I'm in the county town, and you say I'm a big shot?

Chapter 429 Peanut Oversupply, Loan Difficult to Repay

The delegation led by Chang Bin, Vice President of Investment at JD.com, came to Shanghai for investment negotiations.

In contrast to Alibaba's procrastination and arrogance, JD.com's negotiations went very smoothly this time, and the two sides quickly reached an agreement. JD.com invested 800 million yuan in Ele.me and provided an entry point to JD.com.

As a result, Ele.me's fourth round of financing has ended, and Tuofang Technology's shareholding ratio has decreased from 32.5% to 24.3%, but it remains Ele.me's largest shareholder.

After finishing the financing matters for Ele.me Group, Fang Qingye returned to Nanxin and stayed in Shanghai for nearly 20 days. There were some things waiting for him to do at Jinghai Bank.

Sure enough, as soon as I entered my office at the bank this morning, Zhao Wenjun knocked on the door and came in with a document.

"President Fang, our bank's deposit balance has exceeded 80 billion as of yesterday!" Zhao Wenjun said with great enthusiasm.

"Another nearly two billion? Did it mainly come from individuals or institutions?" Fang Qingye asked.

"The institutions, mainly government departments, are gradually opening accounts at our bank. Among them, the Treasury Payment Bureau and the Non-Tax Revenue Bureau under the Finance Bureau have each transferred 200 million yuan," Zhao Wenjun said.

As Zhao Wenjun spoke, she was filled with emotion.

Damn it, when I approached these department leaders, begging and pleading, some would deposit a token amount, while others simply ignored me completely.

Look at this bank president, his deposits have surged to 80 billion in less than a month!
There's simply no comparison between people.

Fang Qingye didn't think much about it. The county government had shares in the company, and her second uncle was the director of the county finance bureau. It would be unreasonable not to deposit money there.

"President Zhao, what document are you holding?" Fang Qingye asked.

"This is a detailed report on our recent efforts to clear various outstanding debts. I had the legal department prepare a report for you to take a look at."

"Okay, please have a seat."

Fang Qingye took the materials and looked at them carefully.

"Hmm, the results are quite good. 90% of the overdue loans have been settled. The debts owed by Qinggu Xinhe and Guyuan Agriculture have been recovered?"

“Yes, the court froze all their accounts in advance. They were planning to secretly transport the equipment from the factory, but our people were watching them, so they couldn’t get it out. Therefore, before the court hearing, they obediently repaid all the loans and late fees,” Zhao Wenjun said with a smile.

Fang Qingye laughed after hearing this: "That's why we don't need to be polite to these deadbeats. If we don't teach them a lesson, they'll really think that debtors are the bosses. We need to tell the legal department to strengthen its work in this area in the future!"

"Ok."

Fang Qingye looked at it carefully again and saw that the material said there were still nearly 10 loans that had not been recovered, and the loan amounts were not large, with most of them within 10 yuan.

So he asked, "What's going on with all this?"

“These are mostly personal loans to farmers,” Zhao Wenjun immediately explained. “One of them was due to a sudden family crisis, and the farmer was unable to repay the loan, which was the 10,000 yuan loan. The other nine loans are all related to the unsold peanuts last year.”

Zhao Wenjun then recounted the whole story.

Jiangping Town in Nanxin County was originally a well-known peanut-growing village, producing small-pod peanuts.

Small-pod peanuts are a local variety cultivated through long-term natural selection. They are disease-resistant, high-yielding, with uniform pod size, plump kernels, and excellent taste. In recent years, their prices have been rising steadily, leading many farmers to plant them. However, the rapid increase in acreage has created a sales problem. "Last year, there was a bumper peanut harvest, with an average yield of 600 jin per mu. But the price dropped from 4 yuan per jin to 2 yuan per jin. More importantly, no one came to buy them. Many large farmers had taken out loans to buy seeds, agricultural supplies, and various machinery. Since they couldn't sell the peanuts, they couldn't repay their loans."

After listening to Zhao Wenjun's explanation, Fang Qingye understood the whole story.

“These loans were all guaranteed by the Jiangping Town government at the time, when Wu Minghua was the Party Secretary and Zhang Jiang was the Mayor. Now, Party Secretary Wu has been transferred back to the city, and Zhang Jiang has been transferred to Liulin Town as Party Secretary. A few days ago, I took some people to see the current Party Secretary Liu An and Mayor Ma, but they didn’t have any good solutions either. We can’t exactly sue the town government in court and make them repay the loans, can we?”

As she continued, Zhao Wenjun wore a wry smile.

Fang Qingye nodded.

He couldn't be so ruthless, of course. Suddenly, something occurred to him: "Will the overdue payment information of these households be uploaded to the personal credit reporting system?"

"Not yet, but I've already made the arrangements," Zhao Wenjun said.

Fang Qingye pondered for a moment and said, "How about we postpone it for now? Director Zhao, if you don't have any plans for today, how about we go to Jiangping Town now and visit a farmer's house to see the situation in person?"

"Okay, I'll make the arrangements."

Twenty minutes later, Fang Qingye and Zhao Wenjun went downstairs and got into an Audi A6L, a public vehicle left over from the former village bank, which was usually used by Zhang Xiaojun.

After Fang Qingye became the bank president, there was no rule that the car had to be his own, so the two vice presidents also used the car when they went out on business.

Accompanying them was a Passat, inside which sat Bai Haihong, the head of the credit department, and Guo Yanfei, the head of the legal department.

The two cars left the county town one after the other and headed southwest.

"The owner of the household we're visiting is Lu Yongbing, a well-known large-scale peanut grower. He has planted a total of 150 mu (approximately 10 hectares) and has taken out a loan of 150,000 yuan." In the car, Zhao Wenjun reported the basic information of the farmer to Fang Qingye.

“150 mu? That’s quite a lot,” Fang Qingye said with a smile.

"Yes, I heard that I made a lot of money planting 60 mu the year before last. After tasting the sweetness of success, I expanded to 150 mu last year. The yield went up, but the price dropped."

"That's how it is in agriculture, especially with cash crops. The risks are actually quite high. As the saying goes, low grain prices hurt farmers, and the same applies to other agricultural products," Fang Qingye remarked.

While Fang Qingye and Zhao Wenjun were chatting in the car, Bai Haihong and Guo Yanfei were also chatting in the Passat behind them.

"Old Bai, what did you say President Fang wanted to see when he went to the farmers' homes for an on-site inspection?" Guo Yanfei asked.

"Didn't President Zhao say that we should understand the actual situation?" Bai Haihong said.

"But the report provided by our legal department clearly states the debtor's basic information, the reasons for the overdue payment, and the measures we have taken. Does that mean they think we are not doing our job well?!"

Hearing Guo Yanfei's complaint, Bai Haihong glanced at him and laughed, "Old Guo, you're overthinking it. He's the top leader, just took office, it's normal for him to come down and see the real situation. That's called being down-to-earth!"

"Yes, yes, it's down-to-earth. It's easy to connect with the people, but how do we solve the problems? We can't just apply for court enforcement like we did with Qinggu Xinhe and seal off the farmers' doors, can we?"

After hearing Guo Yanfei's words, Bai Haihong glanced at the driver who was focused on driving and said nothing more.

(End of this chapter)