He started with only 70 yuan and eventually became a billionaire. He drank water and thought of the source, and spent 12 million to repay the kindness of the villagers, he is Zheng Daqing. However, the billionaire's original dream was to become a writer.
On the road to his success, there were also dark clouds, he worked as a railway soldier, worked as a small worker, went to the construction site, and even had a debt of 700,000 yuan in the early days of his business, thinking about dying.
So how did he get out of the predicament and benefit the villagers? What kind of twists and turns did he have on the road of entrepreneurship? In this issue, the founder of Ziya Children's Fun observes, and we walk into the wonderful entrepreneurial life of this rich man.
The family was poor and gave up his dream of being a writer
In February 1959, Zheng Daqing was born in a farming family in Yilong, Nanchong, Sichuan. There are a total of 7 brothers and sisters in the family, and you can imagine how difficult life is. However, parents do not feel that many children are a burden, but do their best to love them.
Under the care of his mother, Zheng Daqing has developed a strong character since he was a child. He studied very hard and believed that knowledge could change his destiny.
Although Zheng Daqing's grades were good, after graduating from junior high school, he still realized that his family could not afford his studies at this time.
At this time, the county was conscripted, and the sensible Zheng Daqing resolutely gave up the precious opportunity to study in high school in order to reduce the burden on his family, and chose to drop out of school to join the army.
Zheng Daqing was assigned to the desert area of Qinghai to work as a railway soldier, and his work was full of hardships and dangers. But in order to change his fate, Zheng Daqing gritted his teeth and persevered.
The road of taking the army to promote cadres was blocked, and Zheng Daqing thought of another way and became a writer. It was also a small dream of his school days.
Once he had made up his mind, he began to buy dictionaries and writing books, wrote many poems and plays, and sent them to the editors of major newspapers and magazines. Unfortunately, in the end, these manuscripts were all lost without exception.
However, at this time, Zheng Daqing had no time at all to cry for his shattered dream of being a writer. Because another blow struck, his mother, who loved him, died in poverty and illness.
Zheng Daqing in 1985 fell into a low point in his life for the first time. After handling his mother's funeral, after retiring from the army, he worked as a small odd job near the village to make ends meet.
Just when he was about to get tired of such days, with the help of newspapers and other workers, he learned that due to the reform and opening up, the outside world has undergone earth-shaking changes over the years.
Zheng Daqing realized that this was a good opportunity, and his mother's experience had made him deeply realize that there was no future in such a poor life.
Take refuge in fellow villagers and rely on contractors to make a family
So he decided to go to Urumqi to join his fellow villagers, but at this time he couldn't even afford the travel expenses. Fortunately, after learning of Zheng Daqing's predicament, the villagers reached out to this honest young man and scraped together more than 70 yuan for him to pay for the journey.
After coming to Urumqi in 1985, Zheng Daqing came to the construction site to work as a small worker after being introduced by his fellow villagers, so he didn't have to worry about food and clothing for the time being.
However, unlike other workers, Zheng Daqing is not only diligent in his work, but also often reads professional books on architecture in his spare time.
For this seemingly energetic little worker, many people laughed at him for being too stupid and felt that it was useless work. Soon they stopped laughing.
With his own hardships and hard work, and the professional knowledge that he made up for during this time, Zheng Daqing stood out from this group of small workers and became the small leader of the construction site. At the end of the year, he counted the year's harvest and actually had nearly 2,000 yuan.
Soon the opportunity came, because the project for a rubber factory was very good, the factory leader was very satisfied with this young man's team, and at the same time introduced him to several major projects.
Zheng Daqing's engineering team became famous in Urumqi, and his career began to get on the right track. As it turned out, Zheng Daqing did have a business eye, and the projects quickly paid off.
However, at that time, he lacked not only experience in coal mining, but also in shopping mall management, and soon these originally good projects went into decline.
These two failures not only made Zheng Daqing once saddled with a debt of 700,000 yuan, but also made him disheartened for a while. Zheng Daqing recalled that when he was most desperate, he even walked to the railroad tracks and wanted to die.
However, when he stood in the cold wind and looked at the flickering lights of the train in the distance, he remembered his mother who loved him, and the inspirational stories he told to him back then, his wife and children, and the villagers in poverty.
At this time, Zheng Daqing finally came to his senses, and he warned himself that he could not fall, and he must let everyone see hope.
After the business failed, Zheng Daqing first began to reflect on the reasons for his failure this time. Eventually, he realized that his mistake was to take too many steps and stretch his hands too long.
After some consideration, Zheng Daqing decided to focus his energy on the shopping mall. In 1995, Zheng Daqing reached all his net worth, borrowed 1 million yuan from the bank, founded Xinjiang Tiandi Industrial Trading Company, and continued the operation of the shopping mall.
Remember the kindness and give back to the villagers
With enough lessons to learn from his failures, this time Zheng Daqing's mall finally got rid of the problem of mismanagement, and soon allowed him to turn a profit.
In 1998, after careful consideration, Zheng Daqing invested 200 million yuan to build the Oriental 100 commercial building covering an area of more than 30,000 square meters. During the construction of the commercial building, it was just in time for the Southeast Asian financial crisis, and the commercial field was full of mourning.
He also has many acquaintances around him, and he also questioned the revenue of the commercial building. The problem of insufficient funds has reappeared, and the construction workers are also full of restlessness.
But Zheng Daqing firmly believes that he is going in the right direction this time. For this reason, he personally went to the construction site, just like he did before as a contract foreman, to calm the emotions of the workers.
Sure enough, Zheng Daqing won, because after the completion of this commercial building, only in 1999, it brought him a turnover of 170 million, and in 2000, it exceeded 200 million turnover. Relying on this building, Zheng Daqing has also become a real billionaire
Since then, Zheng Daqing's career has been going more and more smoothly, but at this time, he has also sobered up a lot in the investment field, no longer blossoming in all directions as before, but wholeheartedly doing people's livelihood. In 2003, he had a net worth of 2 billion.
Of course, Zheng Daqing did not forget to repay the kindness of the villagers. After his success in the business field, he has always worked hard for the construction of his hometown.
As the saying goes, if you want to get rich, you must first build roads, and in 2001, he invested 7 million yuan to improve the transportation in his hometown. The products of the vast towns and villages in Yilong area can begin to circulate to the outside world, which has played an important role in the local economic development.
In order to allow more children from the same background as him to no longer suffer from the worry of dropping out of school, he built 5 hope primary schools in the local area, and invested 100,000 yuan every year to let children in poor areas study well.
For Zheng Daqing's move, the leaders of Yilong County expressed their gratitude and wanted to name the bridges and schools he built after him. However, Zheng Daqing refused, saying that his success depended on society, and this move was just to give back to society.
In February 2019, Zheng Daqing returned to his hometown again. This time, he set up a luxurious feast of 100 tables, invited the local villagers to have a full meal, and at the same time, at the banquet, Zheng Daqing also personally sent a large number of red envelopes, refrigerators, color TVs, air conditioners and other gifts to the elderly.
Zheng Daqing once had a poor childhood, but fortunately he met a group of simple villagers who helped him get out of the difficulties. And Zheng Daqing also used his practical actions to repay everyone's kindness, and at the same time practiced his motto of "being humble and burying himself in work".