Lu Weimin briefly explained the situation to the girl, emphasizing the enormous pressure that Nantang might face due to the 400,000 kilograms of kiwifruit that need to be sold, especially since the local consumer market has not yet been developed. Selling this amount of kiwifruit would be particularly difficult.
"Lu Weimin, why did you only think about finding a market now for such a big matter? What were the county officials doing before? In less than a month, as you said, there is no consumption habit in the province. You can't expect much. How do you plan to open up the market in Beijing and Shanghai? Are you going to blindly go to the fruit wholesale markets in Beijing and Shanghai and ask each vendor if they want our Nantang kiwifruit? That's a bit too childish, isn't it?"
The girl looked at Lu Weimin with an incredulous expression, but seeing his helpless shrug, she realized this was not a question he could answer, and now was not the time to answer it. Instead, they needed to think about how to solve the problem.
"So, what do you plan to do?"
"I haven't fully figured it out yet, but I have a preliminary idea. On one hand, I need to go to Changzhou and look for some connections. I checked, and this year's Mid-Autumn Festival is on October 3, which is around the time our Nantang kiwifruit will be on the market. Some large state-owned enterprises in Changzhou have the habit of distributing fruit and mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. For example, my father's Factory 195 usually gives a box of apples. If we can change that to kiwifruit this year, it might help solve part of the problem." Lu Weimin didn't hide anything from Su Yanqing, "However, whether this will work is still uncertain, and we'll have to see once I get back to Changzhou. Yanqing, you're also from Changzhou. If you have any connections, please help think of ways to approach this."
Su Yanqing looked at him with some surprise. She hadn't expected him to be so resourceful, coming up with such an idea.
Of course, she knew about Factory 195. With over 10,000 employees, if each received a box of kiwifruit as a holiday benefit, it could help sell nearly 100,000 kilograms of kiwifruit, which would at least alleviate some of the pressure.
As they were talking, a man in his thirties swaggered in, glanced at the two of them, and said with a nonchalant expression, "I'm from the Commercial Bureau. The leadership sent me to the County Party Committee Office to report. Who should I report to?"
Lu Weimin and Su Yanqing exchanged a look and quickly approached him. "May I ask your surname? I'm Lu Weimin, you can call me Xiao Lu. It's not really a formal report, but we'll be working together for a while. Please have a seat."
The man in his thirties sized up Lu Weimin and Su Yanqing, then nodded. "I figured there was no good news. These bastards sent me here to just pass the time. My name is Chang Chunlai, you can call me Brother Chang or just Chang."
He plopped down in a rattan chair, crossed his legs, and pulled out a pack of Chrysanthemum cigarettes, shaking out two cigarettes. "Xiao Lu, want one?"
"Thanks, Brother Chang, I don't smoke," Lu Weimin quickly declined, inwardly sighing.
It seemed the Commercial Bureau was quite cunning, sending someone who clearly looked like a troublemaker. This guy was aware of his role and made it clear from the start that he was just here to pass the time.
"Xiao Lu, I looked at the document. What are we supposed to do here? Help sell kiwifruit? Why did the county set up a special team to help farmers sell fruit? Isn't that just making trouble for themselves?" The man with the thin face lit his cigarette and blew out a smoke ring. "Why is no one else here? Just the three of us doing this job?"
"Brother Chang, for now, it's just the three of us doing the work, the others are leaders," Lu Weimin said with a smile. "Brother Chang, this is a difficult situation. Our county has a large kiwifruit harvest, and there's no market for it. If we can't sell it, it will be a significant loss for the farmers. If they get upset, it will cause trouble for everyone. So the county decided to help the farmers sell the kiwifruit and hopefully get a good price for it."
"Selling it or not is none of my business," the man with the thin face said indifferently. "The county officials are just making trouble for themselves. Farmers have the freedom to grow what they want. With the household responsibility system, the land is managed by the farmers. Why should the county and township governments interfere? That's just making trouble for themselves. If you force them to grow certain crops, you'll have to deal with the problem of unsold produce. Xiao Lu, isn't that like putting lice on your own head? Now, if the kiwifruit can't be sold, the farmers will only blame the officials, not us."
Lu Weimin and Su Yanqing exchanged glances, surprised that despite his crude language, the man's reasoning was quite sound, though his words were full of insults and curses for the officials.
"Hehe, Brother Chang, you make a good point, but since the leadership has assigned us this task, we have to try to do something. Brother Chang, you have experience in the commercial system, you must have many connections. Do you have any good ideas?" Lu Weimin asked with a smile.
"Don't, Xiao Lu, don't put me on a pedestal, I'll fall and hurt myself! The state-owned commercial system is what it is. You can't expect the Commercial Bureau to help you find a market. Those bastards spend their days playing with women and cards. What else do they do?" The man with the thin face was unmoved. "In short, Xiao Lu, don't expect the commercial system to come up with a solution. It's not going to happen."
"Then, Brother Chang, do you think we should look for solutions outside the system?" Su Yanqing asked, her eyes sparkling with a smile.
The man's expression softened slightly at the beauty's intervention. "I've been in the Commercial Bureau for over ten years, and everything is done by the book, from planning to execution. Now, we need to sell hundreds of thousands of kilograms of kiwifruit. Not to mention whether people like it or not, I can say that very few people in Nantang County or Linyang Region even know how to eat this thing, let alone its taste. How can you expect them to buy it? The big cities are more flexible. Most of the long-distance wholesale trade is done by individual traders. If we want to find a way, we have to look to them."
Lu Weimin felt a surge of hope. He had thought the Commercial Bureau had sent him a troublemaker, but this man with the thin face seemed more capable than his first impression suggested.