Chapter 2396: Zhang Yu's Predicament
Chu He had long heard of the owner of Zhang's Walnut Pastry. After Ren Youzi mentioned him, he'd learned more about Zhang Yu himself and his company's background.
Although he hadn't had time to examine in-depth background materials like financial reports, a rough portrait of the man and his enterprise had already taken shape in his mind.
"A talented person born at the right time."
This was Chu He's first assessment of Zhang Yu. There was nothing extraordinary about Zhang Yu as a person. To put it bluntly, he'd caught the "wind." To put it more bluntly, he was "a pig flying on the wind."
But merely "born at the right time" was too simple. The Senate had helped countless people, all of whom had changed their fates because of it, but the vast majority stopped there. In comparison, this young Zhang Yu had hit every beat of the Senate's rhythm—regardless of whether Senator Hong's guidance lay behind it, this level of courage and insight wasn't something ordinary people possessed.
Better to see for himself than merely hear about him. He'd look at the shop first. Even if he couldn't meet the owner, at least he could learn a thing or two from the shop.
Zhang Yu was currently at the main store in the Great World.
Since following Zeng Juan's advice to separate from his father and each establish their own company, his father's company had stayed in the original location, keeping the old brand name, still called "Zhang's Old Shop Pastry." It operated workshop-style with production behind the shop, mainly supplying old customers and some "new money" who had "come because of the reputation." He himself had registered and established "Zhang's Food Products Co., Ltd.," purchased land outside the city to build a factory, and was now factory-producing various packaged foods. The main customer, needless to say, was the Senate. He'd ridden the trend and set his company headquarters at the Great World store.
Everything he had could be said to come from the Senate's blessing. His business was almost entirely given by the Senate. "Closely follow the Senate" was his guiding philosophy for running the company. For this, he needed to stay in the place closest to the Senators—in Guangzhou, that place was the Great World.
Since it was headquarters, he'd rented all three floors of the entire storefront at once. The first floor was the shop, the second floor held offices and warehouse, and the third floor served as dormitories—in fact, he usually stayed in the Great World dormitory with the staff half the time rather than going home.
His parents' home had also been relocated. They'd purchased the old residence of a gentry family. This family had been implicated in a kidnapping and murder case; the whole family was exiled to Kaohsiung, and their property was confiscated. The residence was then "auctioned" by the Planning Committee Special Search Team's Guangzhou Unit.
The newly purchased residence wasn't large but was exquisitely built, very much to Old Master Zhang and his wife's liking. According to his father's thinking, now that his son had established his career and purchased a residence, it was time to "start a family"—matchmakers seeking to arrange marriages were nearly wearing through the doorstep, including daughters from "high branches" they wouldn't have dared dream of in the past.
But Zhang Yu wasn't in a hurry to find a wife. For one, he wasn't in that mindset. For another, he had long harbored feelings for the tofu shop owner's daughter. Though the two hadn't "privately pledged eternal love," Zhang Yu felt he couldn't simply marry someone else like this. Besides, business was growing busier by the day, so the matter was set aside.
To outsiders, Zhang Yu's current situation was smooth sailing, everything going his way. Not only had his family's walnut pastry shop become famous throughout Guangzhou city—with officials and nobles all considering it an honor to taste his pastries—but the newly built factory outside the city had products that never worried about sales. Whatever was produced, the Australians' ships would take all of it. Only ships waiting for goods, never goods waiting for ships. People inside and outside the city all said the Zhang family was now "making a fortune daily."
But Zhang Yu couldn't feel happy at all. He had encountered the troublesome matters that all rapidly growing enterprises face.
First was the lack of people. That's right—Zhang's Food Products had fallen into a severe "labor shortage."
Of course, he didn't lack laborers who simply exerted physical effort. What he lacked were "workers" and "management personnel."
Zhang's Food Products Company used many new machines. According to Senators from the machinery sector, this equipment wasn't even as good as a small food factory's equipment from the 90s—at best "bootleg workshop" level.
But even "bootleg workshop" level semi-mechanized, semi-manual labor required training workers from scratch. The Lingao Machinery Factory that sold him the equipment naturally sent people to train him, but once the naturalized training masters left, headaches began. The freshly minted operators had little practical experience and only half-understood operational procedures. All sorts of accidents occurred; equipment kept breaking and being repaired, starting and stopping. They rarely reached full capacity. Worker injuries also cost him plenty in medicine fees. Several had crushed fingers or broken arms. Originally, he'd wanted to just give them some money and send them home, but Senator Hong said it would "look bad" and told him to keep them at the factory doing odd jobs within their ability.
This was still secondary. In the past, Zhang Yu's family had only run a small shop with just two or three people including assistants and apprentices. Even when the scale grew larger, there were only about ten or so staff. The whole family could handle it. Now his factory had over two hundred workers alone. Several workshops, two or three warehouses, raw materials and finished products coming and going numbered in the tens of thousands daily. There was a severe shortage of managers.
Following traditional business practice, family members and relatives would naturally be employed first. But Zhang Yu obviously couldn't manage with just family. First, his parents needed to watch the old shop. Second, the Zhang family wasn't populous and didn't have capable people. His only blood uncle was a waiter at a teahouse. The couple also worked for his father. Their one daughter, Zhang Ting, was exceptionally clever, but sadly there was just this one. She was now Zhang's Food Products' accountant, simultaneously managing the old shop's accounts too—completely unable to split herself. Besides, she was just an unmarried young lady who couldn't show her face in public.
Zhang Yu's mother wasn't local, so he couldn't count on his maternal uncle's family. Although he'd written a letter asking them to "come to Guangzhou quickly," the journey was long and chaotic with war, not something he could count on immediately.
This kept Zhang Yu busy running around in circles, wishing he could split into several bodies. The factory was producing while simultaneously "leaking." Zhang Yu knew full well the losses were severe but had to tough it out and maintain production. Fortunately, at this time Gao Ju wanted to win him over and helped him hire several experienced managers, reorganizing the factory and finally getting operations roughly straightened out.
Second was the cash crunch.
Zhang's Food Products Company receiving a big order from Joint Logistics was naturally a good thing. But funding pressure came with it. With the Zhang family's original financial strength, they fundamentally couldn't have taken an order of this scale. It was entirely thanks to Hong Huangnan putting in a word at Delong Bank, using "Zhang's Old Shop" as collateral, that he got a large loan—only then did he have the startup capital to buy land and equipment.
Following proper lending procedures, this loan's collateral was obviously unqualified. Even with Hong Huangnan's guarantee, both Yan Ming and Meng Xian were hesitant. In the end, it was reported to Wen Desi, who made the final decision to grant it as a special loan in the name of "supporting private sector benchmark enterprises."
Such loans with almost no collateral had been issued several times. The accumulated figure had reached a level that made Zhang Yu feel scared.
What if I can't repay the loans? This thought had been swirling in his mind lately. Orders from Joint Logistics kept growing larger and larger. He had no choice but to continuously expand scale, increase equipment, and hire more workers. The account payables for purchasing raw materials were also growing ever larger.
Every time he looked at the account books Zhang Ting gave him, Zhang Yu had a sinking feeling: after all this busy work, besides a pile of receivables and payables and that constantly expanding factory, he hadn't made any money at all.
Although Joint Logistics gave him orders on very favorable cash-on-delivery terms, he could only get payment after delivery. The Food Products Company's advance production costs were staggering. Currently, the supply arrangement between him and suppliers still followed the old rule of "settling accounts at the three festivals." This somewhat relieved Zhang's Food Products Company's funding pressure. But as orders kept increasing, suppliers also began complaining bitterly: they couldn't hold on anymore—most suppliers had never encountered a customer of Zhang's scale.
In the past month alone, quite a few suppliers had come, either sending intermediaries to plead or personally coming to beg, hoping he could pay some of the account balances early. Some begged pitifully, almost kneeling and kowtowing to him. Some were old customers of the shop who pleaded through his parents. Some came through Zeng Juan's connections... In short, the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each showing their talents—making things very difficult for Zhang Yu.
Due to personal relationships and moral obligations, Zhang Yu couldn't refuse harshly. He could only deal with each party a bit, using delaying tactics.
After this round of delays, Zhang Ting delivered some very bad news. According to current delivery plans, receivables and payables, cash flow... calculated out, the 1636 Lunar New Year's Eve would be very difficult to get through.
According to Zhang Ting's calculations, from now until New Year's Eve, there could be no more large expenditures. Moreover, the year-end bonus originally planned for employees on New Year's Eve would have to be delayed until after the first month. Only then could Zhang's Food Products Company just barely pay all account payables and bank interest, avoiding the devastating news of being unable to pay.
Although Zhang Yu came from a small business family background, he fully understood the value of the word "credit." Back then on New Year's, when his father had no cash on hand, he would rather pawn his mother's jewelry and his own longevity lock to pay for goods—Zhang Yu remembered all these past events clearly. His father had said: in business, as long as you have credit, even if you lose money you can still get by. Once you lose credit, nothing works anymore.
Please don't let there be any extra expenses. Zhang Yu silently prayed. He really couldn't take any more stimulation right now. However, troublesome things still came one after another. Just yesterday, he'd received a message from Gao Ju, saying the Senate's newly established Nanyang Company was preparing to offer stocks and sell bonds, asking if he was interested in participating—if so, roughly how much money was he prepared to put in, so Gao Ju could have an idea to prepare.
(End of Chapter)