“President, everything is ready, just waiting for your order!” While Liu Xiangjiang and Liu Qiangdong were talking, Liu Qiangdong’s secretary walked over and reported to Liu Qiangdong with her head lowered.
“Mr. Liu, would you like to come with me for a tour?” Liu Qiangdong invited with a smile.
“Certainly, Mr. Liu!” Liu Xiangjiang said with a grin, and then the two Mr. Lius walked hand-in-hand from the office to Amazon, or rather, to the control room of what was now called Oriental Amazon.
This was where the operation of all of Amazon’s backend systems and programs was controlled, allowing visibility into all of Amazon’s running and stored data.
“Has all the data been saved?” Liu Qiangdong asked.
“Yes, this is something we must praise Mr. Bezos for. Although Amazon’s backend programs were absolutely chaotic, and even our hundred programmers couldn’t find any clues. He stored all user and merchant data separately in dedicated data servers. That was absolutely the most brilliant decision. We only need to isolate these data servers to ensure the safety of all data!”
“Very well, since all the data has been saved, let’s proceed with deleting it!” Liu Qiangdong said calmly.
“Yes!” The programmers who were ready nodded. It was Liu Qiangdong on the side who asked, “Mr. Liu, have you really decided? To delete all the frontend and backend programs of Amazon, without even leaving a backup?”
That’s right, what Liu Qiangdong ordered to be deleted was none other than all the operational code that Amazon had been using since its establishment in 1997. This was the culmination of eight years of accumulated code, responsible for the operation of the entire US Amazon website.
And now, with Liu Qiangdong’s order, this historically rich code and programs would all be deleted, and in essence, the original Amazon website would cease to exist.
With the press of the delete key, the original Amazon would also be deleted.
“Not to mention how difficult it would be to pick up these trash programs again, how will we update and iterate the entire Amazon code in the future, and whether competitors might leave backdoors in the code to monitor and steal our data at any time!”
“All I want to say is that now that Bezos has taken away all the old employees, the original Amazon should be deleted. Now that I am here, and this place has become Oriental Amazon, then naturally everything must be according to my rules!”
“Only what I can control from start to finish is what can give me peace of mind. I don’t like adding bricks and tiles to a fortress built by others; I want to build my own fortress from scratch!” Liu Qiangdong stated decisively.
“But… directly copying the frontend and backend program code from Jiangnan Mall isn’t your fortress either, is it!” Liu Xiangjiang said softly from the side.
“Ahem!” Liu Qiangdong, who had been quite dashing just moments ago, suddenly showed an embarrassed expression and stammered, “This is the group’s property, and I am now a member of the group. What the group has is mine, so this is the fortress I built.”
Liu Qiangdong actually really wanted to build a completely new shopping platform from scratch, with every line of code being brand new and written by his own employees.
But time simply didn’t allow it. For such a massive platform code, it would take several months to complete all the coding.
And that was just a draft. The code would then need to be tested, various functions modified, and numerous bugs fixed.
These tasks combined would require at least over a year of actual operation to complete. Therefore, it was practically impossible for anyone to delete the platform code that Amazon had validated over eight years.
They could only endure the various absurd logic and comments within the code, forcing their poor programmers to take over.
But Liu Qiangdong could forcefully delete all the code because he possessed the more advanced and complete platform code from Jiangnan Mall, the online shopping platform with the largest user base in the world.
Jiangnan Mall had been established for three years, not as long as Amazon.
However, Jiangnan Mall’s code was constantly refined through the usage of over a billion people and tens of millions of users in China. It endured daily stresses, bugs, and feature requests. Therefore, in terms of code richness and security, Jiangnan Mall’s code was actually much more powerful than Amazon’s.
The most crucial point was that this code was developed entirely by Jiangnan Group itself. The original generation of programmers was still employed by Jiangnan Group, so with a mere wave of his hand, Boss Huang could mobilize a large team of elites to provide support. In less than a month, they could completely reorganize Amazon’s code and data, directly replacing it with Jiangnan Mall’s code.
Of course, the staff of Oriental Amazon would still need to modify some website assets, such as images and website background colors. Additionally, they would need to optimize some of Amazon’s features and find ways to import the merchant and user data stored by Amazon.
As the two chatted, Liu Qiangdong’s programmers had already decisively pressed the delete key, and the massive frontend and backend code of Amazon began to be deleted line by line. Due to the sheer volume of code, the entire deletion process was estimated to take about four hours.
Concurrently, for the next three months, this elite team would remain at Oriental Amazon, teaching the Oriental Amazon employees to master this set of code while also taking on the tasks of Oriental Amazon’s on-duty programmers, helping to maintain the Oriental Amazon website.
Regardless, the code issue that Goldman Sachs had believed would cause significant trouble for Jiangnan Group was so easily resolved. When Bezos later learned that all of Amazon’s code had been wiped clean, he fell into a state of silence.
According to unofficial sources, Bezos even locked himself in his study and wept for an entire night. After all, Amazon was his eldest son, and now this eldest son had been completely shattered and deleted from the world by the enemy.
On the other side, to avoid any copyright infringement issues, Wanxian Pavilion was not using Amazon’s code either. Instead, Goldman Sachs had directly acquired the code from a small e-commerce website and, in a short period, had seasoned Amazon programmers modify it to function similarly to the Amazon website.
However, it was ultimately not the genuine Amazon code. Otherwise, Oriental Amazon could have sued Wanxian Pavilion and bankrupted them.
“How do you plan to handle the merchant issues?” Regardless of Bezos’s emotional state, after witnessing all of Amazon’s code being deleted, Liu Xiangjiang curiously inquired about Liu Qiangdong’s next plan.
Liu Qiangdong knew that Liu Xiangjiang was an absolute confidant of Boss Huang. The questions Liu Xiangjiang asked were precisely what Huang He wanted to ask. This was because Huang He had handed over the entire Amazon to Liu Qiangdong without asking a single question, not even about his future business plans, and had directly decided on the merger.
Because of this, our Boss Huang couldn’t bring himself to ask directly and had to do so through his confidant, Liu Xiangjiang, treating it as a casual chat between colleagues.
Liu Qiangdong naturally understood the underlying implications and knew he couldn’t refuse to answer. Therefore, he straightforwardly and solemnly stated, “I plan to leverage the strengths of our Oriental Express!”
“Currently, our Oriental Express has established a very good, or rather, an extremely outstanding reputation in the market. Wherever Oriental Express covers, many people are willing to pay more to use our Oriental Express for shipping items.”
“Because express delivery is one of the most crucial links in online shopping. The key factor currently hindering a large number of users from shopping online is the slow and disorganized nature of express delivery. This is a pain point for the entire e-commerce sector.”
“Therefore, this will be the focus of our future development. Oriental Express will become Oriental Amazon’s proprietary express service, handling all of Oriental Amazon’s express delivery business. We will use our excellent express service to give users a brand new understanding and perception of Oriental Amazon!”
“You absolutely must not underestimate express delivery. Believe me, by then, 80% of Amazon’s old users will return to Oriental Amazon’s embrace due to the high-quality service of Oriental Express.”
“At the same time, more new users will be curious and use Oriental Amazon because of Oriental Express’s reputation, ultimately boosting the rapid development of Oriental Amazon, not only to return it to its peak but to surpass that peak by far!”
Liu Qiangdong finished speaking and looked at Liu Xiangjiang somewhat nervously, awaiting his response.
“Chairman Yinhe and you truly share the same vision!” Liu Xiangjiang exclaimed after listening to Liu Qiangdong.
“Oh! The Chairman thinks the same way?” Liu Qiangdong asked in surprise.
“Of course!” Liu Xiangjiang nodded. “Before I came, the Chairman told me that the reason he chose you from so many people to be the leader of Oriental Amazon was because you managed express delivery so well, and a website that manages express delivery well can have the best online shopping experience!”
“However, the Chairman also mentioned that express delivery has an excellent partner, which is after-sales service!” Liu Xiangjiang continued. “Countless business companies and brands have proven through practice that after-sales service is the only tool that can truly retain users within their brand. Therefore, the Chairman hopes that while you fully develop express delivery, you will also do a good job with the website’s after-sales service.”
“The Chairman also specifically left a message for you, which is ‘3 days unconditional return, 7 days unconditional exchange, 1 month unconditional repair. Some products have three guarantees within three years!’” Liu Xiangjiang said with a smile. “The Chairman said that if you can achieve this, although it might be costly and effortful, and you might even get frustrated, it is guaranteed that in three years, you will be the number one e-commerce platform in the entire United States!”