The commotion spread quickly, and by the third day, someone came forward to negotiate with Huang He.
Boss Huang was generous, directly offering to give up 90% of Jiangnan Transportation Technology Development Company for free. However, to his surprise, the other party declined, proposing an alternative plan.
The proposal was for Jiangnan Transportation Technology Development Company to merge with the two companies, South Vehicle and North Vehicle, to form a new company named CRRC. Jiangnan Group would then hold a 15% stake in CRRC.
Huang He had never anticipated such a beneficial suggestion. While Jiangnan Transportation’s technology seemed cutting-edge, the company possessed only technology and no production lines.
Therefore, if Jiangnan Transportation were to build a vacuum high-speed railway solely on its own, it would be an impossible feat. They couldn't even find qualified technicians. Across China, only South Vehicle and North Vehicle had the capability to turn such a vision into reality.
Furthermore, South Vehicle and North Vehicle had substantial fixed assets, which were considerably more impressive, at least ten times greater than Jiangnan Transportation's assets.
Now, with the integration of the three companies into one, Jiangnan Group would still hold a 15% stake, which was a slight win for Jiangnan Group.
Of course, in the long run, Jiangnan Transportation's technology would dominate the world, while the other two companies were quite ordinary. But there were no "what ifs"; this current outcome was the best possible result for Jiangnan Transportation.
With Huang He’s full cooperation, the restructuring and equity transactions of the new company proceeded smoothly. Just one month later, in February 2006, South Vehicle and North Vehicle successively announced the suspension of trading for significant restructuring and the news of their merger with Jiangnan Transportation to form a new company quickly became a nationwide hot topic.
Then, a question simultaneously arose in everyone’s mind: What exactly was this Jiangnan Transportation that it could merge with enterprises like South Vehicle and North Vehicle?
And judging by its name, this company seemed related to Jiangnan Group. When had Jiangnan Group expanded its business to trains?
The national media extensively covered the story, gradually uncovering the mysterious veil of Jiangnan Transportation and bringing back old news from three years prior to the public.
The public then learned that Jiangnan Transportation was a company researching vacuum maglev trains. The media also unearthed the CG promotional video Jiangnan Transportation had produced back then, with its extremely futuristic scenes that still gave viewers goosebumps upon rewatching.
Following the goosebumps came more rumors and speculation.
Many people, after learning about Jiangnan Transportation, exclaimed, "Is China finally going to build vacuum high-speed trains?" Otherwise, there would be no reason for companies like South Vehicle and North Vehicle to merge with Jiangnan Transportation.
As a result, these speculations immediately drew more doubt, or rather, mockery.
These individuals widely ridiculed those who speculated about vacuum high-speed trains online, telling them that China hadn't even figured out maglev trains and had no chance of building vacuum high-speed trains.
This mockery immediately drew rebuttals. Some began to argue from a technical standpoint, stating that the construction cost of vacuum maglev trains was not significantly higher than that of maglev trains, but the technology was far more advanced, so there was no reason not to pursue vacuum high-speed maglev trains.
This rebuttal immediately led to more skepticism, with many coming from tech influencers on Facebook, and even some experts and scholars began to publish articles refuting it.
They argued in their articles that vacuum high-speed trains were all nonsense. Setting aside the immense cost of constructing vacuum tubes, the domestic technology for suspending trains within these tubes was absolutely non-existent.
A vacuum high-speed maglev train wasn't simply about building a vacuum tube and letting the train run inside; it required the train to levitate within the vacuum tube, thus enabling high-speed travel with almost no friction.
This, in turn, necessitated magnetic effects between the entire surface of the train and the inner walls of the tube. While this technology existed, the key lay in the materials, requiring highly efficient super-materials to achieve it.
However, such materials were prohibitively expensive. They cited Shanghai's maglev train as an example, stating that just adding that material to the surfaces of the two rails increased the cost per kilometer of track to 350 million RMB. If the entire track required the same material, the construction cost per kilometer would rise to over 3 billion RMB.
If there was so much spare money, it would be better to distribute it equally among the citizens as welfare than to build vacuum high-speed trains!
In 2006, these tech influencers and experts had not yet become the notorious public intellectuals they would later be known as; they still had considerable influence.
Furthermore, what these individuals said was technically sound, especially since some of them added a seemingly irrefutable concluding statement to their articles.
They wrote, "Vacuum high-speed tube technology is not new; American scientists proposed related technical concepts in the 1990s. Yet, even the strongest and technically invincible Americans view this technology as science fiction, believing it to be utterly unrealistic and unattainable within 100 years. It's even uncertain after a hundred years, as humanity might have invented more efficient transportation technologies by then, rendering the need for new vacuum tubes obsolete."
Finally, they concluded, "Vacuum high-speed train technology, a feat that even the United States and the entire Western world cannot achieve, how can a mere China possibly accomplish it? Stop daydreaming! A country that cannot even manufacture its own aircraft carriers, what is it thinking about vacuum high-speed trains!"
With the involvement of these influencers and technical experts, those who previously believed vacuum high-speed trains were possible fell silent.
They understood, in fact, that their ideas were too fanciful. What the experts said was the truth; if even Americans couldn't master this technology, how could Chinese people possibly develop it? They had simply been deluding themselves out of excessive excitement.
Things gradually quieted down, and the news media began reporting on other news, and everything seemed to return to its original state. However, within China, various related seminars, technical discussion meetings, route design meetings, and even higher-level meetings were being held.
Don't think that there were too many meetings or that it was wasteful of time. Meetings were necessary. The primary purpose of meetings was not to reach conclusions, but to unite people, build consensus, and ensure everyone's efforts were channeled into a single direction, thereby promoting progress vigorously.
For years, China had relied on this method of daily meetings to gradually form consensus, pool everyone's strength, and turn projects that foreigners considered impossible into reality at an unimaginable pace.
Of course, all of this was happening without the knowledge of most Chinese people. Although news outlets like News LB would report on related meetings, most ordinary people had no interest in them; they were more captivated by games, TV shows, and movies.
For instance, the entire internet was now abuzz with another piece of news: World of Warcraft was going to be made into a movie.
This news was announced at the Blizzard Carnival a week prior, when the CEO of Blizzard casually let slip some hints.
The next day, the world erupted, with everyone chasing after this news.
It was understandable, given World of Warcraft's unprecedented influence in recent years. Even games like Pokémon had to bow down to World of Warcraft.
After all, no other online game in the world could boast 650 million active accounts with login records within the last three days globally, a peak of 180 million concurrent players, and a staggering global revenue of 10.2 billion US dollars in 2005.
Note that this was purely from game revenue, excluding income from other game copyright licenses. World of Warcraft had undoubtedly become the most globally recognized super game IP, with a reach of nearly 90% among young demographics.
And now, this game IP had announced a movie adaptation.
This news naturally caused a significant stir and impact, with major global websites and forums seeing 10,000 related discussions per minute.
Blizzard had clearly mastered the art of leveraging hot topics. Soon, global players received new information from Blizzard's official accounts and website: Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime would attend the sixth WCG Global Esports Tournament held in China.
He would also attend the finals of the Warcraft III project, even serving as a guest commentator for this peak e-sports final.
This news instantly stirred the nerves of many players. Since Mike Morhaime would be attending the competition and even commentating, was it possible that he would directly inquire about the World of Warcraft movie during the commentary?
Thus, the Weibo accounts of famous international Warcraft commentators immediately became the focus of countless inquiries. Numerous messages urged them to "behave themselves" and to absolutely remember to ask about the World of Warcraft movie information during their commentary, or else face the consequences.