Chapter 161: My goal is the entire West

As soon as Zhou Andong entered Gu Bing's office, he saw him pacing back and forth, then tilting his head and bending his waist to look behind Gu Bing.

Gu Bing stopped in his tracks: "You little bastard, what are you staring at?"

Zhou Andong blinked: "I'm looking to see if you've grown a tail behind you. You're pacing around the office like a donkey pulling a millstone."

Gu Bing kicked out, but Zhou Andong laughed loudly and dodged to the side: "Missed me."

"How old are you, still acting so childish." Jian Qiu scolded Zhou Andong with annoyance, then looked at Gu Bing, "The newspapers have all arrived, right?"

Gu Bing was amused and gestured toward the desk with his chin: "They're all right there."

Jian Qiu walked over, picked up a newspaper to look at it, and a smile appeared on her face: "The winery's crisis has been resolved."

"Courtesy demands reciprocity!" Zhou Andong sat in Gu Bing's chair, propped his legs up on the desk, and lit a cigarette: "Tong Huaiyu has been having quite a bit of fun; it's time for us to have some fun too."

Gu Bing's eyes lit up: "Tell me quickly, what should we do?"

Zhou Andong took a puff of his cigarette, squinting as he watched the smoke rise and dissipate before his eyes, and said softly: "Isn't he in the rare earth export business? We'll do it too. It's just that our capital is limited for now, so we need to wait a bit."

Gu Bing was stunned: "Doing rare earth business, how does that mess with him?"

Zhou Andong smiled: "In doing rare earth, my goal is the entire West; Tong Huaiyu isn't even qualified to be my opponent. I'm just killing two birds with one stone, cleaning him up along the way. I want him to recognize a fact: a prominent family background cannot be his reliance for doing whatever he pleases."

In this era, no one had yet realized the strategic importance of rare earth. The process of his layout would very likely invite criticism, but he only wanted the result; as for the process, it didn't matter.

"Rare earth? The West?" Gu Bing raised his hand to touch Zhou Andong's head, "You don't have a fever, why are you talking nonsense?"

"What do you know." Zhou Andong flicked the ash from his cigarette, a powerful confidence that words could not describe erupting from his body: "Once Jian Qiu goes to England for a tour in October and comes back, we'll have the money to lay out the rare earth industry. The West, especially the Americans, are jumping around the most; I want to forge an iron chain to tether them, so they won't bite people in the future."

Jian Qiu's eyes shone with brilliance; she loved this confidence in Zhou Andong, which was also the part that fascinated her the most.

"How should we do it?"

Zhou Andong smoked his cigarette leisurely: "It's too early to talk about that. What we need to do now is produce Jiang Xiaobai at full capacity and prepare for its launch in the middle of the month. Then, after seeing the sales situation, we'll develop a fruit-flavored white liquor aimed at women, between 12 and 18 degrees, and name it Jiang Xiaomei."

He had already made up his mind: if Jiang Xiaomei sold well, he would bring out RIO cocktails.

In his previous life, he ran a bar, and RIO was one of the most popular pre-mixed drinks. When he had nothing to do, he often mixed drinks according to RIO's formula, and although the taste of the drinks he mixed differed from RIO, the mouthfeel was not much different, and they were sought after by many customers.

Therefore, as long as he brought in high-quality Western spirits like Cognac, vodka, and rum to use as base spirits, and added various fruit juices, he could concoct RIO.

"Pop, pop, pop..."

The office door was suddenly knocked on, and Gu Bing said: "Come in!"

The newly appointed Supply and Marketing Section Chief, Tang Fuyuan, pushed the door open and walked in. Seeing Zhou Andong, he smiled: "Factory Director, so you're here. I went to your office and there was no one, so I came to find the Secretary." After finishing, he greeted Jian Qiu: "Factory Director Jian."

Jian Qiu nodded: "There must be some good news; as soon as you walked in, I saw the smile on your face."

Tang Fuyuan said: "The people queuing to return the liquor have all suddenly left. This morning, two businesses finished their return procedures, and the money had already been sent back to them, but they suddenly came back and said they weren't returning it anymore. They insisted on taking away the batch of liquor they had returned. I said it wasn't possible, and they started making a scene, which has already affected our normal work."

Zhou Andong said: "Didn't you make it clear to them? After the liquor is returned, our Jiangzhou Winery will no longer cooperate with them."

"I did!" As soon as this matter was mentioned, Tang Fuyuan couldn't help but feel angry: "Before processing the return procedures, I told them. At that time, their faces—I still get angry thinking about it now. They said that even if we knelt down and begged them, they wouldn't cooperate with us anymore. It's only been a few hours, and they've run back to act like rascals."

Zhou Andong hummed: "Notify the Security Section to throw them out."

Tang Fuyuan's spirit lifted: "Good!"

"Wait!" Zhou Andong said: "Are you curious why the people queuing to return the liquor suddenly all left?"

Tang Fuyuan pulled back the foot he had stepped out with and slapped his forehead: "I was just thinking about asking about this, and I forgot as soon as I turned around."

Zhou Andong handed him a newspaper: "Go on, take it back and read it."

Tang Fuyuan took the newspaper and saw it was the People's Daily: "I have one in my office too, I just didn't have time to read it yet."

Zhou Andong spoke nonsense with a straight face: "It's different, go back and read it and you'll know."

Tang Fuyuan actually believed it, muttering as he left Gu Bing's office, looking at the date on it: "That's right, it's today's, how could this be different? Could it be that it was revised and two editions were released?"

Jian Qiu said helplessly: "Can you act a bit like a factory director? Old Tang is a person of age, and you're teasing him too."

Zhou Andong laughed: "I'm just joking with him, letting him feel the approachability of a leader." After finishing, he stood up: "Let's go, let's go to the Technical Section to chat with Old Man Man and develop the fruit-flavored white liquor as soon as possible."

In Jingcheng, at a certain mainstream newspaper office, Fang Kongwei was in his thirties; it was he who wrote the commentary criticizing Zhou Andong for embezzling state assets.

This morning, when he received the court summons, he disdainfully threw the summons into the trash can, not taking it to heart at all, and even less did he put the small winery in the countryside of Jiangzhou in his eyes.

I am the chief commentator of the newspaper; those who can get me to write commentary articles are all big shots. You, a factory director of a small winery, should feel honored that I personally wrote a commentary, and yet you dare to sue me; it is simply rebellious.

Then he heard that the newspaper office had also been sued, and he laughed loudly, mocking the Jiangzhou Winery for overestimating its own strength.

But when the news came out that Jiangzhou Winery had sued all the reporters and media that had distorted the reports, he was stunned. Because he felt that something was not quite right about this, and he smelled an unusual scent.

He had no mood to work all morning, and had been pondering this matter. But after thinking for a long time, he couldn't figure out what the purpose of Jiangzhou Winery doing this was. But the more he couldn't figure it out, the more panicked he felt inside, and the more he had a feeling that a disaster was imminent.