In this fund-raising activity, media reporters from various places played a role in fueling the flames. The most active one was Sun Shuxing, a reporter from Science and Technology Daily. When Shen Taifu started raising funds in Hainan, Sun Shuxing published a long newsletter "Raising 20 Million in 20 Days" on the front page of the newspaper, greatly promoting Great Wall Company's fundraising performance. In the following months, Sun Shuxing published long reports such as "Building a new Great Wall with high technology and our century-old unremitting reform and opening up" and "For Millions of Fathers and Brothers", giving a high profile to the Great Wall Company's fund-raising. tracking reports. It was under the urging of hundreds of media that Shen Taifu was invincible. During this period, Shen Taifu successively gave Sun Shuxing more than 20,000 yuan in hard work, as well as items such as password suitcases, "Pierre Cardin" suits, and Japanese-made "Minolta" automatic cameras. Sun Shuxing was later sentenced to 7 years in prison.
With the help of Sun Shuxing, Shen Taifu was lucky enough to get acquainted with Li Xiaoshi, who had served as the editor-in-chief of "Science and Technology Daily" and the then deputy director of the National Science and Technology Commission. In the Shen Taifu case, Li Xiaoshi played a key role. When "Science and Technology Daily" reported heavily on Great Wall Company, he was convinced of this energy-saving project. In order to express his support, he went to Great Wall Company to inspect and left an inscription "May Great Wall's goal be realized as soon as possible." Used by Shen Taifu in all promotional texts. Li Xiaoshi also took the opportunity to travel to various places to promote the Great Wall. In Hainan, he told reporters, "I promoted the 'Great Wall' all the way from Shenzhen to Guangzhou to Hainan. I think the technology industry run by the 'Great Wall' is a technology industry full of hope!" Because of his official status Because of his special status, he became the most convincing publicist of Great Wall Company. In order to repay Li Xiaoshi, Shen Taifu signed a 40,000 yuan "technology development contract" with Beijing Great Wall Company in the name of Li Xiaoshi's third son. The first time, Li Xiaoshi refused. The second time, Shen Taifu sent someone to stuff it through the door of Li Xiaoshi's office. This time, Li Xiaoshi did not return it. He understood and locked it into a metal cabinet in the office. For this contract, Li Xiaoshi was found guilty of bribery and corruption a year later and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
If Sun Shuxing and Li Xiaoshi served the Great Wall Company with self-interest factors, then at that time some experts and scholars did express their sincere appreciation for Shen Taifu’s fund-raising model, including veteran sociologists Fei Xiaotong, Vice Chairman of the National People's Congress. In January 1993, Fei Lao wrote an article "Looking at the Grafting of the "Five Elders" from the Development of the "Great Wall"" to conduct a "theoretical" demonstration of the Great Wall model. His so-called "five elders" are laoda (state-owned enterprises), laoxiang (township enterprises), laojiu (intellectuals), laowai (foreign-owned enterprises), and laogan (government officials). Fei Xiaotong believes that Great Wall Company has made commendable achievements in entrusting processing of high-tech achievements, transfer of achievements, invigorating private finance, foreign cooperation, and utilizing the residual energy of veteran cadres.
By the beginning of 1993, Shen Taifu had established more than 20 branches and more than 100 branches across the country, employing more than 3,000 employees. His main business was advertising, news speculation, and fund-raising. ① According to Wang An’s disclosure in the book "25 Years", Great Wall Company spared no effort in public relations for the media and officials. "It is rumored that Shen Taifu's red envelope offensive cost 30 million." By February, Great Wall Company had spent less than half a year. During this period, *** raised more than 1 billion yuan in funds, with 100,000 investors, of which individual funds accounted for 93% of the total funds raised. There are nine cities that have raised more than 50 million yuan, with Beijing having the largest amount of more than 200 million yuan. As the fundraising bubble grew bigger and bigger, the stories Shen Taifu told became more and more outrageous. He claimed to have more than 300 patented technologies, "its leading product, high-efficiency and energy-saving motors, has been applied in various production fields, and has an order volume of 1.5 billion yuan." ", and at the same time, "Among the tens of thousands of private technology companies across the country, Great Wall is the only one included in the national industry management." In fact, during this period, Great Wall Company only sold more than 50 motors, worth only more than 6 million yuan. In order to create the illusion of good business performance, Shen Taifu turned 320 million yuan of capital raised into the company's operating sales revenue, and then paid more than 11 million yuan in taxes to the tax department. At the same time, Shen Taifu worked hard on interpersonal public relations. He successively hired more than 160 veteran comrades who had served as department directors as senior consultants of the company, thus building a strong official-business relationship network.