At 74 he was still in prison; at 84 he made a comeback and today commands a fortune in the hundreds of millions - even Wang Shi
Introduction:Someone once asked Wang Shi, chairman of Shenzhen Vanke Group: Who is the entrepreneur you respect most? Wang Shi paused for a moment, then said a name. It was not one of the world's tycoons like Buffett, Bill Gates or Li Ka-shing, nor any successful figure from real estate, but an old man, a man who had fallen - and fallen very hard.
His name is Chu Shijian
Born in 1928, Chu Shijian came from a peasant family. In 1955, at the age of 27, Chu Shijian served as section chief of the personnel department of the Yuxi Prefecture administrative office in Yunnan. At 31 he was labeled a rightist and, with his wife and only daughter, was sent to a farm for labor reform. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, in 1979 Chu Shijian took over the Yuxi Cigarette Factory and became its director. At the time, the Yuxi Cigarette Factory was a shabby little plant on the verge of bankruptcy. That year he was 51! He shouldered this heavy responsibility.
Food for thought:Yet today many of us, at 20 or 30, already do not want to work, fearing pressure, fearing responsibility, fearing hardship and fatigue. By 40 they already feel that the struggle of this life is over. Chu Shijian's story of struggle had only just begun at 51.
Through 18 years of effort by Chu Shijian and his team, the Yuxi Cigarette Factory, then on the verge of bankruptcy, was built into what later became Asia's largest cigarette factory and a famous Chinese enterprise: the Hongtashan Group. Chu Shijian also became China's tobacco king. It became the pillar of local finance, and over 18 years it contributed 99.1 billion in taxes to the state.
And just when Chu Shijian was at the height of his fame across all of China, at the peak of his life, in 1999 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for economic problems (later commuted to a fixed term of 17 years). That year Chu Shijian was already 71. From a red-hot state-owned enterprise celebrity, a national man of the hour who had run the Hongtashan Group for 18 years, he suddenly became a prisoner - this blow could be called a catastrophic disaster. The next blow was the fatal one for an old man: his wife and daughter had already been imprisoned three years earlier, and his only daughter committed suicide in prison.
How cruel this game of life is. What most people would think: at this point this old man, feeble as a candle in the wind, having met such misfortune in his later years, could only spend his remaining days miserably lingering in prison.
Three years later, Chu Shijian, because of severe diabetes, fainted several times in prison and was later released on medical parole. After several months of recuperation, Chu Shijian went up Ailao Mountain to farm, and later he contracted 2400 mu of wasteland to grow oranges. That year he was 74.
Wang Shi said with emotion: After I learned he was out on medical parole, I made a special trip to the Yunnan mountains to visit him. He had actually contracted 2400 mu of mountain land to grow oranges, and oranges take 6 years to bear fruit. He was already a 75-year-old man then. Imagine it: a 75-year-old man, wearing big dark sunglasses and a worn crew-neck shirt, talking enthusiastically with me about what it would be like when the oranges bore fruit 6 years later. So Wang Shi said: The greatest shock in life is on Ailao Mountain! It is the 75-year-old Chu Shijian, in a worn crew-neck shirt, big dark sunglasses and a straw hat, enthusiastically talking about the oranges bearing fruit 6 years later.
6 years later, he was already 81 years old.
These difficulties that seemed impossible to overcome did not stop Chu Shijian. He brought his wife to the barren mountain, and the entrepreneur of the past became a true farmer. In just a few years, with hard work and sweat, he turned the barren mountain into an orchard, and the rock sugar navel oranges he grew could not be bought in Yunnan even at 8 yuan per kilogram. It turned out that these products were shipped to big cities such as Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai as soon as they were picked, with astonishing returns. Because what Chu Shijian sold were inspirational oranges.
When Wang Shi visited Chu Shijian again, he saw a farmer uncle with a dark face but healthy and cheerful. All he introduced to Wang Shi were the orchard, the temperature and the growth of the seedlings. In conversation, he naturally raised a core issue: how to manage 2400 mu of barren mountain? He used his former methods, adopting a mutually beneficial approach with the fruit growers. He set standards for every tree, and for output he set a number, saying he would take however many fruits were harvested, because too many would affect the quality of the fruit. That way, as soon as the fruit growers saw inferior fruit, they would take it off themselves and never pass off inferior goods as good. He set up an incentive mechanism: as long as a farmer completed the task, he could receive 4000 yuan, plus a year-end bonus of more than 2000 yuan. A farmer could receive more than 10,000 yuan a year, and a household of three could earn 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, more than going out to work.
When he managed the cigarette factory, people fought to get a job there; now that he manages the orchard, people also fight to get a job there. This old man, already 85, turned falling down into getting back up. Facing the ups and downs of life, he shed tears and was once dejected and sorrowful.
Today, by valuation, Chu Shijian's net worth has again exceeded a hundred million.
The calm he showed in the face of every hardship in life makes his bearing and breadth of mind as an entrepreneur stand out clearly. Wang Shi said: If I had met setbacks at his age, I certainly would not be like him; instead I would be on an island, far from the city, living in isolation. Chu Shijian did not hear Wang Shi's sentiment. The three apprentices he trained during his time at the Hongtashan Group are now the heads of the Honghe Cigarette Factory, the Qujing Cigarette Factory and the Yunnan China Tobacco Group. To him, he fell at his most glorious moment, but after falling he created a legend once again, and that is enough.
Chu Shijian, this most controversial figure, has given us an answer.
The measure of a person's success is not the height he climbs to, but the rebound force when he falls to the bottom - General Patton!
On the road ahead, no matter how great the difficulties you meet, please think of this old man!