In 1998, the Songhua River is frozen for miles around.
In his previous life, Zhao Tiezhu was a petty trader on the Manzhouli border, never sure where his next meal would come from. He was caught trafficking fake leather jackets, had the tendons in his hands severed, and spent the rest of his life in misery.
Reborn, he looks at the hometown machine-tool factory that has suspended production and its workers who are desperate for food, and makes a mad decision:
“Load all 100,000 cans of luncheon meat and 20,000 labor-protection coats gathering dust in our warehouse onto trucks. We’re going north to trade for blueprints!”
While others are still trading in old trucks and cheap vodka, Zhao Tiezhu takes laid-off veteran technicians with him deep into abandoned research institutes in Eastern Europe.
A whole train car of erguotou liquor and instant noodles gets him a complete set of blueprints for an aircraft forging press!
Tens of thousands of pairs of cotton-lined leather shoes bring back two whole trucks of veteran experts and high-precision machine tools!
When special trains loaded with heavy-industry blueprints, precision machine tools, and retired academicians roll into the Northeast, the entire industrial world is shaken.
Standing before the newly built high-tech industrial park, Zhao Tiezhu grins. “This isn’t buying and selling for profit. I’m the midwife delivering the technology of a great industrial nation!”
