What did Guan Mingjian experience on his aquaculture entrepreneurial journey?
Guan Mingjian, male, Han ethnicity, born in November 1974 in Shangxi Village, Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, is a legendary figure who lost his family fortune and then became wealthy by farming spotted mandarin fish (Siniperca scherzeri). He is currently the general manager of Jiangxi Yongcheng Aquatic Products Co., Ltd. The spotted mandarin fish is a typical carnivorous, ferocious fish. In its natural environment, it mainly feeds on live bait such as fish and shrimp. The fish has tender meat, few bones, high crude protein content, low fat and ash content, and very high nutritional value. When cooked, its flesh separates into garlic-clove-like flakes, and it is both beautiful in appearance and excellent in quality. It is a precious freshwater fish and is known as the "king of freshwater fish."
In 2004, Guan Mingjian, who was worth a million, was led by others to become addicted to gambling. In less than ten days, he lost his entire family fortune and owed more than 1 million in external debt. In order to pay off the debt, he left his family and went alone to the Bailianhu Fish Breeding Farm in Yongxiu County, Jiujiang, Jiangxi, beginning his entrepreneurial journey.
In the first few years after coming to Yongxiu County, Guan Mingjian lived a life that others could not imagine, because he knew that only by working steadily with his own two hands could he create the future, realize his dreams, pay off his debts, and move toward success. Because the breeding technology for spotted mandarin fish is relatively advanced, over several years he used all of the more than 800,000 earned from operating the former Bailianhu Fish Breeding Farm to research the breeding and cultivation of spotted mandarin fish fry. With a belief that refused to accept failure, he kept pushing himself to explore, and this went on for three years. After repeated failures, Guan Mingjian finally overcame the various difficulties of artificial breeding of spotted mandarin fish. In 2008, he successfully bred spotted mandarin fish fry and artificially farmed the first batch of spotted mandarin fish, earning his first pot of gold.
The fish Guan Mingjian farms is called the spotted mandarin fish, covered all over with coin-like spots, with relatively sparse patterns that look like individual copper coins. He knew that its high value lay precisely in these patterns, which other mandarin fish absolutely do not have. At that time, there was still no large-scale artificial breeding in China, so the price remained high. Ordinary big-eye mandarin fish could sell for 60 yuan per kilogram, while spotted mandarin fish could sell for 180 yuan, and in the South Korean market the price was astonishingly high.
Although he had mastered a set of breeding and farming techniques, expanding and strengthening this industry required a large amount of working capital, and the question of where the money would come from constantly troubled him. By chance, a boss from Nanchang heard that he had successfully hatched spotted mandarin fish and wanted to hire him to farm spotted mandarin fish at his company. After much consideration, he agreed, but he demanded an astronomical annual salary of 600,000 yuan. In the end, the Nanchang boss gave him an annual salary of 500,000.
One day in early 2010, the Yongxiu County Fisheries Bureau told him that a new fish farm was being contracted out. Guan Mingjian felt that the opportunity could not be missed, so he immediately quit his job, contracted the breeding facilities and 200 mu of water surface at the Bailianhu Fine Breed Farm, and invested the 1 million he had earned from working into the spotted mandarin fish breeding and farming business once again. In just three months, he hatched 500,000 spotted mandarin fish fry. Simply by selling these tiny fry, he made a full and abundant profit.
The artificial breeding of spotted mandarin fish involves relatively advanced technology. It has a complete set of operating procedures, involving five stages: parent stock selection and breeding, parent stock cultivation, artificial induced spawning, disease prevention and control, and fry cultivation. The success of spotted mandarin fish breeding filled the gap in domestic breeding of freshwater spotted fish and made Guan Mingjian a nationally known figure in aquaculture. After his story was broadcast on CCTV-7's "Road to Wealth" on September 30, 2011, on Jiujiang TV Channel 2's "People of Jiujiang from East, West, South, and North" on December 7, 2011, and on CCTV Comprehensive Channel's "Life Early Reference" on September 10, 2015, it caused a sensation in the aquaculture industry, because there had been no precedent in China for large-scale artificial hatching of spotted mandarin fish.
In 2011, Guan Mingjian founded Jiangxi Yongcheng Aquatic Products Co., Ltd., and he was full of confidence in his business. In order to expand the spotted mandarin fish industry, he gathered like-minded people and pooled idle social capital for industrial expansion. Through the company-plus-farmers model, and by measures such as providing fry, setting a minimum guaranteed purchase price, and providing technical services, he guided farmers to engage in spotted mandarin fish farming. After several years of hard work, Jiangxi Yongcheng Aquatic Products Co., Ltd. has become the largest spotted mandarin fish farming enterprise in Jiangxi Province. He plans to spend several years expanding the enterprise scale, building a senior management team, increasing farming water surface, and developing cage and factory farming, so that Jiangxi Yongcheng Aquatic Products Co., Ltd. will form an integrated industrial chain of hatching, farming, sales, and processing, thereby becoming the national leader in spotted mandarin fish farming.
How many times can one strive in life? In Guan Mingjian's view, young people should have boldness, drive, pioneering spirit, and enthusiasm, using sweat and wisdom to earn a better future for themselves, bring happiness to their families, and demonstrate their own value in life. Now Guan Mingjian thinks more about how to repay his second hometown, Yongxiu, and how to drive and guide the farmers of Yongxiu County onto a path of common development and common prosperity.