In April 2013, 74-year-old Li Jingwei passed away due to illness in the homeland he had always cherished.
A few days later, a memorial service was held at Sanshui Funeral Home.
The venue covers a small area, but it is early filled with wreaths sent by all walks of life.
In the center of the hall is a posthumous photo of Li Jingwei, and the eyes of the elderly man still shine with wisdom and humility, just like the side he showed in front of the public many years ago.
Around 2 p.m., the memorial service officially began. More than 500 mourners stood in the hall, looking sad and solemn.
In the sound of mourning, the faint sobbing sound is the uncontrollable mourning of relatives in the front row.
Li Jingwei's eldest son, Li Jiandong, expressed his gratitude to the visitors on behalf of his family.
"Allow me to describe the father in my heart from the perspective of a son," he said. His father lost his father and mother at an early age, poverty and hardship tempered his character, cultivated his will not to be backward and mediocre... Whether it was working in the printing factory in his early years, or later becoming the director of Sanshui Distillery and personally establishing the Jianlibao Group, he has always been strict with himself and strives to do his best...
In his father's heart, Jianlibao's career is his second 'life'...
My brother and I needed my father's love when we were studying, but my father was busy with work and rarely saw him at home, so that there was not a single photo of that era at home... I didn't understand my father at first, thinking that my father had no affection in his heart, until my father returned to the family in his old age, compensated his fatherly love to his grandchildren, taught his grandchildren how to behave, how to be a person who contributes to society and has ideals, I really saw the other side of my father. ”
Li Jiandong did not talk much about Li Jingwei's life, and he summarized the ups and downs that his father experienced in the past years in almost one sentence: "When his father was most difficult, what he said most to others was that he was worthy of relatives and friends, hometown and Jianlibao's employees in his life... Life is impermanent, my father is gone, his merits and deeds, his own descendants comment... Now he seems to have embarked on a long journey again. He left us forever, but He also lives forever in our hearts. ”
Lu Deren is Li Jingwei's old subordinate in Jianlibao, and has been working with Li Jingwei for more than 10 years.
He told reporters that Li Jingwei was a cute and respectable boss in his heart, and in the last year of his life, Li Jingwei rarely mentioned Jianlibao's affairs, and he hid all his emotions so that outsiders could not easily see through.
He made indelible contributions to the country and paid a personal and painful life price.
Huang Bo also attended the memorial service for Li Jingwei, who met Li Jingwei in primary school and was a driver of Sanshui Distillery, although he did not join the Jianlibao Group, but he was a strong assistant to Li Jingwei's early entrepreneurship.
He said that in the early days when Li Jingwei established Jianlibao, there was no full-time driver, and every time he went out, he drove Li Jingwei.
Huang Bo revealed to reporters: "At that time, Li Jingwei was really desperate, and once in order to contact PepsiCo in Shenzhen, he ran back and forth for more than ten hours without closing his eyes. He did his best for the Jianlibao factory. ”
Among all the mourners, the one who attracted the most attention from reporters was Li Ning, who was nearly 50 years old.
As Li Ning said in the past, Li Jingwei is not only his boss, but also his father.
Li Jingwei helped Li Ning deeply, Li Ning learned that Li Jingwei's condition had deteriorated, and after returning to Sanshui for treatment, he immediately put down all his work and rushed to Sanshui to visit Li Jingwei.
But unfortunately, before Li Ning arrived, Li Jingwei died.
Li Ning didn't have time to take a breath, and he was busy with Li Jingwei's funeral, and stayed up all night to guard Li Jingwei.
Before leaving for the funeral home, Li Ning once told Li Jingwei's old subordinates and athletes to bid farewell: "The only purpose for all of us to come here is to bid farewell to the boss safely. ”
At the farewell meeting, Li Ning has been standing behind Li Jingwei's relatives, his hands slightly folded, his head raised from time to time and his eyes closed, and his lips are tightly pursed, as if he is trying to control his emotions.
After the ceremony, Li Ning suddenly walked to the coffin, stood quietly on the side, took a deep look at Li Jingwei for the last time, and then bowed several times in a row, watching the coffin go away.
Subsequently, Li Ning and Li Jingwei's relatives and others jointly escorted Li Jingwei's ashes up the mountain for burial.
After all the ceremonies, Li Ning did not forget to arrange relevant meals in accordance with local customs.
He said to everyone: "This time the boss invited you to eat the last meal, and in the future, you will have to find food by yourself!" ”
At this point, Li Jingwei has completely told others, but the story he left in the world will be passed down forever.
01, also like the sky: Jianlibao, under the leadership of Li Jingwei, became a household name overnight
Born in 1939, Li Jingwei, as his eldest son said, had an extremely poor and difficult family.
As a child, Li Jingwei worked as a shoe shiner, a printing worker, and also fanned people in the theater.
He struggled, worked hard to earn money, supported himself, and did not go to school for a day.
In the early 70s of the last century, because the ball was played well, Li Jingwei walked into the eyes of the county sports committee and had the opportunity to become the deputy director of the county sports committee. A few years later, the capable Li Jingwei was transferred to Sanshui Distillery as its director. At that time, the Sanshui distillery was very small, with only a few vats, and only produced rice wine.
As a leader, Li Jingwei led by example, walking the streets of Foshan and Guangzhou with rice wine on his back every day, selling rice wine door to door.
In 1983, Li Jingwei waited for a turning point in his life. During his business trip to Guangzhou, he accidentally bought a can of Coca-Cola on the side of the road, and after tasting it, Li Jingwei suddenly came up with the idea of making a drink.
He learned that a research institute in Guangdong had developed a drink that could help athletes quickly recover their physical strength, and immediately visited the door and won the research results.
Under the operation and operation of Li Jingwei, soon, an orange-yellow sports drink was born, which was later famous in China and abroad as "Jianlibao".
The following year, the Olympics were held in Los Angeles.
Li Jingwei, who loves sports, seized the opportunity and threw 250,000 yuan to sponsor a number of Chinese national teams, making his name and the Jianlibao brand attract the attention of most people at once.
More fortunately, the Chinese women's volleyball girls won the championship for the third time that year.
When celebrating the victory, they walked into the media camera with Jianlibao in hand, making Jianlibao, known by the media as "magic water", a household name overnight, with rapid sales growth, leaping to the leading position in the national beverage and becoming a well-known brand in China.
In 1991, Li Jingwei came up with an interesting promotion method of "pulling rings with prizes" to stimulate the consumer market, so that the sales volume of Jianlibao once again rode the dust, and no one else could compare;
In 1994, Li Jingwei, who was worth more than 100 million yuan, took all the five-star hotels in Guangzhou and hosted a banquet for guests from all walks of life on the 10th anniversary of the establishment of Jianlibao.
At the height of Jianlibao, Li Jingwei was the most worthy of emulation and admiration in the minds of everyone, his name was popular all over the country, his "status" in Sanshui far exceeded that of grassroots cadres, almost reaching the level of "state-owned enterprise section-level cadres", every time Sanshui held a conference, he was qualified to stand next to the first and second leaders.
However, Jianlibao's results did not satisfy Li Jingwei.
In 1996, after hearing the news that home appliance companies had signed a decentralization agreement with the Huizhou government, Li Jingwei immediately began to learn about the relevant news.
He built the 38-storey Jianlibao Building in Guangzhou, moved the headquarters of Jianlibao to Guangzhou, and began to deal with the listing of Jianlibao.
But unfortunately, Jianlibao's listing has not only not been approved, but also with the intervention of the Sanshui government, every new product developed by Jianlibao must also apply to the Sanshui government for review, and only after approval can it get funds.
In 1999, Li Jingwei offered more than 400 million yuan to buy the shares of Jianlibao held by the Sanshui government, but was refused. At that time, he did not know that the disaster belonging to him and Jianlibao had quietly come.
02, in the end, there is nothing to be done: However, when the building will fall, even Li Jingwei will not be able to return to the sky
In 2000, in order to prepare for listing, Jianlibao entered the restructuring stage.
Li Jingwei and several group executives discussed for several days about the 40 million yuan employee welfare fund on the company's account, and decided to spend it by buying insurance for all employees, but the plan was not approved.
Perhaps too anxious to change the system, Li Jingwei and others did not care about this matter, but quickly started a plan to buy insurance for the five CEOs of Jianlibao, spending more than 10 million, and each of them received about 100,000 rebates.
The following year, they distributed all the remaining funds on the account to all employees.
What surprised Jianlibao's internal employees was that in August of the same year, there was a sudden limit on the amount of withdrawals belonging to the internal employees' bank, which had never happened in Jianlibao.
The employees seemed to have sensed the "changing sky" and became panicked.
They broke into the settlement hall together to ask for an explanation, but were told by the staff that "the cabinet is broken".
The employees did not believe such a simple reason, and made a fuss for a while, only to temporarily calm the panic under the strong reassurance of the teller.
At the same time, the Sanshui government department finally relented, and they formed a six-member restructuring team with Jianlibao's senior management, ready to "attract investment" for Jianlibao with an asset appraisal price of 450 million yuan.
The first condition they gave was that they must be able to bear all of Jianlibao's employees and company liabilities.
Shortly after this incident, Li Jingwei proposed to buy Jianlibao at his own expense, but the relevant personnel rejected Li Jingwei on the grounds that the company was no longer a simple capital problem and needed to completely "change blood".
In addition, at that time, Li Jingwei's funds were insufficient, and he could only buy Jianlibao in 3-year installments, which was too risky, so Li Jingwei, who tried to beat the Singapore buyer, had to give up again.
In 2002, Zhang Hai, who was "born out of nowhere", successfully won Jianlibao Company. On the day of the official signing, Li Jingwei's silent and tearful lonely image became his last scene on the Jianlibao stage, which was moving.
Nine days later, Li Jingwei, who had long reached retirement age, was hospitalized due to a sudden cerebral hemorrhage and has not been able to afford it since.
However, the bad luck belonging to Li Jingwei is not over. In October of the same year, Li Jingwei was removed from his post as a deputy to the National People's Congress and placed under surveillance, after reports of corruption.
In 2003, Li Jingwei's case was transferred to the Foshan People's Procuratorate.
In 2009, a long-delayed prosecution was initiated.
In 2011, the Foshan Intermediate People's Court began hearing Li Jingwei's case.
Because Li Jingwei was seriously ill and difficult to attend, court personnel specially set up a temporary court in the hospital where Li Jingwei was treated to try Li Jingwei.
The trial lasted more than two hours, omitting part of the procedure.
Li Jingwei's lawyer pleaded Li Jingwei's innocence and tried to prove that Li Jingwei's actions were in fact illegal and could not constitute a crime.
Three months later, the court rendered a first-instance judgment, sentencing Li Jingwei to 15 years in prison and confiscating 150,000 yuan of personal property.
The founder of Jianlibao, who was famous in the past, became a prisoner in his twilight years. As for Jianlibao Company, it failed to carry forward again in Zhang Hai's hands, but was implicated by Zhang Hai, completely lost its past scenery, and almost collapsed.
03, pay attention to Jianlibao to death: The old employee said that as soon as he heard the 3 words "Jianlibao" on the hospital bed, his eyes immediately burst into light
After the verdict was handed down, Li Jingwei never appealed, but he never confessed to the crime.
Every time he saw a defense lawyer, he always emphasized two sentences: there is no guilt; I have never done anything bad in my life, and I am not afraid of who knocks on the door at night.
Li's old friend later told reporters that Li maintained his decency until his death.
He smokes 4 or 5 packs of cigarettes a day, still likes to play mahjong and talk to people, but whenever his friends visit him, he will show a happy expression.
Although the disease has always tormented him, Li Jingwei rarely talks to others about his pain.
If asked, he quietly changed the subject, valuing his dignity more than life.
Lu Deren, who often accompanies Li Jingwei in the hospital, also said: "Even at the end of his life, the boss is unwilling to put down his son." At that time, his kidney failure was quite serious, and the doctor advised him to solve his personal problems in bed, but the boss did not agree and had to get out of bed and go to the toilet by himself; He was particularly weak and needed 3 caregivers to help him to the bathroom. ”
Lu Deren recalled that the only time Li Jingwei mentioned the aftermath was to tell him: "People will always die, and when I die, I will be more comfortable than living... Best, let me go away in my sleep. ”
Li Jingwei's old subordinates said that Li Jingwei rarely talked about Jianlibao in his later years, but as long as Jianlibao's employees came, he would cheer up.
Even the doctors present said that when Li Jingwei heard the three words "Jianlibao", his eyes would suddenly glow brightly, as if Jianlibao was still his inseparable existence.
In addition, Li Jingwei also cares about Li Ning. As mentioned above, Li Ning and Li Jingwei have a deep relationship.
Many years ago, Li Ning lost in the competition, and everyone scolded him for his failure, but Li Jingwei held flowers in his hand and personally waited at the end of the off-topic passage to bring Li Ning some comfort.
Li Ning announced his retirement, and Li Jingwei immediately invited Li Ning to come to Jianlibao Company as his special assistant. Li Ning wanted to start his own business, and Li Jingwei generously helped Li Ning establish a company with more than 16 million yuan.
When experts suggested that Li Ning and Jianlibao thoroughly clarify property rights, Li Jingwei not only supported it generously, but also did not ask Li Ning to share the value-added part.
After becoming terminally ill, every time Li Jingwei saw Li Ning's related personnel, he would ask a few words about Li Ning's company, for fear that Li Ning would also follow in his own footsteps.
Li Ning was grateful for Li Jingwei's kindness, and after learning the news that Li Jingwei was admitted to the hospital for a stroke, he fully undertook all the expenses of Li Jingwei's treatment and hospitalization, which has not been interrupted for decades.
An insider familiar with the two said that we had not calculated the account, but we could clearly expect that it was bound to be an astronomical amount, but Li Ning never mentioned half a sentence.
After Li Jingwei was diagnosed with liver cancer, Li Ning and other old subordinates of Li Jingwei gathered in Guangzhou to quietly discuss Li Jingwei's future.
They specially invited the chairman of Jianlibao at the time to put forward the suggestion that Jianlibao would help arrange Li Jingwei's future, and Jianlibao chairman Ye Honghan readily agreed to send 8 buses to pick up the mourners on the day of Li Jingwei's memorial service, and provided free dinner on the same day, and placed two bottles of Jianlibao on each table.
Their actions can be regarded as making up for Li Jingwei's regrets.
Li Jingwei is gone, leaving the world forever.
He left no last words for his relatives and friends, but only said one wish, that is, to return to the roots of the fallen leaves.
Sanshui brought Li Jingwei too many joys and tears, and his legend began there and ended there.
Resources:
"Farewell to Li Jingwei: The memorial service was held yesterday, Li Ning and other people from all walks of life sent off in tears"
"In his later years, Li Jingwei does not forget Jianlibao"
"Chinese Magic Water": The Story That Li Jingwei and Jianlibao Have to Tell Behind
"Specimen Li Jingwei"
"Li Jingwei: The "Three Colors" Life of the Father of Jianlibao"