According to the schedule, two days after the Banta City bicycle race, the Xinfei Bicycle Championship Banta Station would officially begin.
The opening of this race also represented the opening of this year's Xinfei Bicycle Championship Banta Station.
Because last year's Xinfei Bicycle Championship Banta Station had won a total of eighty four thousand gold coins, this year's Xinfei Bicycle Championship Banta Station had attracted even more attention.
For the Xinfei Bicycle Championship Banta Station, from the beginning to the end, for an entire week, the various newspapers of the Lampari Kingdom and even the newspapers of the surrounding countries had all reported on this race in detail.
Because of these reports, the bicycle companies that participated in this race received a large amount of exposure, allowing the brands under their names to receive even more recognition.
When the Xinfei Bicycle Championship Banta Station ended, a rider from the Anjit Chamber of Commerce won the championship and received the five thousand gold coins. The craze for bicycles that lasted for half a month finally died down a bit.
In the past half a month, the sales of all the bicycles produced by the Chamber of Commerce that participated in the competition had greatly increased.
Not mentioning the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, of the other seven bicycle companies, the Anjit Chamber of Commerce had the most exaggerated increase in sales. In just half a month, they had sold over seven thousand and six hundred bicycles. Compared to last month's sales, it was an increase of over 300%!
The other six bicycle companies also had different increases in sales. The lowest was over 50% and the highest was close to 200%.
Compared to them, the New Flyer's increase in sales was the smallest, only increasing by 17% compared to last month.
But it was only an increase of 17%, but this increase far surpassed the Anjit Chamber of Commerce's increase.
This was because Xinfei Brand bicycles sold over thirty eight thousand and four hundred bicycles last month. An increase of 17% was over six thousand and five hundred bicycles.
In the end, in the bicycle industry, New Flyer was a giant that the other companies couldn't compare to.
But based on the current situation, the other companies had finally grown quite well with the support and promotion of Xu Yi.
In time, they might even be able to catch up with the Xinfei merchants.
And this was precisely what many people, especially other merchants, did not understand about Xu Yi.
New Flyer didn't need to do anything to monopolize the market and make more money for itself. Why would it spend so much effort to help its competitor?
Wasn't Xu Yi worried that New Flyer would be overtaken by other companies one day? Wouldn't New Flyer fall because of his lack of market share?
Even though it was a joke to say that New Flyer was on the decline, it was still necessary to be worried.
Among these people, President Cruz was the one who was most affected.
Ever since he came into contact with New Flyer and got to know Xu Yi, Xu Yi had done countless puzzling things like this.
President Cruz had asked Xu Yi this question countless times, but Xu Yi had never given him a direct answer.
So every time he saw Xu Yi's actions, the doubt in president Cruz's heart would deepen a bit.
Even if he was close to being numb because he had seen it too much, in private, he would often complain about this to Xu Yi when he had nothing to do.
For example, today.
"Hey, Xu Yi, seeing the Anjit Chamber of Commerce's bicycle sales, aren't you worried?"
President Cruz sat down beside Xu Yi and looked at the situation in front of him, as he asked this to Xu Yi in a relaxed voice.
Right now, he and Xu Yi were at the Magic Sedan race track that had been built half a year ago outside Banta City. There were over ten Magic Sedans of different colours and models driving at high speeds in the center of the track, adapting to the track and preparing for the Magic Sedan race that was about to begin.
Compared to the Xinfei bicycle race that was widely watched before, this Magic Sedan race was much less watched.
Other than the « Banta Times » and the « Lampuri Weekly » that had reported on this race, the other newspapers didn't mention it at all.
The reason for this was first because the Magic Sedan was too far away for normal people. They couldn't afford it and couldn't touch it, so naturally they didn't care about it.
Secondly, it was because Xu Yi did this on purpose.
Xu Yi's first priority was to promote bicycles, he wasn't in a rush to promote the Magic Sedan.
This was because he knew that whether it was the Lampari Kingdom or the surrounding countries, the Magic Sedan was a high end thing that normal people couldn't afford to play with at all.
At this stage, his main targets were those merchants and nobles who were relatively well-off.
This was a small circle, so Xu Yi didn't need to pay too much attention to promoting it.
The merchants and nobles had their own ways of contacting each other, so after a new thing like the Magic Sedan was released, it didn't take much effort to spread the news in these two circles.
In the Lampari Kingdom and the surrounding countries, if a merchant or a noble didn't have a Xinfei Brand Magic Sedan, they would be considered outdated and wouldn't even have the face to leave their homes.
Based on this situation, Xu Yi wouldn't promote it before the time was right.
The Magic Sedan race that was being held right now was considered an amateur race. Other than giving the young merchants and nobles a place to race, it was also helping to test the performance of the Magic Sedan.
And because Prince Frank was participating in today's race, it wasn't suitable to promote it.
So Xu Yi didn't even open the race to the public, rather he sealed off the entire venue. Other than allowing close people like chairman Cruz to come in, no one else was allowed in.
"Why should I panic?" Xu Yi turned and looked at chairman Cruz with a bit of a smile.
"The Anjit Chamber of Commerce's bicycle sales have greatly increased, this is a good thing, I can't be happier."
Chairman Cruz rolled his eyes, looking like he already knew that he would respond like this.
After pausing, chairman Cruz reached out to pat Xu Yi's shoulder and said with a serious expression, "Xu Yi, you have your own plans, I can understand this.
But I have to warn you.
If you do this in the Lampari Kingdom and the surrounding small countries, there might not be a problem.
But if you do this in the Kandla Empire, it's very likely that you'll be swallowed by the people of the Kandla Empire.
So ….. you should be careful. "
Xu Yi took a deep look at him, "Did you hear the news?"
Chairman Cruz angrily pointed his lips at the crowd, "The Kandla Empire sent people to contact you, others might not know, but how could I not know?"
Xu Yi nodded. This news was only sealed to the public, but it wasn't sealed to everyone, so it wasn't strange that chairman Cruz received this news.
"Then how much do you know?" Xu Yi asked.
Chairman Cruz shook his head, "Not much.
But I've heard ….. that the Kandla Empire's side has given you an excessive request? "
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile and gave a nod.
The Kandla Empire's request wasn't just excessive, it was simply excessive!
In the contract manager Mancini gave Xu Yi, he actually requested that New Flyer give all the Magic Sedan production technology to his highness Frank.
Then he requested that New Flyer build a Magic Sedan production factory in his highness Frank's territory in the Kandla Empire. Not only did New Flyer have to provide the technology, they also had to provide some production magic machines, as well as train a group of qualified workers.
This meant that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had to help Prince Frank build a factory that could independently produce Magic Glue Cars on his territory. At the same time, they had to provide complete technical support and guarantee.
Compared to this, the contract that required the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to build a standard race track on his highness Frank's territory, as well as providing maintenance personnel, it wasn't even worth mentioning.
As for what his highness Frank would give in return?
It was clear that there wasn't a single gold coin and there wasn't any material return at all.
Even when manager Mancini finished looking over the contract, he looked like this was a gift for Xu Yi, so Xu Yi had to be grateful for it.
Perhaps the only thing that could be considered a return was that manager Mancini said that as long as the Frestech Chamber of Commerce signed the contract and did what they said, his highness Frank would take care of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
Xu Yi didn't give any opinions on the contract at that time, he just told manager Mancini that he needed some time to consider it.
However, when he saw manager Mancini's dissatisfied look, Xu Yi had already given the other side a death sentence in his heart.
This wasn't called cooperation, this was called licking his boots.
Even though Xu Yi could admit that Prince Frank had a noble status and that the New Flyer could give up a large portion of the benefits when cooperating with him, all for the sake of smoothly entering the Kandla Empire and opening up the huge market that was the Kandla Empire, he definitely wouldn't admit that he needed to lick his highness' boots.
If he really did agree to this contract, then in Xu Yi's eyes, New Flyer would be no different from Prince Frank's dog.
Perhaps there were many people on this continent who would love nothing more than to become Prince Frank's dog, but Xu Yi definitely wouldn't accept it.
Even though this would block any possibility of entering the Kandla Empire through his relationship with Prince Frank, Xu Yi wasn't too disappointed.
Through this matter, in addition to what had happened when Russell had visited, Xu Yi had a deeper understanding of the situation within the Kandla Empire.
This was an incomparably huge empire, but it was a decaying empire that thought too highly of itself and had almost lost all motivation to move forward.
In the past, Xu Yi might have placed his hopes on the Kandla Empire to revitalize the development of the entire magic machine industry in the Sines, allowing the magic machine industry to change the entire continent. But now, he had given up on this idea.
The Candra Empire, in his eyes, there wasn't much difference between the surrounding small countries and the Candra Empire.
A bigger market?
It was just a bigger piece of fat meat.