What the hell is a private enterprise?

Chapter 305 Jealousy
On February 13, rumors circulated that McDonnell Douglas CEO Robert had decided to halt the acquisition process.

Both McDonnell Douglas and Boeing denied the allegations, stating that everything was proceeding as planned.

On February 15, someone claimed that someone was increasing their holdings of McDonnell Douglas shares.

On February 19th, a small, peripheral financial newspaper suddenly published an article:
Sources: University of Tokyo intends to purchase 100 MD-11 passenger planes from McDonnell Douglas.

After the newspaper was published, people immediately sought confirmation from McDonnell Douglas officials, who replied that they had not heard of such a transaction.

It is widely believed that this is a fabrication. Given the reputation of the McDonnell Douglas 11, which brave soul would dare to take the plunge?

Even all of Xinjiabei's original McDonnell Douglas orders were cancelled, preferring to pay penalties to switch to Airbus.

But at the same time, news broke that several McDonnell Douglas factories had suspended contact with Boeing, and handover procedures in some departments had been suspended.

However, Robert has consistently stated that the merger will proceed as planned, but given the large size of both MD and Boeing, the integration will be a long and complex process.

This dragged on until February 24th, when the "rumor" took a turn for the better.

But this time the information didn't come from McDonnell Douglas, but from Tokyo University and Shanghai.

[Bruberg reposts: Former senior engineer at Shanghai factory strongly opposes continuing to purchase McDonnell Douglas aircraft]

Huang Hao, a senior engineer who participated in the design of the Y-10 and later in the introduction of the MD-82, published an opinion in the newspaper stating that Southeast University has a plan to continue to introduce the MD-11 passenger plane on a large scale.
As an engineer who participated in the development of both types of passenger aircraft, Huang Hao believed that the McDonnell Douglas aircraft had significant defects and shortcomings, and that introducing it was a waste of money and manpower...

……

The McDonnell Douglas 82 project is nearing its end, which is causing considerable distress for its partner, the Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Plant.

However, McDonnell Douglas itself was also in dire straits, so they had no choice but to find another way out.

The entire Asian region has now organized a collaborative AE100 regional jet project, but there are many uncertainties and it has been delayed in finalizing the details.

It wasn't until someone noticed that Levi's started leaving frequently, often going to Hongdu and Echeng.

Those who can work in Shanghai naturally have some skills, and then they learned a shocking inside story:
Someone wanted to buy a full one hundred passenger planes and introduce the McDonnell Douglas MD-11.

Judging from Levi's moves, it is very likely that they will cooperate with Hongdu.

At this moment, the Shanghai design studio looked completely bewildered:
Didn't we agree that everyone else would build military aircraft, but we would be the only ones making commercial aircraft?

Such a big project, and they're talking about it secretly, bypassing me?

The people from the aircraft department went to find Levi, who directly stated that he had been offline for a long time.

When asked, Zhao Yaohua of Hongdu said they were discussing the introduction of T/A4J carrier-based aircraft, which had nothing to do with passenger planes.

The Shanghai Aircraft Institute believed it, since it fit the Hongdu Institute's positioning, and they didn't really believe the rumors about introducing the McDonnell Douglas MD-11.

Just then, a senior engineer from McDonnell Douglas, who knew the situation, suddenly started crying after drinking, saying, "You guys at Dongda University really know your stuff."

Everyone else is avoiding the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 like the plague, but you guys are willing to spend $30 billion to save the three-engine airliner in a time of crisis, and so on.

$30 billion?!

The entire staff at the Shanghai Aircraft Research Institute was furious. They went to higher authorities to complain, but were told that it wasn't a national project, but a private commercial activity, and they couldn't do anything about it.

So they approached Huang Hao, who had already resigned.

……

Huang Hao is only in his early 60s, not too old, but he left the aviation industry out of disappointment.

Because he didn't learn any valuable core technologies from the collaboration with McDonnell Douglas, he was unwilling to work for McDonnell Douglas and looked down on that bunch of disaster kings.

Just hearing that McDonnell Douglas, specifically the MD11, was going to be imported into China made my blood boil.

"Who? Who has money to burn? This is blatant money laundering! It'll cost us both money and lives!" "Chief Engineer Huang, we're all genuinely working for the large aircraft; we can't let them go astray!"

With his former superior stirring things up, Huang Hao couldn't care less about anything else:

"Yes, we must oppose this, otherwise how much money will be wasted!"

In a fit of indignation, Huang Hao wrote a long letter analyzing the defects of the McDonnell Douglas aircraft, the various accidents, and the various underhanded tactics used back then.

McDonnell Douglas was no innocent party. Huang Hao wrote down all the dirt he knew without missing a single detail, and finally rallied his industry colleagues to stop cooperating with McDonnell Douglas.

Thus, an open letter from a former senior chief engineer stirred up another wave in the domestic aviation industry.

……

"Tsk tsk, Lao Li, you guys give kickbacks starting at 5%? How much can you give me?"

Tang Wen flipped through the newspaper with great interest, then looked at Levi's ashen face.

After leaving his job, Huang Hao became completely uninhibited, even specifying the time and place clearly, making it difficult to refute him.

He could only explain, his face flushed:
"Tang, I know nothing about these things."

Tang Wen didn't take it to heart; instead, he waved his hand magnanimously.
"I understand human relationships, but is the design flaw in the cabin door's electromechanical system really true?"
Chief Engineer Huang said it was a common design flaw in all McDonnell Douglas passenger planes, and if it wasn't resolved, it could lead to a crash if a problem occurred.

If that were really the case, I'm afraid no airline would dare to use the passenger planes we import.”

Seeing Levi's hesitant and unresponsive demeanor, Tang Wen felt secretly pleased.

Old Huang, you have a great set of teeth!
After negotiations with Levi's, the final figure was set at $30 billion, which was about 7% to 8% of the actual value of the McDonnell Douglas 11.

If we reveal some of the old secrets at this point, we'll regain the upper hand in negotiating the price!
Levi was so angry he was gritting his teeth, wanting to drag the engineer who leaked the information out and sacrifice him to the heavens.

Of course, he also knew that this news couldn't be kept secret for long; introducing passenger planes was no small matter.

Tang Wen was fully aware of this. Although it appeared to be a completely private transaction, it was still receiving high attention from higher authorities.

Simply introducing the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 might have drawn considerable opposition, but when Tang Wen indicated that he could leverage McDonnell Douglas's production line to develop supersonic passenger planes like the Concorde and even other advanced aircraft, the attitude shifted to tacit approval.

Gaijin doesn't raise funds or acquire land; it's completely unrelated to those fraudulent companies. Go ahead and play if you want.

Since there's no way to launch a new passenger aircraft project domestically, we might as well take a look at the amazing power of Southeast Asia.

If it weren't for this attitude, the mere commotion caused by the Shanghai Airport Authority would likely have created significant disruption, rather than just prompting complaints in the newspapers.

However, Levi's was unaware of this. McDonnell Douglas's reputation was indeed a major problem, and it would be a disaster if it completely lost market trust.

"Tang, please believe in MD's sincerity. The defects of the MD11 will be corrected, and after market confidence is restored, there will be a chance to sell it back to the United States. In addition, we can also provide free assistance to your A4 series McDonnell Douglas imitations."

Tang Wen: "In fact, the domestic aircraft manufacturing technology is really bad. I hope to be able to directly import McDonnell Douglas's production line."

What I mean is, if the deal goes through, we hope to move an assembly line directly from McDonnell Douglas's existing factory, and that it needs to be completed this year.

Levi was silent for a moment, then finally nodded:
“This may not be a big problem, but Tang, you need to speak up.”

"I prefer to let the facts speak for themselves."

Tang Wen: "The two oil tankers carrying crude oil have already departed and are expected to arrive in Meizhou on February 28, in another four days."

However, my tanker has some procedural issues; I need McDonnell Douglas's assistance for berthing and transactions.

Levi's immediately perked up:
"One hundred thousand tons of crude oil?"

"It's all light, high-quality crude oil, with no less than a lot of it."

(End of this chapter)