My capital is quite large.

Chapter 148 A true man knows what to do and what not to do!

"Replace with low-end accessories? settle for the next best thing?"

Li Feng looked at Lei Jun's face, which was full of fatigue and helplessness, and slammed his hand on the conference table, making a loud noise!

"Bang!"

"Mr. Lei! Did you develop a habit of compromising because you spent too much time developing software at Kingsoft?!"

Li Feng's eyes were sharp as knives as he pointed at the engineering prototype on the table and sternly rebuked, "What did we shout at the 798 launch event? 'Born for enthusiasts!' 'A performance monster for 1999 yuan!'"

"The three million pre-orders across the internet were driven by netizens' interest in Sharp's ultra-high-definition screen and Nvidia's top-of-the-line dual-core chip! And now you're telling me that to meet the production deadline, we're going to replace the screen with a low-end one and downgrade the chip?"

"What do you call this? This is called deceptive advertising! Do you really think the Chinese people are so easily fooled?! Once the first batch of goods is shipped out and the teardown reviews come out online, the Xiaomi brand will be instantly and shamefully disgraced!"

Lei Jun, his face flushed red from the scolding, clutched his hair in anguish: "Mr. Li, I understand everything you're saying! But Nvidia and Sharp are holding us by the throat, not supplying us with goods! We're just a fledgling mobile phone factory; in their eyes, we're not even a major customer. How can we compete with Apple and Samsung for production capacity?!"

"In the business world, there's no such thing as unacceptable production capacity; there are only insufficient bargaining chips!"

Li Feng sneered, his eyes revealing the domineering nature of a financial tycoon.

"They look down on us because we're a small factory and won't schedule our work? Then we'll change our approach and talk to them from a different angle!"

Li Feng turned to Zhang Xinyu behind him and gave the order: "Notify the Overseas Investment and Mergers & Acquisitions Department! Allocate 2 billion yuan in special funds!"

"Go to the secondary markets in the US and Japan and buy up as many Nvidia and Sharp shares as you can! If that doesn't work, invest heavily in their core contract manufacturing subsidiaries!"

"Tell that old man at Nvidia, Jensen Huang, and the executives at Sharp!"

"We at Haofeng are not only buyers now, but also your shareholders! Use these two billion yuan worth of shares to put pressure on them! Tell them that Xiaomi's orders must be given priority!"

"A thousand units a day? Are you kidding me?! Make them adjust their production lines and increase the supply of chips and screens to over five thousand units per day! If they're short even one, I'll make them miserable at the board meeting!"

Spending two billion to buy shares in a giant company, just to force them to deliver goods?!

Lei Jun and the Xiaomi executives present were horrified!

This is a way of playing that I never even imagined!

If you don't supply me, I'll use money to get into your board of directors and, as a shareholder, order you to supply me!

However, after issuing this crazy order, Li Feng did not sit down.

He stared at the Nvidia and Sharp logos on the whiteboard, and the gloom in his eyes only deepened instead of dissipating.

"Mr. Lei, while this crisis can be weathered with money, it serves as a wake-up call for us!"

"If the screen is stuck, we can solve the problem by acquiring a panel manufacturer, because that's a tangible physical manufacturing process."

"But what about the chips?"

"Chips are the brain and throat of a mobile phone! Today Nvidia can use insufficient production capacity to hold us back, tomorrow Qualcomm can use patent fees to hold us back! We may seem successful now, but in reality we are just an assembly plant with no core technology!"

"I, Li Feng, never want to experience the feeling of having my throat held tightly in someone else's hand again!"

Lei Jun was stunned. He seemed to anticipate what Li Feng was about to say, and his voice trembled slightly: "Mr. Li...you...you mean..."

"We will build our own chips! We will pursue independent research and development!"

Li Feng spoke slowly and deliberately, his voice ringing with conviction: "Notify the headhunting firms to go to Silicon Valley! Go to Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD to poach talent!"

"Bring back any talent capable of chip architecture and IC design, regardless of nationality, no matter the price!"

"I want Haofeng and Xiaomi to have their own irreplaceable Chinese-made chips!"

Manufacturing chips?!

Lei Jun was terrified.

Although he is a tech fanatic, he understands the semiconductor industry all too well!

It's not as simple as making a MIUI system or drawing up blueprints; it's the crown jewel of human industry! It's a bottomless black hole where hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars can be poured in and not even make a ripple!

"Mr. Li... isn't this a bit too big a step...?"

"Do as I say. I'll figure out the money."

Li Feng didn't give Lei Jun a chance to refute him. He patted Lei Jun on the shoulder, turned around, and left the conference room.

……

Three days later, in Nanjing, at Xianlin Science and Technology City.

In the president's office on the top floor of Haofeng Group's headquarters, Zhang Xinyu stood pale-faced in front of the desk, holding a top-secret assessment report that had just been sent back from overseas.

"Boss... the evaluation results for your request to order the top-of-the-line lithography machine and establish a self-developed chip production line are in."

Zhang Xinyu's voice trembled slightly: "ASML in the Netherlands has replied. The most advanced DUV deep ultraviolet lithography machines are not only subject to strict export restrictions under the Wassenaar Arrangement, requiring multiple levels of approval, but also..."

"They asked for a staggering $100 million in prepayment just for a single lithography machine!"

"This is just the deposit for one machine!"

Zhang Xinyu turned to the second page, her heart pounding with fear as she read on. "To establish even the most basic advanced-level chip R&D and tape-out pilot production line, including etching machines, ion implanters, cleanrooms, and a supporting team of Silicon Valley experts..."

"The initial budget will require at least tens of billions of RMB! And the subsequent research and development costs will be an astronomical figure that cannot be estimated!"

Over 10 billion RMB!

Zhang Xinyu bit her red lips, looking at Li Feng with worried eyes: "Boss... although our group has a huge cash flow right now, it can't keep up with this kind of spending! Once we invest everything in chip self-development, it will drain all the lifeblood from our game and streaming media sectors! This will be crippling!"

Li Feng sat in the large boss's chair, staring at the exorbitantly priced appraisal report on the table, and fell into a long silence.

Injury to the bones or muscles?

Li Feng gave a bitter laugh to himself.

This is far from a serious injury; to outsiders, it looks like a moth drawn to a suicidal fire called "semiconductor"!

Alone in his spacious office, he lit a cigarette for the first time ever.

Amidst the swirling smoke, Li Feng's brows furrowed tightly, caught in an unprecedented struggle and entanglement.

Developing internet software, making games, and working in the entertainment industry are the fastest and most lucrative ways to make money.

He could become China's richest man without bloodshed by relying on his memories from his previous life, enjoying the adoration of top female stars every day and living a life like an immortal.

But once you step into the bottomless pit of semiconductors—a capital-intensive and long-cycle investment—how long is the payback period? Five years? Ten years? You might even pour in hundreds of billions of dollars, only to see it all disappear without a trace!

As a reborn individual, he understood better than anyone the difficulty of independently developing chips, which meant confronting the entire Western technological hegemony!

"Is it worthwhile to make such a suicidal investment with virtually no end in sight?"

Li Feng repeatedly asked himself this question in his heart.

However, when he closed his eyes, what came to mind was the shocking technological sanctions that occurred a few years later in his previous life!

ZTE was forced to bow its head in punishment, and Huawei was completely cut off from chip supplies, leaving it with no choice but to launch a "backup plan" to struggle in the dark!

The arrogant faces of those Western politicians, and the humiliation of domestic mobile phone manufacturers being slaughtered because of "lack of chips and core technologies"!

If, during the golden age of mobile internet, you have billions in cash at your disposal, and all you do is exploit elementary school students in games...

What's the point of living this life again?!

Do Chinese tech companies really have to go through that suffocating feeling of having someone choke them?!

"call--"

Li Feng exhaled a long puff of smoke and stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray.

The struggle and confusion in his eyes were crushed, replaced by a resolute determination to burn his bridges!

I wonder what the outcome will be?

Then risk your life!

A true man knows what he should and shouldn't do!

Since God has allowed me to return to this era with a forward-looking vision and accumulate this enormous wealth, if I don't even have the courage to draw my sword and charge against the technological barriers of the West, then I don't deserve this second chance at life!

We absolutely have to make this chip! Even if it means squeezing in all the profits of the entire Haofeng Group, we have to get Chinese lithography machines and self-developed chips!

Li Feng stood up, his eyes sharp as an eagle's.

"Xinyu."

"Boss..." Zhang Xinyu looked at Li Feng's terrifying eyes and subconsciously straightened up.

"Since its establishment, has Haofeng Group never borrowed a single penny from any domestic bank?" Li Feng asked in a deep voice.

"Yes, boss. Our cash flow has always been healthy, and you have always adhered to the principle of operating without debt."

"It's time to break the rules."

Li Feng walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looked down at the prosperous land of Jinling, and made an unprecedented decision.

He wants to use Haofeng Group's high-quality assets as collateral; he wants to leverage his position!

With a funding gap of tens of billions, it's absolutely impossible to slowly accumulate funds through profits from overseas games alone.

He had to use the most forceful means at this critical juncture to rebuild the semiconductor team!

"Xinyu, go do something for me."

Li Feng turned his head, his tone exuding an undeniable authority:

"Go and contact the Provincial Party Committee Office."

"Please formally schedule an appointment for me with... the 'Number One' leader of Liangjiang Province!"

"Tell the leadership that Haofeng Group is preparing to invest heavily in a semiconductor industrial park in Nanjing, a project worth hundreds of billions of yuan, which could change the fate of the nation's strategy!"

"I need to see him to discuss an unprecedented loan!"