Chapter 282: Chen Yansen Stabs in the Back—Zhou Hongyi Sends a Team-Up Invite!

August 3, 360 Search launched.

Zhou Hongyi set up his stance on Weibo, waiting for Li Yan's response to stir up more heat.

But Li Yan completely ignored him.

Chen Yan sat in his office, scrolling through Lao Zhou's comment section—half the comments were black fans.

"Boss Zhou, if you teach me how to cleanly uninstall 360 wallpapers, can I help you roast Baidu?"

"When will 360 launch its flagship phone?"

"Stop clinging—look, does Boss Li even acknowledge you?"

Chen Yan smiled faintly; the netizens of 2012 spoke sharply, each line piercing straight into Zhou Hongyi's heart.

No one believed a former thug when he claimed he wanted to go straight.

Baidu, relying on its market monopoly, pushed paid ranking ads, polluting search quality; users had no choice but to grit their teeth and use it.

One netizen's reply stood out as the most classic, with the highest number of likes: "You scream about user experience, say users are your dad and mom, but at the critical moment, you turn your back on your own family and treat your parents like trash."

This line insulted both Li Yan and Zhou Hongyi.

Was Baidu Search any better? Was 360 Search clean?

We're all thugs—why pretend to be saints?

At that moment, the phone on the desk rang.

Chen Yan glanced at the caller ID and pressed answer and speakerphone.

"Boss, should Lingxi Search launch early to piggyback on Zhou Hongyi's traffic?" Zhang Yiming asked bluntly.

From May to July, Kuai Di Taxi burned through four to five hundred million yuan due to subsidy wars.

Had Baidu not interfered, with today's capital investment style, they would never have joined DiDi's Series B funding.

At that point, Cheng Wei would either shut down the product or sell it to Kuai Di.

Li Yan's move severely hampered Kuai Di Taxi's expansion, so Chen Yan naturally wanted to give him some trouble.

The day after Baidu announced its investment in DiDi, Chen Yan immediately ordered Zhang Yiming to launch the Lingxi Search R&D project.

"Piggybacking on traffic? Unnecessary! Lingxi Search isn't 360's appendage—we don't take sides, just stay independent. If Lingxi's search quality and algorithms have no bugs, launching early is fine."

Chen Yan replied.

Lingxi Search was embedded in Lingxi Browser, bringing its own traffic with extremely strong defenses—Baidu couldn't penetrate it; every new mobile search user meant one fewer user for Baidu.

The same applied to PC—Lingxi Search was barefoot, unafraid of shoes, with zero market share.

Even stealing just 5% of Baidu's market was a victory for Chen Yan.

"Functional testing is OK—it meets daily user needs—but lacks resources in encyclopedia and Q&A sections. If we scrape Baidu's content, we violate the robots. xt protocol and risk lawsuits."

Zhang Yiming thought for a moment and answered seriously.

"No problem—I've reviewed infringement cases over the past decade; the highest fine was only 480, 00 yuan." Chen Yan spoke calmly.

This left Zhang Yiming speechless; he grinned bitterly, never imagining Chen Yan's operational mindset was even wilder than his own to boost user stickiness.

"Any issues?" Chen Yan raised his voice when he saw Zhang Yiming silent.

"No issues." Zhang Yiming gritted his teeth and agreed.

So what if it's the police inspector's office and the court?

He wasn't unfamiliar with them!

Under Chen Yan's orders, Zhang Yiming began freely scraping content from Baidu Zhidao, Baike, and Tieba, converting it into Lingxi's search results.

In fact, 360 Search did the exact same thing!

Worst case, we fight a lawsuit—drag it out for a year or two; compared to search market share, a few hundred thousand yuan in fines meant nothing.

Chen Yan didn't care—ByteDance's legal representative was Zhang Yiming; if the big bosses upstairs couldn't stand it, Zhang Yiming would be the one suffering.

On the first day of 360 Search's launch, leveraging traffic advantages from 360 Browser and navigation sites, it rapidly seized search market share, surging from 0 to 1. 9%.

Over half of Google Search's Chinese traffic came from 360 Navigation; after Zhou Hongyi switched the default search engine to 360 Search, Google took the first hit, immediately losing 16. % of its China market share.

At that moment, Liu Yun, head of Google Greater China, stared blankly and cursed: "360 was supposed to target Baidu—why is the spear now pointed at Google's forehead?"

On the first day of the battle between 360 and Baidu Search, Baidu was unscathed, while Google was bruised and swollen.

The next day, 360 Search's market share rose to 2. 3%.

The third day, 360 Search's market share rose to 3. 1%.

Li Yan couldn't sit still—he felt Zhou Hongyi's offensive was fierce, but could he stop 360 from launching search?

On August 6, Lingxi Search quietly launched without warning, leveraging Lingxi Browser's 30 million users to quickly carve out its own territory.

On August 7, 360 Search's market share rose to 5. 4%. Meanwhile, Baidu noticed 360's antics—360 Baike not only plagiarized Baidu Baike entries but openly bypassed robots. xt, treating Baidu's data as its own.

Baidu immediately responded on its official Weibo account for the first time: "We welcome competition, but oppose unethical infringement."

And they @Zhou Hongyi, demanding 360 immediately stop illegal scraping.

Zhou Hongyi smiled after reading it, pretended he didn't see it, and kept doing as he pleased—even blocking Baidu's hao123 navigation site.

Any user who installed 360 Security Guard would see a warning when opening hao123: "This site may be stealing your personal or financial information."

The tactic was shameless—and highly effective.

That day, hao123's traffic dropped 14. % due to 360's interference.

Remember, in 2012, 360 Security Guard had 470 million installations—nearly 80% of netizens had it on their computers.

Of course, that included some users who wanted to uninstall it but couldn't.

Faced with Zhou Hongyi's thug tactics, Li Yan could no longer hold back—he immediately retaliated, revoking 360 Search's access to Baidu Zhidao, Baike, and Tieba; clicking any search result forced users to jump to Baidu's homepage.

Zhou Hongyi quickly responded by replacing all Baidu products—news, maps, MP3s—on 360 Navigation with Toutiao, AutoNavi, and Sogou Music.

The two had completely torn off the mask.

Soon after, Zhou Hongyi posted on Weibo: "Baidu Antivirus is rogue software—users can't uninstall it. 360's security team will soon release a dedicated plugin to remove Baidu Antivirus."

When Chen Yan saw Lao Zhou's post, he felt embarrassed for him.

Netizens couldn't hold back either!

Everyone knew how Zhou Hongyi built his empire.

The old thug scolds the big thug!

On the other side.

In the same city of Yancheng, Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan stared at last week's business report, frowning deeply.

Although Sogou Search mainly gained traffic through its own browser and paid channels—with low user overlap with 360 and Baidu—there was still some overlap.

Sogou's market share dropped from 7. 4% to 7. 1%—a small decline, but it annoyed Wang Xiaochuan greatly.

He disliked Baidu's monopoly and despised 360's thuggery.

Wang Xiaochuan scrolled through the feud between Zhou Hongyi and Baidu on Weibo, sneering: "Lao Zhou's still the same—product not out yet, PR campaign first."

Doesn't matter if you win or lose—just vent first.

Clearly, Zhou Hongyi had reaped the traffic benefits from 360 Phone's success, and now he was applying the same tactics against the Leiyi Army and Li Yan in turn.

"@Sogou Wang Xiaochuan, say something! If Sogou doesn't join, you'll drop from second to third place!"

"@Sohu Zhang Zhaoyang, stop singing—get in the fight!"

Wang Xiaochuan shook his head and smiled, then replied: "360 is 3, Sogou is S, Baidu is B—I think Sogou should stay out. Otherwise we become 3SB!"

Wang Xiaochuan's joke was widely quoted; the "3B Search War" grew increasingly famous.

Lingxi Search lurked behind, quietly stealing market share from Baidu Search.

Only on August 9, when Lingxi Search reached 1% market share, did it enter the sightlines of Baidu, 360, and Sogou.

After investigation, Li Yan realized Chen Yan was behind it; a moment's thought revealed Chen Yan's intent.

Aside from AutoNavi, the ride-hailing war alone had already created a grudge between them.

Chen Yan quietly launched search—clearly aiming to use a peripheral business to attack Baidu's core.

Zhou Hongyi, unable to wait, called Chen Yan the moment he learned Lingxi Search was Chen Yan's product.

"Boss Chen, no wonder we get along so well—we're kindred spirits," Zhou Hongyi said with a smile.

Lingxi Search and 360 Search operated identically, completely ignoring Baidu's robots. xt, greedily scraping everything.

"Boss Zhou, you misunderstand—I made Lingxi Search because Baidu Search has too many ads; I created a clean, ad-free search product."

Chen Yan lied casually, half-truthfully.

"Team up against Baidu?" Zhou Hongyi extended a team invitation.

Chen Yan smiled knowingly; they chatted for ten minutes before hanging up.

Lingxi Search and Sohu Search had similar business ecosystems—focused on mobile browser usage, extremely defensive, with low overlap with 360 and Baidu.

So Chen Yan declined the offer—but gave Zhou Hongyi a technical solution to bypass Baidu Search's blocking, and of course, Chen Yan wouldn't miss a chance to trouble Li Yan.

Let Zhou Hongyi charge ahead; Lingxi would stay hidden, growing quietly.

Two days later, when 360 users used 360 Search in 360 Browser to view results related to Baidu products, they were redirected to a "web snapshot" page.

The content was still Baidu's—but 360 Search intercepted the user, blocking all traffic from reaching Baidu.

Free ride—and no payment!

On August 12, Baidu sent a legal notice to 360.

(End of Chapter)