According to the genealogy theory, Zong Qinghou is the 29th grandson of Zong Ze, a famous minister of the Northern Song Dynasty.
The Zong family, during the period of its tenth ancestor Ruizhi, moved to Hangzhou and was the originator of the "Qiantang Zong".
Zong Qinghou's family, the ancestors have a prominent background, and they can even be called generations of eunuchs, and they have been prominent until the ** period.
His great ancestor Jingfu was the general and thousand commanders of the Hangzhou Green Battalion, and his great-ancestor Chenglie also served as an official in Sichuan and Hubei.
In the 32nd year of Guangxu, that is, in 1906, his great-grandfather Zong Chenglie served as the commander of the Chongqing Continuing Army, and in the same year, a major flood broke out in Chongqing.
Zong Chenglie had two sons and two daughters, and the second son, Zong Jixian, was Zong Qinghou's grandfather. At that time, Zong Jixian successively served as the Minister of Finance under Zhang Zuolin in Beiyang and the secretary of Lieutenant General Wang Puppet in Nanjing.
For this reason, Zong Qinghou's father Zong Qiluo also served in Nanjing and Suqian Wang Puppet **, and in November of the year of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Zong Qinghou was born in Suqian.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zong Qinghou's father was unemployed due to family composition problems, and the family relied on the salary of his mother Wang Shuzhen, who was a primary school teacher.
After the age of seventeen, because the family was poor and unable to maintain his studies, Zong Qinghou graduated from junior high school and dropped out. It was in this year that the Zong family moved back to Hangzhou from Suqian.
A few years later, Zong Qinghou, as a member of the educated youth, entered the Zhoushan farm to work in the countryside, here, he dug salt, dried salt, picked salt, planted tea, burned kilns, and basically experienced all kinds of hard work, and this work was fifteen years.
In 1978, 33-year-old Zong Qinghou returned to Hangzhou to replace his mother's position as a primary school teacher, but because his education level was too low, he was reluctantly arranged to work as a worker in the carton factory of the post circuit primary school in Shangcheng District, Hangzhou, which also belongs to the education system.
Here, another decade has been done.
Many people say that Zong Qinghou is a late bloomer, but Lao Zhang and I think that this is the normal state of thousands of working people in China.
How can it really be like in the TV series, all the hardships are aimed at tempering you, and all the grievances and depressions are all for you to soar to the sky in the end?
If it weren't for his keen eyesight and superhuman courage, Zong Qinghou would not have ventured forward again when an opportunity that seemed to be hopeless came.
In the ten years he worked as a worker in a small class factory, he did not try, it was not for nothing that he opened an electric fan factory and an electric meter factory, and it was not for nothing that he started a business, but it was nothing more than a failure.
In 1987, the reform of state-owned enterprises began to advance, and the Hangzhou Shangcheng District Bureau of Culture and Education began to contract the operation of its subordinate school-run enterprises.
Zong Qinghou carried the 140,000 yuan raised, and dared to contract the school-run enterprise distribution department from the Shangcheng District Culture and Education Bureau.
At that time, there were three employees in the distribution department, in addition to Zong Qinghou himself, there were also two retired teachers under him, selling soft drinks, popsicles and stationery produced by the school-run enterprise.
Due to the lack of manpower, after that, as long as he received an order from the school**, whether it was windy, rainy or scorching, 42-year-old Zong Qinghou had to immediately pedal on a tricycle and deliver popsicles to school.
A popsicle costs 4 cents, and selling one only makes a few cents. ”
However, he has also established a good reputation in more than 40 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in Shangcheng District, and the sales network has gradually been built.
Since then, using the school channel, Zong Qinghou has done a lot of dealers' business, including one called "Chinese Pollen Oral Liquid.""of nutraceuticals. This oral liquid has a certain effect on enhancing students' physique, but it is very expensive, Zong Qinghou took the initiative to find the manufacturer to suggest providing simple products, so that the cost is reduced.
After the price reduction, "China pollen oral liquid" became in short supply, and the production capacity of manufacturers was urgent.
You must know that how can dealers have their own production lines, and all the business of Zong Qinghou at this time is nothing more than ** distribution.
Zong Qinghou took this opportunity to persuade the Hangzhou Planning Commission to prepare for the establishment of the "Hangzhou Baolu Children's Nutrition Food Factory", and obtained the consent of the original manufacturer to set up a filling production line in the factory, at the end of November 1987, the daily output of 10,000 boxes of canning workshop in Shangcheng District Qingtai Street No. 160 Road, the total sales of that year reached 4.36 million yuan, and the profit was 2220,000 yuan.
By May 1988, the net assets of the distribution department of the original small school-run enterprise had exceeded 8 million yuan, and the number of employees had grown to more than 130.
It is very good, but it is still sold on a consignment basis, and as everyone knows more and more about the so-called nutrient solution, more and more attention is paid to its quality and whether it contains hormones.
Zong Qinghou realized that he must have his own products, know the roots, and master the formula of the products.
Before starting to do it, Zong Qinghou conducted a visit and investigation, and there were 38 domestic enterprises producing nutrient solution at that time, but none of them produced nutrient solution for children.
What's more, 1,336 of the 3,006 primary school students surveyed by Zong Qinghou were malnourished.
In addition, the family planning policy began to be implemented at that time, and people paid more and more attention to the health of their children.
This made Zong Qinghou realize that it was necessary to develop a nutrient solution suitable for children, which was a huge market.
The development of the new nutrient solution is also a legend.
In order to invite Zhang Honghui, a technician from the century-old shop "Huqing Yutang", to preside over the manufacture of the original solution, Zong Qinghou took out 50,000 yuan to invite Zhu Shoumin, a 63-year-old professor of Zhejiang Medical University, to go out of the mountain, and in order to invite Zhang Honghui, a technician from the century-old store "Huqing Yutang", to preside over the manufacture of the original solution, Zong Qinghou looked at the thatched house, and even took out the three-bedroom and one living room that the Education Bureau had just allocated to him and gave it to the other party, and then the family lived in an old house of less than ten square meters.
In order to name the new formula, Zong Qinghou published a prize solicitation activity in "Hangzhou**" to name the new formula, and finally selected the name of Zhu Songlin, director of the Children's Palace in Shangcheng District, Hangzhou.
That is, it was later well-known at home and abroad, and it was known to all ages and people.
In order to open up popularity, Zong Qing, who only had 100,000 liquidity, signed an advertising contract of 250,000 yuan with Hangzhou TV station without changing his color.
Wahaha was a big hit as soon as it was launched, after all, this is the first nutrient solution developed for children on the market.
By 1991, Wahaha's annual sales reached 400 million yuan, and its net profit reached 70 million.
In order to continue to expand production, Zong Qinghou acquired the bankrupt but large Hangzhou canned food factory for 80 million yuan, which allowed Zong Qinghou to receive more than 60,000 square meters of factory buildings, more than 2,200 employees, and of course 40 million yuan in debt.
It was after this acquisition that the company officially changed its name to Wahaha Group.
In 1996, Wahaha launched a new brand of Wahaha pure water, and since then it has begun to enter the market like the first. In 1996, AD calcium milk was launched, which is a milk-based beverage supplemented with vitamin A and vitamin D, and the sales volume reached 10 in 1997700 million bottles, which later became the collective memory of people born in the 80s and 90s of the 20th century in Chinese mainland.
That's right, Lao Zhang, who was born in the 80s, owes me the most when I was a child, there are only two kinds of drinks, one is wahaha, and the other is Jianlibao.
In 2004, with the advancement of the "comprehensive innovation" strategy, Wahaha successively launched Eagle Eye Express, Shuang Crooked, and soon launched the functional beverage Qili to compete with the old Red Bull in this field for the market.
As of 2012, Qili's sales volume reached 1400 million cans.
From 1988 to 2013, Wahaha's total assets increased by 570,000 times. Under the dual impact of the "hollowing" of the real economy, the international financial crisis and the European debt crisis, Zong Qinghou is still invincible against the wind.
Thanks to the strong development of Wahaha, Zong Qinghou topped the Forbes China Rich List in 2010 and 2012, which is commonly known as the richest man in Chinese mainland.
So far, Wahaha is the largest food and beverage manufacturer in China and the fifth largest beverage manufacturer in the world.
Unfortunately, at 10:30 a.m. on February 25, 2024, the shocking news came that Mr. Zong Qinghou, a unique and legendary entrepreneur and national model worker in China, passed away in Beijing at the age of 79. This is the departure of a figure of an era, and it also marks the beginning and end of an era.
In the 80s of the last century, China's shopping malls were an era of fairy fights, when the reform and opening up had just begun, and the state-owned enterprises began to break the iron rice bowl and began to engage in a market economy.
What is a market economy?
To put it bluntly, it is to let the market regulate it, and if the enterprise can live, you will live, and if you can't live, you will go bankrupt and transfer, instead of using financial subsidies to survive as in the past.
Another big background of the 80s was the scarcity of materials, the extreme scarcity of goods, and the strange drinks, food, dazzling electronic products and so on that we see today did not exist in that era.
At that time, China lacked everything, so there was a big market for everything, and whoever made the first move could quickly seize the market.
Therefore, at that time, not only Wahaha was born, but also Foshan Jianlibao, which was earlier than it, was also reborn as a small state-owned factory.
Another fashionable brand in the 80s, kvass, in fact, is actually a soda with flavor, and the mouth is full of flavor after drinking it.
But then again, the momentary success at that time does not mean that you can have the last laugh, many brands have been out of the game in the increasingly competitive business war, so that it has now become a memory.
Only, Wahaha is an exception.
In addition to the continuous innovation we mentioned earlier and the continuous introduction of new products in line with the market, in the internal management of Wahaha, except for Zong Qinghou, chairman and general manager, Wahaha does not have any deputies, and sales and production are directly responsible for the heads of each department.
However, this does not affect Zong Qinghou to directly control the company's more than 200 core management through monthly meetings.
Since 1991, every employee of Wahaha has held shares in the company, which makes employees feel like the director of the company.
In the 2006 Dawa battle in which Danone tried to annex Wahaha, France's Danone owned 51% of the shares of the Wahaha joint venture, and in order to control Wahaha, it put forward a request to acquire 51% of the shares of the Wahaha non-joint venture for 4 billion, which was fiercely resisted by Wahaha.
You must know that the total assets of Wahaha Group at that time had reached 5.6 billion, and the profit in 2006 also reached 10400 million.
In the field of litigation, Danone first gave up the acquisition, but asked Wahaha to buy back the 51% stake already held by Danone for 50 billion, and finally retreated to 20 billion.
In the end, Wahaha bought back Danone's 51% controlling stake in the Wahaha joint venture for 3 billion.
This is the most classic case in the history of business warfare. From acquisitions, to reverse takeovers, from 50 billion, to 3 billion. Zong Qinghou, who was a late bloomer, staged a big drama for the Chinese people.
In this business war, in addition to the failure of all 29 lawsuits filed by Danone at home and abroad, Zong Qinghou's follow-up is also very important.
In June 2008, Zong Qinghou directly proposed that if no agreement could be reached, Wahaha would be dissolved collectively.
In order to prove that what he said was true, Wahaha first filed an application for dissolution with the court, and then withdrew it, depending on what Danone Group said.
You must know that the Wahaha trademark at this time has been litigated by the court and belongs to the Wahaha non-joint venture.
In other words, if Zong Qinghou dissolves all 39 joint ventures, then in addition to personnel, trademarks and markets, as the controlling shareholder, Danone will only have a bunch of plants and equipment left, nothing at all.
The employees and distributors of the dissolved joint venture can be taken over by the joint venture and continue to occupy the market.
The reason why Wahaha can have the courage to turn the tables against the wind under the advantage of the other party's absolute controlling stake is that many years ago, Wahaha achieved full shareholding, and employees and the group formed a common destiny collection.
Si people have gone, as a person of the same age as Wahaha, I hope that Wahaha, who has no sect elders, can continue to move forward.
**10,000 Fans Incentive Plan