Chapter 88

Ye Qing inspected the steel very carefully, walking around and finding that the quality of all the steel was good, a product of a regular large steel mill.

"Not enough!" Ye Qing frowned.

"What's not enough?" Li Suohua hadn't reacted, or perhaps he simply didn't dare to think in that direction.

"These steels, only ten thousand tons, the quantity is too small."

Li Suohua almost fell to the ground in shock, his eyes wide open, stammering, "Y-You... You want them all?"

"Yes, pay fifty percent of the goods first, help me transport these steels to the factory, and then pay the remaining fifty percent. I want them all, and I'll pay fifty percent of the goods first, and the rest will be paid in full after delivery."

Currently, the entire steel industry is struggling due to overcapacity issues, and both large steel mills and dealers are having a hard time.

But this young man in front of him not only swept all his inventory but also paid the full amount very generously in a short time.

Every man will encounter difficulties. For those who have already established families and careers and are over fifty, sometimes a major setback can often undo their efforts of half a lifetime. And they no longer have the courage and opportunities of their youth to boldly venture out and start over.

If it weren't for this unexpected event with Ye Qing, Li Suohua would have been the one who was brought back to square one and could never get back up.

"I... I..." Suddenly, Li Suohua's eyes welled up with tears of excitement, his throat choked with indescribable joy, making it impossible for him to speak.

He and Ye Jiangning were just ordinary friends who met by chance, but he never expected that such an ordinary friend would introduce a super big client to him when he was at the bottom of the abyss, and others were avoiding him, pulling him up to the blissful garden of heaven.

"I... I have other friends with spot steel, the price will definitely be the lowest, and the quality will definitely be the same." Li Suohua wiped away his tears, finding it somewhat amusing that he could be so moved to tears.

"Alright, you help me ask around, as long as the quality is guaranteed." Ye Qing nodded, strictly speaking, these stockpiled steels, in some performance aspects, are much better than newly produced ones.

The most critical issue is the metal stress problem. Long-term natural placement can gradually eliminate internal stress, and the more precision processing industries, the more they focus on the impact of metal stress on precision.

Half an hour later, Li Suohua and Ye Qing went to another much smaller steel warehouse.

There were only a little over two thousand tons of inventory here, and the quality was also very good. Ye Qing didn't hesitate and swept it all up.

His father had given him three addresses, and including the four introduced by Li Suohua, Ye Qing inspected and swept all of them after verification.

However, the total amount was only 25,000 tons, far from meeting Ye Qing's needs.

He called his father, asking him to inquire further, even friends of friends, but the quality of the steel must be up to standard.

After the call, Ye Qing went into WeChat.

Ye Qing studied mechanical engineering, and some of his classmates ran factories, while others worked in factories after graduation.

As soon as he opened WeChat, Ye Qing saw a friend request in his contact list. He opened it and saw a user named "Doudou" requesting to add him as a friend.

Ye Qing agreed and sent a smiley face message. Then he entered the class group and posted a message asking if anyone's family or friends were in the steel business and had stockpiled steel to contact him.

The group was like a dead pool.

With no choice, Ye Qing sent a 200 yuan red envelope, setting the number of recipients to forty.

Xu Le claimed your red envelope.

Zhang Ying claimed your red envelope.

Xu Lele claimed your red envelope.

...

In less than thirty seconds, over twenty people claimed the red envelope. Then came a flood of messages thanking the boss and thanking Mr. Ye.

But none of these classmates were in the steel business; some had relatives in it, but they were all small-scale operations, and their businesses were doing well.

At this moment, Doudou sent a message: "Sorry, Brother Ye, I was just at the TV station, and the program director was showing me around and explaining some matters about broadcasting."

"No problem, I was busy too. By the way, do you have any relatives in the steel business?"

"No!"

Ye Qing put on a little act: "Recently, the factory is under construction, and I've swept a few steel mills, only getting over 20,000 tons of inventory, still short of a few ten thousand tons."

"Ah!" Doudou was indeed shocked, sending a surprised emoji.

Although she didn't understand industry, she understood math. One ton of steel costs a thousand yuan, so 20,000 tons would cost over 20 million yuan.

Of course, she didn't know that there was plenty of inventory in the steel market. With money, you could get a hundred thousand tons, and Ye Qing just wanted to give his friends a favor.

"Brother Ye, shall I help you ask around? My father works at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China branch on Peace Road; he is a financial manager and knows many people."

"Sure."

Ye Qing said "sure" but didn't take it too seriously. There were over a hundred branches of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Zhongyun City, and some smaller branches had only a dozen people. The financial managers, despite their titles, were not much better than hall managers, moving wherever the customers needed them.

The bank's performance and promotions were often tied to individual capabilities. Those who brought in large clients and large deposits naturally rose quickly, while those without capabilities could only accumulate seniority at various branches.

After chatting for a while, his father called, saying he had found two more friends in the steel business, but their scale was small, with only a little over a thousand tons of inventory in total.

Ye Qing bid farewell to Doudou and drove to those two places to sweep the inventory.

By evening, when he returned to Longxi Beach, Li Suohua was already waiting at the factory gate with a long convoy. Behind his convoy was another long line of semi-trailers, almost reaching the Ring Sea Avenue.

It was an incredible sight, nearly two hundred heavy trucks forming a long dragon for several miles, with dozens of forklifts following behind.

This was only half of the inventory; they would have to make another trip after unloading this batch.

At the factory gate of Longxi Beach, about seven steel suppliers had gathered. They usually treated each other like enemies, but now they were huddled together, sharing their gratitude and relief.

Their conversation always revolved around Ye Jiangning and Ye Qing, who were their great saviors.

After Ye Qing arrived, he told them to unload the steel directly to the empty space at the corner of the factory wall, and he would transfer the payment after the next batch was unloaded.

The dealers quickly went to direct the forklifts to unload the goods, and Ye Qing asked a skilled master to supervise, stacking the steel neatly by type.

Ye Qing went into the office and continued searching online for local suppliers of ten-thousand-ton presses and fifty-ton electric arc furnaces.

These two ultra-large processing tools are core components of the metal smelting center. The ten-thousand-ton press is relatively easier to find, but the fifty-ton electric arc furnace, if not available as a finished product, would require a few months to custom order and a significant amount of money to transport.

The electric arc furnace is a common furnace for making alloy steel, usually available in five-ton, ten-ton, and twenty-five-ton sizes. The fifty-ton furnace Ye Qing needed was extremely rare.

If purchased from another region, unless it was available in a coastal city and could be shipped by sea, otherwise, transporting such a large item by land would require a specialized logistics company, which would be very expensive.

After searching online for a long time, he found that there was no ten-thousand-ton press locally, but one was available in a coastal city not far from Zhongyun. If he placed a deposit, it could be delivered in three to five days.

In the coastal city, only twenty-five-ton electric arc furnaces were available, and the nearest fifty-ton furnace in the inland was in Huizhou Province, about 700 kilometers from Zhongyun.

Just as Ye Qing was hesitating whether to order the electric arc furnace, his phone rang. It was Doudou calling.