My capital is quite large.

Chapter 245 Belated Regret

As the New Year's Eve bells rang, accompanied by the deafening sound of firecrackers outside the window, Li Feng's speech on CCTV's Spring Festival Gala had already spread throughout the country via the internet.

However, just as people across the country were watching TV and eating their New Year's Eve dinner...

Within the smartphones that each of them owns, another epic battle, fought without gunpowder but powerful enough to overturn the landscape of China's internet finance, has already erupted!

"bite--"

"bite--"

Accompanied by a series of crisp WeChat notification sounds, a red bubble link with the words "Wishing you prosperity and good fortune" began to flood countless WeChat groups for family, friends, classmates, and work!

WeChat Red Envelope!

This seemingly insignificant feature, full of auspicious meaning for the Chinese New Year, demonstrated a viral spread on New Year's Eve!

"Quick, quick! My uncle sent out red envelopes in the family group chat! They'll be gone if you don't grab them first!"

"Holy crap! I stole five dollars!"

"How do I withdraw the money? Do I need to link a bank card? Okay, I'll find my ID card and link the card right away!"

To grab these few dollars, or even a few cents, in red envelopes, middle-aged and elderly people who are usually wary of online payment security and are even reluctant to use Alipay, as well as users in lower-tier markets who find registering an account too troublesome...

At that moment, they all seemed to be bewitched, pulling out their bank cards and obediently entering their card numbers and personal information!

WeChat, the social behemoth with hundreds of millions of acquaintances, accomplished a miracle in financial history by using methods that best suited the interpersonal relationships of Chinese New Year!

Just one New Year's Eve!

The number of WeChat Pay users who have linked their bank cards is growing exponentially!

In one night, they accomplished the amount of ground promotion and card binding that the Alibaba team had painstakingly built up over eight years!

……

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, at the Alibaba Group headquarters in Hangzhou.

Compared to the festive decorations outside, the atmosphere inside Alibaba's core conference room was quite somber.

Jack Ma, who was always calm and collected in front of his employees, was now ashen-faced and staring silently at the chart on the big screen showing the soaring number of bank card bindings on WeChat Pay!

In the conference room, Alipay's senior management team all had their heads down, their backs soaked with cold sweat.

Nobody expected that Tencent would pull such a dirty trick! By using social red envelopes worth a few yuan, they bypassed e-commerce platforms and stabbed Alibaba in the back in its financial stronghold!

"call……"

Jack suddenly recalled the scene of fishing by West Lake.

"Mr. Ma, I heard that Pony is going to make a big move on WeChat."

"Their WeChat payment team is secretly developing a feature called WeChat Red Envelope, which they plan to launch on New Year's Eve... This is aimed directly at Alipay's Achilles' heel, so you'd better be careful."

At that time, the young leader of Haofeng Sect sat on a fishing chair and gave this fatal warning with a half-smile!

But what was my answer at the time?

He laughed and mocked Pony Ma for not understanding finance, ridiculed Tencent for not having payment barriers, and believed that ordinary people's money would never leave Alipay!

He ignored Li Feng's well-intentioned warning and even thought that the other party was exaggerating!

"Snapped!"

Jack Ma slapped his thigh, regretting it terribly!

"I regret not listening to Li Feng! Ali has really suffered a huge setback this time!"

Jack Ma chuckled bitterly to himself. The other person had clearly given him the answers to the exam beforehand, but he still insisted on handing in a blank paper with his eyes closed! Now the boomerang had hit him right between the eyebrows, making him see stars.

But Jack Ma was, after all, a business tycoon. After a brief moment of regret, he quickly came up with a solution.

"All of you, raise your heads!"

"Look at these numbers! They've got a knife to our throats, and you're still playing dead?!"

"Last night, this wasn't some kind of Chinese New Year red envelope giveaway game!"

Jack Ma delivered a resounding assessment.

"This is a Pearl Harbor attack launched by Tencent against Alipay!"

"Immediately send an internal year-end email to everyone! Make sure you highlight this sentence in bold and red: 'The solid ground beneath our feet is undergoing a transformation!'"

"We were too arrogant before! We thought that with the moat of e-commerce, our payment system would be safe? Tencent showed us in one night that in this era, nothing is unshakeable!"

"The payment team must conduct a complete self-criticism as soon as we return to work after the holiday! From the underlying architecture and product logic to marketing methods, we need a complete overhaul and innovation!"

"We must fundamentally improve our responsiveness to market changes! Anyone clinging to their old, self-centered ways of doing things should pack their bags and leave immediately!"

After reprimanding the payment team, Jack Ma decided to also plant a nail in Tencent's social sphere!

"A prolonged defense will inevitably lead to defeat; offense is the best form of defense!"

"We urgently need to upgrade our own social networking app—Laiwang!"

"Elevate Laiwang to the highest strategic level within the group! From today onwards, all major announcements, executive updates, and internal mobilizations within the group must exclusively launch on Laiwang, abandoning all other platforms!"

"Even if it means throwing money at it and risking our lives, we must establish a foothold for Alibaba within Tencent's social media stronghold!"

……

Compared to the chaos and sense of impending doom at Alibaba's headquarters.

Having just finished performing at the Spring Festival Gala and returned to Jinling on his private jet, Li Feng is now comfortably basking in the Lunar New Year's Day sun by the heated swimming pool at Zijinshan Manor.

"Boss, the data for WeChat red envelopes exploded last night."

Zhang Yuxi carried a glass of freshly squeezed juice to the recliner and quietly reported to her supervisor: "Tencent sent out a report overnight, saying that the total number of WeChat red envelopes sent and received on New Year's Eve exceeded ten million, and the number of users who linked their bank cards surged exponentially. It seems that Alibaba really suffered a big loss this time."

Li Feng took the juice, bit the straw, took a sip, and looked on with a smug, amused expression.

"Suffering a loss is a blessing in disguise. If Pony Ma hadn't given him this wake-up call, he would have really thought his Alipay was invincible."

Li Feng rolled over and picked up his tablet to browse Weibo.

As expected, on Haofeng's Weibo trending topics, the topic of WeChat red envelope grabbing has become as popular as the Spring Festival Gala skit.

"However, the fiercer their fight is, the better it is for Haofeng."

Once WeChat Pay is fully established, the "subsidy war" between Ma Huateng and Pony Ma, which has burned through hundreds of billions of yuan, will begin in earnest.

"Yu Xi, notify the Department of Commerce and the Department of Government Affairs."

"The first thing I did after returning from the holiday was to raise the prices of Google Play booths on major platforms by 30%."

"When there's war, bullets and megaphones always go up in price."