Visionary Leaders
They measure the business empire from the commanding heights of the era.
Liu Yonghao
“Farming requires patience. Good business, like good food, takes time.”
He quit his job and started a business raising quails on his balcony with 1,000 yuan. He has spent more than forty years proving that true speed is to keep the slowest rhythm in one direction and never leave. --- In an era when every business outlet shouts "fast, accurate and ruthless", there is a man who spent more than 40 years conducting an experiment on "slowness": how to use the most humble feed and quails to cross the cycle and reach the world's top 500 companies. When the "iron rice bowl" meant ultimate stability, he took the initiative to smash it. While "1,000 yuan" is only a meager capital in the eyes of others, he regards it as the entire fulcrum to leverage an industry. Liu Yonghao, the "Quail King" from Sichuan, has spent his life practicing a counter-trend business logic: true speed is to keep the slowest pace in the right direction and never leave. 1. Starting point: Ambition that cannot be locked away by the "iron rice bowl" Liu Yonghao, who was born in Sichuan in 1951, had an enviable card in his early life: a stable job within the system. This was the best solution for the future that most people at that time could imagine. However, the spring tide of reform and opening up made this "trump card" crack in his eyes. What he saw was not only the stability of personal life, but also the long-repressed private economic wilderness amid the fission of the times. Stability has become a shackles that he must break free from. In 1982, he and his three brothers made an astonishing move: they resigned from public office, sold their belongings, and raised 1,000 yuan. This amount of money was the total risk cost that ordinary people in that era could imagine. they are at home
Liu Yonghao
ACF Cover Figure: Liu Yonghao — From "Quail King" to "Fortune Global 500": A Blitzkrieg of Patience
ACF · Perspective
Issue No. 049 — ACF-GJ-2026
[Summary]
He gave up a secure government job and started raising quails on a balcony with 1,000 RMB. Over four decades, he proved a radical thesis: true speed means maintaining the slowest possible pace in one direction — and never leaving.
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In an era where every business trend chants "fast, precise, ruthless," one man conducted a forty-year experiment in slowness: how to traverse economic cycles and reach the Fortune Global 500 using the most unglamorous commodities — feed and quails.
When "iron rice bowl" meant ultimate security, he smashed it. When 1,000 RMB was pocket change in others' eyes, he saw it as the lever to move an entire industry. Liu Yonghao, the "Quail King" from Sichuan, lived out a counter-trend business philosophy: true speed means maintaining the slowest rhythm on the right path — and never leaving.
I. The Starting Point: Ambition That Could Not Be Caged
Born in Sichuan in 1951, Liu Yonghao held an enviable hand early in life: a stable position within the state system. This was the optimal future that most people of his generation could imagine.
Yet the tide of Reform and Opening-Up cracked that "trump card" in his eyes. He saw not just personal comfort, but the vast, suppressed wilderness of private enterprise in the fissures of a changing era. Security became the shackle he had to break.
In 1982, he and his three elder brothers made a stunning move: they resigned from public office, sold their belongings, and pooled 1,000 RMB. This sum represented the entirety of what an ordinary person could imagine risking in that era. On their apartment balcony, they founded the "Yuxin Liangzhong Chang" (Yuxin Breeding Farm), betting everything on quail breeding — clumsily, stubbornly, toward an uncertain future.
II. First Fortune: Finding World-Class Standards in a "Backwater" Business
Entrepreneurship has no script. By day they were feeders; by night, technicians. In cramped quarters, they pioneered an ecological circular farming model. No shortcuts — only day after day of relentless grind.
While others mocked it as a "backwards" trade, they pushed quail output to number one nationally, their scale surpassing traditional powerhouses like Germany, France, and Japan, earning Liu the title "World Quail King."
That 1,000 RMB incubated not just an industry, but a simple conviction: in the most inconspicuous trade, with the most painstaking effort, you can still reach world-class.
III. Transformation: Seeing the National Gap Behind the Queue
The quail business was thriving enough for anyone to enjoy wealth in comfort. But a trip to Shenzhen fundamentally altered his course.
In 1986, in Shenzhen, he witnessed farmers lining up to buy expensive imported feed.
That image stung him. He perceived a crisis larger and more urgent than breeding: an agricultural giant that could not feed its own livestock.
This was no longer a business opportunity — it was a national deficit that had to be filled. He resolutely scaled back the mature quail operation, invested 4 million RMB, assembled a team, and buried himself in feed formula R&D. In 1989, "Hope No.1" suckling pig feed was launched, matching imported products in quality at half the price.
Others chased trends; he filled a nation's stomach.
IV. Steadfastness: An Island Amid the Temptation of "Fast Money"
Over the following decades, real estate, finance, and the internet each produced waves of windfall opportunities. Countless entrepreneurs pivoted across sectors, chasing lightning-fast wealth. Liu Yonghao became an inexplicable "island" in the tides of commerce.
He coined the philosophy "follow the trend, move half a step fast" — yet locked every stride firmly onto the main track of agriculture and animal husbandry. He flatly refused short-term speculation, shunned hollow prestige, and focused solely on the long chain from field to table.
"Half a step fast" was wisdom; "no diversification" was character. In an age when everyone yearned to ride the next wave, he chose to be the earth's most faithful plowman.
V. Echoes: How the "Slow" 1,000 RMB Outran the Era
The endgame of this "slow business" surpassed every "fast-money story" imaginable. In 2021, New Hope Group ascended to the Fortune Global 500. Annual revenues exceeded 100 billion RMB, with operations spanning the globe.
Yet more precious than the commercial empire was another experiment he completed: how to smoothly transition a Chinese enterprise across generations. His daughter Liu Chang concealed her identity, working at the grassroots level for over a decade before taking the helm as chairwoman in 2013. In 2025, Liu Yonghao formally retired, completing one of the rarest seamless successions in China's private enterprise history.
The original 1,000 RMB long ago dissolved into a sea of hundred-billion-yuan assets. Yet the entrepreneurial original aspiration and long-termism it represented became this enterprise's most indestructible "capital."
Liu Yonghao's story is like a stabilizing pillar planted in the tides of Chinese business history. It forces every restless soul to confront a question: when every signal encourages "smart" monetization and "agile" pivoting, do we still believe that the "stupidest" perseverance, the "slowest" cultivation, is the only path to weather all cycles and reach true greatness?
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