Chapter 2067: Watching the Fire from Across the River

“Who is Liu Qiangdong in contact with?”

Zheng Yao asked Dong Chenxi in surprise.

“Tencent.”

Dong Chenxi replied.

“That guy is greedy.” Zheng Yao looked up at Zhao Fusheng and said.

Zhao Fusheng laughed: “Greedy is an understatement. He’s trying to shake off our influence.”

With that, he said to Dong Chenxi: “Find out what Liu Qiangdong is planning. Also, contact Ma Xiaoyun; I want to see him.”

“Huh?”

Dong Chenxi and Zheng Yao exchanged glances, then finally nodded.

They both knew that Zhao Fusheng had always thought highly of Jingdong. Clearly, Liu Qiangdong’s recent actions had made Zhao Fusheng very unhappy.

But they didn’t understand why Zhao Fusheng wanted to see Ma Xiaoyun.

Could it be that he intended to drag Ma Xiaoyun into this?

In fact, that was exactly what Zhao Fusheng was thinking.

In the original timeline, Alibaba’s business landscape was mainly concentrated in the e-commerce sector, the so-called industrial internet.

The money-making method was simple: Alibaba took a commission on every transaction. Merchants wanting more traffic paid for premium placement and advertising fees. On Alibaba’s massive platform, millions of merchants brought the company annual revenue of nearly four hundred billion yuan and net profits close to one hundred billion yuan, making it a veritable “money-printing machine.”

Tencent Technology, on the other hand, focused on the consumer internet sector, with core businesses including online games and social value-added services.

The two giants could have coexisted peacefully, but Ma Huateng was not one to stick to conventions. He hoped that before 2050, while maintaining his advantage in consumer internet, he could extract more profits from the enterprise side, finding new revenue streams among Alibaba’s service providers—small and medium enterprises—and thereby create another Tencent.

From then on, the two companies began to fight tooth and nail.

In the cloud services battlefield where they directly clashed, Alibaba Cloud remained the market leader, while Tencent Cloud, as a rising star, was not to be underestimated.

Moreover, in the more frequently used and down-to-earth payment sector,

WeChat dominated the social arena, and WeChat Pay and Alipay had been locked in a melee online and offline for years, vying not only for the payment habits of 1.1 billion active users but also for the fee-based payments of millions of small and medium merchants.

And this brings us to the so-called Tencent ecosystem.

Ma Huateng was a clever man; he invested widely in internet companies and nurtured their growth. In Zhao Fusheng’s original memory, Meituan, Jingdong, and Pinduoduo were all Tencent-affiliated companies, with very high shareholding ratios.

Among them, Comrade Liu Qiangdong, undaunted by hardship, built his own logistics, carved a bloody path with the strategy of “more, faster, better, cheaper,” established his own school, and tangled with Alibaba for over a decade.

The e-commerce upstart Pinduoduo seized the opportunity of market下沉, finding a breakthrough among young people “outside the Fifth Ring Road” and consumers in third- and fourth-tier cities. It went public three years after its founding, with a market value stable above forty billion US dollars, surpassing the old powerhouses Baidu and NetEase.

In terms of user scale, Pinduoduo had already surpassed Jingdong.

Some said that in Zhao Fusheng’s view, Pinduoduo was another Taobao, but in reality it might upgrade into a new Tmall—a path Alibaba had once walked.

This was the history Zhao Fusheng knew well. He had thought that after investing in Jingdong, history had been altered, but unexpectedly, Liu Qiangdong was still starting to contact Ma Huateng.

Could fate really have a kind of inertia?

…

…

“Let’s go home.”

After the little girl finished eating, Zhao Fusheng took her hand and got into the car to go home.

Zheng Yao and Dong Chenxi had other matters to attend to, so they left separately.

Back home, he watched TV with the little girl for a while, helped her with homework, and put her to bed. Zhao Fusheng looked over some documents for a while, then also went to rest.

The next day, Fan Bao and the others arrived in Italy and called Zhao Fusheng.

“Has Beibei been causing trouble?” Fan Bao asked Zhao Fusheng worriedly.

She was mainly concerned that Fan Beibei, suddenly away from the family and alone with Zhao Fusheng at home, might cause him trouble.

“Not at all.”

Zhao Fusheng laughed: “She’s been very good. When I took her to school this morning, she was very happy.”

“That’s good. If she’s disobedient, you have to tell her what she did wrong, but don’t spoil her.” Fan Bao added.

Zhao Fusheng chuckled but didn’t take it to heart.

In his view, scolding was not the most frightening part of education.

The most frightening thing was prolonged ideological communication. Elders always thought they should engage in intellectual dialogue with children, but in fact, for children, this was an unbearable thing.

Being in the prime of youth, they had their own ideas about everything they did, yet they were forcibly restrained. No one would feel comfortable with that.

That was the origin of the rebellious phase.

But for now, Fan Beibei didn’t seem to have reached that stage yet.

Even if she did, she probably wouldn’t vent her anger on Zhao Fusheng, because the little girl was smart enough to know who she could provoke and who she couldn’t.

If she really angered Zhao Fusheng, she would lose her last protective charm.

She wouldn’t do that.

After asking about the parents and children, Zhao Fusheng and Fan Bao reluctantly hung up.

…

…

Dong Chenxi worked quickly; she soon investigated the situation at Jingdong and had the materials sent to Zhao Fusheng.

“This guy is really shrewd.”

Zhao Fusheng looked at the materials in his hand, shook his head, and laughed.

He had to admit that Liu Qiangdong was indeed very clever. The reason he contacted Ma Huateng was simple: he hoped to leverage Tencent’s huge user base to break through the barriers of the e-commerce market.

“Chairman, what should we do?”

Liu Yiming had naturally seen the materials and said to Zhao Fusheng: “Miss Dong’s information indicates that Liu Qiangdong has been to Shenzhen several times. I estimate that by the end of the year at the latest, they should be able to reach a cooperation agreement.”

Zhao Fusheng laughed: “Yiming, do you think this is a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Huh?”

Hearing Zhao Fusheng’s question, Liu Yiming was completely confused.

Clearly, this question was a bit difficult for him.

Or rather, he didn’t know how to answer Zhao Fusheng.

Zhao Fusheng waved his hand: “Forget it. Tell Dong Chenxi that we’re not going to interfere with this matter.”

“Not interfere?”

Liu Yiming was immediately astonished. According to this, wouldn’t Future Investment’s shares be significantly diluted?

Zhao Fusheng smiled: “Jingdong’s development has its limits after all. We can’t keep other investors out forever. Since Tencent has this idea and they are indeed suitable, let them be.”

“Okay.”

Liu Yiming quickly nodded.

Whatever Zhao Fusheng decided, he was the boss and had the authority.

Watching Liu Yiming leave to call Dong Chenxi, Zhao Fusheng shook his head, smiled, but said nothing.

Often, you can’t judge a matter by its surface.

Liu Qiangdong now harbored ambitions, hoping to break free from Zhao Fusheng’s control. For Zhao Fusheng, this was a warning.

He knew very well how far Jingdong could develop. For Zhao Fusheng, if he could use Jingdong to gain more benefits, that would naturally be good.

But he couldn’t invest too much energy in Jingdong.

Rather than that, Zhao Fusheng might as well invest in other companies.

After all, the future of China’s internet industry had many big pieces of cake waiting for him to taste.

Take Pinduoduo, for example. Since Ma Huateng wanted a piece of Jingdong, let him have it.

But correspondingly, he would have to offer enough satisfactory price and chips.

That was Zhao Fusheng’s real purpose.

As for Alibaba?

A smile crept onto Zhao Fusheng’s lips. He was curious about what Ma Xiaoyun was feeling now.

He wondered if that Ma boss, while riding in his car to the capital, was cursing Liu Qiangdong and Ma Huateng under his breath.

Just imagining the future showdown between two super-tycoons gave Zhao Fusheng a thrill.

Especially since this showdown was something he had witnessed and personally ignited.

That gave him an indescribable sense of achievement.

For Zhao Fusheng, this was truly a very interesting matter.