I farmed in military academy and crushed the entire intergalactic world.

Chapter 567 We're doomed, we're going to lose.
Changhong's distribution speed is much faster than Panasonic's. What limits them is not production volume, but distance.

Some distributors who are very optimistic about LCD TVs are directly transporting LCD TVs to the provincial capital of LN province and airlifting them back to their territories.

At Liaoyang Airport, the capital of Liaoning Province, cargo planes are arriving one after another, showing unprecedented prosperity.

In Hebei Province, at the Huafeng Home Appliance Supermarket, the queue started forming at four in the morning.

Before dawn, people stamped their feet, carried small stools, clutched their savings books, and counted the numbers on them over and over again.

At 6:30, just as dawn was breaking, the queue had already turned two corners and stretched all the way to the restaurant on the street corner.

At the front of the line was an elderly man in his fifties, wearing a faded blue cotton-padded jacket and carrying a cloth bag. The people behind him asked, "Grandpa, what time did you arrive?"

Three o'clock.

"So early?"

The old man smiled but didn't say anything. Inside his cloth bag was a savings book containing his retirement savings accumulated over five years.

At exactly seven o'clock, the roller shutter door was pulled open with a whoosh.

The crowd stirred and surged forward.

The security guard rushed over, blocking the way with his body, and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Don't push! One person at a time! There's stock available! There's stock available!"

The first person to rush over the counter was a young man, around twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, wearing work clothes and with oil stains on his hands. He pointed to the demo unit in the counter, his voice trembling: "Comrade, this...this really only costs 5000?"

The sales clerk, a young woman, smiled so broadly her eyes crinkled into crescents: "Yes, 4999. Have you seen the specifications? They're in the newspaper."

The young man nodded and pulled a newspaper from his pocket, which was covered with red circles.

"I've watched it a hundred times." He slammed his passbook on the counter. "I'll buy one."

The young woman took the passbook, glanced at the number on it—exactly 5000: "You... withdrew it all?"

The young man nodded, his gaze falling on the television: "I've worked for five years and saved up all this. I originally wanted to buy that Panasonic, but it was too expensive, I couldn't afford it. Now it's great, I have my own."

The girl lowered her head as she issued the invoice, her eyes slightly sore.

The people behind couldn't wait any longer and craned their necks, shouting, "Hurry up! I want some too!"

One after another, they were moved out.

A middle-aged woman carrying a television walked out, turning back as she went: "How many years can this last? The newspaper said 60,000 hours?"

The salesperson shouted back, "Sixty thousand hours! If you look at it for eight hours a day, you can see it for twenty years!"

The woman laughed and hugged the television even tighter.

At noon, the inventory was running low.

The counter manager ran out, stood on a stool, and shouted, "Everyone, stop lining up! We've sold out of today's two hundred units! Come back tomorrow!"

A commotion broke out in the crowd.

"Sold out? It's only been half a day!"

What time does it start tomorrow?

The manager yelled, "Same counter tomorrow morning at seven!"

The crowd gradually dispersed, but some people refused to leave, lingering around the counter and staring at the prototype.

An old lady squeezed in, and when she heard that they were sold out, she stood there stunned for a long time.

Seeing that she looked unwell, the saleswoman asked in a low voice, "Auntie, are you...?"

The old lady took out a cloth bag, opened it layer by layer, and inside was a stack of money, including small bills and coins.

"I've been saving this up for a long time, and this is all I have..."

The girl glanced at it; it was about 980 yuan. She opened her mouth, then gritted her teeth and said, "How about you buy the Panshi TV Generation 1? We're having a clearance sale; the Panshi TV Generation 1 is only 900 yuan. I'll give you my commission, so you can get it for 800 yuan. With the rest of the money, you can buy a big satellite dish."

The "big dish" is actually an antenna used to receive television signals. Because it looks like a big dish, that's what people call it.

By 6 p.m., the counter was empty.

The saleswoman sat behind the counter, rubbing her aching ankle. She'd processed over four hundred tickets that day; her hands were practically giving out. The manager came over and handed her a glass of water: "Thank you for your hard work."

The young woman took the water, took a sip, and suddenly asked, "Manager, how many units did you sell today?"

The manager smiled and said, "Just based on this selling point alone, we sell five hundred units a day."

The girl was stunned: "The whole country?"

The manager didn't answer, but simply pointed to the phone on the table.

The phone has been ringing non-stop since this morning. Distributors across the country, including those in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Wuhan, are all urging me to deliver the goods.

The manager picked up the phone, listened to one sentence, and frowned: "Understood."

He hung up the phone and looked at the girl: "They said in Shanghai that the number of people queuing up tomorrow has already exceeded one thousand."

The girl opened her mouth, but couldn't utter a word for a long time.

The owner of Huafeng Appliances was stunned by such a record. The old man sitting opposite him, holding an enamel mug, said excitedly, "See that? Your father is still your father. Only by listening to me can you make big money. Didn't you have the technical department disassemble the LCD TV? How was it? Was Comrade Lin lying?"

The owner of Huafeng Home Appliances was in a state of existential disbelief, clutching his head in his hands: "How is this possible? The technical department said that even the smallest screw in our LCD TVs is made in China. This shouldn't be! I've been working in the home appliance industry for so many years, when has East China ever had a company with such advanced technology?!"

There are far more customers buying LCD TVs than buying Panasonic TVs! Are the people of our East Asia really that wealthy?

Members of the Japan Color TV Association shared his confusion.

Changhong's launch of LCD TVs to compete with plasma TVs was something no Japanese home appliance company had anticipated.

Panasonic's headquarters in Japan is in complete chaos due to this unexpected incident.

Ichiro Ida was severely reprimanded by the president: "How did you judge the information? Who confidently told us that Changhong was developing plasma TVs? They are clearly working on LCD TVs! This is a major misjudgment, and you must take full responsibility."

Ichiro Ida, covered in sweat, bowed deeply at a 90-degree angle: "Hi! I'm sorry!"

"What's the use of 'sorry'? Do you know how much money we spent? Hundreds of billions of yen! This isn't just about money; it's about our brand reputation! How can we, the prestigious Panasonic Group, be defeated by an unknown Japanese company? What will the American and European markets think of us?"

Ichiro Ida's mind went blank, and all he could do was mechanically bow and apologize: "I'm sorry!"

The other party's outburst of insults came through the microphone and echoed throughout the office.

The office was completely silent; all the staff members hung their heads, looking as if they had lost their parents.

A month ago, they were so arrogant and excited; a month later, frustration, pain, and panic have rebounded in double measure.

"Because you provided incorrect information, we made the wrong product strategy. Ichiro Ida, the board of directors has decided to abandon the East China market."

"No, please believe me, the East has more than 10 billion people, it is a market with great potential!" Ichiro Ida said urgently.

"So what? Go look at the latest statistics. Lin Xiaohe is ruthless. She not only wants to devour the high-end market, but also wants to sweep up the mid-to-low-end market. Under the guise of clearance sales, the Panshi TV 1.0 has been reduced to below 1000 yuan. Go look at the third and fourth-tier cities in Dongguo. Is there still any trace of our Japanese TVs? As for the high-end market, the performance of LCD TVs is far superior to ours. We have no advantage except for slightly better color reproduction."

As if a bucket of cold water had been poured over him, Ichiro Ida regained his lost rationality.

He knew his career was over.

Besides what has been mentioned above, the most important reason for the president's decision to abandon the East Asian market is that Panasonic's cash flow is about to collapse.

Acquiring CRT monitors and strangling Changhong requires money. Increasing R&D and building new factories also requires money.

Because the group is very optimistic about the global market for plasma TVs, they even invested more than 300 billion yen to build a factory in the Czech Republic, with the target market being Europe.

This money was all borrowed by Panasonic from banks. The banks didn't care whether the color TVs sold well or not; they only cared whether Panasonic could repay the loan on time.

By abandoning the Japanese market, Panasonic focused its limited production capacity and advertising budget on the European and American markets. Simultaneously, it leveraged the complex international political environment in Japan to block Changhong's entry into the global market, buying time for Panasonic to capture other markets.

This was a choice Panasonic had to make in order to recover funds as quickly as possible.

Ichiro Ida's face turned deathly pale, his lips trembling as he spoke to this last glimmer of hope: "How about we open up plasma technology to other companies in the association?"

beep.

The phone call was abruptly ended, and Ichiro Ida collapsed to the ground, feeling as if he had lost all his strength and power.

I wanted to turn the novel into a video, but the character models weren't what I wanted at all. They look good, but they lack soul.

Indeed, the best protagonists exist only in one's imagination.