The Story Of Chinese Match King

In the summer of 1919, a large number of refugees poured into Shanghai and Suzhou.

At that time, Liu Hongsheng, who was only 31 years old and became the chairman of the Ningbo Federation of townships, saw the large number of refugees stranded in the streets, crowded and worried about the streets.

Compared with last year, the price of soybean oil has risen by about 80%, and the price is still rising.

At this point, Liu Hongsheng got a hint from a fellow townsman and set up a big plan to run a match factory.

First, match production technology is simple, manual operation is large enough to accommodate a large number of refugees; second, matches are necessary for families, but the price is low, the volume is large, and the rise is slight. People do not mind, but it can be large and huge, and the benefits are considerable. Third, he had long cherished his wish to run a firewood factory in Suzhou. Today, fourth of the matches sold in the market are mostly unsafe yellow phosphorus matches.

On the new year's day of 1920, Liu Hongsheng invited Du Jiakun and other 7 shareholders to raise 120 thousand yuan and formally set up the Hongsheng match company in Suzhou.

The first trademark of Ding Jun Shan, the trademark of the Hongsheng match, was named "Ding Jun Shan" and later changed its name, but its sales remained poor due to quality problems.

Almost at the same time as the Hongsheng plant, the Suo Chang match, founded by the old Shanghai Ye family, and foreign brands such as Sweden and Japan were suppressed by brand and quality, resulting in a loss of 52112 yuan before 1924.

In order to turn the tide, Liu Hongsheng personally went to Japan to investigate and familiarity with the process of match production and sales. At the same time, he hired foreign experts at home and abroad to buy enough imported equipment, and finally solved the key problem of the chemical formula of the match head, which became the secret ingredient of Hongsheng.

On this basis, Liu Hongsheng took the opportunity to annex the Suchang Chang match factory, which not only expanded the scale of production, but also ate a strong competitor, making Hongsheng matches the only manufacturer in Suzhou, and the products were sold in Northern Jiangsu, South of Jiangsu and even Zhejiang.

In only one year, it not only made up for all losses in the past, but also made a profit of over 10 yuan.

With the expansion of business, Liu Hongsheng added 500 thousand yuan to the Hongsheng match company, which is divided into 5000 shares and converted into limited liability companies.

Changing the viscose formula has created the "pagoda" brand match product, which was used as the standard product of matches in various trade markets in 1929.

The match not only supplied the domestic market, but also exported to the Southeast Asia, becoming a famous commodity in the Southeast Asian market.

Together with the strength of 1928, the Swedish Match group, which monopolized the match market in the world, began dumping at a low price in order to fight against the Chinese race match industry. The rising Japanese matches also followed closely, which posed a great threat to China's match industry.

Swedish capital offered to buy Hongsheng and other Chinese national match manufacturers, but after repeated negotiations, Liu Hongsheng resisted international capital acquisition attempt on the grounds of disqualification.

Thus, Swedish matches were dumped at half the cost price, attempting to oppress Liu Hongsheng and other concessions.

In 1928, Liu Hongsheng and Zhu Ziqian, the owner of match, set up the match Federation of Jiangsu province to elect the industrial giant Zhang Jian as the president, stipulating that the price should be negotiated together to avoid self depreciating prices. At the same time, the government should jointly write to the national government to limit the number of matches imported from Sweden, organize protests and strike activities so as to get the government to reduce taxes on matches.

But it did not stop the match in Sweden.

In October 5, 1930, "news of the new issue" broke out the news: Sweden will use 15 million yuan loan in exchange for Chinese patent matches for 50 years.

Liu Hongsheng challenged the Kuomintang government on behalf of the Chinese Federation of matches. In the end, the Swedish side failed to reach an agreement with China, and matches monopolized the soup.

At the moment, the Chinese match king, the three largest match manufacturers in China are in a serious state of loss, and the three biggest companies, such as China, Hongsheng and Hongsheng, began negotiating joint operations in order to tide over difficulties.

After several capital verification and stock consultations, the three major companies reached a joint venture in July 1930, setting up greater China match Co., Ltd., chairman of the company, Liu Hongsheng as general manager.

After the establishment of the Jiujiang China match Co., Ltd., the merger of the Yusheng match factory, the Hankou Suchang Chang match factory, the Wuhu Dachang match factory, the Yangzhou Yaohua match factory and other matches enterprises formed a strong match group of Chinese matches. Liu Hongsheng greatly upgraded the equipment and technology of Chinese firewood production, thus having the strength to compete with Swedish matches.

After the implementation of a series of reform measures and all kinds of hard competition efforts, the Chinese matches finally defeated the Swedish matches. By 1931, the big China matches occupied more than half of the Chinese matches market, and the production and sale of other small and medium match companies. It can be said that not only the Chinese people used basically matches made in China, but Chinese matches also became the daily good products of the residents all over the Southeast Asia.

Liu Hongsheng also deserves the title of "match king of China".