Chapter 27 Chu Shijian: Days in the Mountains

Chu Shijian, a name that is destined to be remembered by some people, a person who was once the most controversial, has faded from many people's vision now, and now he lives in a small yellow building on the emerald green Ailao Mountain. Li, in the south of the cloud. The two-story yellow building is hidden in the thick green of the mountains and slopes. There is a patio of about 200 square meters in the middle of the yard. Several palm trees and some flowers and plants are planted in the yard. This is Chu Shijian Yunnan Ai. Chu Shijian lived on the second floor of the residence on the prison mountain.

Chu Shijian was born in a peasant family in 1928. Now he is 78 years old. What people see now is a frail old man with gray hair. He suffers from severe diabetes. Tears, his legendary life has become a memory of people, he lived in the mountains and managed his own orchard. Since 1999, Chu Shijian and his younger brother Chu Shizuo have rented and planted fruit on the Ailao Mountain in Yunnan Province. Later, as the scale grew, the two separated and managed their own orchards. Today, Chu Shijian’s orchard covers more than 2,000 mu, covering the entire mountain. There are more than 100 farmers and more than 300 people tending those fruit trees. Most of the fruit trees have not yet borne fruit, but they have already harvested a little.

Many times, 78-year-old Chu Shijian likes to look at his orange orchard through the endless greenery on the mountain. Man knows what he is thinking. The past is not like smoke. A person's past will more or less have a few time points protruding there and being seen by others, especially for Chu Shijian. In 1963, Chu Shijian worked as the director of a sugar factory in Gasa. Later, when the organization was raised, he had two choices: one was the director of the Yuxi Cigarette Factory, and the other was the party secretary of the coal mine.He wanted to go to the coal mine because there was a river there, and he liked to catch fish and shrimp since he was a child.But his wife firmly opposed it, because she was unwilling to stay in the mountains for many years and disagreed with his choice.In the end, he went to the tobacco factory, and this visit has since rewritten a chapter in the history of Chinese tobacco.

In October 1979, Chu Shijian became the director of Yuxi Cigarette Factory. From then on, this person's life also began to undergo tremendous changes.From not being able to smoke at the beginning to learning to smoke in order to taste the quality of tobacco, the development of a tobacco factory under the management of such a manager is destined to attract people's attention one day.In the more than ten years of being the factory manager, Chu Shijian made up his mind twice and spent huge sums of money to introduce foreign equipment, which made Yuxi Cigarette Factory suddenly enter the ranks of world-class tobacco factories, and turned a small local factory into a later Known as the "money printing factory", a huge tobacco empire was built.

1986 may be a peaceful year for many people, but in this year, as an entrepreneur, Chu Shijian made a forward-looking and far-reaching decision and pioneering work for Yuxi Cigarette Factory. The company, supply and marketing cooperatives, and the "four mountains" of the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau directly deal with smokers and regard the countryside as the "first workshop" of the factory.At that time, in order to allow tobacco farmers to grow high-quality tobacco leaves, Chu Shijian once creatively used the investment from tobacco factories to directly go to tobacco fields to build high-quality tobacco leaf bases, and spent a lot of money to import high-quality fertilizers and sell them to tobacco farmers at very low prices. Every year, Hongta The group also withdraws 2 billion to 3 billion yuan from tax profits to return to tobacco farmers. This part of the funds is not included in Hongta's tax profits, but is included in Hongta's costs.Many of the tobacco farmers at that time are now rich, and the "win-win" with the tobacco farmers is the tobacco factory. The raw materials of Hongta are getting better and stronger every day, and the competitiveness is getting stronger day by day, which fully guarantees the supply of raw materials and makes the tobacco factory generate huge benefits. , providing a steady stream of "paper" for this "banknote printing factory".This year should be a mark that we can see on the time storage fitness.

In 1990, Chu Shijian was awarded the National Outstanding Entrepreneur Lifetime Honor Award "Golden Globe Award", which is an affirmation of an outstanding entrepreneur and an honor that many entrepreneurs cannot get in their lifetime.At that time, when he was interviewed by a reporter, he used Dr. Hammer, a great American entrepreneur, as an example, and proposed that "life starts at sixty", expressing his desire to serve for life, and hoping to be able to grow old.In this interview, he also talked about the difference in interests between Chinese entrepreneurs and foreign entrepreneurs. He said: "There is a big difference between our Chinese entrepreneurs and foreign entrepreneurs. We have to put our own interests behind. Put your own interests first.” That is to say, from then on, Chu Shijian used his power to approve cigarettes for others, and his relatives received a lot of money from it, equivalent to a total of more than 50 million yuan.

In 1994, Chu Shijian was rated as one of the top ten reform figures in the country. He reached the pinnacle of his life and also reached a height that many entrepreneurs could not reach in their lifetime. However, the road after that took a sharp turn. In February 1995, an anonymous report letter was sent to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, reflecting that someone had bribed Chu Shijian to obtain approval to supply cigarettes.Soon, Chu Shijian and several relatives were interrogated one by one, and his daughter committed suicide in prison.Chu Shijian, an outstanding entrepreneur who was once highly respected, began to encounter life-threatening changes, and his whole life fell into a trough of depression. and reflection all in one.No one knows what he is thinking at the moment.

In 1999, Chu Shijian was sentenced to life imprisonment (later commuted to 17 years) for the crime of corruption and the crime of unidentified sources of huge amounts of property, and was sentenced to life imprisonment and deprived of political rights for life.The founder of a tobacco kingdom, a generation of "Tobacco King" is a myth of yesterday. During the Spring Festival of 2002, Chu Shijian suffered from severe diabetes and was released on medical parole. He returned to live at home, and his activities were limited to the Yuxi area. Chu Shijian's life kept jumping up and down at these points in time. He climbed to the peak and then fell to the bottom. High-profile dreams also have low-level reality. The ups and downs are all interpreted in Chu Shijian's life. Good fortune makes people, and a person's experience can be so complicated.

Chu Shijian has been away from "Hongta" for nearly 10 years. During the 10 years, he went from being sentenced to life imprisonment to being commuted to fixed-term imprisonment for 17 years; from more than 1 year in prison to more than 2 years of labor reform; from 2002 Spring Festival medical parole to now living in seclusion in the mountains; From "China Tobacco King" to planting fruit trees in Ailao Mountain in Yunnan and running his own orange orchard. 10 years passed by the old man unconsciously, just like time will change everyone, the passing time has changed the head of the once glorious "Hongta" for 18 years, his mentality He has completely changed, he is already old, he no longer wants to recall the past that changed the rest of his life, and he does not want to participate in the real life of the outside world, he has even become used to living in the mountains every day, recuperating from illness and managing the orchard , watching TV or reading a newspaper.

Chu Shijian, the rough and complicated character in his life, maybe he is very tired, maybe the life in the mountains is more conducive to him to spend his old age peacefully. However, although fewer and fewer people see him, Chu Shijian will always be remembered by people, those tobacco farmers still remember him, and the local vendors in "Hongta" will still talk about his past to people who come to visit Chu Shijian There are legendary or non-legendary stories about him. The current top executives of the "Hongta" will often drive to the mountains to ask him for advice. Reporters will also search for him along the rugged mountain roads. Shi Jian.Chu Shijian should be very clear in his heart that his influence in the hearts of Chinese business circles and even ordinary people has not disappeared. At least, his influence on Hongta has not disappeared. It's already closed.

However, even though he lived in seclusion in the mountains, rumors of his comeback never stopped. There is a reason for this. After Chu Shijian, Hongta Group's entire management and market have undergone tremendous changes.Since 1999, Hongta Group's total sales and total profits and taxes have been declining year by year.At that time, the sum of profits and taxes of all other tobacco factories in Yunnan Province was less than half of that of Hongta Group in Chu Shijian's era; but now, the sum of profits and taxes of several other tobacco factories is much higher than that of Hongta Group. In the 2004 ranking list, the brand value of "Hongta Mountain", which had won the title of China's No. 1 brand for seven consecutive years, fell to the sixth place; Gold)” brand cigarettes were judged as unqualified products because of excessive tar content, and were ordered to suspend production for rectification. The year-on-year decline of Hongta Group's total sales and total profits and taxes reminds people of the glory of Hongta under Chu Shijian's management.