Chapter 1565 Media Promotion
Regardless of population or prosperity, Sanya can definitely be regarded as a first-class big city in the Nanhai region of this era. However, in fact, the urban area of Sanya is not too large and the population is relatively densely distributed. Once something happens, folk gossip will spread quite quickly. It only took a moment for the Matalan people to display the gold bricks at the entrance of Fort Victory, and the news had already spread to some departments that were particularly sensitive to this.
"Xun Pengcheng, don't doze off! If you have something to do, go to Victory Fort!"
Xun Pengcheng woke up from his drowsy state and glanced at the newspaper editor-in-chief Xu Zhengye who was standing in front of him and was spitting. He didn't realize what happened for a while.
"Stop sitting, run faster. If you get there later, you will be gone!" Xu Zhengye said as he took Xun Pengcheng's arm and pulled him up from the wicker chair: "I heard that someone transported two cars Jin Zi went to cause trouble outside the gate of Fort Victory, so hurry up and find out what's going on! I'll leave you with a page of 200 words, and I'll publish it before two o'clock in the afternoon. There's still time to print it, so hurry up!"
Xun Pengcheng responded in a daze, and was half pushed and half dragged out of the newspaper office by Xu Zhengye. It wasn't until the hot sunshine at noon shone on his face that he finally woke up from his semi-conscious state. Although he didn't like running this kind of field news, he also knew that the newspaper office currently had no manpower, and the editor had no choice but to cheer up and head towards Victory Square under the sun. Fortunately, the newspaper office is located very close to Victory Square, so there is no need to call a rickshaw.
This year is already the third year that Xun Pengcheng has been naturalized as a Haihan citizen, but his life is not as easy as he expected before he came. He was a scholar during the Tianqi period. After that, he took two provincial examinations but failed to achieve better results. There was no good way out in his hometown in Guangdong, so he worked as a teacher in the countryside for two years. At that time, the General Office of the People's Republic of China in Guangzhou was recruiting scholars from the Ming Dynasty to settle in Sanya. In addition to naturalization, they were also given a large resettlement fee and had the opportunity to be assigned to serve as officials. Xun Pengcheng couldn't stand the persuasion of others, so he packed his bags and came to Sanya, hoping for a better future.
When Xun Pengcheng first arrived in Sanya, he still had many ambitions and plans. He considered himself to have read the books of sages. There were not many scholars in Haihan, and it was not easy to become a county magistrate or something when he got here. But the reality is not as simple as he imagined. Haihan's control area does need a large number of scholars to fill various positions, but there are certain requirements for those who want to be assigned to local officials, and Xun Pengcheng just doesn't Too qualified.
Xun Pengcheng studied a subset of Confucian classics and history. He knew almost nothing about the actual operation of government affairs, so he could only be sent for training first. However, he was accustomed to taking Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism as the norm, and did not particularly agree with the governing philosophy advocated by Haihan. During his studies, he was somewhat resistant to the theories taught by his mentor Haihan. Therefore, during the graduation examination, Xun Pengcheng's assessment results naturally failed to meet the entry requirements, and he was not assigned to serve in a national agency.
After several twists and turns, Xun Pengcheng was assigned to be an intern reporter at the "Haihan Times" newspaper under the Propaganda Department. If he can seize this opportunity and slowly work his way up from a reporter, it is not impossible to get a senior position with a professional title in a few years. However, the house leaked and it rained all night. In a press release written by Xun Pengcheng, he questioned Haihan's dispatch of troops to occupy the Zhoushan Islands that originally belonged to the Ming Dynasty, believing that this move was suspected of taking advantage of the situation.
Naturally, such politically incorrect manuscripts failed to pass the review of superior editors, and Xun Pengcheng was fired from the newspaper soon after because his ideology did not meet the requirements.
Fortunately, at the beginning of the founding of Haihan, there were really many job opportunities, especially for scholars like Xun Pengcheng who were literate. Even if they could no longer work in state-owned enterprises and institutions, they could easily find new ones. rice bowl. It just so happened that he was already familiar with the newspaper business. At this time, some privately funded paper media began to appear in the society. Xun Pengcheng relied on his experience in working in the government media to invest in the "Sanya Express". .
The circulation and distribution scope of "Sanya Express" are far less than that of the official media "Haihan Times". It is mainly sold in urban Sanya, usually every three days. The circulation of "Sanya Express" cannot be as large as that of the official media. Each issue only ranges from four or five hundred to two or three thousand copies. This mainly depends on whether there are any breaking news in the current issue. For example, last year, the Haihan Navy and the Spanish fleet fought off the coast of Sanya. The "Sanya Express" rushed to publish the news about the battle before the official media. As a result, more than 3,000 copies of the newspaper were printed in just two hours. After being sold out, citizens who are illiterate or illiterate are often willing to buy a copy as a souvenir.
Of course, with the circulation of "Sanya Express", after deducting personnel expenses and printing and distribution costs, the newspaper can at most balance the accounts and it will be considered a good performance. The profit part of newspapers mainly relies on various commercial advertisements. More than one-third of the newspaper's pages are filled with all kinds of advertising content. As for the price of advertising, it is naturally linked to the circulation of each issue.
Although the industry status of "Sanya Express" cannot be compared with that of official media such as "Haihan Times", as for Xun Pengcheng personally, there is not much difference in income and benefits. After all, the current newspaper is relatively small in scale, with the chief editor plus reporters and There are only seven or eight typesetters in total. Because the circulation is small, even the printing is outsourced. Therefore, the profits obtained through advertising are spread to these few people, which is actually quite profitable.
Editor-in-chief Xu Zhengye is an old immigrant who came here in the second year of Chongzhen. Although he was a scholar like Xun Pengcheng in the Ming Dynasty, Xun Pengcheng had to admit that the editor-in-chief's professional ability was much stronger than his own. Not only could he write and review, he also He has all kinds of connections in Sanya, and he can personally bring advertising business to the newspaper. If he had been sitting in the editor-in-chief's seat, Xu Zhengye would not have done as well as him. So although Xun Pengcheng could only be a reporter in the newspaper, he usually didn't have any resentment. He had been in Haihan for so long, and he still knew how much he weighed.
So Xu Zhengye kicked him out to cover emergencies. Xun Pengcheng didn't think there was anything wrong. After coming out, he went straight to Victory Square. When we arrived at the square, we didn't even need to ask anyone else. At a glance, we could see that at least three to four hundred people had gathered in the direction of the gate of Fort Victory to watch.
Xun Pengcheng knew in his heart that the Victory Fort was a first-class important place in the Haihan Kingdom. Its importance was probably no less than the Forbidden City where the emperor lived in the Ming Dynasty. If anything happened here, the police and the army would soon clear it out. If he If you don't move faster, I'm afraid you won't even be able to see the hair. Immediately, I quickly squeezed into the crowd, saying "borrow", "offend", and "give in" in succession. After sweating, I finally squeezed into the front row.
When he reached the front row, he didn't dare to move forward anymore. There were several policemen in black standing in front of him to isolate the onlookers. At this time, no one knew whether to go forward. The oak batons in the hands of those policemen were not vegetarian. . When Xun Pengcheng first arrived in Sanya, he saw with his own eyes the tragic situation of a troublemaking immigrant being punished by the police with an oak baton.
Through the gap between the police, Xun Pengcheng finally saw the real owners of the incident, several dark-skinned foreigners and two trucks carrying gold bricks. One of the foreigners, who seemed to be the leader, was negotiating with the military and police. Xun Pengcheng was too far away to hear clearly what those people were talking about, so he could only use effective means to ask the passers-by who were watching what happened.
Most of the people standing in the front row were the first ones to come and watch. At that moment, some enthusiasts introduced what happened to Xun Pengcheng, saying that these men who brought the gold were envoys from the Madalan Kingdom in the South China Sea. , if you want to form an alliance with our country, Haihan, these two carts of gold are a meeting gift. Before Xun Pengcheng had time to reply, another enthusiastic person next to him corrected: "It's not an alliance. They brought the gold to buy things, but the leaders may not be willing to sell it to them. Seeing that there was no hope, these people simply Jin Zi came here to show his determination.”
Xun Pengcheng then seized the opportunity and asked, "What are they planning to buy?"
The man lowered his voice and said: "In my opinion, 80% of it is arms. Otherwise, this country is thousands of miles away from Sanya. What else can it buy with so much gold? It's not like begging the chiefs to sell Hainan." Give them the land of the island!”
"I see..." Xun Pengcheng believed it somewhat after hearing this. In the past few years since he came to Haihan, due to his work, he has also learned a little about Haihan's emphasis on selling arms to foreign countries. He also knows that many of the active equipment in Haihan's military equipment will not be sold directly to foreign countries, even if they are sold, they will be sold. Performance-compromised version. And even so, not all countries can buy it. Only a few allies with close relations with Haihan are able to order arms.
Moreover, Xun Pengcheng once heard Xu Zhengye mention during a dinner party that the arms sold by Haihan Ordnance Industry to various countries seemed to be of the same model, but in fact they were not universal. For example, rifles of the same model may have slight differences in the caliber of the barrel, the formula of gunpowder, and the size of some key parts. This is to ensure that if the weapons sold are lost to a third party, they can be traced back to where they came from, lest some countries, relying on their good relations with Haihan, continue to purchase arms from Haihan and take responsibility for them themselves. Second-hand dealers profit.
Like this island country in the South China Sea, which is thousands of miles away, most Haihan citizens have probably never heard of this country's name. It is obviously not a close ally with Haihan, so the leaders are unwilling to sell weapons and equipment to it. , that is actually reasonable. The only thing that made the onlookers feel a little bit reluctant to let go was the dazzling gold on the two carriages.
They have transported so much gold to their door, which shows their sincerity. Do they really want to ignore this profitable business and forcefully drive away the customers? Haihan built its country on business, and most of its citizens were familiar with business, so they naturally had their own opinions on this. Even if he agreed with the executive committee's decision, he still couldn't help but sigh a little at how he could take the initiative to let go of the fat that was clearly on his lips.
At that moment, some people were whispering, saying that the country of Ma Dalan was so far away from Haihan that even selling them some weapons would not harm the overall situation. Could it be that they bought Haihan's weapons and still dared to attack Haihan?
Some people also retort that it is a national policy to sell weapons to whom and not to whom. It is not up to us ordinary people to have the final say. Of course, there are good reasons for the leaders to make such a choice. This argument was affirmed by most people present. After all, the image of chiefs in the minds of ordinary people is that of wise men who never make mistakes in major matters. No one dares to question whether the decisions of chiefs are really reasonable.
Of course, there is still one person present who has such courage, and this person is Xun Pengcheng. The reason why he lost his first job was because he wrote a manuscript questioning the Executive Committee and the Ministry of National Defense. He has always been resentful about this, thinking that he had been treated unfairly. The incident in front of him made his heart, which had been calm for a long time, start to stir.
"If I write a straightforward press release about this matter, I won't be able to attract any attention. The only way to attract attention is to take a different approach!" Xun Pengcheng began to draft silently while listening to people around him talking about this matter. He knew that most of the two hundred words that the editor left for him were originally advertising pages. If he couldn't write something interesting and couldn't increase sales of the newspaper, he might not even have a chance to be reported.
At this time, an official came out of Fort Victory and talked with the Matalan people for a while. Then he ordered people to cover the gold bricks on the carriage again and let the police disperse the onlookers. Without the eye-catching gold bricks, the show would naturally be of little interest. The spectators gradually dispersed, leaving only a few idlers standing around to watch the events unfold.
Not long after the two sides talked, the two carriages and several horsemen followed the official across the drawbridge and entered Victory Fort, presumably for the next step of negotiations. Seeing that there was nothing left to see, Xun Pengcheng hurried to report to the press and prepared to write a press release.
"How is it? Is it worth reporting?" Editor-in-chief Xu Zhengye asked with concern when he saw him coming back. Of course, the object of his concern was not Xun Pengcheng, but the news value of this incident.
Xun Pengcheng nodded and responded: "Yes! Can the editor-in-chief give me a little more space? I'm afraid two hundred words won't be enough for this matter."
Xu Zhengye pondered for a moment before responding: "You first publish the manuscript and let me read it. If you really want to have information, it can be on the front page!"
(End of chapter)