I was reborn without dreams

Chapter 194 A Mutation Triggered by a Navigation Device

The Jiangkou Provincial Basic Geographic Information Center is a young institution, but it is directly under the provincial department and fully funded by the government. It is a highly technical public institution.

The number of registered surveyors is sufficient to support more than 100 "outsourcing" teams. Zhang Da'an's cooperation with them is to do "outsourcing". The Jiangkou Provincial Basic Geographic Information Center provides technical permissions such as remote sensing and geographic data processing, while "Zhang An Culture" and "Zhang An Electronics" undertake the "outsourcing" business.

A total of 120 professional surveying vehicles and modified surveying vehicles were used, with an average price of 600,000 yuan per vehicle, and the total vehicle expenses exceeded 70 million yuan.

Currently, the focus is on creating a map of "six provinces and one municipality in East China," which is divided into two important components: "logistics routes for operating vehicles" and "routes in key urban areas."

The former is specifically designed for trucks and long-distance buses; the latter is mainly intended for cities with significant growth in private car ownership, such as Luzhou, Wudu, Taihu, and Jiangning.

The map copyright is jointly held by "Zhang An Electronics" and "Zhang An Culture". At this time, there was no big fanfare, after all, the initial intention was not to make a consumer product, but mainly to sell to manufacturers of navigation devices and front-line functional units that needed map surveying.

For example, in the case of telecommunications business halls, the Jiangning City Telecommunications Bureau has signed a contract with "Zhang An Electronics" to provide accurate maps and integrate them into the Telecommunications Bureau's business terminal system.

The reason for doing this is that broadband speed-up has officially begun, and the province's broadband is currently piloting "winter and summer packages." The growth rate of broadband penetration is astonishing, and the role of accurate maps becomes apparent in order to more efficiently confirm installation addresses.

In addition, to facilitate the arrival of the installers, if the outsourced broadband installers drive, they will be given a free "Good Wind Series" navigation device produced by "Zhang An Electronics". The only difference between this and the "Qingyun Series" is the materials used.

The "Qingyun Series" uses Texas Instruments processors, while the "Haofeng Series" uses a discarded case from Shanghai Jiaotong University, which Zhang Da'an bought to test the waters.

Surprisingly, it works. Aside from being a bit laggy, it's fine.

However, these days, GPS navigators that don't lag are rare, so it's not a particularly big drawback.

That's how the development of navigation devices came about. It was a need of the Jiangning City Telecom Bureau, and it was a bonus to provide map services. At the same time, "Zhang An Electronics" mobile phones could also be consigned for sale in the telecom business hall. However, the telecom company did not have mobile phone communication services at that time, and it would take a few more years.

At this point, we were still in the "wait and see" stage, so "Zhang An Electronics" mobile phones were mostly sold on consignment at telecom service centers, and were mostly related to broadband services.

Let's install broadband during summer vacation and play "Godslayer" together.

Buy a "Golden List Mobile Phone" and get a free game card for "Godslayer"!
Before Coach Zhang launched his massive advertising campaign, there wasn't much activity at the moment because there was no rush; the majority of clients in the early stages were government and enterprise clients.

Of course, it's not impossible for others to do this business, but they just won't get approved.

Besides the telecommunications company, the mobile company had two customer service centers in Jiangkou Province at that time: one in Jiangning, which was in charge of the southern part of the province; and one in Huaiyin, which was in charge of the northern part of the province.

Zhang An Electronics and Zhang An Culture not only signed a contract in advance for the ringback tone service, but also signed a two-year contract with China Mobile for map authorization.

It is mainly used for accurate mapping of cities within the province, to facilitate the planning of base station signal towers, etc. At the same time, the mobile company in Jiangkou Province is in talks with China Telecom about a project to promote the map service. In other words, they are acting as middlemen, buying from Zhang Da'an and then selling to their brother units in the north.

The reason for this trouble is simple: if Zhang Da'an were to negotiate a cooperation with the China Railway Telecom companies in the Central Plains or Yanzhao provinces, the minimum order quantity would be two jin (approximately 1 kg).

So since the provincial mobile company was interested in this money, there was nothing more to say. They gave a discount, and the extra money was all kept by the mobile company itself.

The person in charge of expanding this business was a deputy director of the China Mobile North Customer Service Center. He went to Xinzheng in Central China, brought "Three Ditches and One River" (a metaphor for a powerful force), and performed a "deep-water bomb" demonstration on the spot. The first pilot contract in Central China was secured.

Not many, just a contract worth two or three million.

However, the results are very good. Both the system and the map are readily available. In addition, the "Qingyun Series" and "Haofeng Series" navigators have been produced for a long time, but they have not been advertised yet. Therefore, for the front-line sales staff in Shangyi City, the pilot city in eastern Henan, the products are very mature, easy to use, and provide a very good experience.

Aside from a few minor issues, the report sent to higher authorities was highly rated overall, and thus the map business in Central China officially commenced. However, it would need to operate stably for more than six months before larger contracts could be signed. Even so, the deputy director, nicknamed "Deep Water Bomb," had already been transferred directly from the North Provincial Customer Service Center to Jiangning.

For a time, word spread throughout the government circles that this was "riding the favorable wind to soar to the clouds," and that the "Favorable Wind Series" and "Soaring Cloud Series" navigation devices... were bound to sell like hotcakes.

It's the new century now; modern society doesn't accept the saying "Don't say a stone man has only one eye."

Because it was already popular before it was even sold, the market wasn't very lively yet, but the situation was quite different among potential government and enterprise clients.

During the summer vacation, seven GPS navigation brands came to Jiangning to discuss cooperation with "Zhang An Electronics". The largest one, because it started charging for maps, was actually forming an alliance to attack "Zhang An Electronics" GPS navigation products.

However, what no one expected was that Zhang Da'an would act unpredictably, selling the map before even selling the end product. Is this reasonable?
The key point is that the price is not expensive. The basic version is free, while the precise map costs five thousand yuan a year. The only requirement is to indicate "the map source is Zhang An Culture and Zhang An Electronics".

Meanwhile, if the manufacturer opens the push port, map updates are free. You can plug it into your computer to download the official map update package or upgrade with a simple one-click process. However, accurate labeling, categorization, and rating by the merchant costs 50 yuan per year.

The Jiangning City Administration for Industry and Commerce has also followed up on this matter, with an annual service fee of 300,000 yuan.

The annual service fee of 300,000 is discounted. Except for Jiangning City, other cities such as Wudu City and Taihu City charge 600,000 per year.

The impact of free maps is very strong, but manufacturers are also afraid that after using "Zhang An Electronics'" maps, they will suddenly start charging after using them for a period of time. Therefore, "Zhang An Electronics" made a promise to make them free for ten years.

Ten years is a short time; most companies don't even survive ten years. For manufacturers, this is not much different from being permanently free.

Therefore, some manufacturers themselves intend to promote the slogan "permanently free".

As for GPS navigators, manufacturers do not want Zhang An Electronics to develop them vigorously, or at least not to release them on a large scale to the personal consumer market.

In other words, they hope that "Zhang An Electronics" will become a dedicated content provider, but this is impossible. The reason is simple: if "Zhang An Electronics" does not have its own terminal platform, government and enterprise clients will easily limit the development of the map.

At least for now, that is the case.

Therefore, in addition to receiving cadres from Yuzhang Province, Zhang Da'an has been negotiating with many navigation device brand owners and manufacturers in the past few days. They agreed that the Jinbang brand navigation device launched by "Zhang'an Electronics" will currently focus on commercial vehicles and will not be widely advertised or promoted in the mass consumer market within the next two years. At the same time, under this circumstance, the copyright fees and service fees can be appropriately increased.

This agreement is actually not very meaningful. Basically, it means that the Jinbang brand navigator exists as a model for the map copyright of "Zhang An Electronics" and "Zhang An Culture".

The "Golden List Map" icon will appear in the currently updating version 1.2 of the map.

Most manufacturers aren't actually afraid of other domestic map suppliers or copyright holders, and many navigation device brands are already making a fortune. However, the deterrent effect of the "three-time champion" is really strong now. In addition, the product sales channels of the "Zhang An Industrial Alliance" have been basically completed this year.

Most people wouldn't even notice how this channel got in.

Even though "Zhang An Electronics" doesn't have channel franchisees, "Zhang An Health" and "Zhang An Food" do. In particular, "Zhuangyuan Jinbang" sees a surge in sales during the college entrance examination season. Almost all of its directly operated stores in East China focus on the college entrance examination season and Golden Week. The total sales period doesn't exceed two months. The remaining ten months are spent simply sitting idle while selling other things, such as snacks, clothing, learning machines, electronic dictionaries, etc.

Adding a mobile phone, GPS navigator, smartwatch, music player, etc., will only further boost the store's revenue next year.

With this channel, coupled with the agency and franchise model in other provinces, normally brands would distribute products, such as pairing in-demand products with some less popular ones; but "Zhang An Industrial Alliance" did not do that, which is considered very lenient in the current situation. Therefore, when launching new products, franchisees and agents in other provinces generally did not resist and were willing to accept supervision from both overt and covert investigations within the management framework.

At this time, some domestic consumer electronics companies were already seeking cooperation with "Zhang An Electronics," mainly hoping to use their channels and consignment sales, but without piggybacking on the "three-time champion" advertising.

As long as you don't skirt the rules, you can still make a living solely from the distribution channels, starting at 1.5 million a year, excluding other commissions.

Investors in the consumer electronics industry are well-informed, and GPS navigator manufacturers are no exception. Once they learn that the "triple crown winner" has not only fame but also a way to monetize that fame, even the most arrogant leading manufacturers dare not pretend they haven't seen it.

Any one of the second, third, fourth, or fifth ranked players could use this channel to take down the top player within a quarter.

Now that "Zhang An Electronics" has promised not to fully enter this niche market, and to earn more money each year, it's a win-win situation and saves a lot of unpleasantness.

There is a slight adjustment to the development of the science and technology industry in Jiangkou Province, centered around the two products "Jinbang Map" and Jinbang brand navigator. Originally, software development was classified under the outline for the development of information industry; however, due to cross-departmental, cross-regional, and cross-industry cooperation, negotiation, and communication, multiple departments in Jiangkou Province have classified some general-purpose industrial and commercial software into the category of "industrial products" in terms of industrial implementation.

In other words, in academic and technical terms, it still falls under the category of the software industry; in terms of management and development, it is regarded as a hardware "industrial product".

Zhang Da'an was the one who pushed for it, and many departments agreed. The main reason was that after investigation, it was found that most cadres in functional departments had difficulty understanding and valuing the invisible and intangible software. Even though the Jiangkou Provincial Basic Geographic Information Center repeatedly emphasized that this was a very important and sensitive electronic software, the vigilance of the front-line departments was obviously not high.

But if you change the phrase to "high-tech map display electronic device," Xiaowei'er will immediately feel something.

In principle, the capital doesn't object to Jiangkou Province doing this in its publicity regarding industrial development, so let's do it this way and see how it goes. The academic community is very unhappy, but there's nothing they can do; at the same time, the academic community is also very happy because the avenue for obtaining funding and grants has been opened.

Simply put, applying to develop a payment software is difficult; but when a graduate student from Jiangkou Institute of Technology says they want to develop an electronic POS device with a multi-functional software system, that's something to talk about.

As for the hardware development costing 20,000 yuan and the software development costing 2 million yuan, ignore that. Just tell me if it's an electronic POS device.

This rigid mechanism and old-fashioned tradition is not unique to Eguchi Province; it's similar in most places.

But Jiangkou Province suddenly started a new approach to the old work, and other units and universities were also very interested in seeing what was going on.

However, Comrade Zhang An, who was awarded the title of "Three-Time Top Scholar," wrote an article in an important provincial newspaper on the theme of "World Factory," without mentioning software or hardware, focusing solely on industry.

Signed: Flying Boat.

When the article was published, cadres from Yuzhang Province also took the opportunity to attend a lecture, because this article, titled "We Want to Become the 'World Factory'," was accompanied by a special lecture and discussion.

Officials come for free, but industry professionals pay 2,000 yuan per "meal ticket"—a rock-bottom price—for a meal.

Zhang Da'an didn't really want to waste this time; he'd rather use that time to go to Europe to collect debts.

He originally expected to earn around 400 million euros from the World Cup, but now that he had defeated Hu Xianda in Japan, Zhang Da'an simply increased his efforts.

I'm not pretending anymore, I'm laying it all out: I have a team of mathematicians from Wudu University collectively performing a ritual!
The official betting volume for this "World Cup" is around 20 billion euros, while the amount wagered underground is countless and difficult to quantify.

Especially in Southeast Asia and Latin America, it's impossible to get accurate statistics.

So, to be on the bright side, Zhang Da'an wanted to avoid touching the "red line" of 2 billion, so he cut the price in half again and again, and only managed to get about 500 million.

Screw it now, if it's a billion dollars, so be it, what's there to be afraid of?

Many people in the province knew that he had a large amount of foreign exchange, but they were not very clear about the exact amount.

It's also a good opportunity for everyone to get together. If you have foreign exchange, why don't you invest it? The province has big plans for this.

The ultimate goal of this "World Factory" seminar is to attract investment. At the same time, companies can take this opportunity to band together and launch projects that they are capable of undertaking.

Even Jorge Gonçallves, that foreign devil, was fooled. He had already made an agreement with Cambridge University that he would return to his alma mater, the University of Porto, and then establish a research laboratory for "systems biology".

Because he did his postgraduate studies at MIT, there was still an exchange spot available at MIT. After the University of Porto confirmed that Zhang Da'an was financially very capable, they all began to fawn over him.

Unfortunately, Portugal's finances are far from healthy, but because it's a small country with few problems, it doesn't stand out much in the context of Europe.

However, generally speaking, some people in the European academic community intend to use the University of Porto as a channel to move eastward.

Of course, this refers to STEM-related academic fields, not humanities, philosophy, journalism, or any other similar disciplines.

Jorge Gonçalcácer was accompanied by Santos' son, Santos Jr., and these foreigners were also demonstrating their cooperative attitude.

After that, whether it was the legitimate "Zhang An International Academy" or the "Zhang An Fake Academy," it meant a steady stream of profits.

Many people were ready to tell Zhang Da'an, "Mr. Zhang is young and promising," but after seeing Mr. Zhang in person, they simply couldn't bring themselves to say the words "young and promising."

Zhang Da'an, who was once a burly man, now had noticeable fat hanging over him, and everyone in the air-conditioned conference hall was dressed in formal attire.

Zhang Da'an was wearing the school uniform of Xindongwei Port Middle School, a stand-up collar student uniform. At first glance, it looked like a remake of "Fist of Fury". However, the script was wrong, and Fujita Tsuyoshi was wearing Chen Zhen's clothes.

Seeing Zhang Da'an in photos and seeing him in real life are two completely different things. After the usual small talk, everyone who shook hands with Zhang Da'an felt that he was truly a god of literature.
Could it be that the God of Literature and the God of War are having some kind of affair?
Good afternoon, distinguished guests.

"Thank you for the strong support from leaders at all levels in Jiangkou Province. I am honored to be here to give a report to all the guests and express some personal views and opinions."

"As global manufacturing shifts to China and more and more products are labeled 'Made in China' and go global, some people say that China has become the 'world's factory'."

"So what is the significance of being called the 'world's factory'? Why are we the 'world's factory'? Here, I'd like to share some of my humble opinions."

Some people are not yet familiar with Zhang Da'an's style because he gets to the point too quickly. Even a scholar like Jorge Gonçalcárc was wondering if this "Oriental Magician" would be polite for a while.

"The Oriental Magician" was a nickname given to Zhang Da'an by the elder Santos during a meeting at the University of Porto, because mathematicians might be completely banned from participating in the gambling business after making a lot of money from the World Cup.

Meanwhile, betting companies around the Mediterranean have been approaching mathematicians from top universities, hoping they can further upgrade their betting combinations. Actuaries are already in short supply, and ordinary mathematical model players are practically nonexistent. Greece alone has prepared super consultant positions with annual salaries of ten million euros for its eight betting ships.

It's not common for CEOs of multinational corporations to be able to earn that much.

Wudu University raised its admission scores for the Department of Mathematics three times this year, which is unprecedented. Even so, some people still came to inquire about one thing: Is Professor Du Xiaoshuai still at Wudu University?

Yes, yes, Professor Du Xiaoshuai has always been here.

Professor Du has become a unicorn, and countless mathematics research institutes are hoping to apply for funding in his name.

Right now, he was sitting next to Jorge Gonçalcácer, wearing sunglasses. The foreigner now wanted to make money off him too.

You can do research anytime, but how many times in a lifetime can you make money?

As for the "Eastern Magician" on stage, he looks like a melee mage, so it's best not to get close to him.

"In the history of the world economy, Britain was the first country to be called the 'world's factory,' or rather, Britain was the first country to reach the scale of the 'world's factory.'"

"During the First Industrial Revolution, the share of British manufacturing in the world rose from 1.9 percent to 9.5 percent, eventually reaching about 20 percent, during which time Britain produced 53 percent of the world's iron and 50 percent of its coal."

"As the world's most powerful industrial nation at the time, Britain's manufactured goods and transnational trade spanned all five continents. In order to support its most powerful industrial capacity, modern logistics and modern service industries emerged."

"After the Second Industrial Revolution, when electrification entered industrial production activities, there was only one true 'world factory,' which was the industrial United States, which was born out of the two World Wars. The industrialized assembly lines in modern industry, as well as the more prosperous modern service industry, were born based on the United States as the 'world factory.'"

"In this process, the scale of the United States as the 'world's factory' has been expanded in different dimensions both before and after the Cold War."

"Before the Cold War, during World War II, whether it was trade or aid, all countries on the Eurasian plate, whether agricultural, industrial or colonial, objectively faced huge production capacity shortages and market vacuums. At that time, the industrialized population of the United States was equal to the total population of the defeated countries. In the process of aid and trade, the labor force of the aided countries objectively formed part of the industrialized population of the United States."

"Therefore, in the global context at that time, the total industrialized population of the United States as the 'world's factory' would be the sum of the war industrial labor force of the United States plus a portion of that of Britain, France, the Soviet Union, China, and other countries."

When this passage was brought up, it did cause a bit of a stir. Obviously, this viewpoint was somewhat novel, yet it seemed to make sense.

In addition to the two instances of "Zhang's outrageous remarks," and combined with the current narrative, a systematic theory can clearly be constructed from this.

As a result, many industry professionals realized that it was no wonder that quite a few people from the policy research office were among those who came today.

That's impressive.

It's not just that Zhang Da'an's "world factory" topic today is not simple; it's very likely that what appears to be an ordinary but fee-charging symposium is actually Zhang, this scoundrel, barking like a dog on orders.
Is this a message being relayed?

Or do we need to reach a consensus?

(End of this chapter)