Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 270: Galactic Life in Africa

In May, somewhere in Africa, an area on the outskirts of a city was surrounded by barbed wire and high walls. Tall towers could be seen at a distance inside the walls, and armed men with weapons could be vaguely seen staring at the surrounding area.

Behind him was a low concrete building with a huge open space inside where several helicopters were parked. The barrels of heavy machine guns at the doors of the helicopters emitted a deadly light in the setting sun.

Under the setting sun, a convoy of off-road vehicles drove from a distant highway and approached this group of buildings. Before they got too close, they could see gun barrels turning in the concrete fortifications on both sides of the door.

This is a locally registered biological research company, Antara Biopharm, whose shareholders are companies from multiple countries.

The company has currently started certain commercial cooperation with South Africa's Galaxy Biopharmaceuticals, mainly for clinical trials of some drugs.

South Africa's Galaxy Bio has multiple shareholders, but behind these shareholder companies is one company: Galaxy Life, an offshore company registered in the Cayman Islands.

At the same time, Galaxy Life has more than a dozen important subsidiaries and research institutes around the world. The core subsidiaries include China Galaxy Life Company, America Galaxy Medical Technology Company, Europe Galaxy Biological Company, South Africa Galaxy Biological, South Africa Galaxy Security Services Company, India Galaxy Pharmaceuticals and some other subsidiaries or research institutes.

Founded and controlled by the world's richest man Xu Shenxue, and invested by a large number of super-rich people, it has raised a total of tens of billions of US dollars to develop companies specializing in anti-aging and other life research.

But the outside world basically doesn't know about it. At least ordinary people, and even ordinary wealthy people, have never heard that Xu Shenxue has set up such a company.

It must be solemnly stated that as a responsible multinational enterprise, Galaxy Life has always strictly abided by the laws and regulations of various countries and regions, and conducted business and research within the local legal framework!
Never violate local laws and regulations.

For example, the multiple wheeled armored off-road vehicles in the convoy and the two small armed helicopters equipped with heavy machine guns parked in the base are all self-defense weapons approved by the Galaxy Security Services Company and can be used legally with the approval of local agencies.

For example, some clinical drug trials conducted locally are in strict compliance with relevant local legal procedures.

Of course, people in Country A cannot use the laws of Country B to control Galaxy Life’s business or research in Country C...

After a while, the convoy stopped and several armed men came forward to check.

In a bulletproof SUV, Fang Yaohao looked at the high wall and barbed wire in front of him, then at the gleaming heavy machine gun in front of him. He couldn't help swallowing and began to regret coming to this place.

If I had known earlier, I should not have believed what those people in the company headquarters said, and I should not have been jealous of the high overseas subsidies for business trips... Working in a place like this, this is not a business trip subsidy, it's clearly a war zone subsidy!
Along the way, he heard many bursts of dense gunfire. If the company's security forces had not come to pick him up, he would not have dared to cross the more than 20 kilometers from the airport to the research base.

Too dangerous!

There are dangerous armed men with guns everywhere, and the shooting is too frequent. Even if nothing happens, you will probably be killed by a grenade fired from nowhere.

Seeing Fang Yaohao like this, a bald uncle next to him was also a little uneasy.

"Xiao Fang, do you think we can work here until the end of the three-year overseas assignment? Can we still go back alive?"

Fang Yaohao also took a deep breath and said, "It should be... no problem, right? I think the company's security is pretty good, they even have armored vehicles."

"Brother Lin, didn't you think carefully before coming here? Didn't we say before that the situation here is not stable? Otherwise, the company wouldn't give such a high subsidy for overseas business trips!"

Lin An said: "I have thought about it. Before I came here, the people in the company also told me that the situation here is not very good, but I thought it was just a lot of petty thefts. I thought that after I came here, I would stay in the institute honestly and not go out. There shouldn't be any big problems, but I didn't expect it to be so chaotic..."

"This is not a public security issue, this is a war. If some warlord attacks us, I'm afraid our institute's security personnel won't be able to stop them!"

Fang Yaohao said, "Well, now that we are here, we should just endure it. We should not go out anymore and stay in the institute. Once the project is finished, we can apply to return home. This place is not for human beings!"

Lin An said: "I'm afraid I can't make it. If I didn't want to buy a house, I would never agree to come to this place, even if the overseas subsidies were high!"

"The gunfire on the street just now almost scared me to death. These locals are too exaggerated. They were shooting on the street with AKs. It was crazy!"

Fang Yaohao also sighed: "If it weren't for the lack of money, who would come to a place like this!"

While the two were talking, the handover in front of the convoy had been completed, and soon the convoy started together and entered the base.

Soon, a middle-aged man wearing sunglasses and a pistol on his waist opened the car door and said, "Dr. Fang, Dr. Lin, we're here!"

Fang Yaohao looked at the middle-aged man in front of him. Just now on the street, he saw this middle-aged man with his own eyes. He was standing on an armored vehicle and operating a heavy machine gun, firing forward, intimidating those crazy locals not to get close!

After getting off the car, Fang Yaohao quickly saw a young blond lady wearing a small suit, short skirt, black stockings and high heels walking out of the building with a Zhiyun tablet in her hand. When she got closer, she started speaking in English.

Fang Yaohao was stunned for a moment, then listened carefully before realizing that the other party was welcoming him. After coming to his senses, he said in a slightly broken English: "Hi, I'm Fang Yaohao, a doctor of medicine transferred from the headquarters."

At this time, the blonde girl said with her big eyes shining: "I am Angela, the administrative assistant of the institute. Professor Ryan asked me to greet you."

As she listened, she followed with her suitcase, and Fang Yaohao couldn't help but glance behind her, then swallowed his saliva, this ass, these legs, the feel must be...

It's really fucking weird that there is such a woman in this crappy place.

On the other side, the middle-aged man got back into the car and stopped with the armed convoy at the other side of the base. The middle-aged man wearing sunglasses got out of the car and went into the building. After entering, he took off his sunglasses and said to a yellow-haired young man inside: "I hope nothing happened during the time I was away!"

The yellow-haired young man said, "Nothing happened at the base, but the company's convoy transporting aid drugs was ambushed."

"Two colleagues were injured, but luckily the enemy's aim was poor and the rocket launcher missed, so the transport vehicle was not damaged. In the end, we fought hard to break out of the ambush circle."

The middle-aged man said: "These damn poor bastards are trying to snatch the expired drugs we provided as aid. It's simply lawless. Even if they want to snatch them, they have to wait until we deliver them. After that, they can snatch them however they want!"

"Have you found out who did it?"

The yellow-haired young man said, "How can we find out about this? They all look the same, and we can't tell them apart. Plus, it happened so quickly, so our helicopter circled over, but they had all run away, so we couldn't find them at all!"

"But I guess it's the same gang that robbed our team last time. Only they would be so stupid as to rob our team!"

The middle-aged man said, "Never mind, it's him. Some people have been confused recently. When we went to the airport to pick someone up just now, we almost got into a fight. Damn it, they really think we are sheep coming here to do business!"

"Showing off your muscles appropriately will make it easier for those nerds to do their work later. Otherwise, I'm always getting in trouble. It makes me upset just watching!"

"And I also got a batch of new equipment, small drones, which are quite interesting. I'll try using them this time!"

As he spoke, he pointed to the boxes being unloaded from an off-road truck behind him, then opened one of the boxes, revealing a quadcopter drone.

"This is a good thing. Don't underestimate it, it's very useful and has been specially modified. I've used it in the training base before and its power is incredible!"

"This larger one can be used for reconnaissance. It flies quite high. In addition to the high-definition camera, it is also equipped with an infrared sensor. The image transmission quality is also quite good!"

"This small one can be used for dropping bombs."

"You gather the relevant intelligence first, and then I will organize some training for a few days, and then we will come back and destroy them!"

"They are a bunch of uncivilized gorillas, yelling and holding AKs every day. It's annoying to watch them. Let them wake up. I can't control how they fight, but I can't let them affect us, especially they can't damage the company's assets."

A few days later, the armed base of a local small warlord was attacked by unknown militants. The warlord leader was killed on the spot and dozens of people were killed or injured.

This news, let alone being spread internationally, not many ordinary people in the local area paid attention to it. There were too many such incidents in the local area.

However, most of the local warlords could guess that this was a warning from a certain company... don't cause trouble.

In addition, according to some people who escaped, although they were attacked, they actually did not see the enemy from beginning to end because the enemy never showed up.

They only saw a few small unmanned aerial vehicles here and there, but some people thought they were just ordinary birds.

But no one paid attention to this news!

Therefore, the outside world had no idea that this day was the first time in human history that consumer drones were used on the battlefield...

Soon, the report of this small-scale battle and the corresponding video were submitted to the headquarters of the South African security service company.

The drones responsible for reconnaissance used high-definition cameras and infrared sensors, and multiple drones took turns monitoring. They conducted a comprehensive reconnaissance and search of the enemy's camp without the enemy noticing, and then guided small drones carrying bombs to carry out precise bombing.

It also demonstrated a very good armor-piercing effect. A drone carrying a rocket launcher's armor-piercing warhead directly launched a suicide attack, destroying the opponent's only old but well-protected wheeled armored vehicle.

Multiple batches of small drones repeatedly flew back and forth to drop bombs, eventually blowing the enemy away in all directions.

Until the attack was over, the other side still didn't know who or what weapon attacked them.

The South African security services company conducted repeated research based on this battle, and then came to a conclusion that this thing is very useful in the hands of non-vehicle security personnel. It can greatly increase the combat distance of security personnel from the previous several hundred meters or one thousand meters to four or five kilometers or even farther.

In low-intensity combat, its effect will not be worse than traditional medium and large drones... and it is more cost-effective.

Large and medium-sized drones cost millions or even tens of millions of dollars. The entire combat system will cost at least hundreds of millions of dollars to build, and the ammunition used is precision-guided munitions, which are very expensive.

But this kind of drone... It only costs a few thousand dollars, and anyone can use it simply after a few days of training. It can directly use cheap grenades or modified armor-piercing shells.

Moreover, ordinary drones can be used repeatedly. Even if it is a single-use suicide drone, only the body of the drone will be lost, and the remote control device can still be used.

The overall cost of use is extremely cheap!
It also has the characteristics of high concealment. Because it is too small, flies at too low an altitude, and is electrically driven, the noise is also very small. In some conventional environments, it is impossible for the enemy to detect it if it flies within two or three hundred meters.

When the enemy finds you, and you have no effective means to stop them, you can only passively flee. If there is no good cover nearby, you will not be able to run away or hide most of the time...

Finally, it is recommended to increase the purchase, modification, stockpiling, training and deployment of such small drones to better protect company assets.

However, such a battle summary report only appeared in a security service company, so it is destined to never see the light of day and be unknown to outsiders.

------

A few days later, in the Xu family villa, Lin Yaxian walked into the study with her big belly and saw Xu Shenxue watching a video on the computer. It was a war video with explosions from time to time.

"What are you looking at? It's so sad!"

Xu Shenxue turned off the video and turned around and said, "Nothing, just watching!"

Lin Yaxian smiled and said, "You are just like my second brother. You always like guns and other things. Haven't you grown up yet?" Xu Shenxue laughed and said, "Boys never grow up!"

Lin Yaxian said: "My parents are here, they are downstairs."

Xu Shenxue said: "I'll go down right now!"

Ever since Lin Yaxian became pregnant, Lin's mother came over every few days, but Lin's father came less often. When he came over this time, Xu Shenxue also went down to chat with them for a while, but the conversation turned to business matters.

Recently, Lin's father started a second business, relying on his son-in-law to engage in the automotive parts industry. The car seat business is quite prosperous. In the past year, it can be obviously seen that his spirit is much better than before. I guess he has found the motivation to strive for success.

----

The next day, Xu Shenxue went to Xiaojiang Technology to inspect it, mainly to see their research and development situation. Xiaojiang Technology has done quite well in the past two years.

Although the consumer drone market is still niche and the market capacity is not large, they have no competitors and almost monopolize the entire market, so sales, revenue and profits are quite good.

When he arrived at their company, Xu Shenxue saw the second-generation small personal aerial photography drone that they were preparing to launch on the market, and also saw a larger agricultural drone.

This type of drone is relatively large in size and can carry 20 to 30 kilograms of cargo during flight. It is very suitable for spraying pesticides.

They plan to launch this agricultural drone on the market in May, but it is hard to say how well it will sell.

The current civilian consumer drone market is still quite small, and aerial photography and pesticide spraying have not yet become popular. People have some doubts about these things that they have never come into contact with before, and always feel that these little gadgets are unreliable.

Especially since this kind of drone for production is not cheap, it costs tens of thousands of dollars, and many people are reluctant to spend so much money to try it.

Not much is known about Xiaojiang Technology, the actual leader in the civilian drone market.

That is, in the early years, Xu Shenxue personally supported the event, which caused a heated discussion, but no one talked about it anymore.

Some technology companies also tried to follow the trend and make drones, but they soon found that the technology was difficult and the market was very niche, so they eventually gave up.

Some special domestic institutions are particularly interested in this drone, but they certainly don't want these civilian-grade consumer drones. Instead, they want to develop their own based on these technical principles, and the specific progress is said to be quite good.

Xu Shenxue could only ask them to keep calm and patiently cultivate the market slowly. Although the revenue is not very good now, it will definitely get better in the future.

Drones are bound to shine...

At the same time, Xu Shenxue also suggested that they set up a few drone rental service companies... Since the market is not mature, they might as well cultivate the market themselves.

You can open your own drone rental service company and provide drone services such as aerial photography, pesticide spraying, and terrain surveying to companies or people in need. The purpose is not to make money from the rental business, but to promote this drone usage model.

You have to let people know what drones can do and what advantages they have, and then you can guide more people into it.

It's not just the domestic market, but more importantly the foreign market, such as the United States. Their agriculture is well-developed and labor is expensive, so they need the aerial spraying of pesticides service even more. Before, they used expensive small fixed-wing agricultural aircraft, but now we can sell them agricultural drones.

Then in the security field, drones also have a considerable market and can be promoted in a targeted manner.

After visiting Xiaojiang Technology, encouraging and appeasing some of the company's senior executives, Xu Shenxue turned to HaiLian Automobile. HaiLian Automobile recently launched the HaiLian SEV and Zengcheng models, and ushered in a wave of new orders. Xu Shenxue attached great importance to this and has often come here to take charge recently.

At the same time, the news that South African security service companies were quietly equipped with and using consumer-grade drones quickly spread among some companies in the security field. Many security service companies knew about this thing and tried to use it.

Anyway, it's a very cheap thing, only a few thousand dollars. After using it, I found it is really useful.

Until a grassroots commander on a battlefield in West Asia saw this news, and then bought a few out of his own pocket and tried to use them...

So, in late June, some media reported similar news that a large number of high-tech civilian equipment were used on a battlefield somewhere.

In the video, the star products Zhiyun mobile phone and tablet computer appeared, and next to them was Xiaojiang's drone...

The commander used the map on Zhiyun's tablet computer to explain various tactics in detail to the soldiers, and he kept zooming in and out of the map.

Zhiyun’s publicity department immediately smelled the scent of its competitor’s public relations department.

Faced with this slander, Zhiyun Group immediately issued a corresponding announcement to make corresponding clarifications, stating that all of Zhiyun Group's terminal products are civilian products and do not support their use for any war purposes, and condemned the use of Zhiyun products in wars.

Of course, this alone is not enough, so the media soon reported that fruit and four-star mobile phones, tablets and other products also appeared on the battlefield.

If we want to be bad, let’s be bad together!

After the water was muddied, everyone became used to it.

But what's so stupid about Xiaojiang Technology... They just make aerial photography and agricultural drones, how did they get involved with war?

When they saw the news, they were stunned and finally quickly issued a clarification announcement.

Of course, everyone is just treating this as curious news, and most people are actually mocking the local warring parties for being so poor that they can only use civilian products.

After all, people have the impression that wars are fought with all kinds of high-end electronic products, special three-proof mobile phones, computers and the like, and drones must also be high-end items worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

They are using civilian products to fight wars...

So there are a lot of teasing and sarcasm.

Xu Shenxue also noticed this situation. With the advancement of technology, the global sales of Zhiyun products are inevitable.

A large number of people in the world's military are using civilian mobile phones, tablets, and PC products... After all, these things may seem like civilian products, but they are really useful!

For example, satellite maps, Zhiyun Group's own AutoNavi map service, purchases high-definition satellite maps for overseas regions, which are very clear... Most countries' own military maps are not as high-definition as Zhiyun AutoNavi or Google Maps.

However, this does not mean that Zhiyun’s smart terminal products are military products.

Besides, Zhiyun Map will not do anything random. It will strictly follow the laws of various countries and block all the blocked areas. It will not do anything random.

So Xu Shenxue instructed that we must intensify publicity efforts to muddy the waters and then drag other manufacturers into this. We cannot just stand there foolishly making excuses when others throw dirty water on us, but we must throw the dirty water on others as well.

If we are going to get dirty, let’s get dirty together!

Then, slowly, no one talked about it anymore.

----

This kind of negative news actually appears frequently throughout the year around the world, and the marketing and public relations department of Zhiyun Group is no longer surprised by it.

And it's not just others who slander Zhiyun. In fact, Zhiyun itself often does this, smearing its competitors everywhere.

Especially when a competitor's new product is about to be launched, Zhiyun Group often conducts targeted public relations activities.

The commercial competition among these large enterprises uses various means in a multi-faceted and three-dimensional manner. Propaganda and smear campaigns are just basic operations, and there are also some operations that are not easy to be reported.

For example, this year's S13 mobile phone encountered certain resistance in its preparation for launch in the United States. It's not that they explicitly refuse to let you buy it, but they set up various thresholds for you.

For example, last year we talked about AI voice assistants, and this year we are talking about nonsense about artificial intelligence threatening security.

In order to continue to enter the US market this year, Zhiyun Mobile has completely removed the voice assistant function on the US version of its mobile phones.

These are all very common things. Xu Shenxue would get angry and depressed about this in the past, but not anymore... After all, Zhiyun has done this kind of thing many times, and Fruit and Sixing are also having a hard time in the domestic market.

The world is like this, competition is everywhere, and the competition between large companies is very complex and three-dimensional.

As Zhiyun's summer press conference approached, the slanderous behavior of competitors intensified, and negative news about Zhiyun often broke out in many overseas markets.

There are all kinds of them, such as mobile phones exploding and catching fire, Zhiyun phones being unsafe, being hacked by hackers leading to user privacy leaks, and all kinds of secret theft.

Basically, it comes once a year and reaches its peak in late June.

In response to this situation, Zhiyun Group did what it should do except for the usual marketing and public relations tit-for-tat response.

Preparations for mass production continue, and some S13 inventory has begun to be secretly distributed to overseas launch markets for storage.

The marketing department has also begun large-scale preheating work for the launch of the S13 mobile phone worldwide.

Ultimately, all of this is for this year's summer conference and the global launch of the S13 after the conference.

Countless people are paying attention to the launch of Zhiyun's new S series products.

Zhiyun S series mobile phones are the most influential electronic consumer products at present, and a super single product with annual revenue of more than 100 billion US dollars.

At present, no single industrial product can compare with the Zhiyun S series of mobile phones in terms of influence and revenue.

The release of a new model of such a major product naturally attracted a lot of attention.

As the time of the press conference approaches, the attention of many media, industry insiders and even ordinary people in the world has shifted to the Qianshan International Conference Center.

A large number of media outlets have been gearing up and are looking for various breaking news to grab traffic.

On the day of the press conference, before it officially started, news media around the world, especially online media, had already begun to intensively report news about the Zhiyun S13 phone.

This shows how great the influence of Zhiyun S13 is!

(End of this chapter)