Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Make Money! Make Money
「March 20th.」
The Hong Kong-Macau Ferry Terminal in Macau.
Jiang Miao got off the ferry, carrying a backpack.
Not far away was Macau’s racing center. He took out his phone to snap a few pictures before leisurely strolling to Friendship Avenue.
Taxis were parked by the side of the road.
He hailed one at random.
"Taxi, to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel."
"Hold on tight, young man."
A short while later, the taxi pulled up to the hotel entrance.
Jiang Miao got out, backpack in tow.
After checking into the hotel, he took another taxi to the Imperial Palace Entertainment Complex, also located on Friendship Avenue.
The entrance was a scene of golden splendor.
Jiang Miao, now carrying a small shoulder bag, walked calmly into the Imperial Palace Entertainment Complex.
It was already evening, and the main hall was bustling with guests.
He went straight to the front counter.
"I’d like fifty thousand in chips."
The receptionist glanced at him, took the Hong Kong Dollars Jiang Miao offered, and after verifying the cash, gave him fifty thousand in chips.
Having done his research beforehand, Jiang Miao didn’t wander around aimlessly. He studied the directory for a moment, then headed directly for the poker tables.
He found a blackjack table and sat down.
"Mind if I join?"
"Welcome!" a pot-bellied, greasy-looking man replied with a chuckle.
Another young man with spiky hair took a sip of his soda. "Sure, the more the merrier!"
"First time here, kid?" another man with tattooed arms and blond hair asked in Cantonese.
"Yeah!" Jiang Miao nodded with a smile.
An hour later, Jiang Miao’s stack of chips had grown from fifty thousand to three hundred and seventy thousand.
Of the other gamblers at the table, only the greasy-looking man remained; the rest had been replaced by newcomers.
Two more hours passed.
Jiang Miao’s chips soared again, reaching one million, two hundred and sixty thousand.
He had dinner at the Imperial Palace Entertainment Complex, played for another two hours, and ended up with nine hundred and seventy thousand in chips.
Back at the front counter, he handed over his chips. "I’d like to cash out. Please deposit it directly into my account."
The receptionist smiled and nodded, taking the chips and the bank card he had opened in Hong Kong the day before. "No problem. Please wait a moment."
Ten-odd minutes later, Jiang Miao left calmly.
Over the next four consecutive days, he hit one entertainment complex per day, increasing the amount in his bank account to 27.38 million.
「On the fifth day, he returned to Hong Kong.」
He went to a Bank of China branch in Hong Kong.
"Hello, how can I help you?"
"A wire transfer. It’s a large amount."
"Please come to a private room."
Two hours later, Jiang Miao had successfully converted 27.38 million Hong Kong Dollars into 24.89 million in Red Currency.
He then sent a WeChat message to his uncle, telling him he was back on the mainland.
That afternoon, Jiang Miao crossed the border at the Peng City checkpoint, backpack on, and boarded a high-speed train. A little over an hour later, he was back at the high-speed rail station in downtown Hailufeng.
In less than a week, he had completed his initial capital accumulation.
After getting home, he first checked on the eels in the tank, then placed some things he had bought in Hong Kong on the table.
He took a hot shower.
Then he lay down on his bed and thought about what to do next.
’He had the money now. While over twenty million wasn’t a huge amount, it was enough to start a farm. After all, breeding eels required a large site. Fortunately, there was a large area of fish ponds in nearby Magong Town. His hometown in Xinxiang also had many fish, shrimp, and oyster ponds, but they had unfortunately been expropriated in recent years.’
’I’ll need at least fifty mu of fish ponds. The ponds near Magong cost about 1,500 yuan per mu per year, so that’s around 75,000 a year.’
’Pond equipment and materials will be over a million. Building a fully enclosed, five-mu breeding facility will cost around five million.’
"And to get fry quickly, I’ll have to buy semi-mature white eels, not glass eels. That’s another expense."
"Then there are labor costs, utilities, feed, consumables, and medicine. I’ll need to set aside at least five million for those."
"And to ensure the eels’ breeding efficiency, using wild algae is too inefficient. I’ll have to cultivate it myself, which is another cost."
Jiang Miao recalled that the eels required three types of algae.
They were *Trichodesmium*, *Heterosigma*, and *Schizochytrium*.
In addition, the eels needed to reach a specific internal mineral content. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t undergo sexual differentiation.
The mineral aspect, however, was relatively easy to manage.
Jiang Miao picked up a notebook and pen, jotting down everything he needed to purchase or produce himself.
For example, if he could mass-produce the right algae, he wouldn’t need to use expensive hormones and drugs to induce the eels’ sexual differentiation.
This was the key to reducing costs and increasing efficiency in artificial eel breeding.
At the same time, Jiang Miao knew full well that this technology couldn’t be hidden from prying eyes.
After all, his farm would need employees. And if someone was curious enough and willing to spend a little money, they could easily find out what feed and medicines he was using.
Therefore, the eel fry business had to be a blitz. He needed to ship a massive volume right from the start, pocket that first wave of fast money, and then, once other companies started to imitate him, slash prices to a razor-thin margin. That way, they wouldn’t be able to recoup their investment in the short term.
To achieve this, the first shipment of eel fry needed to be at least a hundred tons, enough to swallow the entire Asian market.
Jiang Miao had researched the eel fry market of recent years; the peak supply was only sixty to seventy tons.
If his company could produce one hundred tons of eel fry annually, any competitor would have to seriously consider whether they could even break even before entering the market.
After all, market demand was the primary driver.
If the market was suddenly saturated with product and profit margins were trending downward, other companies wouldn’t jump in immediately. Instead, they would choose to wait and see.
Although Jiang Miao took the eel fry industry seriously, he didn’t see it as his core business.
After all, this set of eel breeding techniques would be inherently difficult to keep completely secret.
He could file patents to legally deter some companies, but it was far too easy to circumvent a patent for this kind of aquaculture technology.
Besides, it would be impossible to monitor smaller companies or foreign ones.
Jiang Miao didn’t want to spend all his time in litigation, so leveraging his first-mover advantage, followed by a price war, was the best option for now.
Having outlined his general strategy, he planned to ask his brother-in-law for help tomorrow to rent a suitable fish pond in Magong.
Then he would register a sole proprietorship.
But first, he went online and contacted a patent agency in Peng City to help him register domestic and international patents for his eel breeding technology.
After settling on the price and various details, Jiang Miao sent them a deposit.
The patent would be registered directly under his personal name.
Once that was handled, he found a local business registration agency, and they agreed to meet the next afternoon.
The reason Jiang Miao was in such a hurry to establish a company was that he didn’t want to waste his energy on miscellaneous trifles.
Tasks like finding a patent agent today could easily be delegated to an assistant; there was no need for him to handle everything personally.
As for the future of his company, Jiang Miao naturally envisioned it as a technology firm.
Technological dominance was the ultimate path to victory; business strategies and clever schemes were, in the end, just minor tactics.
And Jiang Miao, with his appraisal system, had a massive advantage in technology.
Therefore, he didn’t need any management prodigies or business geniuses to join him. The employees he needed just had to be honest and reliable.
