All the heavens begin with the love in the courtyard.

The biggest benefit that reform and opening up brought to township enterprises like Xiaolei Village was that, in the past, shopping malls would refuse to let them in as soon as they heard that the enterprise was a village brigade. Now, everything is different!

Throughout May, Lei Dongbao and his team traveled back and forth between Jinzhou and its seven surrounding counties, eventually selling all 3,000 electric fans from their warehouse.

In those days, advertorials in newspapers were surprisingly effective. From March 1st to June 1st, the Thunder Electric Fan, which had been on a rotating schedule for three whole months, appeared in local newspapers from time to time, unknowingly attracting the attention of the people of Jinzhou!

With the expansion of supply channels, Lei Dongbao doesn't know whether the 3.7 million residents of Jinzhou City can make Leiting Electric's dream come true. The next moment will be the moment to witness a miracle!

Chapter 29: Expanding the Scale

The first batch of 3,000 electric fans from Xiao Lei's family brought in nearly 300,000 yuan. Lei Dongbao had the bespectacled accountant accompany him to the bank to withdraw all 300,000 yuan in cash.

If it were another small business, once they recouped their investment, their first priority would definitely be repaying bank loans or similar debts.

However, Lei Dongbao did not use the money to repay the bank loan immediately. Instead, he took the cash to the parts factories and, in front of their managers, placed 300,000 yuan in cash on their desks in full view of everyone!

Under everyone's fervent gaze, Lei Dongbao took out 30,000 to 50,000 yuan in cash and immediately repaid their debts. He then put the rest of the money into his bag. In short, Lei Dongbao wanted to convey one message: the Lei family is not short of money!

He did this for one purpose only!

Give these parts factories enough confidence! Let them boldly extend credit to Xiaoleijia Parts!

Because he knew very well what Xiaolei Village needed most right now!

With money, they could continue to expand. In Lei Dongbao's view, the first batch of 3,000 electric fans was just the beginning!

The Lei family is still working overtime to produce electric fans, shipping out about 100 units a day, with a monthly output of 3,000 units. In Lei Dongbao's opinion, this output is still too slow, too slow!

He has now instructed Lei Shigen to vacate the village hall and build a new processing workshop to speed up production. He aims to produce more than 10,000 electric fans per month by August, and his goal for this year is to sell more than 50,000 electric fans!

To achieve this goal, he has almost overdrawn everything Xiao Lei's family has, and banks love customers like this!

After learning about Xiao Lei's electric fan sales, the bank offered to provide an additional loan of 200,000 yuan. Lei Dongbao, of course, accepted the offer without hesitation and decided to take the 200,000 yuan first!

Although Xiao Lei's family has already sold the first batch of 3,000 electric fans, their debts are piling up. The combined debts to banks and credit unions have exceeded 500,000 yuan, and the parts factory owes them hundreds of thousands of yuan every month. With all this money, Xiao Lei's family does appear to be doing better and better on the surface.

With the money, the workers at the appliance factory were temporarily paid off. This move was welcomed by countless young people in Xiaolei Village. After all, they had been owed wages for nearly eight months. At 41 yuan per person per month, that was several hundred yuan, which was a huge sum for many young people!

In addition, Lei Dongbao expanded the electrical appliance factory and selected a new location in the village to build a factory that could accommodate hundreds of people. This will be the new Xiaoleijia Electrical Appliance Factory, and the place where Xiaoleijia will take off!

With so much debt, there's no need to worry. With the funds, Lei Dongbao is desperately expanding the scale of Xiaoleijia Electric Appliance Factory. His behavior is now like dancing on a tightrope!

In June, Xiao Lei's Thunder brand electric fan truly made its debut. With the spread of the advertisements and the gradual increase in temperature, a qualitative change occurred, allowing many people to witness the rise of Xiao Lei's Electric Appliance Factory!

Since the end of May, small trucks and tractors have been coming into the village every day to pick up goods. This trend surprised the leaders of Jinling County. They did not expect that Lei Dongbao could actually make a splash, and that the splash would become bigger and bigger.

When these county leaders went to Jinzhou, they learned that Thunder brand electric fans had become the hottest electric fan brand in Jinzhou this year. The huge posters made countless people aware that there was a fan brand called Thunder, and their advertising slogan was "Quality Guarantee: Thunder Electric Fans!"

The county leaders also visited Xiaolei Village several times for inspection. Their enthusiasm was like going from the dead of winter to the scorching summer, compared to half a year ago!

Starting from the end of May, Lei Dongbao successively received a series of honorary titles, including County People's Congress Representative, Outstanding Party Member, and Outstanding Brigade Secretary!

However, even when awards are presented, Lei Dongbao is often absent. Now, all matters, big and small, in Xiaolei Village are managed by Lei Shigen and a group of village leaders. Lei Shigen is not ambitious, but he is good at maintaining the status quo. At least Xiaolei Village has not caused any trouble yet.

Lei Dongbao is now basically stationed in Jinzhou. He is responsible for almost all marketing and sales, and he can't get away from it at all.

Jinzhou City has a population of several hundred thousand, and with the surrounding counties, the entire city of Jinzhou has a population of over three million. With the scale of Xiaoleijia Appliances, this market is more than enough to satisfy its needs. This year is the most crucial year for Xiaoleijia, and also a year to lay a solid foundation. Lei Dongbao dares not relax his vigilance in the slightest.

Electric fans are a product with an extremely simple structure. Xiao Leijia is just an assembly factory. The reason why it was able to become an instant hit is not only due to Lei Dongbao's unique advertising and marketing, but also because Xiao Leijia has almost taken advantage of the right time, place and people this year!

This year, the electric fan craze has already begun in Guangdong Province. Next year, this summer, thousands of electric fan factories will be established across the country. The Jinzhou market must earn Xiao Lei's first pot of gold this year!

Next year, the Jinzhou market will be a vibrant scene, not as easy to conquer as this year. Countless fan factories will be competing on the same stage. Therefore, if we don't lay a solid foundation this year, Xiao Lei will not even have a chance to get a share next year!

However, Lei Dongbao was not afraid. The Xiaolei family had grown from nothing to its current size this year. This year, he would earn enough bullets for the Xiaolei family. Next year would be the time to really fight tooth and nail.

Xiao Lei's production capacity is really limited, and he wants to maximize that capacity!

With money in hand, newspaper advertorials and poster advertising were intensified once again. As June arrived, the real sales boom for electric fans arrived. Thunder electric fans almost swept through the large and small department stores in Jinzhou, because this year, the people of Jinzhou only recognized Thunder brand electric fans!

Xiao Lei's production capacity has almost reached its limit. From shipping 100 units a day, it has now reached nearly 300 units a day. There is no inventory left in the village. As soon as they are produced, trucks will immediately pick them up. The gravel road leading from Xiao Lei's village to the county town has been widened considerably by the trucks.

Eighty percent of the young people in the village now work in the appliance factory, and the remaining twenty percent are sales staff and construction workers. They are working on the new factory building for Xiaoleijia Appliance Factory. The village is bustling with activity, and everyone is full of energy.

The remaining women, children, and elderly people will not be idle either, because the Angora rabbit breeding in Xiao Lei's family has reached a considerable scale. Every household has built a small rabbit farm in their backyard. After counting, the total number of rabbits in the entire brigade has reached nearly 5,000. The surrounding rabbit grass has long been harvested, and there is even a shortage of food!

After Song Yunping told Lei Dongbao the news, Lei Dongbao just smiled. He then remembered that there was another industry in Xiaolei Village that was yet to be developed. Two years ago, he started raising Angora rabbits, which was just an idea. He didn't expect that in less than two years, it would be almost ready to bear fruit.

80 was indeed a year of great prosperity for Xiaolei Village. Now, the electrical appliance factory is making a fortune every day, and the Angora rabbit breeding has reached a considerable scale. It's time to harvest the rabbits. However, Lei Dongbao does not plan to operate the breeding business in the long term. The future of Xiaolei Village still depends on engaging in industries with better development prospects.

In recent years, the purchase price of rabbit hair has been rising year by year, and the international rabbit hair market is booming. Last year, rabbit hair exports to the country earned tens of millions of US dollars in foreign exchange, becoming one of the key commodities for foreign exchange earnings. Since the 1980s, rabbit hair has become the leading product for foreign exchange earnings in many counties and cities.

In the early 1980s, it entered a true golden age, at its peak, with annual exports of tens of millions of tons of rabbit hair, generating hundreds of millions of US dollars in foreign exchange earnings!

In many impoverished areas, raising Angora rabbits, an industry that doesn't involve much high technology, deserves strong support!

This is not only real money, but also a dazzling political achievement!

Lei Dongbao had already found out that some cities and counties in the neighboring province had begun to introduce policies to encourage the local breeding of Angora rabbits, and Xiao Lei's family was once again taking the lead!

It's my duty to lead my fellow villagers to prosperity!

So one evening, Lei Dongbao hosted a dinner for an editor-in-chief of the Jinzhou Daily. Now Lei Dongbao has acquaintances everywhere in Jinzhou. That's how the world is. When you achieve enough, your friends will appear from every corner without you even realizing it!

This meal was truly worth the price and lived up to its reputation!

Three days later, an article about rabbit fur generating tens of millions of dollars in foreign exchange appeared on the front page of the Golden State Daily. The article was filled with a dazzling array of data, almost portraying Angora rabbit farming as raising golden rabbits. Since they were making US dollars, how could they not be golden rabbits?

Raising Angora rabbits can not only make you rich, but also bring honor to the country and generate foreign exchange for the nation!

At the end of the article, there is a description of Xiao Leijia in Jinling County. As early as 1978, a long-haired rabbit breeding cooperative was established. From 200 breeding rabbits to the current scale of 5,000 long-haired rabbits, it only took two short years. Now every household in Xiao Leijia has established a small rabbit farm. According to incomplete statistics, the per capita annual income of Xiao Leijia has exceeded 1,000 yuan this year!

The launch of this satellite, whether real or fake, caused a sensation throughout Jinzhou!

Chapter 30: A Visit to Guangdong Province

According to this year's income level, Xiao Lei's income has indeed increased rapidly. The per capita income is definitely not enough to reach 1,000, but it should be able to reach 500. Rounding it up to 1,000 is understandable!

After the Jinzhou Daily published this news, the leaders of several surrounding counties were greatly shocked and immediately organized an inspection team to visit Xiao Lei's family to investigate Angora rabbit farming.

This investigation revealed that Xiao Lei's family really had something special. In addition to Angora rabbit farming, they had another industry that attracted the attention of certain leaders!

That would naturally be the electric fan industry. Watching the trucks coming and going from Xiao Lei's house, some leaders felt a strong urge to get involved!

The Xiaolei family was like a treasure trove for them. The Angora rabbits were a golden achievement, and the electric fans were a pile of silver. It was simply too attractive!

From June to July, in just one month, the number of Angora rabbits in Xiao Lei's family decreased from 5,000 to 2,000. Those rabbits were bought up by surrounding counties and even by local village brigades in Jinling County!

With the rise of Angora rabbit farming and the implementation of travel policies in various regions, the price of breeding rabbits has more than doubled compared to the price Xiao Lei purchased two years ago.

As a result, Xiao Leijia made a fortune. The price of rabbit fur rose, which also drove up the price of breeding rabbits. Almost every household earned thousands of yuan in profit by raising Angora rabbits. The shortage of rabbits made Xiao Leijia a popular star village in Jinling County!

Lei Dongbao's reduction of the scale of Angora rabbit breeding in Xiaolei Village is naturally a gradual upgrade of Xiaolei Village's industry. The breeding industry in Xiaolei Village will also be upgraded from breeding Angora rabbits to purchasing Angora rabbits. Within five years, this industry will eventually be phased out!

He plans to transform Xiaolei Village into an appliance village, and next year, the appliance factory in Xiaolei Village will offer more than just table fans!

Currently, the planned products include three categories: ceiling fans, table fans, and floor fans, with fifteen different styles. Next year will be the year when Thunder Fans truly makes its mark on the market!

By July, Thunder Fans had truly entered its peak sales season, with a production rate of 300 to 400 units per day, but this still fell far short of meeting market demand!

Six months of advertising have made the entire population of Jinzhou aware of a high-quality electric fan called Thunder!

Although Lei Dongbao was also extremely anxious, he could only watch helplessly as he couldn't make money. Nowadays, Xiao Lei Jia's daily income was tens of thousands of yuan. Old Xu was also worried that Lei Dongbao would make mistakes with money, so he transferred two professional accountants from the county to Xiao Lei Jia, which Lei Dongbao couldn't have asked for more!

In June, Xiaolei shipped 6,437 electric fans at a unit price of 105 yuan, totaling 675,800 yuan!

By July, the number of electric fans shipped had exceeded 10,000, reaching 11,700, and the sales amount officially exceeded one million, reaching 1,228,500 yuan!

The news that Xiao Lei's family earns a million yuan a month caused a sensation in Jinling County and even several surrounding counties and cities, exceeding Lei Dongbao's expectations. In early July, he received the title of Outstanding Representative of Farmer Entrepreneurs in Anyun Province. The honor that followed once again overshadowed Lei Dongbao!

Endless meetings, endless drinking, and a transformation from indifference to being flattered by everyone around him all in just six months.

Lei Dongbao was truly disgusted, but also very clear-headed. The shipment volume in July was already the limit for Xiaoleijia at present. August was almost the final climax. By September, the sales of electric fans would drop rapidly.

The compliments people around me are giving me now are nothing but an act!

From May to July, according to Lei Dongbao's knowledge, more than 30 new electric fan factories have been established in the entire Anyun Province. Even Jinling County has established a state-owned electric fan factory. There will be even more next year. Historically, thousands of electric fan factories suddenly appeared in China in 1960.

Although these electric fan factories cannot compete with Xiao Lei's family yet due to time constraints, Lei Dongbao is well aware that while everyone is laughing this year, they might really stab him in the back next year.

After fierce competition, only less than 300 of these thousands of electric fan factories remained by the 1990s. Don't assume that these 300 were the final winners.

These 300 electric fan factories were once like Xiao Leijia today, making their first fortune in the electric fan market and even becoming local leading enterprises, enjoying great success for a time. However, 90% of these enterprises went bankrupt and closed down before the new century!

As for the reasons for the closure, I won't go into details. In short, the real winners are those who are extremely vigilant about the market!

The golden age of electric fans is just around the corner. Thousands of electric fan manufacturers will be competing in the same market, and there will definitely be no shortage of shady players. Xiao Lei's brand will have almost no advantage!

In the 1980s and 90s, countless outstanding farmer entrepreneurs eventually got lost in the illusion of honor and enjoyment. Lei Dongbao was very clear about his situation at this moment. This little achievement was not worth mentioning at all!

In mid-August, after consulting with Lao Xu, he arranged for the county to organize an inspection team, led by Lao Xu, consisting of more than 20 people, to go to Guangdong Province for inspection.

When they passed through Shenzhen, they saw countless buildings rising from the ground. Lei Dongbao and Lao Xu exchanged a glance and saw the ambition in each other's eyes.

This is a brand new era, an era of dramatic change. All opportunities seem to be right in front of us. After the great wave of change, whether we can seize them in the future depends on ourselves!

The changes brought about by reform and opening up will only increase in the future. The delegation eventually visited Shunde, which will later become the electrical appliance capital.

During this inspection, he brought Gao Shengnan and several of her apprentices, including Lei Zhengming, along with seven others. Their purpose for this inspection was to broaden their horizons and also to investigate the electrical appliance market in Guangdong Province.

The reason for this inspection was purely on Lei Dongbao's whim. Although he knew that famous electrical appliance brands such as Midea, Vanward, Galanz, Rongsheng, and Kelon had all risen with the help of the reform and opening up, the fact that so many famous brands could appear in one place must mean that this place had something special about it!

The fifteen-day inspection trip greatly benefited Lei Dongbao and Gao Shengnan. Lei Dongbao could see some clues from this inspection about why Shunde later became the capital of electrical appliances.

Their strengths are precisely Xiao Lei's current weaknesses, or even predicaments. The cost of producing an electric fan locally is less than fifty yuan, while the one produced in Xiao Lei costs twenty yuan more, even though they use almost the same components.

The cost of purchasing parts in Xiaolei Village is much higher than in Shunde. The reason is simple: the local area has been producing electrical appliances for many years. Many small village-run and street-run enterprises produce parts for certain state-owned factories. These small factories have already formed a considerable scale in the local area.

Starting in 7, the area attracted joint ventures and many Hong Kong and foreign-funded enterprises to set up businesses, including processing trade and compensation trade. This brought many things that had never been done before to the area. Small businesses and even family-run workshops sprang up like mushrooms after rain.

In just two years, some sizable industrial clusters had already formed. For example, if you were looking for hardware factories, there would be seven or eight large and small hardware factories in a certain town, and even more plastic factories. In addition to producing parts for other state-owned or foreign-funded enterprises, these small factories also quietly came up with the idea of ​​assembling simple electrical appliances themselves.

Among them, the renowned Midea Electric Appliances also began assembling and selling electric fans in this year.

The Lei family had to travel almost all over Anhui Province to buy parts, while others could find all the parts right at their doorstep. That's the difference – it saves not only time but also a lot of costs.

If you produce and sell directly, the production cost of a table fan that sells for 5 yuan in a shopping mall can be as low as 40 yuan. Excluding all costs, including taxes, the net profit is over 80 yuan. How can everyone not flock to this money-grabbing industry?

This is what Lei Dongbao is worried about. Next year, when the price war starts, Xiao Lei's electric fans will be powerless to resist!

Therefore, he had to find a way out for Xiao Lei's family!

Chapter 31: Yang Xun in Northeast China