The small partridge eggs made Liu Yonghao the richest man in the county. He was the first person in the village to buy a television, a washing machine and a refrigerator. People who wanted to buy such luxuries at the time had to rely on social networks. But Liu Yonghao wanted to go one step further, and buy himself a car.
Liu Yonghao said, "The Southwestern Auto Trading Company
was in charge of auto sales. They told me that distribution followed a certain index, which was decided by the provincial government."
As a special commodity, automobiles were bought and distributed by the government. Private purchase was unheard of. Even so, Liu Yonghao decided to try, and he wrote a letter to the provincial governor.
Liu Yonghao said, "I didn't expect Jiang Mingkuan, the governor, to agree.
But he did, and I became the first person in China to buy a private car."
In November 1986, the first private car in Shanghai had appeared. At the time private cars were mainly confined to the coastal areas, such as Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong.
Liu Yonghao visited the south in 1986. There he got a sense of how fast was the pace of reform.
Liu Yonghao said, "The Shenzhen Zengda Company sold pig food and chicken feed. Their pig food sold quite well. I went to their factory, visited their warehouse, and saw their production line and layout. I noticed their ingredients were similar to ours."
Chen Yuxin said, "We'd made a breakthrough in partridge and chicken feed. We were also researching pig food."
