Chapter 109: Build High Walls, Store Grain, and Delay Claiming the Title

Establishing overseas sales channels was decided after Li Dongling discussed it many times with Ren Yuefeng, Hu Zi, and Zhang Ao, who was far away in Europe.

Establishing overseas sales channels now would cost quite a bit, but it was absolutely worth it. This money would have to be spent sooner or later; the further they delayed, the greater the cost would be!

As long as they had sales channels, whether it was selling Dongling High-Tech's own products or acting as an agent for domestic electrical appliances, home appliances, and other products to go overseas, it would be much more convenient, and they wouldn't have to worry about being tripped up or having their necks choked by others.

Never mind now, even pushing forward three or four decades, when domestic brand cars finally stood up and wanted to go overseas, they would still need the cooperation of overseas car dealers. Otherwise, they would still be harassed everywhere by foreign car brands, not allowing those overseas dealers to act as agents for domestic mainland car brands to sell locally!

Sales channels are king—this really wasn't just talk. Whether now or in the future, it would always exist.

Ren Yuefeng had discussed it several times with Li Dongling, Zhang Ao, and others, and had also made up his mind, "The first stop for Dongling High-Tech's overseas channels will be in Falanxi!"

With Dongling High-Tech's current strength, it was definitely impossible to plant flags all over Europe in one go. That wasn't realistic, and Dongling High-Tech couldn't come up with that many USD.

"According to the data obtained from Zhang Ao and professional consulting firms in Hong Kong, the largest chain electrical appliance stores in Europe now are mainly the two camps of Metro and Carrefour. The rest, like Saturn electrical appliance stores, also belong to Metro!"

Ren Yuefeng took out several documents, "Dongling High-Tech cannot directly launch comprehensive competition with Metro and Carrefour. Our formulated plan is to first occupy the Falanxi retail market, and after gaining a firm foothold in Europe, then slowly plan for others."

"Falanxi currently has three major chain home appliance stores: Fnac, Darty, and Boulanger. Fnac and Darty are currently too expensive; if we want to acquire them, the price is over 1.5 billion USD, which is not something Dongling High-Tech can touch. The best target is this one!" Ren Yuefeng's finger pointed at the name of Falanxi's Boulanger electrical appliances.

To conquer Europe, one must first conquer Falanxi—no, that's not right; to break into the European electrical appliance market, one must first take down the Falanxi electrical appliance market, and then enter other European markets from Falanxi.

Li Dongling looked at the plan formulated by Ren Yuefeng: first take down Boulanger electrical appliance mall, which owned 78 chain electrical appliance stores, then acquire some small retail stores in Falanxi, and finally form an electrical appliance sales channel with 100 chain electrical appliance retail stores.

Hu Zi, Gao Peng, Gao Zhiyuan, Li Da, and others were also looking at that plan. The entire plan couldn't be considered aggressive, but it was definitely not a small-scale operation. Especially when they saw the final budget, it made everyone gasp.

"170 million USD?!"

Gao Peng rubbed his teeth and looked at that number, saying that if this were bought, before Lenovo acquired IBM computers, it would almost create the largest overseas acquisition by a domestic private company.

Hu Zi calculated it, his brows furrowed, "This is probably the lowest price. If the acquisition doesn't go smoothly, the cost will probably far exceed this!"

The gazes of Ren Yuefeng, Hu Zi, Gao Peng, and the others all turned toward Li Dongling. Whether this acquisition should proceed needed to be decided by Li Dongling. This wasn't a small amount of money; it would almost fill in the entire Dongling High-Tech's family fortune, and it had to be acquired using foreign exchange!

"It cannot be acquired in the name of Dongling High-Tech. When Ning Wenge comes to Hanxi, reach an agreement with her to conduct this acquisition in the name of Ning's Trading Company!"

Li Dongling said in a deep voice. Dongling High-Tech currently still needed to rely on sales store channels like Metro, Carrefour, MediaMarkt, Media, and Saturn electrical appliance stores. Breaking with these retailers now would have no benefit for Dongling High-Tech at all.

Build high walls, store grain, and delay claiming the title—this was what Dongling High-Tech should do. Only when they had sales channels and stores in the European market that were sufficient to challenge Metro, Carrefour, and others, would it be the time to reveal their true intentions!

Hearing Li Dongling's words, Ren Yuefeng, Hu Zi, and the others all understood that Li Dongling had made up his mind to establish his own sales channels in Europe.

Returning to the courtyard behind Dongling High-Tech, as soon as Li Dongling entered, he saw Li Dongyue excitedly manipulating a computer. Although this computer wasn't connected to the internet yet, besides the computer's built-in Minesweeper and Tetris, it also had several games installed that had flowed over from Hong Kong, including Dune II, Myst, Civilization, and others—all games that hadn't been localized yet.

But even so, this girl, Li Dongyue, was playing with great interest, quite having the posture of becoming the first generation of internet-addicted gaming girls.

"It's time to go back today!"

"You have to take the college entrance exam next year. If you don't pass, I won't pay the money for you to be a self-funded student!"

Li Dongling pinched the girl's cheek. In this day and age, self-funded students were allowed—that is, you could go to university by paying money, including prestigious schools like Tsinghua. As long as your score wasn't too outrageous, you could pay to attend, and the proportion wasn't small. In some schools, self-funded students could account for more than half of the enrollment.

In the final analysis, it was still because funding was insufficient. Self-funded students were a means for major universities to supplement their funding. In these few years, many universities relied on this method of charging fees to pay salaries to faculty and staff and to subsidize students in difficulty. But because the quality of the student source was uneven, it made the universities chaotic, causing many people to complain.

A few years later, this path would be blocked. After the era of self-funded students was ended, the direct impact was that tuition fees soared in those few years. Previously, getting into university meant worrying about living expenses, meal expenses, and some household goods. After self-funded students were canceled, tuition fees skyrocketed in those few years, reaching several thousand yuan a year, which was higher than the annual income of some families. Many people who got in couldn't afford to attend and had to rely on the whole family's relatives or even the whole village to scrape money together—that was during that period.

The Qilin Award established by Li Dongling, which would be donated and subsidized in the future, was basically for these people. Although a few years later, university expansion plus the lack of guaranteed job assignments would cause the gold content of university students to decline somewhat, in the next ten-plus years, university students would be the most convenient path for countless people to change their own and their family's destiny—there was no other.

"I didn't delay my studies. I call this combining work and rest!"

Li Dongyue moved her cheek away and took six test papers out of her bag, lifting her head. Li Dongling picked up the test papers and looked at them for a few moments. She had done quite well in Chinese, Math, English, Physics, and Chemistry. Especially in this era where English was weak, Li Dongyue had scored 134 points.

"Sister Xue and Sister Luoying have bought me plenty of college entrance exam practice papers and tutorial books!"

Li Dongyue said with a bitter little face. An Ruxue and Yao Luoying would send Li Dongyue a batch of new tutorial books every one or two weeks, not only college entrance exam papers from Hanxi but also college entrance exam papers from Yanjing, Shanghai, Yangcheng, and other places, all sent to Li Dongyue.

Although Li Dongyue's grades weren't bad and she was diligent in studying and willing to do the papers, every time she got double the papers, it still made her little face turn the color of a bitter melon. Those college entrance exam papers were endless—she simply couldn't finish them!

Mentioning Yao Luoying and An Ruxue, Li Dongyue stuck out her tongue and looked toward Li Dongling. Seeing that Li Dongling's expression was as usual, she finally felt relieved.

"You'd better play less. When you get into university, I'll give you a laptop. I can't control what you do in university, but if you don't do well in the exam next year, let alone you, even I will be scolded by the old man!"

"It's time to go back today!"

Li Dongling looked at his watch and said to Li Dongyue.

The Li family's new house in their hometown had already been built. With sufficient funding and enough manpower, the new house was built very quickly.

The Li family's new house was designed according to the two-story house style of his previous life. Compared to those houses now, it was definitely much better, but the exterior appearance didn't reach an exaggerated level. It was mainly the internal facilities, all built according to modern standards. A study, dining room, bathroom, and an entertainment room, etc., were all built.

"Thank you for your hard work!"

Entering the Li house and finishing calling Li Zhenlin and Wang Xiulan, Li Dongling said to a young man with a sturdy build and dark skin standing to the side.

Gong Qing gave an honest smile and touched his hair, "It's all what I should do."

Gong Qing, like Yang Zhi Gao who had always been following Li Dongling, was responsible for the Li family's security. Gong Qing was responsible for protecting the old couple, Li Zhenlin and Wang Xiulan.

One should not have the intention to harm others, but one must absolutely have the intention to guard against others. Especially in these few years, public security was sometimes good and sometimes bad. Li Dongling had Yang Zhi Gao and other security personnel following him, but as Dongling High-Tech grew larger and larger and Li Dongling's net worth became higher and higher, it was hard to guarantee that there wouldn't be those kinds of lawless desperadoes who, unable to make a move on Li Dongling, would make a move on the Li family. Li Dongling would rather spend more on security costs than use money to pay ransoms to those desperadoes!

Like that Boss Yu of New Oriental, and the "Saving Mr. Wu" that Heavenly King Liu acted in—they all had real prototypes. In Hong Kong, there were also news reports from time to time about wealthy people being kidnapped.

Li Dongling had to be on guard!

Although Li Zhenlin and Wang Xiulan weren't used to Gong Qing following them at first, Gong Qing helped the two of them and kept busy, and now the old couple had accepted Gong Qing following them and treated him like a nephew of the Li family.

"Little Gong is a good person, running around for your father and me every day. You all must keep an eye out and find a wife for Little Gong in the future!"

Wang Xiulan, who was busy in the kitchen, didn't forget to nag the Li family members. Li Zhenlin, who was drinking wine with a small dish of snacks, shouted to Wang Xiulan, "You're the one who worries too much. Little Gong has already said that there is a blind date arranged at home, and he will come to Pingyang after the New Year. You're worrying for nothing. If you have that leisure time, you'd better worry about your own family!"

Well, hearing this, how could Li Dongling and Li Dongshan not know that Wang Xiulan and Li Zhenlin were hinting at them, telling them to quickly marry a daughter-in-law for the Li family and let the two of them hold a big fat grandson and granddaughter.

Seeing Li Dongling and Li Dongshan walk out, Li Zhenlin took a sip of wine and felt it was somewhat tasteless, muttering in a low voice, "Did I not make it clear enough?!"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 110 =====