Hong Kong Island: From a small stall to a global supplier

Important matters are discussed in small meetings, minor matters in large meetings, and serious business is only discussed at the dinner table...

After lunch, I took a short rest and then went to the municipal government in the afternoon to attend a meeting specifically for Wang Yaotang. The theme of the meeting was a report on the Zhuhai quarry industry.

It has been more than two months since the investment began. As Wang Yaotang advocated, we should first focus on sales, then on the deep development of the quarry, and finally on the integration of the mine. This will give the market, the original mining company, and the employees time to react and prepare. Extending the timeline will minimize the problems encountered during the restructuring process and allow time to resolve any issues.

Of course, nothing is perfect, and this approach will inevitably lead some 'shrewd' individuals to seek personal gain from this round of consolidation. However, Wang Yaotang doesn't care about these things, or rather, he's happy to see them happen.

The premise for these people to profit is that the integration and reform can be successful. Regardless of their identities, these people are definitely not ordinary people. For their own benefit, they will provide strong support and clear some obstacles. This back-and-forth will greatly promote Wang Yaotang's integration.

At the same time, such reforms are bound to be met with fierce resistance from the die-hards. These die-hards are mostly ordinary people who are afraid that their current stable lives will be affected. Reforms will make them harbor a lot of resentment. At that time, Wang Yaotang can also push out some profiteers to be executed in order to quell public anger and salvage his own reputation.

What does "win-win" even mean?
After listening to the introduction from Zhuhai, Jiao Peilin took the stage to give a report on the current situation of the ore dressing plant. "Since the ore dressing plant began operation, it has screened 75 tons of stone ore, classifying limestone, volcanic rock, granite, and other types of stone ore, and then screening them into four different sizes—large, medium, small, and micro—for sale, generating sales of HK$1500 million..."

The current cooperation model involves Hong Kong Yiu Ming Building Materials purchasing from the ore dressing plant, which in turn purchases from the mining company established by the ZH Municipal Government. The mining company then consolidates the scattered mines below. Yiu Ming's purchase payments to the ore dressing plant are made in Hong Kong dollars and settled directly with the Bank of China in Hong Kong. In other words, HK$1500 million is the foreign exchange earning quota.

After deducting costs, the ore processing plant itself makes almost no profit, which is retained by Yaoming Building Materials. Of course, for Zhuhai, earning foreign exchange is the top priority. At the same time, as the mine increases production, the investment in the ore processing plant employs a large number of workers, and the wages paid have already stimulated the local economy. Taxes are secondary.

What does "win-win" even mean?
The leader asked the vice mayor in charge of mining in a low voice, "How much foreign exchange did the company earn per month before the ore processing plant was built?"

HK$500 million.

"Such a big difference?" The commander looked astonished.

"Previously, sales were only half of what they were before; this month they've increased."

"So that means the ore processing plant increased its profit by 500 million?"

"Yes, it will be even higher later. There is a shortage of electricity and transportation capacity. In fact, less than one-third of the ore has been sorted and screened. Now we rely heavily on manual labor. I heard Jiao Peilin say that if the ore processing plant can operate fully, it will also carry out secondary processing of the ore, such as granite slabs for paving. According to his estimate, a complete ore processing plant can generate about 4000 million yuan in foreign exchange per month."

The leader asked doubtfully, "Can this increase be maintained?"

"Well... it's hard to say. According to what Jiao Peilin said before, the increase in production this month was mainly due to the shutdown of the three major stone mines on Hong Kong Island, resulting in insufficient local production capacity. However, now that K Wah has been split up, Wang Yaotang has acquired the largest blue stone mine, Bao, Xu, Li, Zheng and other tycoons have acquired Anderson, and Li Xiangjiao has acquired Lei Yue Mun. The three major mines have resumed production."

"What did Wang Yaotang say?"

"He said that the market share of Taiwan has been swallowed up, and at the same time, the scale of the Haojiang Tianhai project is gradually increasing. In addition, with the crackdown on smuggling, the demand may rise further."

"Hmm." The leader nodded slightly. Dramatic increases or decreases were something the authorities didn't want to see; it was too unstable.

The current power supply is severely restricting the speed of industrial development, so this joint venture power plant project should be expedited.

The earliest power plant jointly built by China and Hong Kong was the Shajiao B Power Plant. Pengcheng Special Economic Zone Power Development Company and Hong Kong Hopewell Energy cooperated to establish a joint venture in 1984, started construction in 85, and went into operation in 1988. It was the first power plant in China built using the BOT model.

Hopewell Energy (Hong Kong) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hopewell Holdings Limited, which is a business owned by the Gordon Wu family.

In the Sha Kok B power plant project, Hopewell Holdings holds 50% of the shares, Japan's Matsue Corporation holds 5%, and Bank of China and other mainland companies based in Hong Kong hold a total of 45%.

In other words, the joint venture to build the power plant would have gone ahead even without Wang Yaotang's involvement.

Just like even without Wang Yaotang, Lu Zhihe will still carry out consolidation next year and then dominate the entire Hong Kong and Macau stone mining industry.

Over the next three days, Wang Yaotang communicated with Zhuhai again and roughly agreed on the cooperation in building a power plant. After returning to Hong Kong Island, Wang Yaotang will set up an energy company, and Zhuhai will also set up a special team to liaise with the new energy company.

Joint ventures to build power plants are not easy; the first hurdle is obtaining approval.

To obtain approval, a very detailed feasibility report must be submitted, covering aspects such as site selection, initial installed capacity, future expected installed capacity, generator manufacturers, coal supply relationships, and of course, the most important factor: the amount of funding.

The government has money, but it has too many things to focus on, and the funds that can be allocated to a particular project are limited, especially in the current situation. What the government can mainly provide are land, policies, and markets, while the main funding must be borne by another party.

If the funding provider is a fraudster, or even if they are not a fraudster but have insufficient assets or tight liquidity, and there is a possibility of a funding shortfall at a critical moment, the project will fail.

Therefore, this matter is not so easy. It is only because Wang Yaotang is now known as a patriotic businessman, has previously donated 1.2 million yuan, and has acquired K Wah Group to control the Hong Kong and Macau stone market, that he has substantial assets. Otherwise, there would be no possibility of it being approved.

……

Three days later, Wang Yaotang, the quarry tycoon, arrived at his beloved Hong Kong Island.

Villa at 69 Deep Water Bay Road.

The villa has been transferred to Wang Yaotang's name. It covers an area of ​​890 square meters and has a building area of ​​more than 1800 square meters. It includes a four-story European-style building, a one-story underground garage with eight parking spaces, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, and supporting facilities.

A 3.5-meter-high wall was built around the outside, but Wang Yaotang felt it wasn't very secure. He could climb it with a running start, so he planned to install a 1.5-meter-high steel security net to maximize safety!

The house is over 1800 square meters, and there are gardens, swimming pools, and fitness facilities to maintain, requiring a lot of domestic help. Wealthy people in Hong Kong like to hire Filipino domestic helpers because they don't have local connections and are relatively safe. But Wang Yaotang doesn't plan to do that. He simply says that he doesn't trust Filipinos.

On his first day in the mainland, he asked Director Shi to help him find someone. Director Shi didn't mince words. The investigation was conducted according to the standards for cadres, and it involved tracing back three generations. The person was a young woman with a junior high school education or above who was coming to Hong Kong to work under the guise of labor export. Before coming, she had received several days of special training on foreign affairs standards and remembered all the precautions.

This is no better than any Filipino refugee!
Today, we returned to Hong Kong, and this was just our first "welcome meal." All the brothers from the triad, including the Four Brothers, Bisina, Sha Ze, Da Kou Hui, Huang Mao, Mang Hua, Xing Hong, Da Hua, Chao A, and Da Tou Bo, came over.

As brothers, it's impossible for us to forget our roots now that we've become successful and are among the richest people in Hong Kong. Otherwise, people would talk behind our backs.

Groups of people arrived, touring the villa upstairs and downstairs.

"I'm impressed, this tycoon's mansion is truly a place of great power and prestige."

"That's impressive. Even the Imperial Palace is nothing special."

"This crystal chandelier is dazzling! Da Hua, your feet smell so bad, why are you wearing a bag? You're making a mess of the boss's floor!"

At first, Wang Yaotang found the flattery from these roughnecks quite interesting, but since it was the same thing over and over again, he eventually grew to enjoy it...

After touring around, a few guys wanted to experience swimming in a top-tier luxury mansion. Wang Yaotang laughed and told them to go ahead. None of them had brought swimsuits, and they shamelessly stripped naked and jumped in. The scene was truly an eyesore.

Wang Yaotang simply told the servants from the mainland not to bother with them. They had just arrived in Hong Kong and were so young; they had never seen anything like this before. It was embarrassing!

This group made a ruckus for over an hour. They had dinner at a large restaurant, which was staffed by people from the restaurant and was very lavish.

Before the meal, they even prayed to the gods for peace and good fortune.

There were too many people, so we didn't get enough to eat. It was too chaotic, and we drank quite a bit. After seeing everyone off, we set up another table on the balcony, where Wang Yaotang and his brothers, along with Bi Sina, ate and chatted. We had just taken over Jia Hua, and there were many things to discuss.

“Omni’s people have come looking for you a few times. When do you have time to meet with them?” the four-eyed guy asked.

"Should we release him?" Wang Yaotang asked uncertainly.

With so many things to do every day, he wouldn't even hear about such trivial matters unless he asked.

“I released them. I released them when you went to Macau.” Ah Jie said with a smile, “Those American devils were really interesting. After they got ashore, they knelt down and kissed the ground, thanking God over and over again.”

"Haha, of course we should thank God, the mold isn't going to come and save them," Wang Yaotang said with a laugh.

"Shouldn't you be grateful that we spared your lives?"

"Obviously not, they'll just swear they'll never come to Hong Kong again." Wang Yaotang added a bite of braised food, and asked while eating, "Ah Xiang, do you think the hotel should continue operating?"

“I think we should do it.” The four-eyed guy had been thinking about this for days. “The hotel is doing well under Omni’s management. Selling it would definitely make a profit, but if we just need funds, we can just mortgage it to a bank. It’ll just be a matter of paying more interest. Since we’re sure that Hong Kong’s economy can rely on the mainland to usher in a new round of growth after the negotiations, the appreciation of the hotel’s land and property can easily cover the interest and still make a profit. So, my idea is to keep it.”

“Didn’t you previously plan to open hotels in Macau, Singapore, and Southeast Asia in the future? Now you can consider this as accumulating experience,” Ah-Ji added.

“Whether it’s preserving value or investing, real estate is the best choice, second only to gold in my opinion,” Awei added.

“We are indeed planning to expand into Southeast Asia.” Wang Yaotang nodded. “The very nature of these branches means they can only operate underground. Their credibility isn’t strong enough. Even the Tiao Lin and Yi An branches overseas don’t have a strong sense of belonging; they’re too scattered, and…”

"Restaurants, well, in ancient times, secret organizations used restaurants as cover for information exchange, guaranteed transactions, safe bases... they could provide a lot of things that no other business could replace."

"Then let's stay. Let's talk to the people at Omni and reassure them about running the business," the four-eyed guy said with a smile.

"Okay, make arrangements for the next few days. I'll meet with them and reassure them."

“You’d better talk to Gu Yuanbin about Jiahua. The original plan was to acquire all three major mines and have him use Jiahua as a base to integrate Shek O and Lamma Island. Now that two major mines have been lost, he’s a bit worried. Also, with the loss of the two major mines, there’s been a serious brain drain, so there definitely won’t be enough manpower when he wants to integrate Zhuhai Stone Mining later.” Awei reminded him, “And Harold Dodgson and his people, they need to be given an explanation if things don’t go as expected.”

“We’ve invested over 1 billion yuan to acquire Shi Mining, and we almost got beaten to death in our car. We’ve offended a lot of people, but I did the math the other day, and the net profit for the year is only about 10 million yuan. Do you think it’s worth it?” Wang Yaotang suddenly asked.

"Uh..." The group looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Is it worth it?" A-Jie scratched his head.

"There's no need to ask me about this," Aji shook his head.

Ah Wei and Four-Eyes exchanged a glance without saying a word. Reason told them it wasn't worth it, but their older brother hadn't missed the opportunity.

"What were we brothers before? Gangsters, you know. Even though we had thousands of men under our command, I was still the one they arrested and questioned after Fatty Li's incident. The way I got out of there was by shouting in front of the media, which annoyed the police, and since they didn't have any evidence, they didn't touch me. And what was that guy's name after that... I forgot. Anyway, it took several back-and-forths with Cabel before we finally sat down to talk."

"After the shooting, the Kwun Tong blockade seemed like the police couldn't do anything to us, but in the end, they just thought we were stinking dog shit, and if they stepped on us, they'd get splattered with shit. It wasn't that they were really afraid to touch us. It's like porcelain not touching earthenware pot, not that they couldn't do anything to us. If they really wanted to deal with us, they would have deployed the Flying Tigers and the PTU to surround us. Would more than a thousand security company personnel really fight against the police? No way. As long as they suffered some casualties, they would be done for our brothers."

"Does the closure of a third of nightclubs mean Hong Kong Island is no longer Hong Kong Island? Or will not listening to music or watching videos lead to rebellion?"

"No, the other three can take over at any time. It will be sorted out in a week at most. Then, apart from a brief period of murmurs in the martial arts world, there won't be any more trouble. Nobody will care."

"Weren't we brothers worth little before? We had a little over 10 billion here and there, but did you see if Sir Michael Sandberg even consider us? Did the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce send us a letter? Did the Hong Kong Jockey Club invite us? Did anyone consult us about the various strategies of the Government of Hong Kong? Did any of the top ten richest people invite us to their banquets?"

"Damn it, we've been to the InterContinental Hotel so many times, we've even booked the presidential suite for a month, and not only has the InterContinental Asia Regional Manager not come out to see us, but the general manager of this InterContinental Hotel has never even come out to meet us!"

The brothers looked at each other, saying they hadn't really thought about this before. They really hadn't. They just felt like they were very rich, wearing custom-made clothes, carrying expensive watches, driving luxury cars, and casually playing with female celebrities. And that was it. They didn't really feel like big shots.

But we all came from humble backgrounds. The richest and most powerful people I've ever met are people like Tigu Dong, Chen Huimin, Lao Dongjiu, and Tai Zi Rong. We're all like that.

So you think that's how rich people are...

Now that Wang Yaotang has said that, I suddenly feel like I was such a damn bumpkin before!

Compared to him, Li Xiangjiao is a real big shot. Even 40 years later, when everyone is cursing him as a traitor and his major actions have prompted the national government to criticize and stop him, he still firmly occupies a place on the rich list and is still alive and kicking. What is the secret to his success?
Wang Yaotang tapped the silver plate with his chopsticks, making a 'clinking' sound. "No, we have money, but no influence. Don't talk about feeding tens of thousands of people. Before us, those thugs got by just like that. It was nothing more than fighting and brawling. We're not good enough for those higher-ups. Lü Zhihe didn't even give us a second thought, which is why he rashly sent out gunmen."

"When did all of this change?"

"It was the Shek O and Lamma Island auction. I stomped on Li Xiangjiao's foot right in front of the top ten richest people. As soon as the auction ended, the top ten richest people were as friendly as uncles they hadn't seen for many years. The Jockey Club invitation has arrived, the HSBC people are very polite, and the Chamber of Commerce invitation has also arrived."

"Don't underestimate the stone mining industry just because it doesn't make much money. Even if it expands several times, it still won't earn as much as nightclubs. But if stone supply is cut off, 70% of construction sites in Hong Kong will have to stop work. This is the construction industry, not nightclubs. It involves hundreds of industries, most of which are imported products, and it's also related to maritime trade. This can't be fixed in a week or two. The losses will be in the hundreds of millions, and everyone from Hong Kong government officials to ordinary people will suffer!"

"Moreover, only by controlling industries like stone mining will we be considered as one of our own by the old money in Hong Kong. If we are harmed, these old money will all be in danger. Now the Governor's Office is truly hesitant to act rashly. We have now truly become the upper echelons of Hong Kong. Believe it or not, as soon as the stone mining industry is integrated, the Governor's Office will immediately consult us on issues such as reclamation projects, undersea tunnels, MTR development, expansion of the Guangzhou-Kowloon Railway, highway development, New Territories development, and port expansion!"

The brothers' eyes widened, their faces filled with excitement. Ah-Ji, who was concerned about how much money they would make, straightened his back, while Four-Eyes and Ah-Wei started scratching their heads.

Listen to this, listen to this! What the hell do you mean by "national affairs"?

Suddenly, I felt like I was carrying the future of Hong Kong Island on my shoulders, and that every move I made was related to the rise and fall of 500 million people!
That's what you call a big shot!
That's what you call having real power!

Compared to that, wearing custom-made clothes, carrying expensive watches, driving luxury cars, and dating female celebrities all seem so inferior; they just give off a strong nouveau riche vibe!
As expected, all those gang leaders are complete failures!

Seeing the brothers' excited expressions, Wang Yaotang raised his eyebrows, which immediately caused a burst of laughter.

"Big brother is indeed big brother!"

"A visionary!"

"Visionary and insightful!"

"Deeply thoughtful and far-sighted, strategizing and planning!"

"Pfft, hahahaha!" Wang Yaotang burst into laughter.

We ordinary people are truly happy today!
After showing off in front of his brothers, Wang Yaotang added fuel to the fire, "What we need to do next is to integrate the stone mining industry, go public, connect with capital and shareholders, weave a larger network of interests, and delve deeper into the concept of the Stone King."

"At the same time, we will build Tuen Mun Port and the southern port of Tsing Yi Island. In the future, all raw materials such as stone, cement, coal, steel, and fuel oil will have to be imported through our ports. Being a stone king doesn't sound good. I want to be the 'building materials king' and 'energy king' of Hong Kong Island. At that time, Hong Kong will really be able to shake three times with a stomp of my foot!"

"Whoever becomes the Governor of Hong Kong in the future, they'll have to give me a break!" (End of Chapter)