Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

At 10:30 AM, Qian Du lifted its ban on 360’s products.

Ten minutes later, 360 did the same.

The ”3B War” came to a close. The technical back-and-forth and the public relations mudslinging between the two companies finally ended, only to immediately enter a new phase of legal battles.

Qian Du sued 360 for bypassing the Robots protocol to illegally scrape data for rapid content acquisition, demanding one hundred million in economic damages.

In turn, 360 countersued Qian Du for using the Robots protocol to establish a monopoly in the search engine market.

Zhou Hongyi was not one to take a loss lying down. While actively fighting the lawsuit, he also went on a tirade on Weibo: ”Monopoly is the greatest evil in this world because it robs users of their choice! And Qian Du’s problems aren’t just about monopoly. They also maliciously bundle software, make products difficult to uninstall, and leave behind undeletable files. Isn’t that just rogue software?”

Netizens in the comments section joked, ”This is the pot calling the kettle black, a rogue fighting a hooligan. To put it simply, there are no righteous wars in the Spring and Autumn Period!”

The implication was that neither 360 nor Qian Du were the good guys.

But Zhou Hongyi didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, 360 Search had already won big.

Before the war, 360 Search had a market share of 0%. Afterward, it was 8.59%, making it the second-largest search engine product in the country overnight.

「Xucheng. Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, Building 9.」

Chen Yansen sat in his office and opened a work email from Zhang Yiming.

Lingxi Browser had accumulated 61 million users, with 37 million active ones. It held a 10.3% market share, ranking fourth behind UC, QQ, and Opera Browser, but ahead of Qian Du and Dolphin Browser.

Lingxi Search’s market share was 4.07%, trailing only Qian Du, 360, and Sogou. Google’s market share in the Great China Region had dropped to 3.49%, solidifying its position as fifth in the industry.

Sogou Search’s user engagement saw little fluctuation, but Qian Du Search’s market share had plummeted from 75.44% at the beginning of August to 64.68%, a shrinkage of 14.26%.

Qian Du was heavily wounded, Google was lightly injured, and Sogou held steady.

Lingxi and 360 Search both came out as winners!

’Zhou Hongyi might look foolish, but he’s shrewder than anyone. No wonder he could still make a living as an internet celebrity more than a decade later!’

Chen Yansen picked up his teacup, took a sip, and smiled faintly.

Lao Zhou graduated with a master’s degree at twenty-five and started as a programmer at a state-owned enterprise. A year later, he was promoted to department manager. Three years after that, he left to start his own business, the 3721 project. Five years later, he sold 3721 to Yahoo for 120 million US dollars, personally pocketing 80 million US dollars.

This was in 2003, when the average annual income in Hu City was less than twenty thousand yuan.

However, in Chen Yansen’s opinion, Zhou Hongyi’s strategic planning was terrible. Perhaps it was a bad habit he’d developed from his early days as an investor. He would do whatever was popular in the market but never dared to go all-in.

His resources were scattered, and in the end, his efforts always fell short of success.

His style was like a two-shot firecracker—he’d explode at the slightest provocation!

In reality, Chen Yansen held no personal feelings toward Zhou Hongyi, Lei Yijun, Ma Wenteng, Li Yanhong, or Ma Liyun.

Businessmen, after all, simply chase profits!

Of course, if anyone crossed his bottom line, he wouldn’t hesitate to strike back!

Li Yanhong’s investment in DiDi Dache had caused him quite a bit of trouble, so he had immediately launched Lingxi Search, forcefully snatching 4.07% of the market share right out of Qian Du’s bowl.

Just as he was pondering this, the phone on his desk rang.

Chen Yansen snapped back to reality. He held out his hand, and the phone flew into his palm automatically. He glanced at the caller ID and pressed the answer button.

”Boss, Qian Du acquired Lashou Network and added a ’Food, Drink, and Fun’ section to Qian Du Map! That bastard Li Yanhong is so shameless! He copied Gaode Map’s O2O strategy one-for-one.”

Xiao Jun got straight to the point, cursing furiously.

”The same plan executed by different people often yields completely opposite results. Let him copy it. Whoever does it worse will be the one who’s embarrassed.”

Chen Yansen said unconcernedly, in a slow and deliberate manner.

After all, there was hardly such a thing as copyright on the internet, especially in 2012.

”Okay, Boss. I understand,” Xiao Jun replied through gritted teeth, planning to retaliate against Qian Du’s actions on the business front.

In the field of electronic maps and navigation software, Gaode was the big brother.

Xiao Jun was confident that he would absolutely not lose to Qian Du Map when it came to project operations.

Chen Yansen didn’t hang up right away. Instead, he asked about the progress of Gaode Map’s local life service integration.

The two talked for over twenty minutes before Chen Yansen slowly put down his phone.

Two weeks ago, Zhu Xiaohu had called him to test his price floor.

At the time, Chen Yansen had quoted 240 million US dollars.

This was a valuation calculated by Gao Weilin based on Lashou Network’s business operations, financial data, market share, and industry prospects, not a number he had pulled out of thin air.

Since Jinsha Venture Capital, Maitun Investment, and the Renite Fund sold Lashou Network to Qian Du, Li Yanhong’s offer must have been higher.

But he wasn’t too concerned. There were several other group-buying websites similar to Lashou Network. If he missed out on Lashou, there was still Nuomi, Dianping, WoWo Group, and even Meituan.

As for whether Wang Xin would sell Meituan?

Chen Yansen had no doubts about that at all.

As long as Kuai Pao and Lashou pushed Meituan into a corner, with funds running out and no new financing available, Wang Xin would only have two choices: die or sell.

With Qian Du’s acquisition of Lashou Network, its first target would be Wang Xin. The second would be Dianping. Kuai Pao would only be third in line, if at all.

Thinking of this, Chen Yansen opened his computer and quickly found the relevant report on the Qian Du News homepage.

”Qian Du Takes Control of Lashou Network for 420 Million US Dollars, Setting a New Acquisition Record in the Group Buy Market!”

”Group Buy + Mobility! Qian Du Spends Big to Fully Advance Local Life Services!”

million US dollars?

Chen Yansen’s brow furrowed slightly. He wasn’t sure how much of that figure was inflated, but he estimated the actual transaction price was around 400 million.

Two weeks ago, Zhu Xiaohu’s asking price was 320 million US dollars. In the blink of an eye, it had gone up by another 100 million.

That Li Yanhong, he’s a real sucker!

Chen Yansen cursed inwardly. If Qian Du hadn’t interfered, Senlian Capital’s influence in the ride-hailing and group-buying markets would surely be far greater than it was now.

But on second thought, his mood instantly calmed.

Without Qian Du, other major capital players would have appeared anyway.

As far as he knew, Zhu Nanli of Junlian Capital had privately spoken with Xu Xin of Today Capital, Wang Qiong of Haina Asia, and Zhang Lei of Gao Ling Capital about wanting to push Liu Yiqing into the CEO position at DiDi Dache.

He only failed because Qian Du’s shareholding percentage was too high.

With Liu Yiqing’s network, she could easily attract investment from Australia, Europe, and America, even without leveraging the power of Lenovo and the Liu Family.

The woman had spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs and undoubtedly had a wealth of connections.

Compared to Liu Yiqing, the indecisive Li Yanhong was clearly much easier to deal with.

The moment the losses from the subsidy war reached Li Yanhong’s psychological limit would be the start of peace talks between them.

That afternoon, Kuai Pao launched a ”meal card” top-up promotion. The mechanics were identical to those of Fast Taxi. Unrestrained by any competitors, it set a revenue record of 590 million yuan within six hours of launching.

After firmly establishing its footing in Huian, Sujiang, Hu City, and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang region, Pei Yi immediately ”marched his troops north.” Centering his efforts on cities like Yanjing, Jinmen, Changshan, and Tang City, he rapidly expanded into the surrounding prefecture-level cities, preparing to conquer the North China market in one fell swoop.

The businesses of Gaode, Kuai Pao, and Fast Taxi were mutually reinforcing. The three products complemented each other’s ecosystems in terms of user traffic and commercial monetization, leading to significant improvements in daily active user data and user stickiness.

Before leaving work, Chen Yansen received a call from Ma Wenteng. A confused look crossed his face, and he couldn’t help but wonder, ’What is that guy doing coming to Xucheng?’

Without time for further thought, he pushed the door open and walked out, calling for Zhou Shouzhi, Ye Qiuping, and Gao Weilin to accompany him.

Three minutes later, a panda-colored Rolls-Royce Gusteau and a Bentley Mulsanne drove out of the Science and Technology Park one after the other, speeding toward the city center.

「At the same time.」

Chen Yizhou of Renren Network was reading the news about Qian Du’s acquisition when he realized Li Yanhong had played him for a fool.

”Son of a bitch! He strung me along for a whole month.”

Agitated, Chen Yizhou let slip a regional accent he hadn’t used in a long time. After a moment’s thought, he called Chen Yansen again.

”BEEP... BEEP... BEEP...”

Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds—no one answered.

’Has Chen Yansen also given up on his plan to acquire a group-buying website?’

Chen Yizhou instantly grew anxious. Nuomi Network was losing two to three million US dollars every month. For every month the sale was delayed, he was losing the equivalent of a villa in Hu City.

Other than Chen Yansen, he really couldn’t find any other decent buyers in the country.

After all, the venture capital firms that had confidence in the group-buying business had already entered the race back in early 2011.

They were already in the ”final four” stage of the competition; how could an investor possibly switch to a new group-buying product at this point?

Meanwhile, just as Chen Yansen got out of his car and stepped into the Sky Garden, he saw Ma Wenteng walking toward him.