Siheyuan, Me and the Yu Sisters

At the end of June, Li Huaide and Zhang Renkang rode a tricycle out of the gate of the Red Star Steel Rolling Mill with a smile on their faces. Although the maximum speed was only 45km/h, in a country with a small number of vehicles, even in the city where you don't often see cars, it was considered very fast.

Li Huaide said loudly on the side

"Renkang, you know what, this mass-produced model is much more comfortable to ride than the last one."

"I think the handling is better and much easier than a jeep."

Zhang Renkang laughed and shouted

"That vehicle has been adjusted a lot compared to the experimental ones. Except for its off-road capability, it still hasn't reached the ideal state. There is no problem in simply deploying it in the four-nine cities."

Li Huaide's eyes were blurred by the wind, but he still smiled and shouted

"That's right. Today we two are definitely the only ones attending the monthly meeting of the Ministry of Industry. We might not even be able to leave today."

Just the day before yesterday

More than a hundred workers from the machine repair factory rode tricycles from the northern suburbs along the outskirts of the city to the Red Star Steel Rolling Mill in the eastern suburbs. When they passed the First Prison at Deshengmen, the rumbling sound alarmed a battalion of soldiers stationed there.

Fortunately, the team leader was Song Jie, who was familiar with several battalion cadres. After the new product was put into production at the machine repair factory, it also attracted the interest of the garrison, and five vehicles were left for testing in the troops.

The convoy's arrival at the steel mill caused a stir. Almost half of the factory's workers came to watch during lunch. The workers in the canteen even thought that the clock in their canteen was broken. How come so few people came to eat after such a long time?

The east gate of the steel mill leads directly to the Red Star Square of the office building

Li Huaide looked at the nearly 100 tricycles lined up in front of him. The red truck bed and body fascinated him all of a sudden, especially when the wheels just drove towards the factory in a line, which made him feel like an armored torrent.

Li Huaide smiled and said to Zhang Renkang

"Renkang, is this the mass-produced model of our Dekang brand?"

“Is the quality okay?”

Zhang Renkang nodded and introduced Li Huaide, Wang Huairen, Chen Gang, Li Ming, Liu Xuan and others.

"The quality of mass-produced tricycles has been stabilized. They undergo a five-kilometer quality test before leaving the factory, which can basically guarantee stability."

"We have currently produced more than 500 vehicles, which we plan to use in the steel rolling mill, the machine repair shop and the two machinery manufacturing plants that we are about to merge."

When the monthly production can reach no less than 2,000 vehicles next month, we will distribute them to various units of the Ministry of Industry. Unfortunately, our technology is limited at present, and there are still some minor problems that cannot be solved. Let's see if the Ministry of Industry can give us technical support.

Li Huaide said with a smile

"This is pretty good. It took less than a month to make something like this. I think it's a great achievement."

"Renkang is indeed a meritorious service of our Red Star Steel Rolling Mill. We should ask the Ministry of Industry for credit for this."

Zhang Renkang smiled and said

"This is not just my achievement. It also includes support from Secretary Li, hard work from Section Chief Xue, assistance from Factory Director Li Ming, technical workers specially assigned by Factory Director Wang Huairen, and especially Factory Director Li Ming, who figured out how to get a lot of parts."

"This is the collective work of our steel mill. I just contributed some effort to coordinate it, but I dare not take all the credit for it alone."

Everyone was very satisfied with what he said. No one present was stupid. Once this new model matures, it will surely be popular all over the country. The price is less than one-tenth of a car, and it can carry goods and people. According to what Zhang Renkang said at the meeting, the technology will be improved in the future to have a certain off-road capability, and the load capacity will be increased to 300 kilograms.

This is simply the most suitable vehicle for the national conditions. They couldn't imagine how great the credit was. Unexpectedly, Zhang Renkang did not intend to take all the credit for himself, but gave the credit to the entire factory leadership.

This makes everyone feel grateful to him. After all, what have they done and how great their contribution is, how can they not appreciate it?

Li Huaide nodded with satisfaction. He had a different mentality from Yang Weiguo. He didn't care whether his subordinates would challenge his position. After all, his future and route had been arranged long ago. As long as he had political achievements, no one except Zhang Renkang would defect to him. Zhang Renkang followed the rules in his work and respected him very much. He also had a deep relationship with his brother-in-law.

He had always been supportive of Zhang Renkang and had promoted him from the bottom. Li Huaide couldn't think of any reason why Zhang Renkang would be against him.

Since Zhang Renkang was willing to share the credit with everyone, he felt quite satisfied. In this way, not only would he get the biggest share of the credit, but the people in the factory would be appeased and at least they would not make trouble. The working atmosphere of the whole factory would be much better, which would have a positive significance for stabilizing production and making further progress.

Li Huaide asked everyone to try it out and see if there were any problems. Then he asked Zhang Renkang to prepare well and take him to the Ministry of Industry to attend the monthly meeting the day after tomorrow. Zhang Renkang was the protagonist of this meeting. At that time, he would let the leaders of the Ministry of Industry know him and show his ability to discover talents.

Ministry of Industry

After more than ten days of preparation, Li Huaide and Zhang Renkang rode their tricycles and rushed into the gate of the Ministry of Industry. The guards on duty were so scared that they thought there were saboteurs. They raised their guns and shouted,

"Who is it? Stop and put your hands up."

"Otherwise I'll shoot"

Li Huaide laughed loudly.

"Hey, young comrade, why are you so nervous? I've been here many times."

The guards breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that it was Li Huaide. One of them waved his hand and shouted

"off alert"

The guards who had just formed a triangle formation from behind with their guns raised put away their guns and returned to their posts.

A man got out of a black GAZ car at the entrance of the Ministry of Industry and shouted at the scene.

"Old Li, what are you doing?"

"What kind of car is this? Is it something new? Why haven't I seen it before?"

The man with a big belly and a body shape that was no different from Liu Haizhong ran over curiously and pulled Li Huaide down, wondering

"When was this thing released? Why didn't I receive any notification?"

As he said this, he curiously stepped up to try it out.

Li Huaide was not annoyed when he was pulled down, and said with a smile

"Old Wang, you haven't seen it before?"

"This is a new thing our factory just made. This time I'm here to tell the leaders of the Ministry of Industry the good news."

Introducing this fat guy

"This is our factory's deputy director. Comrade Zhang Renkang."

Then he smiled at Zhang Renkang

"Renkang, let me introduce you to this person. He is a major supplier of pig iron to our factory. He is the secretary of the Hongshan Iron and Steel Factory in the west of the city. Secretary Wang Fumin."

"We are old comrades in the same trench. Just call him Brother Wang."

Zhang Renkang smiled and stretched out his hand.

"Secretary Wang, I've heard a lot about you. Our secretary often mentions you."

"I've always been thinking about when I'll have the chance to get to know you and learn from your experience."

“It’s a pleasure to meet you today.”

Wang Fumin obviously knew Zhang Renkang. He probably thought Li Huaide had mentioned it to him before. He smiled and said

"I went to your factory to look for Lao Li a while ago, but you weren't there, otherwise we would have known each other a long time ago."

"We are all old, not as young and enterprising as you. I have always envied Lao Li for having you to help with the hard work. If you are interested in coming to my place, I will let you be the factory director, and when I retire in a few years, you will be the secretary."

Wang Fumin burst into laughter.

Li Huaide was not surprised. They were close friends who had saved each other's lives. If Wang Fumin wanted to poach Zhang Renkang, he had to see what Zhang Renkang thought.

Zhang Renkang is even more of a smart guy. Wang Fumin might really like him, but is there any better place than the steel rolling mill? He has already put in a lot of effort and laid out plans there. If he changes to another factory, it would be a waste of his efforts.

Zhang Renkang said with a smile

"Secretary Wang thinks too highly of me. If it weren't for Secretary Li's appreciation, I would still be helping in the kitchen."

"The secretary of the factory assigns the work here, and we are just carrying out the arrangements that have already been made."

"I have just started learning, and I am not familiar with many things yet. I don't want to hinder our development."

"We dare not affect the progress of our brother units"

Wang Fumin laughed out loud.

"You are so modest, I know all about your reforms at the First Machinery Repair Factory."

"I never thought that you could bring about such a drastic change there in less than a month."

"You may not know this, but that factory was previously our subsidiary, and the Ministry of Industry spun it off last month and gave it to you."

"I was thinking about making fun of Lao Li. The backbones of this factory have been withdrawn. If they were put in a team during the war, they would be notoriously incompetent."

"You guys have brought them back to life in less than a month, and even set up a special workshop to produce this stuff, right?"

Zhang Renkang nodded and said

"The repair shop has some foundation, at least it has some knowledge of automobile structure and some technology."

"In order to revitalize the factory, the existing projects are still insufficient, so I have to make some changes to them and find a way out."

"It just so happens that I just came back from the countryside, and I've always felt a little bit lacking in transportation in the countryside."

"I was thinking about whether to research transport vehicles, and then I came across the merger of machine repair shops."

“Isn’t this a coincidence?”