Chapter 2 Chapter 1 Grassroots

Time is layered on top of each other, and the closer the memories are to us, the more life and death feel. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, professional pit households began to appear in Wenzhou and Chuzhou, Zhejiang Province, to be responsible for mining, while furnace households were responsible for smelting: "As for the households of pits and furnaces, there are dozens of people at most, and no more than five or six people at the least. There are not many, decocting and washing is very easy, scattered in the mountains, work sporadically, each relying on the mountains as a career."

Based on the division of labor, the buying and selling of ore appeared, and this became the formation of the earliest sprout of capitalism in China.According to the 21st volume of "Chenxi County Chronicles" during the Daoguang period: "There are also factory owners who buy charcoal mines, hire men, and instigate raw boards. It is estimated that each furnace requires about dozens of workers and porters." Most of the "factory residents" who hire people to smelt iron are foreign businessmen, and there are also indigenous residents. Therefore, iron factories are divided into customer factories and township factories: "They buy coal mines, set up furnaces on the banks of the county's streams, and hire people. Husband casts pig iron, known as raw board, and there are many factories and customer factories. For rural factories, several people share a furnace, and each uses the charcoal ore they get to cast in turn. The day is very short. Customer factories, or One or more people partner to buy coal mines in advance, and start the furnace every autumn when it is cool, until the spring and summer of the next year."

Wenzhou has inadvertently entered China's economic history, but these vague economic models are far from what Wenzhou has really experienced after the reform and opening up. 1978 was a new beginning of contemporary Chinese business history, and it was also an alternative sample of Wenzhou people as a "grassroots business class" to realize the "China Wealth Dream". In the tide of new China's economic development, Wenzhou people dare to think, try, act, and be the first in the world, and have created many amazing firsts; ...to seize market opportunities and win repeatedly.The boldness of Wenzhou people is not the behavior of individual Wenzhou people. It is more deeply reflected in the characteristics and qualities of the entire Wenzhou group and has been widely circulated by all walks of life.

It is this "alternative" market sample, but it has a special historical opportunity. It is only 30 years away from our life today, but it seems to be thousands of miles away.Although we always feel that "there are amazing similarities in history" afterwards, for some histories, it is so irreproducible. Every generation needs its own revolution.With the encouragement of policies, the support of public opinion, and the improvement of the social environment, the business form is in an ignorant budding posture.Inspired by history, many people from poor backgrounds actively or passively embarked on the road of individual industrial and commercial households, accumulating primitive capital, and laying the groundwork for their future business career.

They are us. What kind of grass roots is this? Their birthplace is not "large land and abundant resources". A place as big as a palm can neither "eat the mountains by relying on the mountains" nor "eat the sea by relying on the sea". The only waterway is still a dead end.And their road to prosperity seems to run counter to "knowledge is power".Most people go to the sea with mud legs, and have nothing to do with highly educated or returnees. The background of businessmen is mostly portrayed as "farmers" and "small merchants and hawkers". When policies support umbrellas, they are less blessed and often marginalized. ; When the brakes are on the brakes, they are the eyes of the wind, bearing the ideological pressure of all parties, and they are the living targets of all critics.However, it is this group of people who, in the palm-sized Wenzhou, wear the hat of "poor resource endowment" and create the myth of wealth with a completely weak attitude, which has become a paradox in economic propositions.

Land is the means of production that Chinese people have depended on for generations to support their families.In Chinese history, fertile land means rich products and rich people. Wenzhou City is located in the southeast of Zhejiang Province, surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing the sea in the east. The mountainous area accounts for 78% of the total area. The saying of "seven mountains, one water and two fields" is true.According to data records, before the founding of New China, the per capita arable land in Wenzhou was only one-third and four centimeters. Sometimes the Creator doesn't seem fair.Wenzhou, where arable land is scarce, is also very poor in geological mineral deposits. Except for some relatively cheap stone materials, there are only scattered metal deposits. The scale is small and the mining value is not high.All the coal resources Wenzhou needs come from other places and are delivered by sea ships.

Wenzhou belongs to the hilly area, and the surrounding mountains are not high, but they are exceptionally steep.Wenzhou is even more exaggerated. The Qingjiang River, Oujiang River, Feiyun River, and Aojiang River are distributed in parallel in Wenzhou. Cars need to ferry four times across Wenzhou. "The car jumps, Wenzhou arrives", "Running all the roads in the world, you are afraid of Wenzhou crossing", such folk proverbs vividly describe the bad traffic conditions in Wenzhou. Before the reform and opening up, it took three days and three nights to travel from Wenzhou to the metropolis of Shanghai.Until the early 1980s, it still took a day and a night to increase the speed of sea traffic.The distance between Wenzhou and Shanghai also symbolizes the distance between Wenzhou's economy and development.

As a coastal city, Wenzhou in history had a period of neither plague nor fire. Quanzhou in the south and Ningbo in the north became famous in the prosperous Tang Dynasty and became the starting point of the "Maritime Silk Road".During the Song Dynasty, Quanzhou became the "largest port in the East", and Ningbo was also listed as an important port city for foreign trade, and its glory was incomparable. Located in the middle of the eastern coastline of China, as a coastal city, Wenzhou also has the mission of foreign maritime exchanges, but compared with Ningbo, Quanzhou, Yangzhou, etc., it has always been ordinary and lackluster.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Nanjing, Jiujiang, and Wuhan along the Yangtze River also became more and more prosperous due to their geographical advantages. However, due to the sea ban policy, the entire coastal line of Wenzhou moved inward, and Wenzhou failed to stand out after all. "To a large extent, although Wenzhou is also built along the coast, it does not have outstanding conditions for building a port, and the hinterland of the port is not wide enough. Because the mountains behind it block the transportation of goods." The location is not outstanding, Wenzhou has nothing to do, and has always been out of the developed foreign maritime trade.

The shallowness of innate "qualification" seems to have doomed Wenzhou to fall behind. Until the 1960s and 1970s after the founding of New China, poverty and famine still plagued Wenzhou. The folk song "Pingyang begs for food, Wencheng traffickers, Yongjia flees, and Dongtou relies on loans to eat" is widely spread.Before the reform and opening up, there were 8 counties in Wenzhou. Residents of Cangnan, Pingyang, Wencheng, Taishun, and Yongjia all had the habit of "farming when busy and begging when free". According to records: "In Wenzhou in 1978, with a population of 5.6 million, the GDP was 1.322 billion yuan, and the city's per capita savings was only 8 yuan. Taking Yongjia County as an example, the cultivated land area in 1978 was 382,900 mu, which was 4.1 less than that in 1949. However, the population reached 683,200 this year, a full 337,600 more than in 1949. What's worse, a heavy rain at the beginning of the year damaged 20,000 mu of farmland in the county. In summer, a The field drought lasted from August 29 to October 30, and more than 70,000 mu of farmland were affected."

Under such unbearable poverty and hardship, there are families who are driven to nowhere by poverty. As the saying goes, "The children of the poor are the first to head the family".Such stories emerged endlessly in Wenzhou in the 1970s. According to legend, if the families surnamed Nan in Wenzhou go back for more than three generations, they will find that most of them come from one place: an ancient village called Nanzhai in Huanghua Town, Yueqing, a local prominent family. In 1976, in Shangyuan Village, Liushi, Wenzhou, a cobbler surnamed Nan had an eldest son named Nan Cunhui. Walls built of rubble, houses with thatched roofs, half-starved days, and the feeling of being discriminated against are unforgettable. After going through hardships and tribulations, Nan Cunhui's childhood and youth had nothing to do with the famous family. When he was 6 years old, he was selling rice bran and eggs along the street. One day, the cobbler had an accident when he went out and suffered a comminuted fracture of his leg. The doctor ordered him to rest for a year or two.The hostess of this family has always been weak, and the whole family lost their mainstay for a while and fell into anxiety.So the cobbler called his eldest son Nan Cunhui to him and taught him the technique of mending shoes.Needless to say, the burden of supporting a family fell on this 13-year-old boy.Only ten days before graduation from junior high school, the pressure of life forced the boy Nan Cunhui to drop out of school and become a small handicraft worker. In the cold winter, the shoe mending awl stuck into his hand, he gritted his teeth and pulled out the awl, wrapped the wound with torn paper, and insisted on mending the shoes for the guests—this is an unbearable memory of Nan Cunhui.He dared not go to crowded places, for fear that his classmates would lose face if they saw him.Finally, he met his classmate's mother.She asked with concern: "Why are you? Why are you mending shoes here? Don't you go to school? No matter how difficult you are, you must read good books." A few words of concern broke through the limit of Nan Cunhui's psychological endurance.He immediately closed the stall and went home, shouting to his father who was lying on the bed: "This business has no future, and I will not do it with a knife on my neck." His father patiently persuaded: "It is an honor to support a family with your own hands. If your younger brothers and sisters become talents in the future, it will be your success." In this way, the helplessness of life forced Nan Cunhui to carry the toolbox again, leaving early and returning late, and it took three years in a flash. Blessings come from misfortunes, and misfortunes depend on blessings.Nan Cunhui, who repairs and mends shoes, is well-informed, and three years later he had a new idea of ​​making a fortune. One day in 1984, Nan Cunhui met Hu Chengzhong, a classmate in elementary school. Hu Chengzhong is 3 years older than Nan Cunhui, and at this time he has been out selling for several years. Hu Chengzhong's "high income" made the latter both envious and jealous, and Nan Cunhui was tempted.Seeing that many families in Liushi started the low-voltage electrical appliance business in the form of "shop in front and factory in back", Nan Cunhui and Hu Chengzhong pooled money together to set up a counter, which later developed into a "Qiujing switch factory". This is the predecessor of Chint Group and Delixi Group, two famous private enterprises in Wenzhou today. The land is scarce and located in a corner. Wenzhou's barrenness and neglect of nature have forced Wenzhou people to find their own way, work hard, and work hard. God is also fair.Wenzhou does not have a unique geographical location, but it has bred a group of ingenious people. Wenzhou was called "Oudi" in ancient times, and the so-called "Ou" is a kind of pottery vessel. According to the judgment of historians, the primitive people living in Wenzhou began to make pottery during the Neolithic Age.Since the Tang and Song dynasties, Wenzhou's papermaking, shipbuilding, silk, embroidery, lacquerware, shoe leather and other handicraft industries have had a status that cannot be underestimated. Ou embroidery, hair embroidery, Ou sculpture (oil clay sculpture), stone carving, boxwood carving, bamboo shoot shell carving, Yueqing fine-grained paper, colored stone inlay, rice sculpture, bamboo silk inlay and other traditional folk handicrafts are exquisite and skilled craftsmen abound. Where there is craftsmanship, there is business.As a port city, Wenzhou is bleak, but as a handicraft manufacturing city, small businesses in Wenzhou are thriving."Ode to Yongjia" written by Yang Pan, a poet of the Northern Song Dynasty, records the bustle and prosperity of Wenzhou. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yongjia School was formed, advocating the study of utilitarianism and opposing empty talks about life. This idea corresponds to the strong atmosphere of commodity economy in Wenzhou in the Southern Song Dynasty.At that time, emerging classes such as rich workers, wealthy businessmen, and landlords operating in industry and commerce had already appeared in Yongjia area and continued to develop.The meritorious Yongjia School represents the thinking of this group of people. But in Wenzhou, there are more craftsmen, craftsmen, and small businessmen.These people always earn money through skills and coolies, with meager profits and humble status, and it is difficult to provide for their families, let alone a wealthy party. "Silkworm Woman" written by Zhang Yu, a poet of the Northern Song Dynasty: "I entered the city yesterday, and came back full of tears. Those who are covered in silk are not silkworm farmers." It used to be the most authentic portrayal of handicraftsmen. But today is different.When the material needs of people's lives are gradually released and enriched day by day, Wenzhou people who are ingenious and skilled in craftsmanship begin to come alive. With a strong commodity economy foundation and excellent craftsmanship, at the beginning of the reform and opening up, Wenzhou people took the lead and created a precedent of family workshops with "shop in front and factory in back". It has been the second year of reform and opening up. Although he has a regular job in the unit, Zheng Xiukang's life is still difficult.After thinking twice, Zheng Xiukang quit his job at the unit and opened a workshop at home. "I decided to make consumer goods, either making sofas or making shoes. In the end, I chose to make shoes because my family's house was too small. The whole family squeezed into a hut with only 8 square meters, and even a sofa couldn't fit in." 33 years old Zheng Xiukang learned from a teacher to make the first pair of leather shoes, and the history of the "Kangnai" brand originated from this. The start-up fund of a family workshop does not need much, but Zheng Xiukang still suffers from the problem of venue and funds.In the end, his wife took out all the dowry items, including five pieces of wool and a watch, which were rare in that era, and sold them all at half price. In a workshop of only 3 square meters, Zheng Xiukang started making shoes at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, had dinner at eight or nine o'clock in the evening, and continued after dinner, until two or three o'clock in the morning of the next day, every day.Due to the excessive fatigue of the hands, 10 fingers trembled.Wealth is accumulated slowly and orderly.In such a day, he can make 3 pairs, earn more than ten yuan, and several hundred yuan in a month. It is those humble "family workshops" that are the first overall start-up of Wenzhou's economy and the germination of Wenzhou's future glory. Picking up leftovers to make up for vacancies is the biggest feature of Wenzhou's family-style workshops. It can be said that Wenzhou's economy started from picking up rubbish. The family workshop has no machines, so they pick up the discarded machinery and equipment from large state-owned enterprises, or buy them from scrap yards, repair them, spray paint, and become the production tools in the workshop. Wenzhou people are also good at waste utilization.The waste plastics were picked up by Wenzhou people, processed and made into woven bags.Up to now, woven bags are still one of the pillar industries in Wenzhou. The leftovers of mixed colors and broken needles and threads in garment factories are often treated as waste products by garment factories, but Yishan Town, Cangnan, Wenzhou, which is good at weaving, can turn them into brand new cotton wool balls.The production of recycled acrylic fibers started in the 1960s and 1970s, not only made local residents rich, but also made Cangnan Yishan famous. Today, there are more than 10 villages, thousands of households buying and selling fabric corners, thousands of related upstream and downstream enterprises, more than 20,000 processing equipment, and more than 200,000 employees. The recycled acrylic fiber in Yishan Town has become industrialized , The products are sold at home and abroad.According to statistics, in 1999, the total output value of the recycled textile industry in Yishan Town exceeded 4 billion yuan. By 1985, according to the headlines on the front page of the "Liberation Daily" on May 12 of that year, there were 330,000 people in Wenzhou engaged in cottage industries. According to the paper "Analysis of the Growth Path of Wenzhou Private Enterprises" written by Luo Weidong, a professor of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of Zhejiang University, relevant statistics show that in 1986, there were 110,000 farmers in Wenzhou who were concurrently operating industries, with 300,000 employees and an income of 638.14 million. Yuan, and the industrial output value of peasant households concurrently operating accounted for 50% of the total agricultural output value of the year. It is those Wenzhou people who know a little craft and are good at tinkering, who have become the pioneer representatives of the individual and private economy in New China.Whether it is buttons, zippers, lighters, razors, or glasses, clothing, leather, shoes, small household appliances, etc., they are all small commodities, and they all started from family workshops. This is closely related to the development of handicraft manufacturing in Wenzhou history. inseparable relationship. Simultaneously with the rise of family workshops, there are self-employed households. At the beginning of 1980, Zhang Huamei, who lived on Jiefang North Road, Wenzhou City, received the first "business license for individual industrial and commercial households" in the country. On the one hand, due to the pressure of life, on the other hand, my father's encouragement, my shop "opened" in November 1979.It is said to be a store, but it is actually a small table placed at the door of my house, selling some daily necessities for a few cents, such as buttons, medals, watch straps, etc.Later, the family began to process some daily necessities, and then sold them.Gradually, some people around me also learned from my family. However, even in Wenzhou, people at that time looked down on small businesses and envied collective enterprises and state-owned enterprises. Some of my classmates felt ashamed when they saw me set up a stall and started a small business. When they passed by my house, They would turn their faces away, pretending not to recognize me.At first, I couldn't even lift my head up.But after working for a while, I found that there was still some money in the account every day. After a month, I could earn more than 100 yuan, which was more than twice the monthly income of an ordinary worker at that time. I felt very happy and calmed down.Thinking about people going to work to make money, I also make money!Just think about it. The form of "starting to process some daily necessities at home and then selling them" is gradually becoming popular. This is the complementarity between "self-employed" and "family workshops". If you are poor, you want to change. Trees are moved to die, people are moved to live, and they can travel around with their skills. The capable Wenzhou people leave Wenzhou and go to other places to seek a living. In the 1970s, Wenzhou people had a knife, a pair of scissors, and a slingshot bow, and went all over the world for their home.Zhu Kang, a professor at the Party School of the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee, once said: "30 years ago, craftsmen in Wenzhou had spread to every corner of China, and they were the backbone of the primary 'Wenzhou Model'." "Where there is a market, there are Wenzhou people, and where there are Wenzhou people, the market can be opened up."In China, Wenzhou people are scattered all over the country, traveling all over the world. There is a famous "Wenzhou Village" in Beijing, the capital. There are Wenzhou people scattered in Dazhong Temple, Wudaokou, Shawo, Dalinting and other places. Typical representatives of Wenzhou merchants, such as the king of buttons, the king of trademarks, etc., all gather in the capital; Shanghai, which is close to the water, is a paradise for Wenzhou people. Thousands of Wenzhou people are hiding behind the prosperous shops on Nanjing Road in Shanghai; Kunming in the south, welcomed a group of Wenzhou people before and after the reform and opening up. They started to accumulate capital from shoeshine, cotton padding, and street stalls. After decades of development, Wenzhou merchants established a base camp in Kunming—Kunming Xinluosiwan International Trade City; distance is not a problem. Traveling across mountains and rivers, according to incomplete statistics, nearly half of the foreigners who enter Tibet for business come from Wenzhou. There is a "Wenzhou Street" in far away Lhasa, mainly tailor shops that Wenzhou people are best at. . Wenzhou people who have been traveling around for many years are good at interpersonal communication and have a strong adaptability. More importantly, they are familiar with the customs of various places, grasp the market demand of each region, and have established reliable and stable sales channels. Later, in the process of Wenzhou's "small commodities" opening up "big markets", Wenzhou's farmers' supply and marketing teams went deep into various towns and villages in the national market, and once again made great contributions to the "Wenzhou Model". Chen Yunhua wrote in "Wenzhou People Who Can Make Money": "There are more than 4,000 buyers and sellers in the professional hardware and low-voltage electrical appliance market in Liushi City all year round; Qiaoxing Button Market, known as the largest button market in the East, has nearly 10,000 people. There are more than 7,000 people selling products in the badge, sign and plastic film market in the whole township; more than 5,000 people are walking through mountains and rivers in the recycled acrylic fiber market in Yishan District, carrying bags of clothes. Villages and alleys..." These Wenzhou supply and marketing groups, known as "Heavenly Soldiers and Generals", once reached more than 140,000 people.Their composition is very complicated. Some are farmers, some are employees of township enterprises, and some are demobilized soldiers. Statistics show that in Liushi, Wenzhou, all bosses over the age of 40 have worked as electrical supply and sales personnel.Zheng Yuanmeng of Xinhua Electric was originally a barefoot doctor and later became a supply and salesman; Liu Zhichun of Tianli Pipe Fittings was born as a blacksmith and also went to supply and marketing; Hu Chengzhong's experience as a salesman is as unforgettable as Nan Cunhui's experience of mending shoes. In 1978, Hu Chengzhong, who was only 18 years old, took a train bound for Changsha for the first time in his life with 200 yuan given by his sister.On the rural dirt road in the suburbs of Changsha, Hu Chengzhong trudged through the mud with samples on his back.Carrying steamed buns and water on their backs, they usually spend the night at village households. If they can’t find a place to live, they can spend the night on a haystack.At the end of the year, in order to sell low-voltage electrical appliances, Hu Chengzhong had been running between the pumping stations of 85 villages in the suburbs of Changsha for more than ten days.A tractor drove in the distance, and he chased desperately, but the tractor still drove past.He could only wait patiently in the cold for the next car to take him to the next sales location. At 9 o'clock one night, after waiting on the road for more than 4 hours in the bitter cold wind, Hu Chengzhong struggled to climb onto the passing coal truck.At this time, the only wish in his heart was to drink a bowl of hot water and sleep unscrupulously on the two-yuan-a-night bunk.On this day, Hu Chengzhong earned 100 yuan.In that year, the poverty line for Chinese farmers was an annual net income of 100 yuan. As an oriental Jew, the people of Wenzhou speak Wu language softly and travel to the oceans with all their skills. There are groups of Wenzhou businessmen in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. "Business world" is the best portrayal of Wenzhou people. The history of overseas immigration of Wenzhou people first occurred one or two hundred years ago.The first batch of Wenzhou people who left overseas, brought Ou embroidery, wood carving and other technologies, "smuggled" across the ocean and went to Europe and other countries through various means. Su Dong recorded in "Interpreting China's Economic Miracle: The Great Chinese": The history of Wenzhou people emigrating to Europe can be traced back to the First World War. In 1917, the then Beiyang government announced its participation in the war and recruited about 140,000 laborers from various places to France to support the Allied forces.According to the contract signed with the British and French governments, these laborers were paid 5 francs a day.At that time, the people in Wenzhou were living in poverty, so young people responded to the call one after another.After the end of World War I, most of the laborers went back to China by ship, and some surviving Wenzhou people chose to stay in France. After many years passed, some of these people made a fortune on their hard work.After the news of their prosperity spread back to their hometown, more Wenzhou youths were attracted to come to France to make a living.Many young people from Wenzhou rely on their skills in stone carving, while others rely on another specialty—leather making, and have traveled to France after a long journey.They usually settled near the train station at first. At the beginning, they relied on selling their labor, or started as small traders, selling some groceries and daily necessities in the streets and alleys. For a long time, "traveling merchants" were synonymous with Wenzhou people. In 2003, the first World Wenzhou People's Congress was grandly held.According to the incomplete statistics in the Wenzhou City Statistical Yearbook in 2003, there were more than 1.6 million Wenzhou people all over the land of China in China, and more than 30,000 enterprises were established, including more than 370,000 individual industrial and commercial households, with an annual sales volume of more than 3,000. Over 400,000 overseas Chinese from Wenzhou live in more than 100 countries and regions around the world. As a famous hometown of overseas Chinese, Wenzhou has 430,000 returned overseas Chinese. The influence of Wenzhou people overseas is not limited to the number of people. The vitality that Wenzhou people bring to the local economy is immeasurable. "Europe Times" once used Paris, France as an example to introduce and explain the current situation of Wenzhou people.It is said that there are currently more than 100,000 Wenzhou people living in France. Through nearly 20 years of hard work, Wenzhou businessmen are engaged in children's clothing, computers, and catering industries in the 2, 3, and 11 districts of Paris. The local Jews were expelled and a territory belonging to Wenzhou merchants was established. It can be seen from this that one is in Wenzhou, one is spread across the country, and the other is far overseas. It is not an exaggeration to say that there are three in Wenzhou's economy. Today, the Wenzhou song "Flying Hometown" still seems to be telling the bitter experience of Wenzhou merchants: "Because of having wings, there is also flying; because of flying, there is also paradise... colorful birds The place where I fly over is the singing of my Wenzhou people; the place where the colorful birds settle is my hometown of Wenzhou people...Fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly...Because I have a dream, how can I dare And dare not; because the tide catches the waves, even if the waves wet the wings!" The so-called grassroots means that people come from an ordinary and wandering background, and they are still full of vigor despite hardships. Before the reform and opening up, Wenzhou was vividly described as: "The front line of coastal defense in the 1950s, the front line of fighting in the 1960s, and the short-term investment in the 1970s." In the 1950s, the Kuomintang took Wenzhou as a bridgehead to counterattack the mainland.The government decided to "let it in, close the door and beat the dogs", and designated Wenzhou as the front line of anti-imperialist and anti-Chiang.As armed personnel sent by the Kuomintang landed and airborne again and again, the political strings in Wenzhou were stretched tighter than anywhere else. In the 1960s, large-scale fighting occurred in Wenzhou.The most violent fighting in the country at that time was Wuhan and Wenzhou.Unlike Wuhan, Wenzhou was violently fought, with countless casualties.The fighting caused Wenzhou's food, water, coal, and electricity to be in short supply, and people were panicked. Therefore, folk songs were popular at that time: "There is no rice in the daytime, and there is no quilt in the evening; the Federation of Industry and Commerce will let you have food; The sky is light, and the evening is by moonlight." According to statistics, from 1957 to 1978, Wenzhou's industrial growth was only 3.26 times, while that of Zhejiang Province was 5.47 times and that of the whole country was 6.01 times.During this period, Wenzhou experienced: Yongjia's "household contracting" was criticized, "abandoning agriculture and doing business" was hit, "underground factories" were closed, "bazaar trade" was closed, and Wenzhou became "the center of national capitalist restoration". typical".Several times of wind and rain, Wenzhou's economy is in decline. What makes people in Wenzhou even more unbearable is that from 1949 to 1978, the state only invested 595 million yuan in Wenzhou, just like the "outcast" of the government and the country, fending for itself. The harsh and cruel living environment has given Wenzhou people the indomitable "tenacity".After several years of exploration, Wenzhou's family workshops, commune and team enterprises began to take shape.There are more small commodities and small electrical appliances produced, and more resources and accessories are needed.One after another, the market began to flow and become active. Those salesmen who have been traveling abroad for many years have brought back a lot of market information: what is lacking in Northeast China and what Wenzhou has, where can we find urgently needed materials in Wenzhou, where the price is high and where the price is low, etc.Such market conditions are well known by hundreds of thousands of Wenzhou "marketing troops". At that time, the supply and marketing team who went out to purchase buttons often ran the risk of being investigated.Ye Kechun, the "No. 1 Button Man" in the Qiaotou Market, recalled: "At that time, the government was so strict that we didn't dare to go through the main entrance of the train station with our goods on our backs. We had to sneak around the train station." Once, Ye Kechun signed a business in another place. When he was staying in a hotel, government officials found out about his contract and he was accused of "speculating". The consignment note, contract and 3,000 yuan were confiscated. Even so, during the "Cultural Revolution", when the people of the whole country were trembling and did not dare to cross the threshold half a step, Wenzhou people still dared to "defend the world's evil".Among them, Liushi established a street enterprise in the name of the neighborhood committee——Liushi General Electric Factory, which has 32 sales offices, which are assigned to special personnel.In these salesrooms, some people are getting more and more courageous, gradually infiltrating into the business field, and start trading in hardware accessories, raw materials, electromechanical and so on. In 1971, a commune and team company produced kerosene drill switches and urgently needed 10,000 pieces of 3×25 screws. They searched all stores but failed, so they turned to Liu Dayuan for help.Liu Dayuan, who made his fortune by making kerosene lamps in 1967, was so powerful that he bought all the screws he needed and made a huge profit.Since then, Liu Dayuan has given up the recruitment targets of state-owned enterprises and set up a screw stall. In 1978, hardware and electrical appliances in Liushi flourished, and the demand for large quantities of screws gave birth to the market.Liu Dayuan rushed to Shanghai and collected 300 kilograms of screws within a week.There is a distance of 500 meters from the wharf to the ship. He divided the screws into four loads and carried them back and forth.When all the screws were installed on the boat, he was already sweating profusely.He was so thirsty that he wanted to drink water in the restaurant on board, but the waiter saw his shabby appearance and turned him away in front of everyone. However, Liu Dayuan has more and more types of screws, reaching more than 17,000 types, and no matter how rare screws are, he can find them here. Two reporters from "People's Daily" heard the reputation of "Screw King", and decided to investigate whether it was genuine. They tried their best to find two extremely rare screws for matching.When Liu Dayuan saw the screw, he immediately said, "Yes!" As a result, Liu Dayuan's reputation as the "Screw King" became more and more famous. Liu Dayuan, who was already well-known, became the person in charge of a sales department of Liushi General Electric Factory during this period.There are 9 people who are as famous as Liu Dayuan, and they are also called "Eight Kings".The so-called "eight kings" consisted of 10 people, who were the heads of the 10 sales departments with the best turnover: hardware king Hu Jinlin, mining lamp king Cheng Buqing, contract king Li Fangping, second-hand goods king Wang Maiqian, catalog king Ye Jianhua, coil king Zheng Xiangqing, Zheng Yuanzhong, the king of electrical appliances, and Liu Dayuan, the king of screws, etc. However, the result of "committing crimes against the wind" is that the good times don't last long.Wenzhou people have a knife, a pair of scissors, and a slingshot. They travel around the world with four seas as their home. This is a bad policy to prevent starvation, but they unintentionally provoke political nerves. People all over the country are working from eight to five. To work on the ground, only Wenzhou people flock here and there to make money, which is the "black line of capitalism." In July 1981, a typhoon swept across the city of Wenzhou with a spring tide, and heavy rain caused disasters. The high tide level of the sea was pushed up, and the water levels of inland rivers and reservoirs exceeded the warning line.This summer, more than half of Wenzhou City suffered heavy losses under the ravages of strong winds and torrential rain. This unexpected typhoon is like a "sudden change of face" reform situation. At the beginning of 1981, the State Council issued two urgent documents to "crack down on speculation". On January 7, the State Council issued the "Instructions on Strengthening Market Management and Combating Speculation and Smuggling Activities", which clearly stipulates that "individuals (including private partnerships) are not allowed to sell industrial products without the approval of the administrative department for industry and commerce", and "collective , can traffic in second and third types of agricultural and sideline products that are not purchased by the state and that are redundant after the completion of state procurement tasks and fulfillment of negotiated purchase contracts by the commune team and nearby commune teams. The sale of first-class agricultural products is not allowed", "private purchases of cars, tractors, large means of transport such as motor boats". On January 30, the State Council once again issued "Several Regulations on Adjusting the Industrial and Commercial Tax Burden of Rural Cooperatives and Team Enterprises", "In order to limit the competition for raw materials with large and medium-sized advanced enterprises, the cooperatives and team companies will be exempted from industrial and commercial taxes and industrial and commercial taxes in the initial stage of establishment. The two- to three-year income tax regulation has been changed to treat differently according to different situations... All communal and brigade enterprises that compete with large advanced enterprises for raw materials and make more profits, whether they are new or existing enterprises, shall be levied industrial and commercial income tax in accordance with the regulations.” . The contents of the document were quickly published and reported on the headlines of major media such as People's Daily, and "cracking down on speculation" became the focus of economic work that year.This storm blew from Beijing to Wenzhou, and across the country, and lasted for several years. At the beginning of 1982, the central government issued an urgent notice to crack down on criminal activities in the economic field. The "crime of speculation" changed the face of Wenzhou, the "place for the tide" of the market economy.People who are on the "cusp of the storm" are listed as the key targets of "speculation", followed by the Wenzhou "Eight Kings" incident that shocked the whole country. Luckily, Hu Jinlin, the richest man in Liushi City and the "Hardware King", received a secret letter from the town cadres, "No, it's going to rain!" Tickets, 2,000 yuan in cash and various documents, he fled in a hurry, dodging the roaring police cars, and also left behind his wife who accompanied him day and night. In order to avoid the arrest warrant issued by Yueqing County to the whole country, Hu Jinlin hid in the mountains of southern Zhejiang and deep forests in the northeast.Hu Jinlin, who slipped back home two years later, was acquitted after spending two months in the prison for serious criminals. Today, 20 years later, Liushi’s electrical appliances king in those days has now become Cambodia’s “hydropower king” and the president of the Wenzhou Association of Cambodia. Zheng Yuanzhong, the "King of Electrical Appliances" at that time, was not so lucky. According to Zheng Yuanzhong's recollection: "In the early morning of June 17, 1982, when I was sleeping soundly, more than 30 people from the Liushi Police Station and the Industrial and Commercial Bureau rushed into my house with pistols and handcuffs, pulled me off the bed and took me away, and then arrested me in Liushi Township. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry conducted a review on me. I refused to admit the crime of 'speculation', and I was unwilling to write review materials. During the dispute, I threw the ink bottle on the wall, and the other party left in a huff. I took the opportunity to sneak home and took With seven or eight thousand yuan in cash, he escaped from Liushi by waterway." On the evening of October 20, 1983, which was the fifth day after Zheng Yuanzhong returned home, he was arrested by the police who broke into the house.The next day, his hands were handcuffed behind his back and hemp rope was tied around his body. He was escorted from the Liushi Police Station to the bus station as if parading through the street, and then sent to the Yueqing County Detention Center, where he was detained with a group of serious criminal suspects. Two years later, the "Eight Kings" were rehabilitated, Zheng Yuanzhong made a comeback, established the Jingyi Group, and later jointly established the Zhuangji Group. The story of the "Eight Kings" who suffered so much is the epitome of Wenzhou's weather-beaten economy.In this piece of soil where China's private economy first sprouted, disputes have continued.Every "ism" confrontation, every "trend" sweeps, Wenzhou is the first to bear the brunt, becoming the "eye of the storm" full of scars. At the same time as the "Eight Kings" incident, there was also the "Yueqing Mountaineering Shoes Factory" incident. The No. 2 Light Bureau of Yueqing County, Wenzhou develops a collective economy, and has a leather factory under it to produce pigskin shoes. Because of poor craftsmanship, poor quality, and high prices, the situation is not good. During the "Cultural Revolution", the mountaineering shoe factory stopped production. In 1976, the Second Light Industry Bureau reorganized its personnel to run supply and marketing across the country, and processed incoming materials and samples. In 1978, the leather factory received a large order from a foreign trade unit in Shanghai and successfully produced a batch of climbing shoes with ramie soles. As soon as the climbing shoes were put on the market, they became very popular, and it was imminent for the factory to expand production.So the Second Light Bureau organized the communes, brigades, enterprises and some family workshops in Yueqing County to form individual and collective cooperatives.随着乐清登山鞋的声名鹊起，质疑的声音也随着而来。 1982年，在“打击投机倒把”之风袭击下，登山鞋场停产，乐清县领导干部全体“下台”。 1982年前后，一场飓风，把温州经济带入一个寒冬，元气大伤。