Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

What did a trillion even mean?

It meant cultivating at least ten thousand merchants with annual sales exceeding one hundred million!

Ah Li’s total sales in 2011 were just over 600 billion!

Huang Zheng stared intently at Chen Yansen. It was easy to tell from the other man’s eyes that this goal was serious—he wasn’t joking.

He opened his mouth, about to offer a few words of protest, but then he heard Chen Yansen add, ”This might be a high bar for an ordinary person, but I have faith in your abilities.”

’Faith my ass!’

’I don’t even believe in myself!’

Huang Zheng didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, unable to stop himself from cursing inwardly. But his future boss had spoken, and he couldn’t just let the words hang in the air. So, he forced a smile and said, ”Thank you for your trust, Boss. I’ll do my best.”

He had no choice. Chen Yansen was offering too much—a generous base salary and stock option rewards that were more than he made running his own business.

Besides, he would no longer have to run around begging for favors and sucking up to people just to land brand management contracts.

Once he took the CEO seat at Pinbei, aside from a handful of top-tier S- and A-list brands, what other brand wouldn’t treat him like royalty?

Chen Yansen smiled faintly. When he heard Huang Zheng change his form of address, he knew the man had accepted the job.

To put it bluntly, Huang Zheng had yet to make a name for himself in the industry. How could he not be tempted when an e-commerce titan suddenly extended an olive branch?

It was as shocking as the owner of a small brand management company with less than ten million in annual net profit bumping into Ma Liyun on the street and being invited to become the CEO of Ah Li.

The only reason Huang Zheng could maintain his composure was that, having been mentored by Duan Yongping, he had met his fair share of titans and developed a steady mindset.

”Wrap up your business with Leqi as soon as possible. Pinbei’s 618 Grand Promotion is just around the corner. If you do well, this will be the battle that makes your name!”

Chen Yansen stood up and patted Huang Zheng’s shoulder.

Winning over Huang Zheng didn’t give him much of a thrill. The man before him wasn’t some e-commerce tycoon worth hundreds of billions; he was just a former Google project manager who had failed to find the right path in two previous ventures.

If Lei Yijun came asking to be his underling, now *that* might have sparked some desire for conquest.

”Boss, I’ve already sold Leqi to Lightinthebox. The subsequent handover doesn’t require my involvement. I can start anytime.”

Huang Zheng said immediately.

The one-trillion goal was high, but the annual salary, equity value, and industry influence that came with the Pinbei CEO position made his blood boil with excitement.

Of course he wanted to start early and push Pinbei into a faster lane of development.

”Alright, I’ll take you to Building 8 to meet Pinbei’s department heads.”

Chen Yansen glanced at his watch. There was still an hour and a half until the lunch break, which was plenty of time.

”Okay, thank you, Boss.” Huang Zheng followed Chen Yansen into the elevator.

「Meanwhile.」

Having received the news, Xiong Li and Zhang Junjie immediately sent a meeting notice to all department directors: Boss’s office in five minutes.

”Brother Li, what’s going on? Didn’t we just have the morning meeting?”

The Director of Design, Cai Qiming, sidled up and asked Xiong Li curiously.

Xiong Li’s work style was efficient and his personality assertive, which had earned him the nickname ’Brother Li’.

”We’re getting a new boss.” Xiong Li shot Cai Qiming a look. ’This effeminate guy from Taiwan...’ He’d told him countless times, but the man insisted on calling him ’Brother Li’.

”Is your wife pregnant?” Zhang Wenbo, who was passing by, stopped in his tracks with a look of astonishment.

”Wenbo, what are you thinking? Brother Sen must have confirmed the choice for CEO,” Xiang Pengfei said, covering his mouth as he laughed, amused by Zhang Wenbo’s train of thought.

”Ah?! Oh, oh.” Zhang Wenbo rubbed his nose and gave an embarrassed laugh.

Wang Zihao, Song Yuncheng, Zhang Yifeng, Chen Peng from the Internal Control Department, Yang Pinglun from the Market Department, Fei Qiweng from the Customer Service Department, and representatives from Finance and Legal Affairs, among others, arrived one after another at Chen Yansen’s office.

Wang Zihao peeked his head in and saw Chen Yansen leaning against the conference table, chatting with a man in a suit who looked to be in his early thirties.

”Come in! What are you standing outside for? Lao Huang, let me introduce you. This is the head of Pinbei’s traffic department, Wang Zihao.”

Chen Yansen, catching sight of Wang Zihao out of the corner of his eye, beckoned him over.

”Leader Wang, I look forward to working with you. We’ll need to coordinate closely to hit that one-trillion sales target soon.”

Huang Zheng stepped forward, proactively making a friendly gesture.

Before deciding to join Pinbei, he had asked around to learn about the backgrounds of the core team members to avoid any unnecessary trouble.

Although Wang Zihao’s position as a department head was relatively low, he was the big boss’s childhood friend and best buddy, as well as one of Pinbei’s first ten employees.

Therefore, Huang Zheng acted particularly amiable.

Afterward, the heads of the various departments introduced themselves to Huang Zheng one by one, and then everyone took their seats.

”Effective immediately, Mr. Huang Zheng will serve as the CEO of Pinbei. From now on, send all weekly department reports and daily data reports directly to Mr. Huang, and just CC me.”

Chen Yansen announced.

”Yes, Boss!” the people in the room replied in unison.

”As for the one-trillion target Mr. Huang just mentioned, that’s real. I hope everyone can get it done within two years! After the 618 event, I will issue a round of equity incentives to all staff based on sales performance. Let’s get to it!”

Chen Yansen kept it brief.

To date, fewer than 30 people at Pinbei held equity. Excluding Song Yuncheng, Xiang Pengfei, Zhang Yifeng, Xu Xingxing, and a few others, the rest were all department directors.

Cai Qiming’s eyes lit up, the smile on his face impossible to suppress. Hadn’t he traveled all the way to the Mainland precisely to achieve financial freedom?

Right now, Pinbei’s stock options were valued at around 5 US Dollars per share. He already had 100,000 shares, so if the big boss was generous, he could add at least a few million more to his income.

In an instant, the office erupted in a clamor of excitement and incessant flattery.

Chen Yansen just smiled and shook his head.

Huang Zheng took the reins of Pinbei’s operations from him.

On his second day in office, he met with major home appliance brands like Haier, Gree, Midea, Madam Fang, and Shuaikang to restructure their pricing systems. By leveraging differences in models, specifications, and production batches, he fine-tuned the retail prices of functionally identical products to compete with Jingdong and Sunning for home appliance customers.

Before long, Liu Qiangdong keenly noticed a recent decline in sales for the home appliance category. At first, he thought it was because Sunning’s 418 Grand Promotion was about to launch, suppressing user demand.

But after some investigation, he was surprised to find that not only had sales on Jingdong’s main site decreased, but even the sales of Jingdong’s self-operated products on Pinbei were trending downward.

”That Chen Yansen plays dirty!”

Liu Qiangdong cursed, furious.

The first blow Huang Zheng struck after taking office was aimed squarely at Liu Qiangdong.

In the e-commerce wars, there is no ’sooner or later’—only a fight to the death!

After leveraging the home appliance resources of Jingdong, Sunning, and Gome to build up its user and merchant base, Pinbei finally showed its hand and stopped pretending. It entered the ring to compete head-on with Taobao and Jingdong for the major home appliance market.

This greatly annoyed Sunning’s Zhang Jindong as well. Because before the 618 Grand Promotion, Pinbei was also preparing a ”418 Home Appliance Category Day.” Wasn’t this just a slap in the face?

When the time came, Pinbei was bound to snatch a portion of Sunning’s home appliance orders.

「At the same time.」

On the streets and alleys of Jinling, one could often see street promoters holding laptops with wireless dongles plugged in, asking young men and women, ”Hey man, want a free taxi ride?”

After securing 600 million Hua Yuan in funding, Cheng Weixing immediately replicated Hang City’s free-ride model in the Jinling market.

With offline street teams and online promotion from the Orange Application Mall and Penguin’s traffic-pushing, it became a massive hit throughout Jinling on the very day it launched.

”Only a chump would stand on a street corner to hail a cab anymore. Everyone books a car on an app and then strolls over to the pickup spot.”

The young people of Jinling saw it as a new trend.

Before, if a taxi driver yelled at you, you mostly had to just take it. Now, if you get yelled at, you can just turn around and give the driver a bad rating. The platform will even deduct a fine from the driver’s earnings and convert it into a compensation voucher for the user.

Just as Fast Taxi was conquering the markets in Hang City and Jinling, Cheng Wei, who had quit his job over half a month ago, had assembled a team in Yanjing and was going all-out to develop the DiDi Dache app.