Heading South in 1992: Every Fruit Shop in Town Bears the Chen Name

In the spring of 1992, Chen Jianghe stepped out of Guangzhou Railway Station with thirty yuan in his pocket.

In his previous life, he spent twenty years working in the supply and marketing system, traveling across much of China’s agricultural regions. In the end, the times cast him aside, and he died poor in a rented room in an urban village.

This time, he was back at twenty-two.

Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour had just sounded the starting gun. The wave of people heading south was sweeping across the country, and gold was there for the taking, if you had the eye for it.

Other people didn’t know that Hainan mangoes hit the market a month before Guangxi’s. He did.

Other people didn’t know that supermarket chains would transform the entire retail industry in three years. He did.

Other people didn’t know that a pound of lychees could be worth six times as much by the time it reached the wholesale market. He did.

Starting with a small tobacco deal outside the railway station, and a borrowed stall on the outskirts of Tianping Market, Chen Jianghe was going to seize every opportunity he had wasted in his previous life.

“Every crate of fruit in this market will pass through my hands.”