entrance examination review materials . He asked someone about this and after getting a definite answer, he decided to come to Gu Jie to discuss business.
Zhang Yong is a classmate of Gu Jie's sister, so of course he has known Gu Jie since childhood. He came to block the door early this morning and talked to Gu Jie for a long time. His meaning was nothing more than that he had people and channels, and asked Gu Jie to give him a part of the business. As long as Gu Jie agreed, Gu Jie would be his, Zhang Yong's brother in the future, and he would guarantee to help if he could do it as long as Gu Jie had anything to say.
How could Gu Jie make the decision on such a big matter? What's more, Zhang Yong had a big appetite. Gu Jie originally planned to send him off according to Song Yuanchao's suggestion of a minimum of ten volumes, but Zhang Yong thought that the number was too small. According to him, he should either not do it or do it on a big scale.
"Make it big? How much does he want?"
"He said at least one thousand copies, and the price should be lowered a bit more," said Gu Jie.
"This guy has quite a big appetite!" Song Yuanchao laughed immediately. Gu Jie's words made Song Yuanchao suddenly very interested in Zhang Yong.
Gu Jie nodded and said to Song Yuanchao, "Brother Song, you don't know, this Zhang Yong has been a crab since he was a child, very arrogant, I dare not directly say no to what he said, what if this kid gets angry and makes trouble, it will ruin the deal, so I can only use words to calm him down, saying that I don't have the final say in this deal, I have to find someone who has the final say. But whoever wants to talk to whoever he says has the final say, let me pass on this message for him, I have no choice but to agree..."
As he spoke, Gu Jie lowered his head, his face full of shame.
"You did a great job!" Song Yuanchao patted his shoulder and comforted him, "Harmony brings wealth. Try not to offend people if you can. Less trouble is worse than more. What you said is not wrong."
"Brother Song, don't you blame me?"
"Haha, why should I blame you? This is the fact." Song Yuanchao smiled and shook his head, then said with emotion: "Zhang Yong seems to be a character. Okay! Since he wants to see me, then let's meet him. You go back to him early in the afternoon and make an appointment to meet. As for the place..." Song Yuanchao thought about it and felt that the air-raid shelter that was used as a clothes hanger was more suitable. Although the place had been cleaned, the tables and chairs were still there, and no one would come to disturb.
