He loitered in Japan for more than two months, during which time he amassed 3,567 tons of discarded "junk suits." These so-called junk suits looked brand-new, had impeccable tailoring, and fit just as well as the Italian-made Armani suits Baldy Li would later wear. The Japanese sold these old suits to Baldy Li for next to nothing, and Baldy Li in turn hired a Chinese freighter to ship them back to Shanghai. He wasn't willing to hire a Japanese freighter because, he explained, the Japanese charged far too much. In fact, merely hiring workers on the Japanese docks to load the suits onto the ferry would end up costing more than the 3,567 tons of suits themselves.He sold the suits soon after he got to Shanghai. Within a few days so many scrap kings had come from all over the country that they were said to have completely filled a four-star hotel on Nanjing Road. The scrap kings hauled their cash around in large hemp sacks—dragging these sacks behind them as they trudged into the lobby of the hotel to register, dragging them onto the elevators, and continuing to drag them into their respective rooms.
