Smith was silent for a long moment before he finally had to suck up to his boss, giving him a thumbs-up. "You... are truly brilliant!"

’So brilliant, it left him speechless.’ 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

He didn’t tell his manager that if sales were poor, the others would be overjoyed to have let Jerry’s advice go in one ear and out the other.

Regardless, Jerry had achieved his goal.

He had taken the initiative to strike a deal with Xie Changning, becoming the sole distributor for the Anong County Machinery Factory in the United States!

And so, by the time the other foreign merchants came to their senses the next day, any American merchants who wanted to place an order with Xie Changning were stopped by her and told they would need to go through Jerry.

The other American merchants: "..."

’Wait—how did a sole distributor suddenly appear in just one day!?’

"I protest!" An American merchant, one of the men Jerry had tried to talk down, was instantly displeased when he heard Xie Changning announce a sole distributor for the United States. He lodged his complaint with her.

"This is the Spring Trade Fair, a place for China to engage with us! On what grounds can he become the distributor right here at the fair? Are those of us who were just a bit slower to order simply to be rejected?"

"A printer we could have gotten for 2,000 US Dollars, so why, in the blink of an eye, can we only get it for 2,100!?"

"This isn’t fair!"

"What’s not fair about it?" Jerry stepped forward as the man protested. "I earned these rights by putting my own capital on the line. If you had an order for a hundred thousand units like I did, you could’ve negotiated a distributorship with her too!"

At these words, the protesting merchant’s expression grew awkward.

He hadn’t expected Jerry to place an order for one hundred thousand units right off the bat.

Little did he know, this was merely the entry threshold for a national distributorship. It came with an additional annual sales quota of another hundred thousand units, meaning Jerry would need to sell two hundred thousand units in total.

Of course, since Jerry had placed a direct order for a hundred thousand units, Xie Changning had given him a cost break. For example, on his subsequent orders, she would charge him 1,900 US Dollars per unit.

The price would decrease with the number of units sold.

There were tiered discounts for hitting the one-hundred-thousand, three-hundred-thousand, and five-hundred-thousand-unit sales marks.

The American was eventually talked down by Jerry. As for the merchants from other countries, they now understood that being a sole distributor was no easy task. They also realized the distributor’s purchase price was lower than theirs, but not by a large margin.

This made them incredibly relieved that they had rushed over today.

If they had waited until tomorrow, other countries might have had sole distributors by then too.

However, some astute merchants still sensed that there was profit to be made in a distributorship. Otherwise, the American wouldn’t have jumped straight into a deal for sole distribution rights.

And so, merchants from Russia and other countries also began to inquire about distributorship opportunities.

When they learned the sales requirement was an initial one hundred thousand units plus an annual quota of another hundred thousand, many of them backed down. However, some felt that it wasn’t an impossible goal.

"You don’t need to worry about sales," Xie Changning said, reassuring them. "After this Spring Trade Fair concludes, I will establish a dedicated R&D team to develop a machine that connects with the printer."

’The basic framework for a computer already exists; all I have to do is build upon that foundation. The whole process shouldn’t take more than two years. The difficult parts are networking and communications.’

’However... I’ll publish a paper. After that, I’m sure the top minds in China will catch wind of the opportunity and start developing it concurrently. The communication issues should be resolved soon enough as well.’

Of course, all of that was for the future. For now, the merchants who had been hesitating were won over by Xie Changning’s words.