Chapter 47: Qiu Dahe's Golden Fist

  The next day early in the morning, Jiao Ye and as usual, drove a van to pick up Lu Zhong and then picked up Li Xiangyang on the way.

  Although the county bureau still retains Lu Zhong's office, Lu Zhong's usual workplace has naturally moved to the county party committee compound, in the same office building as Li Xiangyang. The daily work of the county bureau is presided over by Executive Deputy Director Ma Yuewu.

  Li Xiangyang got on the car and kept saying thank you. His bicycle was stolen, and it was also Lu Zheng who picked him up yesterday morning.

  This is also a special case, and Lu Zhong will not go to pick up Li Xiangyang every day in the future. After all, Li Xiangyang is the darling of Ding Jiayin, the Minister of Propaganda Department. If he gets too close to him, it won't be good for either of them.

  Lu Zhong smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

  Li Xiangyang didn't say much more, and before he knew it, this great benefactor of his own family had entered the highest power circle of the county committee. His political status soared rapidly, and thinking back to those days, Li thought that Lu Zhengwei was not a mediocre person, but he hadn't expected him to rise so quickly.

  The highest power circle is also a circle of right and wrong, so although I am grateful in my heart, I can no longer chat with this young leader as freely as before, otherwise, if one sentence is not spoken properly, it will affect many people.

  Many leading cadres are because they hear others' rumors, a careless remark, and when it reaches their ears, the tone changes, which may lead to mutual resentment in their hearts, thus forming heart disease, and even giving rise to contradictions.

  The van slowly drove into the county committee's courtyard, and in front of it, a bicycle was blocking the way. Jiao Ye honked the horn several times with force. He was a lamb in front of Lu Zheng, but outside, facing others, he didn't have such a good temper. Even in the county committee's courtyard, he dared to charge forward recklessly.

  The bicycle was pushed forward by someone, making way for the bread van to enter the compound. However, beside the gate and wall of the compound, a slender figure parking her bicycle was none other than Jiang Haiyan?

  Jiang Haiyan glanced over at the van and also saw Lu Zhong.

  At this moment, the van had quickly driven past her side, through several rows of green cypress trees, and skillfully stopped in front of the office building steps.

  Lu Zhong smiled bitterly in his heart. In Jiang Haiyan's eyes, this young county party committee member was certainly arrogant and domineering!

  Li Xiangyang also saw this scene, licked his lips, sat in the car, sat beside Lu Zhong with a calm expression, and even in the county committee compound, it made people unconsciously rise up with a proud feeling of "no one dares to offend me".

  Was it Lu Zhong himself or his position that gave people around him this kind of confidence?

  Li Xiangyang was deep in thought, lost in his own world.

  ……

  Lu Zhong sat in Liu Baojun's former office, rearranged it, and moved his two favorite pots of Chinese Evergreen here. The leaves had grown very wide and large, with a vibrant green color that seemed to drip with dew.

  The office door knocked gently, and Secretary Zhou Daqing, who was helping Lu Zhen water the flowers with a watering can, hurried to open the door. Little Zhou is the secretary of the county public security bureau's office, and now the relationship is still hanging in the county bureau's office, but he also followed Lu Zhen to work in the county party committee compound, with a bit of the meaning of being Lu Zhen's personal secretary.

  Lu Zhen handed over the selection of personnel from the office secretary to Wang Yuguo, who recommended Zhou Daqing. His evaluation was: "This comrade has high ideological and political awareness, strong business ability, is clever and studious, with outstanding performance and excellent results. He understands things."

  The key words in this review are actually "understanding". Simple and simple, two words, thinking carefully, the knowledge inside is as deep as the sea.

  The one who knocked on the door and entered was a tall, white-haired old cadre, Peng Hongjun, deputy secretary of the county party committee and secretary of the discipline inspection commission. It is said that he had entered the Korean battlefield during the final stages of the Resist America and Aid Korea campaign, but had not actually gone to the front lines. However, years of political movements had already smoothed out his edges, making him look quite authoritative. Yet, when speaking, he was soft-spoken and cautious.

  The disciplinary inspection commission system, which had just been restored after the turmoil, was a mere decoration in many areas, and Guangning was no exception. In fact, it was even more so, as the county and township grassroots cadres, as well as various enterprises and institutions, did not take the disciplinary inspection commission seriously, and it had less deterrent power than the public security bureau's internal security department.

  Even so, Peng Hongjun was also half a head shorter in front of Lu Zhong. He, who was cruelly struggled during the Cultural Revolution, had a complex mentality that even Lu Zhong could not understand. Perhaps, being able to live a stable life and fulfill his wishes for the rest of his life was his greatest wish.

  When Peng Hongjun mentioned it again, Lu Zhong felt even more embarrassed. It turned out that he had come to borrow a car. Next Sunday, his youngest son was getting married. His young son, who had just graduated from university and learned Western etiquette, kept asking his father to find a car to pick up the bride.

  Peng Hongjun originally had no power to mobilize the cars of the big courtyard, let alone use public vehicles for private purposes. As the secretary of the discipline inspection committee, he was extremely sensitive to many things and probably did not want to relive the nightmare of a few years ago.

  Lu Zhong felt a bit helpless, he had never been in contact with Peng Hongjun before, and he couldn't have imagined that the county's first discipline inspection secretary would be in such an embarrassing situation, and on top of that, he looked like he was begging. In Guangning dialect, Peng Hongjun's performance was really too shameless.

  Thinking of the power and prestige of some county-level cadres in a few decades, Lu Zhong could only sigh silently.

  Peng Hongjun said with a sincere tone, looking at Lu Zhong with hopeful eyes: "Director Lu, I hope you can help me with this matter. If you really have something going on..."

  Lu Zhong smiled and said: "Red Army Secretary, these are all trivial matters, don't worry, I had Jiao Lei send the car over the day before yesterday."

  Peng Hongjun's eyes showed gratitude, and he repeatedly said: "I've long heard that Director Lu is a man of his word, and it's indeed true."

  Lu Zhong smiled and thought to himself, "Still the children of the rivers and lakes, this Peng Hongjun is not like a leading cadre at all?" However, thinking about it, if leading cadres were always high above, wouldn't that be a country without a nation?

  The office door was knocked gently again, and a pretty girl came in, Xiao Zhang from the secretarial department. She was brought down by Jiang Haiyan from the province.

  "Deputy County Magistrate Lu, ah, Secretary Peng is also here." Little Zhang greeted politely, but the implication of the title "Deputy County Magistrate Lu" was self-evident.

  "Deputy County Head Lu, Mayor Haiyan invites you to go over there." Little Zhang had a sweet smile, the kind that easily puts people at ease.

  Peng Hongjun hastily got up and bid farewell, as a matter of fact, the relationship between the Standing Committee members was already strained.

  Following Xiao Zhang's light footsteps, Lu Zhong arrived at Jiang Haiyan's office on the fourth floor. As soon as he entered the room, a refreshing air hit his face, and several pots of bright red flowers on the windowsill were quite eye-catching.

  He Dawei and Jiang Haiyan's offices are two completely different styles. In Jiang Haiyan's office, there is not a single red mark to be seen anywhere, and on the bookshelves, row upon row of economics books are displayed.

  Lu Zhong nodded slightly. The cadres in the Wushan area should have been updated and replaced, otherwise, how could they hold up the banner of the forefront of reform and opening-up?

  "Lu Zhong, what do you think about the economic development of Guangning?" Behind her thick glasses, Jiang Haiyan's eyes flickered, making it difficult to discern what she was thinking. Her voice was slightly husky, but this only added to the sense of high-handed pressure.

  Tong Jiang and Hai Yan sat face to face across the tea table, and Lu Zhong could feel the pressure coming at him.

  Coughing, Lu Zhong said: "I have already reported to Secretary Qiu, and he basically agrees..."

  When Lu Zhong finished his opening remarks, Jiang Haiyan furrowed her brow but didn't say a word.

  Lu Zhong didn't care about her feelings, now he could only hold up the tiger skin as a big flag and continue: "Now our many commodities are already very rich, further opening up the prices of planned commodities is an urgent matter. While encouraging private enterprises to enter the market, we must also prepare for the worst. Because I think that if the market is completely opened up, I'm afraid our state-owned enterprises and collective economy will face great pressure. The rigid mechanism makes it difficult for them to compete with private economies, and when the time comes, state-owned enterprises will lose money completely. It's too late to mend the fold after the sheep has been lost. In fact, this kind of pressure already exists now, such as in Tianjin, some former star bicycle factories have seen a sharp decline in sales, very sluggish."

  Jiang Haiyan said "Oh?" and looked at Lu Zhong for a few moments, clearly not having expected that Lu Zhong would have such insight, and even went further than she had thought.

  "What do you think we should do?" Jiang Haiyan's interest in the topic was evident, no longer distracted as she had been just a moment before.

  Lu Zhong, however, picked up his teacup and took a sip of water, saying: "I think we should now start breaking the rigid mechanisms of state-owned enterprises and collective economies, and carry out reforms with contract responsibility systems. If we take one small step first, we can make great contributions to the exploration of sustainable development for state-run economies in the future."

  "So I thought that state-owned enterprises would be reformed, and the pilot project would be set at the county fertilizer plant, implementing a contract responsibility system..."

  Jiang Haiyan frowned and interrupted Lu Zhong's words, "The fertilizer plant is Guangning's star enterprise, profitable every year, why should it be contracted out? Your idea..." The rest of the sentence was not spoken, but she seemed to have serious doubts about Lu Zhong's motives. Did he want to turn the country's large treasury into his own private small treasury?

  Lu Zhong could guess what she was thinking, and after some deliberation, he said: "The fertilizer plant is currently profitable because it has a monopoly. To put it this way, how many years has it been since the factory was built without replacing its production lines? How will it face market competition in the future? Moreover, by reforming from profitable enterprises, we can truly explore the pros and cons of this contract responsibility system. If it were a loss-making enterprise, contracting out would continue to lose money year after year, and we wouldn't have any advanced experience to summarize."

  Wave his hand, stopped Jiang Haiyan want to say the words, Lu Zhong continued: "Haiyan County magistrate, you listen to me finish. I think so, it profitable does not matter, we put the contracted profit handed over to the state as last year's profit is good, of course, after handing over the contracted amount of profit, our contract also noted that what proportion should be invested in expanding reproduction, what proportion to give workers bonuses and so on."

  "Moreover, I hope that the contracted-out factories will establish a supervisory board, which will be attached to the trade union. The members of the supervisory board should be elected by the workers in the factory, one person one vote, and the management layer of the factory is not allowed to participate in the election. The responsibility of this supervisory board is to supervise the financial affairs of the enterprise after contracting out, can inspect the factory's accounts, but are not allowed to interfere with the operation of the factory."

  "This is to prevent contractors from faking accounts, making profits but showing losses on the books, and finally putting all the money into their own pockets. In extreme cases, they even sell off the company at a low price and take it for themselves."

  "All members of the factory supervisory board are old employees of this factory, so they must be very clear about the operation status of the factory. In this way, they can supervise the contractor to the greatest extent."

  "So I'm preparing to start with the fertilizer plant, and conduct enterprise contracting. This way, we can explore experience step by step. If we first try to tackle loss-making enterprises, these ideas will be difficult to realize."

  Jiang Haiyan was silent for a while, seemingly considering every word that Lu Zhun had said.

  "Of course, these are just my personal thoughts. Take this supervisory committee for example, in actual operation, how to ensure the integrity of the members, and whether the existence of this committee will have a negative impact on the actual operation of the factory, all these are unknowns, we can only explore and improve it gradually in practice."

  Jiang Haiyan fell silent for a moment, then nodded slightly: "Your idea is good, Secretary Qiu, do you agree?"

  Lu Zhong nodded: "Yes, I reported it to Secretary Qiu yesterday."

  "Alright, you think it over carefully and come up with a feasible plan for me."

  It was rare for Jiang Haiyan to see Lu Zhong off when he went out.

  Even if Jiang Haiyan's impression of Lu Zhong had slightly improved, this change was reversed by 180 degrees at the Standing Committee meeting in the afternoon.

  Due to the major adjustments of the Standing Committee and deputy county-level cadres, the county's departments inevitably followed suit with personnel adjustments. Most positions were decided by Guo Dajiang and Yi Yanerdui, except for the Deputy Director of the Economic Planning Commission, Jiang Haiyan, who proposed her own candidate, Cai Mingguo, the former Deputy Director of the County Government Office. Jiang Haiyan thought that this person was open-minded, clever, and a talent to be molded, and besides, they had interacted with each other several times before.

  The appointment of Cai Mingguo was hit by Jiang Haiyan and Qiu Dahua, and Qiu Dahua also expressed support, so Jiang Haiyan would propose it at the Standing Committee meeting.

  Who would have thought that before she had even finished speaking, Lu Zhong clearly expressed his opposition. Next, the propaganda department's Old Ding, who had been holding back a belly full of complaints, chimed in with Lu Zhong to raise differing opinions. Then, County Committee Deputy Secretary and Organization Department Head Shang Ronghua spoke up, pointing out that Comrade Cai Mingguo was not very mature, etc., although he didn't explicitly express opposition, the implication was pretty much the same.

  Qiu Dahe could only rub his head at this time and say: "Let's put it on hold for now, let's see if there are more suitable candidates?"

  Jiang Haiyan could see that Qiu Dahu was pleased with himself and didn't need to show his face, this county magistrate wasn't enough for him.

  Lu Zhong, obviously, is just a pioneer who assists in cheering for Qiu Da and Yao Qi, a pioneer who rushes forward, a rascal and a thug!

  As she walked out of the conference room and passed by Lu Zhong's side, Jiang Haiyan gave him a deep look.

  Lu Zhong helplessly spread his hands, it can be seen that Haiyan County's intention is that you shouldn't be complacent, let's wait and see.

  Lu Zhong didn't want to be the first to oppose Cai Mingguo, but he just couldn't stand this person, and besides, they had some old grudges. Guangning's reform was about to start, and the Planning Commission was such an important department, Lu Zhong didn't want anyone to go in and sing a different tune from himself.