After the Lantern Festival, following a brief moment of tenderness with Jiang Xue and their child, Li Yi threw himself back into his busy work schedule!
Just as he had told Jiang Xue before, the cotton mill was a complete mess.
For over twenty years, the cotton mill had been producing fabric and selling it to various supply and marketing units.
Now, shifting the business focus from fabric production to selling ready-to-wear garments all at once meant there was simply too much to handle.
And Jiang Longcheng wasn’t exactly a skilled manager; in fact, among the entire management team of the cotton mill, there were very few who truly understood management or business operations.
To be honest, among them, only He Tianming and Sun Feng were somewhat competent; as for the rest, they were just there to coast by and go through the motions.
Under these circumstances, Li Yi had no choice but to step in personally and guide them step-by-step on how to carry out industrial upgrades and reforms.
Fortunately, although Jiang Longcheng didn’t know much about management or business operations, backed by the powerful Jiang family, his network of connections was truly impressive.
After Li Yi submitted his proposed cooperation plan to the district government, it took less than a week to be reviewed and approved.
Subsequently, in the presence of the entire factory workforce, Li Yi signed a cooperation agreement with the cotton mill.
With the agreement signed, Li Yi now had a legitimate reason to get involved in the cotton mill’s operations, and he immediately set to work with full force.
Under his guidance, Jiang Longcheng first secured a massive loan of 3 million yuan from the bank in the cotton mill’s name!
Once the loan was disbursed, Li Yi used 2 million of it to purchase raw materials to ensure fabric production.
The remaining 1 million was allocated partly to purchasing machinery such as sewing machines and overlockers to expand production.
The other portion was allocated entirely to the sales department, empowering them to use the funds to establish sales channels, open direct-sales stores, and expand the market for Feixue Apparel.
It is worth noting that, at Li Yi’s strong urging, An Hong, after consulting with her husband Wang Anguo,
she ultimately decided to officially resign from the county textile factory and come to Beijing to assist Li Yi.
Upon An Hong’s arrival in Beijing, Li Yi immediately assigned her to the Sales Department, where she officially took charge.
With An Hong on board, the Sales Department’s operations quickly got back on track.
While dispatching sales teams to the provinces of Northern Sai, Western Jin, and Eastern Lu to develop business, they simultaneously recruited suitable sales talent in the capital and provided them with rigorous training.
Within a very short time, the sales department’s headcount grew from 80 to over 200.
But having just these people wasn’t enough; opening directly operated stores required qualified sales associates.
Especially after witnessing the sales performance of the beautiful sales assistants at the Wangfujing and Andong stores, An Hong fully understood the importance of these attractive sales assistants.
She immediately instructed the cotton mill’s DXMBang division to recruit 200 tall, well-proportioned, and attractive female employees from the general public and provide them with sales associate training.
Meanwhile, Li Yi continued to ramp up his advertising efforts!
After the Lunar New Year, he personally wrote a large number of sponsored articles and had them published in various newspapers and media outlets.
He also had Jiang Longcheng leverage his connections to secure coverage from numerous TV stations, newspapers, and magazines regarding the cotton mill’s reforms, thereby boosting Feixue Apparel’s visibility.
With this multi-pronged approach, the results were naturally spectacular.
In a very short time, the factory’s shipment volume gradually returned to pre-New Year levels.
As shipments increased day by day, the pre-New Year inventory of clothing was quickly sold out, and the fabric inventory belonging to Li Yi was also being used up rapidly—much faster than Li Yi had anticipated.
To avoid disrupting the store’s operations, Li Yi promptly arranged for the cotton mill’s own clothing to be sold in the store and instructed the sales department to vigorously promote the mill’s apparel.
Although customers and wholesalers visiting the store did not notice any changes, behind the scenes, the transfer of operational control from Li Yi to the cotton mill had been quietly completed.
And so, after another half-month, once all of Li Yi’s inventory of raw materials had been sold out, he transferred the two directly operated specialty stores in the city center, along with all sales channels, to the cotton spinning mill.
At the end of February, with just three days left until his son and daughter’s one-month celebration, Li Yi finalized the financial handover with the Cotton Spinning Factory.
After withdrawing the 1.24 million yuan in receivables belonging to him from the cotton mill’s finance department,
Apart from the newly signed cooperation agreement, there were no further business disputes between Li Yi and the cotton mill.
With that, Li Yi had successfully completed this major business deal!
Upon calculation, this business venture took two and a half months.
With a mere 200,000 yuan in capital, Li Yi had leveraged 500,000 yuan worth of defective fabric, turned it into clothing, and brought it to market.
In the end, after deducting all expenses, he made a profit of 4.3 million yuan, marking the initial stage of his primitive accumulation of capital.
Additionally, he used this time to establish the country’s first fashion brand—Feixue.
Using this as capital, he entered into a cooperation agreement with the Second State-Owned Cotton Spinning Mill in Beijing.
Given the current market conditions, as long as the cotton mill’s operations run smoothly,
and barring any unforeseen circumstances, he’ll be able to sit back and count his money from now on!
Given that all departments of the cotton mill were now fully operational, Li Yi formally withdrew from the mill after settling the accounts.
Let Jiang Longcheng and his team handle the rest on their own.
Although Jiang Longcheng hoped Li Yi would stay a little longer, Li Yi knew that this wasn’t his own business after all, and getting too deeply involved might not be a good thing.
Besides, he had already done everything he could, and it was time to let go.
Seeing that Li Yi’s mind was made up, Jiang Longcheng could only nod in agreement.
After all, his brother-in-law was right there in the capital; if anything really did come up at the mill, he could go find him at any time, and he was sure Li Yi wouldn’t refuse to help.
And so, Li Yi brought his involvement with the cotton mill to a complete close!
…….
After wrapping up matters at the cotton mill, Li Yi began preparing for his child’s full-moon banquet.
Jiang Xue didn’t want to throw a lavish celebration, and neither did Li Yi. Not only was it too much trouble, but a grand celebration would also involve the hassle of accepting gifts.
Once they accepted people’s monetary gifts, they’d have to return the favor when those people hosted their own events—it was just too much of a hassle!
So, Li Yi decided to invite relatives from the Jiang and Ye families, along with his own parents, and set up a few tables at home for a simple, joyful gathering.
However, he didn’t plan to hold it at the Jiang family’s old mansion; instead, he intended to host it at his own shop.
The reason was simple!
On the one hand, because of the old man, the ancestral home had security guards stationed there year-round, making it really inconvenient to host a banquet.
On the other hand, the Jiang family’s old mansion could only comfortably accommodate twenty or thirty people at a time; any more than that would be a stretch, and it was nowhere near as spacious as his own shop.
Besides, holding a banquet at his father-in-law’s place would inevitably invite gossip.
So, after much deliberation, Li Yi decided to hold the full-moon banquets for his son and daughter at his own restaurant.
However, since his restaurant specializes in grilled and hot-pot meats, those dishes clearly weren’t suitable for a banquet.
After some thought, Li Yi immediately asked Jiang Longcheng to help find a few skilled chefs to come to the restaurant and lend a hand for a few days.
He then had Long Zhanjun post a notice announcing that the restaurant would be temporarily closed for two days so they could focus entirely on preparing for the celebration.
After making these arrangements, Li Yi said goodbye to Jiang Xue, borrowed Jiang Longcheng’s Jeep, and headed back to Qingshan County to pick up his parents so they could attend their grandchildren’s full-moon celebration.