127: Chapter 127 The Price Blitz of Red Flag

9:00 AM, Sunday, December 10th. A normal Sunday morning.

But for the Chinese automotive market, this was a moment that would go down in history.

At nine o'clock sharp, the Hongqi Automobile official website, 1,200 4S stores nationwide, and all vertical automotive websites updated their prices simultaneously.

Red Flag H9 Yuexing · Youth Edition

Original Price: 149,800 yuan (Manual) / 156,800 yuan (CVT)

New Price: 139,800 yuan / 146,800 yuan

A price drop of 10,000 yuan.

Unit cost: 110,000 yuan, Unit profit: 29,800 yuan (Gross margin 21%, still higher than the industry average).

Also released were new benefit packages: Lifetime free maintenance upgraded to "Lifetime free maintenance + warranty," five years of complimentary in-car data, and a trade-in subsidy of up to 10,000 yuan.

Simple, brutal, direct.

Zhou Qingyu sat in the Red Flag headquarters command center, facing eight large screens displaying website traffic, 400 hotline call volume, 4S store surveillance, order systems, social media sentiment, competitor pricing, inventory data, and production schedules.

At 9:01, website traffic surged by 3000%.

At 9:02, the 400 hotline began to queue, with the number of waiting callers quickly exceeding one thousand.

At 9:05, the first online order was generated: a user in Shanghai Municipality, CVT version, 146,800 yuan.

"It's started," Zhou Qingyu said softly.

Then, the data began to jump wildly.

9:30, orders exceeded 5,000 units.

10:00, exceeded 10,000 units.

11:00, 20,000 units.

12:00, 32,000 units.

In the command center, the young data analysts let out suppressed cheers. But Zhou Qingyu looked grave—32,000 orders meant 4.47 billion yuan in sales, and also meant immense delivery pressure.

"Production capacity data," he ordered.

The production director pulled up real-time data: "The Changchun factory has three lines running at full capacity, with a monthly output of 30,000. The Xian factory has 10,000, and BYD is OEM-ing 5,000. Total monthly capacity is 45,000. 32,000 orders will take 22 days to produce. But at this rate..."

He didn't finish. On the screen, the order numbers were still jumping: 33,000, 34,000, 35,000...

1:00 PM, exceeded 40,000 units.

3:00 PM, 50,000 units.

6:00 PM, 70,000 units.

The command center was completely boiling over. 70,000 units, 9.8 billion yuan in sales—this had already surpassed the sum of Red Flag's last three years.

"Boss Zhou, should we... cap the orders?" someone suggested in a low voice.

Zhou Qingyu shook his head: "No caps. Take as many as come in. Notify all factories: start three shifts, 24-hour production. Also, contact BYD, increase OEM volume from 5,000 per month to 10,000."

"But the cost..."

"The state gave 20 billion, the group subsidized 10 billion, 10,000 per car, that's enough," Zhou Qingyu said. "What we want isn't profit, it's market share, it's confidence."

He walked to the window and looked at the streets of Changchun below. This old industrial city looked somewhat desolate in the winter sun, but inside the Red Flag factory, machines were roaring.

His phone rang; it was Su Chen.

"I saw the data, very good," Su Chen's voice was calm, "But not good enough. At 8:00 PM, livestream on the official website, you explain the localization progress of the H9 yourself. Tell consumers that every cent they spend is helping the rise of the Chinese automotive industry."

"Understood."

At 8:00 PM that night, Red Flag official website livestream room. Zhou Qingyu was wearing work clothes, standing next to the production line, with busy robotic arms behind him.

"Friends, I am Zhou Qingyu from Hongqi Automobile." His opening was very simple, "Today the H9 price dropped by 10,000, many people asked: Why? Can you guarantee the quality?"

He walked to an engine: "This is the H9's 1.5T engine. A month ago, its high-pressure common rail system came from Bosch in Germany, the turbocharger came from Mitsubishi in Japan, and the control unit came from Delphi in America."

He patted the engine: "Now, these have all been replaced with domestic ones—Xingchen Heavy Industry's high-pressure common rail, Xingchen Heavy Industry's turbine blades, and the Xinghuo Chip control unit. Costs have dropped by 15%, performance has increased by 8%."

The bullet comments exploded instantly:

"Really?"

"Domestic products can reach this level?"

"Don't lie to us, Boss Zhou!"

Zhou Qingyu didn't argue, he directly pulled up the test data: "This is the report from the National Motor Vehicle Quality Supervision and Inspection Center. Engine power increased by 8%, fuel consumption decreased by 5%, and emissions reached the China VI b standard. The report number is here, everyone can verify it."

He walked to the car body again: "The high-strength steel for the car body used to be imported from POSCO in South Korea, now we use special steel from Baowu Steel. The strength is equivalent, and the cost is 20% lower."

"The seat leather used to use materials from Bayer in Germany, now it uses eco-friendly synthetic leather from a Shandong enterprise. It's more wear-resistant and more environmentally friendly."

"Even the car paint—it used to use coatings from Kansai in Japan, now it uses products from a subsidiary of CNOOC. Color difference? Everyone look at the real car, you can't tell the difference."

He finally said: "A price drop of 10,000 is not cutting corners, it's technological progress + a perfected industrial chain + state support. We want to prove: Made in China can be both good and cheap."

The livestream lasted for an hour, with a peak concurrent viewership of over 8 million. After it ended, orders surged again.

By 9:00 AM on December 11th, the 24-hour data was out:

Total orders: 100,200 units

Sales: 14.23 billion yuan

User profile: 25-35 years old accounted for 58%, first-time car buyers 76%, 63% switched orders from planned joint-venture car purchases.

Red Flag Headquarters in Changchun, public opinion monitoring room.

The large screen was scrolling real-time trending data. The entry #Red Flag price drop to 139,800# was followed by a deep red "Explosive" tag, and the reading volume exceeded 500 million within half an hour. Douyin topic views were jumping like crazy—780 million, 790 million, 800 million... finally settling at 820 million.

"Boss Zhou, look at this one." The young public opinion analyst suppressed a laugh and handed the tablet to Zhou Qingyu.

On the screen was a highly-liked comment: "I didn't have money to buy a Red Flag before, now I don't have money to buy a Red Flag."

Zhou Qingyu was stunned for a moment, then realized—the first half was past tense: I couldn't afford a Red Flag because I didn't have money; the second half was present tense: Now I have no money because I spent it all to buy a Red Flag.

The semantic reversal was brilliant.

Zhou Qingyu stared at that comment, the corners of his mouth slowly rising. These simple ten words hit the mindset of young people in this era more accurately than any advertising copy—there was self-deprecation, humor, and even a kind of willful "I'm happy with it."

The sunlight outside the window was just right. On the big screen, the likes for that comment had already exceeded one million.

In this noisy internet age, some resonance doesn't need long-winded arguments; ten words are enough.

And what Red Flag wanted to do was to make these ten words a real choice for hundreds of thousands, millions of families.

11:00 PM, December 10th, Changchun Red Flag headquarters.

In the smoky conference room, Zhou Qingyu stared at the glaring numbers on the big screen: 100,237 units. Ten hours ago, this number was stuck at 32,000, but now it had broken the 100,000 mark. The winter night outside was bone-chillingly cold, but everyone in the conference room was sweating profusely—not from the heat, but from anxiety.

"Boss Zhou, based on current production capacity..." Production Director Old Chen's voice was dry, "Changchun's three lines are at full capacity, 30,000 units per month. Xian is 10,000, BYD OEM is 5,000. Adding up to 45,000. 100,000 orders will take... take a full three months to deliver."

"Three months?" Zhou Qingyu slammed his fist on the table, the water cup jumped, "Can consumers wait three months? Three months later, Volkswagen and Toyota will have released new models and lowered prices, and our customers will all have run away!"

The conference room was deathly silent. The second hand of the clock on the wall clicked, each second feeling like a countdown.

The supply chain director whispered: "The key is the parts. Orders surged after the price drop, but our parts supply is all a bottleneck."

"Then change suppliers!" Zhou Qingyu roared, "Is there no second one in the country?"

"There is, but the quality..."

"If the quality meets the standard, use it!" Zhou Qingyu interrupted, "Now is not the time to pursue perfection, it's the time to survive first."

He walked to the whiteboard, grabbed a marker, his hand trembling slightly from the force.

"Capacity expansion, do it now." He wrote three locations on the whiteboard:

1. Changchun Factory

Status: 3 lines, 30,000/month

Goal: 5 lines, 50,000/month

Measures: Enable sealed old production lines, 24-hour renovation, resume production within 7 days.

2. Xian Phase II

Original plan: Put into production in June 2018, 10,000/month

New plan: Put into production in January 2018

Measures: Three-shift construction, all equipment air-freighted, cost is no object

3. BYD OEM

Status: 5,000/month

Goal: 10,000/month

Measures: Add production lines, station Red Flag quality team

"Notify BYD's President Wang." Zhou Qingyu said, "Increase the OEM fee by 2,000 yuan per unit, but the quality must meet the standard. Our quality team must be stationed at the factory, every single car must undergo double inspection."

After writing, he stepped back two steps and looked at the numbers on the whiteboard:

Changchun: 50,000/month

Xian: 20,000/month (after Jan 20)

BYD: 10,000/month

Total: 80,000/month

He turned to face everyone: "100,000 orders, with a monthly capacity of 65,000, it will take 1.54 months, which is 46 days. Plus transportation and delivery, it will be at least mid-February."

"Then that's it." Zhou Qingyu made the final decision, "Official website announcement: 100,000 orders, delivered in 2 months. 45,000 in January, 55,000 in February. For customers waiting more than two months, gift free first maintenance + one year extended warranty."

He paused, his voice suddenly low: "But I want you to remember—this is not a numbers game. Behind every order is a family, a trust. They use real money to support domestic products, we cannot let them down."

In the conference room, everyone nodded silently.

Outside the window, snow began to fall in the Changchun night sky. This was the first heavy snow of the year, snowflakes fluttering under the streetlights, soon covering the factory area.

The meeting ended at 2:00 AM. People left in a hurry, rushing to their respective posts.

Zhou Qingyu was the last to leave the conference room. In the corridor, he heard the roaring of machines coming from the workshop in the distance—that was the production line running all night.

He took out his phone and opened the Red Flag APP. The order number was still slowly increasing: 100,312, 100,325...

Every second, someone chooses to believe.

He took a screenshot, sent it to the management group, and added a sentence:

"This is not a number, it's a trust. Don't let them down."

Outside the window, the snow was getting heavier. But the lights of the Red Flag factory did not go out tonight.

The automotive industry was shaken.

Volkswagen China held an emergency meeting overnight and decided to lower the price of the lavida to 119,900 to cope. But the market feedback was cold: "For 20,000 less, I choose Red Flag. Red Flag is now fully domestically produced, supporting domestic goods."

Akio Toyoda's internal speech was leaked online: "Chinese brands have completed the leap from 'price-performance ratio' to 'quality-price ratio'. They use price wars to attract customers, technology wars to retain customers, and sentiment wars to bind customers. A three-dimensional attack, we must rethink our China strategy."

And in Shenzhen, Su Chen received a system prompt in the middle of the night.

[Detected that host has achieved a major market breakthrough]

[Redeemable technology list updated]

[Recommended redemption: Automotive core component technology package (2.5 billion system funds)]

Su Chen did not hesitate and redeemed it immediately.

Redemption list (Total cost 2.5 billion system funds):

1. Engine core component technology package (1 billion):

High-pressure common rail injection system (replacing Bosch)

Variable valve timing system (replacing Toyota)

Turbocharger precision blade machining technology

2. Transmission key technology (750 million):

CVT steel belt transmission patent (replacing Bosch)

Transmission control unit TCU algorithm

3. Chassis system (500 million):

Electronic Stability Program ESP source code

Active suspension control algorithm

4. Electronic and electrical (250 million):

Vehicle Control Unit VCU

Battery Management System BMS 2.0

At 11:00 PM, the Automotive Engineering Institute of the Xingchen Academy of Sciences was brightly lit. Three hundred engineers were urgently summoned, and in front of them were the newly "decrypted" technical materials—a complete technology package redeemed with 2.5 billion system funds.

High-pressure common rail injection system, variable valve timing system, turbocharger precision blade machining technology, CVT steel belt transmission patent, transmission control unit algorithm, electronic stability program source code, active suspension control algorithm, vehicle control unit, battery management system 2.0...

"These technologies..." The old engineer in charge of the engine was shaking, "Some of them we have been researching for ten years without a breakthrough... it's all here."

"Source is confidential, the task is clear." The director said in a deep voice, "20 days to complete digestion, sample trial production, and mass production introduction. In 20 days, the Red Flag H9 must be equipped with a completely self-developed 'spark core'."

That night, the lab lights stayed on until dawn.