Ichiro Sakai squatted outside the job market in Urumqi, surrounded by a group of migrant workers dressed in rustic clothes. He was in his thirties, with a strong build and a simple face. He was wearing cheap camouflage uniforms and was inconspicuous among the crowd.
A bunch of migrant workers wait for work outside the market, and occasionally someone comes to recruit workers. Usually it is odd jobs such as decoration. Workers with some skills can earn several hundred yuan a day, while there are also younger ones who have no skills and can only be hired to do temporary work or
Jobs like porters.
Ichiro Sakai speaks with a Shaanxi accent and looks very honest. When someone asks him, he will say that he is from Xi'an. His physique trained in the gym is not bad, and several customers have come to ask him about it. The price is very good, but he
I just asked about the place of work and shook my head and made excuses not to go.
As an economic spy, Ichiro Sakai's mission is to wander around flower growers. He has no special mission and does not go to dangerous places. He only collects economic data on flower growers through various market channels as a basis for Japan's foreign policy decisions.
rely on.
Most spies don't actually need any special means to spy on all kinds of intelligence. Open channels can reflect a lot of information. Whether they can obtain it depends on whether the intelligence agent has a meticulous heart.
Ichiro Sakai has been working among flower growers for ten years, and his work is dull but productive. Every time he can judge big problems from some seemingly ordinary angles, and he has repeatedly compiled them into reference materials for the Japanese Minister of Finance and Economics and even the Prime Minister's desk.
This time, some economic anomalies suddenly appeared in Urumqi were very surprising, and Ichiro Sakai wanted to investigate this.
The so-called "abnormality" manifests itself in many aspects. For example, Singapore Airlines resumed independent operation, attracted a large number of customers with its special low prices, and its fleet size suddenly increased tenfold, becoming an important key node in changing Urumqi and even the entire northwest region.
.
Ichiro Sakai did not want to investigate the airline at first, because it is very common among gardeners to establish large-scale state-owned enterprises and make them bigger and stronger. The flower-planting government often does this kind of thing with administrative orders, and its governance efficiency is unparalleled in the world.
The world is one of the best.
But when Ichiro Sakai was observing the streets of Urumqi, he discovered some very puzzling situations. Many agricultural and sideline products from the northwest have become popular, and various coastal seafood products have emerged one after another. The quantities are extremely large and the prices are very good.
The number of people traveling to the northwest has also increased significantly, driving a lot of economic consumption. Obviously, this is the result of the huge improvement in the logistics system.
Ichiro Sakai initially judged that this was only a temporary situation. After a period of time, Singapore Airlines' low-price discounts not only did not end, but even became long-term.
In the past, due to high logistics costs, the transportation of goods must be in large quantities to be cost-effective. However, large quantities must be exploited by middlemen. Agricultural products that cost a few cents or even a few cents per kilogram in the field can cost a few yuan or even dozens of yuan when brought to the table.
A pound of money.
Now with the participation of e-commerce and express delivery, merchants in the northwest can directly trade with customers in the southeast, commodity prices can drop significantly, and transaction volume increases rapidly. If this low-price logistics situation exists stably, it will promote economic growth.
is very significant.
Back then, Japan's Shinkansen detonated the country's economic development. Now the logistics of flower planting in the northwest has been greatly improved. This will also be an event with huge impact.
"I didn't expect that while China was building high-speed rail, it would also build a low-cost aviation logistics network. It's really scary!" Ichiro Sakai decided to reveal the secret of this low-cost airline. When he learned that Singapore Airlines would recruit a large number of ground handlers, he decided
Go in and take a look.
Being a porter is a good job. You can get first-hand information about logistics and meet many people. The most important thing is that you don't attract attention. The only trouble is that you are a little tired, but Ichiro Sakai feels that his body is stronger than that of ordinary migrant workers.
, it will definitely hold up.
After waiting patiently for a day, Ichiro Sakai got his wish and became an employee of Singapore Airlines Cargo. He was immediately sent to the cargo terminal and started working immediately. But when he arrived at the cargo terminal, he was shocked to find that something was a little beyond his imagination - a small cargo terminal.
There were actually thousands of people.
The foreman who led the team spoke rudely. He often grabbed the electric horn and stood on the carriage and yelled, asking his men to hurry up, hurry up, and hurry up. "The standard time for loading a hundred tons of cargo is ten hours, and the standard time for transporting it to the cabin is
Ninety minutes.
The company has very high time requirements, and there will be a bonus for every minute that is advanced. If you want to make more money, you have to be faster. If we speed up, our salary can be doubled!"
Coastal express companies have begun to use robot technology to sort packages, but Singapore Airlines and its supporting express companies have not yet been able to build such a sophisticated logistics system. They can only rely on adding more manpower to improve transportation efficiency.
The most troublesome thing is that due to the particularity of air transportation, all scattered packages must be loaded into containers in advance. However, air transportation is very different from container transportation by rail and road. It has special requirements for the stacking of goods, otherwise the plane will not be able to fly.
If your center of gravity is unstable, you will be in big trouble.
This loading process has special safety standards, needs to be completed by professionals, and undergoes special inspections. This loading and sorting work is not completed by the express company, but by the airport's certified ground handlers.
But in order to improve efficiency, Zhou Qingfeng asked the airport to hire a group of more porters, just to assist the professional loading ground handlers every day, saving as many hours as possible and improving the overall air transport efficiency.
Ichiro Sakai applied for this kind of hard-working porter. He originally thought that his job was to drive a forklift to transport, but at worst it was to transport with a trailer. Who knew he was transporting with bare hands. This was really direct contact with logistics information, but it was also too tiring.
Come on!
After working all morning to sort out two air freight containers, the truck finally took away the containers and sent them to the plane. Ichiro Sakai thought he could finally take a break, but he didn't know that a large amount of goods would be delivered immediately afterwards.
Packages, packages, mountains of packages!
Ichiro Sakai quickly took a few bites of food in the cafeteria, and was rushed by the foreman of the cargo station to unload the goods. The foreman's electric horn shouted loudly, "Hurry up, hurry up, those idiots who deliver the goods will not know how to load the goods.
We have to take it off and put it back on again!"
Ichiro Sakai was usually used to eating slowly and filling his stomach elegantly and calmly. But the foreman's urging forced him to work without even eating half a bowl of rice. He also had to carry every package with his bare hands, and every package was exhausting.
"Where is this cargo?" Ichiro Sakai held a big box in his hands and walked from one container to another, panting from exhaustion.
"Turpan's cantaloupes and grapes, and mainlanders like fruits from Xinjiang very much. Now that freight prices are low, sales have increased sharply." An old porter who looked in his fifties or sixties also walked past Ichiro Sakai with a box of packages and answered smoothly.
solved the latter problem.
The foreman was still yelling angrily, "Handle it with care. If there is any damage during transportation, your bonus will be deducted."
The work efficiency was higher in the afternoon, and Ichiro Sakai's team completed three containers. Listening to the rumble of the trucks driving away, the foreman finally shouted, "Switch to another group and start working, while the others go to eat."
Ouch... I'm so exhausted!
When he arrived at the cafeteria, Ichiro Sakai found that he had been working all day but had not had time to explore any information. He had been moving around all day. He was so tired that he had no appetite, and he felt that the body he exercised in the gym was not suitable for such boring pure physical strength.
labor.
"How does our company achieve low-cost freight?" Ichiro Sakai asked the porters in the same group at the cafeteria table. This is how information is often obtained inadvertently.
"Our company has many planes." Someone answered the question incorrectly.
"Maybe it's because there are more planes and the transportation volume is large, which lowers the cost." This is still an incorrect answer.
"I heard that the company transports tens of thousands of tons of goods every day, and it is a large enterprise supported by the central government. My relative's beef and mutton sales have been very good recently, and the sales volume in one day is worth the past month. The family is too busy, and they have to hire
It only takes two people.”
"The central government has really built a good enterprise this time. It is said that Urumqi is going to build a logistics industrial park, train express companies to obtain air cargo safety qualifications, and double the current freight efficiency. This is really good!"
Such is the case with small talk at the dinner table, what is said may not be what was discussed at the beginning. Ichiro Sakai wanted to know how Singapore Airlines achieved low-cost freight, but the information he got was a microcosm of the economic growth of the entire northwest after Singapore Airlines opened up logistics.
.
It was tasteless and only half a bowl of rice was eaten. Ichiro Sakai was also thinking about the key factors behind this situation.
But the foreman suddenly rushed into the cafeteria with a loudspeaker and shouted: "The warehouse is bursting, those courier gangs are bursting at the warehouse. Everyone, stop eating and go help load the trucks!"
Thousands of families in the northwest have finally had the opportunity to make a fortune, and countless young and old men in Xinjiang are waiting for us to deliver all the packages on time. We can't ruin our own brand, and we must not hold back at this time!"
As soon as the foreman shouted, a bunch of porters in the canteen hurriedly ran out. Seeing the foreman staring at him, Sakai Ichiro said weakly: "I've only eaten half a bowl of rice, and I haven't even eaten the chicken legs yet."
"Everyone else has finished eating, but you are the only one who is slow. Why don't you look like a man from the northwest?" The foreman's curse was particularly scary.
Ichiro Sakai could only give up his dinner and go to work hungry. There were more and more goods in the cargo terminal. Trucks kept delivering packages. The turnover of e-commerce was increasing rapidly. Singapore Airlines' cargo planes used to fly every day.
I flew two round trips, but now I have to fly three round trips.
Tired..., really tired!
Ichiro Sakai dragged his exhausted body back to the company dormitory late at night. Compared with other workers who had received double bonuses, he felt a little hypoglycemic after not eating enough for a day. When everyone fell asleep in the middle of the night, he suddenly
He sat up nervously and waved his hands...
"Don't drive, don't drive, your nutrition can't keep up."