72: Chapter 72 What acquisition? I went to conduct research.

Three in the afternoon.

Inside an old office building in Zhongguancun, the roar of the server room air conditioner was deafening.

Counselor Liang Bo was covered in sweat, crouching behind a narrow server rack, gripping a screwdriver, frantically tightening screws.

His T-shirt was already soaked through, sticking to his back.

Two brand-new IBM servers were flashing dim blue indicator lights, the sound of their fans spinning at high speed like a plane about to take off.

"Old Zhang! Is the network cable crimped?" Counselor Liang Bo roared.

"Done, done! Don't rush me!"

Counselor Liang Bo's classmate, Old Zhang, was holding a crimping tool, his fingers worn red, as he inserted the crystal head into the switch port.

With a crisp "click" sound.

"It's connected!"

Counselor Liang Bo dropped the screwdriver, lunged to the console, and his fingers flew across the keyboard.

On the black screen, lines of white code flowed down like a waterfall.

He was redeploying the load balancing, diverting the traffic originally pressed onto one machine to these two new servers.

"President Qian's machine is really damn powerful." Counselor Liang Bo watched the system resource usage drop rapidly and couldn't help but curse.

"This configuration is enough to run a portal site."

Meanwhile, at the Telecommunications Bureau server room, Su Jing was sitting in Section Chief Wang's office drinking tea.

Soon, Section Chief Wang hung up the phone and said to her with a smile:

"Manager Su, it's done. The bureau specially approved it and allocated a backup fiber optic line for you. Your bandwidth is now at the 100Mbps level."

Su Jing breathed a sigh of relief and said with a smile, "Thank you for your support, Section Chief Wang."

Five in the afternoon.

In the Matrix Internet Cafe, the customers who were originally cursing and complaining suddenly went quiet.

"Eh? It's working!"

"Holy crap, why did the speed become so fast?"

"It loads in a second!"

Chen Hao sat in the office, watching the monitoring data on the screen.

On the background statistics chart of qu123, the curve that had originally fallen to the bottom began to rise rapidly.

Traffic was skyrocketing.

Fifty thousand...

Eighty thousand...

One hundred thousand...

Finally, the number settled at an astonishing position.

"Daily Unique Visitors (UV): 124,582"

"Page Views (PV): 860,000"

120,000 daily active users.

In the year 2000, what kind of concept was this?

At this time, the three major portal sites only had daily active users in the millions.

And his humble navigation site had achieved one-tenth of theirs.

Chen Hao opened the backend and stared at the map of Dragon Country on the screen.

The red dots represented the traffic sources of QU123, mainly concentrated in Kyoto, Yizhou, and several surrounding northern provinces.

Across the Yangtze River, the red dots were as sparse as the hair on a bald old man's forehead.

Especially in Guangdong Province, it was almost completely blank.

He switched pages and entered that domain name: hao123.

The page loaded very quickly, with a simple and crude layout, densely packed with text links.

At this time, hao123 was still relying on Li Xingping's friends who were Internet cafe administrators to promote it, but in southern Internet cafes, the penetration rate of this navigation site was already very high.

Chen Hao calculated his current resources; it would be difficult to penetrate southern cities in the short term.

If he didn't curb the expansion of hao123 now, once Li Xingping realized next year that traffic could be monetized, it would be difficult to deal with him then.

Chen Hao moved the mouse and clicked randomly on the page.

A pop-up window jumped out, which was a page named "Passionate Chat Room" with racy images.

He clicked a few more software download links, which jumped directly to an unknown pirated software distribution site.

Chen Hao leaned back against the chair, looking at the webpage and thinking silently.

The current hao123 was still in a stage of wild growth, full of flaws.

Just flipping through the content inside, there were a bunch of weaknesses.

Pornography, piracy, and illegal traffic diversion.

Although this was the norm in 2000, as long as someone wanted to target you, this was a fatal weakness.

The best way to incorporate it was not to throw money at it, but to make the founder feel fear, and then voluntarily hand over control.

At this moment, Li Xingping was still working as an Internet cafe administrator in a cafe in Xining City, Guangdong Province.

It seems I have to make a trip.

Chen Hao closed the webpage, picked up a Zhonghua cigarette from the table, and lit one.

Since he was going to Guangdong Province, he might as well make a detour to Pengcheng.

That penguin should be running out of food by now, right?

Little Pony Ma was probably stressed out about server costs at this time, and might have even considered selling OICQ.

This trip south, let's see if I can kill two birds with one stone.

The next morning, at the Ministry of Electronic Information.

The scent of tea overflowed in Division Chief Qin Hao's office.

"Not bad, President Chen."

Division Chief Qin Hao flipped through the association charter and work report that Chen Hao brought, his face full of smiles.

"How long has it been, and you've already unified the Internet cafe industry in Haidian District?"

Chen Hao sat on the sofa and said with a smile.

"It's all thanks to the guidance of Brother Hao." Chen Hao said with a smile.

"And the support of District Head Ren, I just did some trivial work. The association members also want to operate legitimately and don't want to be inspected every day."

"Stop buttering me up." Division Chief Qin Hao pointed at him.

"That's because you have the ability. If it were someone else, they would have been squeezed out by those old foxes running Internet cafes long ago."

He closed the file and picked up the teacup: "You kid never visits without a reason. Coming today, surely not just to report achievements, right?"

Chen Hao scratched his head, showing a slightly embarrassed expression.

"Brother Hao really understands me. Actually, it's like this. The base in Kyoto is on track, but I always feel my vision isn't broad enough. I'm only familiar with the industry situation near Kyoto. The Internet changes too fast. I want to go to the south to look around, especially Guangdong Province."

"Go to the south?" Division Chief Qin Hao put down the teacup.

"Yes." Chen Hao nodded.

"Guangdong Province is the frontier of reform and opening up. They had early access to external networks, so the informatization penetration must have unique features. I want to research and see if there is any advanced experience I can bring back to make our base more solid."

Division Chief Qin Hao looked at Chen Hao thoughtfully.

This reason sounded high and lofty, and no faults could be found.

But he knew this little brother too well; this kid never did loss-making deals.

Going for research was fake; he was probably eyeing some southern market or project.

However, as long as the general direction was correct, he was happy to see it happen.

"That's a good thing." Division Chief Qin Hao nodded.

"Better to travel ten thousand miles than read ten thousand books. No harm in taking a look."

Chen Hao rubbed his hands, his face showing a troubled expression.

"However, Brother Hao, I have a concern."

"Speak."

"I'm too young." Chen Hao smiled bitterly.

"Although I have the title of Association President, it works in Haidian District, but outside Kyoto, who knows me? If I just run over there, let alone entering government gates to research, I probably won't even see a Section Chief."

Division Chief Qin Hao laughed: "Aren't you pretty good at using others' power to intimidate? Why, not planning to bring out your old man this time?"

Chen Hao waved his hands repeatedly, looking serious. "That won't do. This is my own business, using the old man's banner isn't appropriate. Besides, the cultural sector and the information industry sector don't align, I don't want to cause trouble for the family."

These words made Division Chief Qin Hao think highly of him.

He knew the rules, and knew when to advance or retreat.

If it were that kind of second-generation who relied on family connections to reach everywhere, Division Chief Qin Hao would have kicked him out long ago.

But someone like Chen Hao, who had a background, knew boundaries, and knew how to credit the Ministry with his achievements, was worth supporting.

"Alright, stop acting pitiful here." Division Chief Qin Hao didn't want to listen to him beat around the bush anymore.

"Speak, what do you want?"

"Hehe." Chen Hao immediately put on a smiling face.

"Can you help me make a call in the name of the Ministry, and issue an official letter? Just say I'm going to research informatization popularization work. With this amulet, when I get there, I can stand taller."