It was the biggest order the Lius had received. To ensure that they delivered on time, they set about raising capital and acquiring eggs.

The Spring Festival of 1983 was the most difficult time the Lius faced in their business career.

To fill the order for 100,000 chickens, the Lius had borrowed heavily from their relatives. The chickens kept hatching, and they decided all they could do was sell the remaining 80,000 on the market.

Liu Yonghao said, "That evening we started making baskets. At 4 o'clock in the morning, we arrived at the market, and stayed there 'til midnight. People bought 1, 3, maybe 5 chickens, retail and wholesale.

We offered the wholesalers free home delivery. After 10 days, we'd sold all the chickens. But we'd all lost weight, more than 5 kilograms each."

For the Lius, who were relatively new to doing business, the experience was an important lesson. Now that they were aware of the risks, they decided to make a few changes.

White Cloud was a documentary produced by the Central Documentary and Newsreel Studio. In March 1984, the government gave official approval for rural private enterprises. Mixed farming began to be promoted nationwide.

Liu Yonghao said, "People believed partridge eggs were nutritious. At the time, eggs were selling for 2 jiao each on the market. But people said one partridge egg was equivalent to 3 ordinary eggs. So the price came down. Without any profit to be made some specialist farmers quit. But since our production was small-scale, we could still make a decent profit. We decided to focus on partridge breeding as our main business."

Chen Yuxin said, "Partridge breeding was a good option at the early stage of development, since the investment was relatively small. Partridge eggs only took 30 days to hatch, less than regular eggs. The laying rate was also higher. In other words, we could make a quick profit."

So the Lius decided to focus on partridge breeding.