Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 653 Ready-made Results

Lunch was naturally eaten at Chen Fan's place. It was a rare occasion for Chef Chen to cook, and Captain Zhang and the others ate two extra bowls of rice.

After finishing his meal, Chen Fan brought out a large blackboard and hung it on a nail on the outer wall.

Captain Zhang and his three companions, each holding a teacup and a cigarette, sat together on the benches of the covered walkway, waiting for Teacher Chen to begin class.

This blackboard was the one Chen Fan used to teach Jiang Lili and the others when they were still around. He made it himself, so the quality is just okay; don't expect too much.

Now it's perfect for drawing.

First, draw an irregular triangle. As he drew, Chen Fan said, “Nanhu Commune is surrounded by rivers on all sides and is shaped like a pyramid, with a pointed top and a square bottom. The middle line is where the commune is located.”

The pointed end north of the commune is our Lujiawan village; the other four production teams are all to the south of the commune.

After drawing the picture in a short while, Chen Fan tapped a spot on the blackboard with chalk. "Now the side businesses are all in this area of ​​Lujiawan, which is right next to the brigade headquarters. Every morning, each team has to send their poultry and livestock to this place."

Meanwhile, the other four brigades are also cooperating with us. They also need to deliver goods, and they either have to go along the western riverbank or cross the only road in the commune. From a freight perspective, relocating the sideline company to the area designated by the commune is beneficial in all aspects.

Zhang Wenliang immediately raised his hand.

Chen Fan picked up a small bamboo stick and pointed it at him, "Please speak, student."

Zhang Wenliang took a drag of his cigarette, frowned, and asked, "Now that we've moved, we're even further away. And with the water transport, it used to be enough to get to the 7th Team's dock, but now it takes an extra ten minutes by boat to dock at the commune's dock. It's much farther now."

Chen Fan smiled slightly, "Does the smell of slaughtering animals every day smell good? Do all those chicken feathers, duck feathers, and goose feathers smell good?"
The farms and cooked food workshops aren't next to each other, but they're not far apart. They used to be small-scale, which was fine, but now they've multiplied several times over, and there will be even more in the future. What are your plans to do about it?

Captain Zhang nodded thoughtfully. "So, the commune's request came at just the right time?"

Chen Fan shrugged. "It's not exactly perfect. All the side businesses need to be reorganized, but they don't necessarily have to move to the town. Lujiawan has more than 5000 mu of land. Apart from the 3000 mu of paddy fields, the two or three hundred mu of residential area, and the several hundred mu of scattered dry land, there is actually quite a lot of usable land."

My original idea was to make use of all these places, distribute the side businesses to various teams, and handle them in a centralized manner according to different categories, so that each team has its own core business.

For example, if Team 6 has its own pottery factory, they can focus on developing in that direction, eventually creating a diverse and vibrant industry.

Ye Shubao slapped his thigh and said excitedly, "Good, good, good, this is good."

He grabbed Zhang Changjiang and said, “Old Zhang, think about it. In the future, Team 5 will mainly focus on breeding, Team 6 will mainly focus on pottery, and Team 7 will have a dock. We can put the cooked food factory and the food factory that is being prepared in Team 7. Once the goods are made, we can directly transport them to the dock. It will be much more convenient than transporting them from Team 5 now!”

Zhang Changjiang was not happy. "Why should the breeding farm be kept in Team 5, and the food factory be put in Team 7? Can't we just move the breeding farm to Team 7 and make you smell the stench every day?"

Ye Shubao clicked his tongue. "Moving the farm is fine too, I'm not picky. Hey, when are we moving?"

Zhang Changjiang opened his mouth, paused for two seconds, then rolled his eyes and said, "Pah, you bad thing, the breeding farm and the food factory both belong to Team 5, why do you want to move them?"

Ye Shubao said innocently, "Didn't you say yourself that you would move the breeding farm to Team 7, and yet you still make us smell the stench every day?"

Xiao Liewen couldn't stand it anymore. "The two of you are over a hundred years old combined, one is the captain and the other is the deputy captain, and you're still fighting over things for your own squad. What kind of behavior is that?"

He shook his head as he spoke, looking disgusted.

Then he turned to Chen Fan, pointed at him with his pipe, and said, "Ignore them, continue your story."

At this moment, Chen Fan lit a pipe and started smoking. Seeing that they had stopped arguing, he said with a smile, "Keeping the side business company in the team was my idea before. The advantage is that everything is internal, so we don't have to discuss it with others. We can solve any problems ourselves."

He paused, took a drag of his cigarette, and turned to look at the blackboard. "But there are advantages to moving the side business to town."

Xiao Liewen took a couple of puffs of his cigarette. "What's in it for me?"

Zhang Changjiang looked around. "Yesterday at the meeting at the commune, Secretary Qian and the others did say a lot of things, like providing policies and resources. We don't really understand these things. Is this what you mean?"

Chen Fan nodded slightly, "That is indeed the first benefit."

He turned around, pulled up a chair and sat down, and said slowly, "What is the biggest problem now? It's that there are no clear management policies from above for collectively-owned, especially production team-run, sideline businesses."

There were no clear standards regarding how much money the production team's sideline companies could earn in a year, how taxes should be collected, how much management fee should be paid to the commune, or whether the raw materials for production should be sourced by the team itself or coordinated by the commune.

These standards were generally set by the commune, which determined whether the tax rate was higher or lower, the management fee was 10% or 30%, and whether the commune obtained approval from the commerce bureau for raw materials or had to find its own way to buy them.
The difference in profit between the inflow and outflow here could be several times greater.

Xiao Liewen stared wide-eyed. "We never bought any raw materials from the commune when we started our side business."

Chen Fan chuckled and said, "Well, we didn't buy any raw materials. Did the commune provide any assistance?"

Xiao Liewen was immediately stumped, and stammered, "Anyway, they can't help with buying or selling, but they didn't cause any trouble when it came to building factories and buying building materials."

Chen Fan's lips twitched slightly.

Is that what you call not having any difficulties? Don't underestimate this small commune. The town's enterprises and units also have to accept production tasks. Now, Lujiawan can be said to be the biggest customer of several related units in the town. For example, when the houses were being built at the beginning of the year, many other production teams couldn't buy steel bars and cement because a large portion of them were allocated to Lujiawan.

This is already a lot of support, okay?

But you can't say it like that. Everyone wants to get more benefits, so of course you'll side with your own people regardless of who's right.

Chen Fan then smiled and said, "Yes, so if we move there, we need to have a good talk with the commune to see what kind of support they are offering. We also need to clarify the management fee ratio and tax policies."

"Then you can use the same line I said to negotiate. We can easily distribute all the side jobs across the production teams, but we're only willing to discuss it because the commune invited us. If the conditions aren't right... cough cough, even the brigade leaders won't be able to explain it to all the members of the brigade!"

Xiao Liewen and the others exchanged glances, pursing their lips, and nodded in deep agreement.

After a few seconds, Zhang Changjiang grinned and said, "Old Yang and I are good at this. We've gotten a lot of things back from scratch through tears. I'll go talk to him about this together, and we definitely won't be at a disadvantage."

Chen Fan glanced at him in surprise, never expecting that the seemingly honest and simple Captain Zhang would actually possess such abilities!

The next second, Secretary Yang's voice came from afar, "Old Zhang, what bad things are you saying about me now? Anyway, I heard you talking about Old Yang, don't even think about denying it."

The group turned around and saw Secretary Yang slowly climbing up with his hands behind his back.

Zhang Changjiang immediately laughed and scolded, "Are you perhaps born in the Year of the Dog? How can you hear me from this far away?"

Secretary Yang stood on the platform, took a couple of breaths, turned around once, and then continued walking toward them, saying, "You're the one who's like a dog. Don't you even look at the environment here? Not only is the terrain high, but there are also trees on two sides and open spaces on the other two. If you whisper, even Team 5 can probably hear you. Besides, your voice is louder than a loudspeaker. If you can't hear me, that's called deafness."

Zhang Wenliang had already given up his seat and sat on the far side. "Dad, have they all left?"

"Yeah, they left right after eating. It's obvious they just came to freeload. What's the point of learning anything?"

Secretary Yang muttered something under his breath, stepped over the bench, and sat down in the spot he had vacated. He looked up at the blackboard and asked, "What's going on here?" Xiao Liewen pointed with his pipe and said, "Xiao Chen is coming up with ideas for the thing Secretary Qian mentioned yesterday."

"Oh."

Secretary Yang nodded in realization, then turned to Chen Fan, "What do you say?"

Chen Fan briefly repeated what he had just said, and then continued, "If we move there according to the commune's requirements, the first benefit is that we can ask them for policies and resources."

The second benefit is from the perspective of the organization's development itself.

He tapped his cigarette ash, pointed to the area planned by the commune, and said, "Abroad, places where factories and other units are concentrated together have a special name: 'industrial zones'."

Zhang Wenliang suddenly realized something and asked, "Is it the same area north of Yunhu Lake, where the machinery factory and cotton mill are located?"

Chen Fan nodded. "That's right. Although Yunhu is not officially named and managed under this name, it is in fact a relatively mature industrial zone."

Of course, it is only relatively mature and is far from meeting the standards of a truly mature industrial zone.

A mature industrial zone must first have a dedicated management committee to handle all issues within the zone.

This includes complete infrastructure, namely water, electricity, roads, and leveled ground. This is what is often referred to as "three connections and one leveling" when attracting investment.

Other categories include energy, security, environment, business services, land and property, and equipment and facilities.

If Lujiawan were to handle this themselves, aside from everything else, the things related to business services alone would be exhausting.

If the commune were to step in, the roles would be reversed immediately; services would be delivered to the doorstep, and everything would be easy to discuss.

For example, the electricity problem could be solved without Lujiawan having to negotiate with Qingshan Commune. Nanhu Commune could handle it just as well.

There was no other way. As I've mentioned before, the current commune is a "three-tiered ownership system." The production team is responsible for production, the brigade is responsible for coordination, and the commune is the administrative unit at the grassroots level.

In other words, only the commune had administrative authority, while the production brigade only had the obligation to coordinate production and provide output, and had no right to demand anything.

Oh, you can't say that.

When the harvest was poor, the production team could still request relief grain.

Therefore, theoretically speaking, the commune could "take whatever it wanted" of the production teams within its jurisdiction, and this was reasonable, legal, and compliant.

Of course, that wouldn't be done in reality, since everyone is afraid of being ambushed!

Chen Fan thoroughly analyzed the pros and cons of moving the side business to the commune with them, and then said, "In addition, we also need to manage the side businesses separately within this industrial zone."

For example, garment factories generate a lot of fabric and down dust during production, so they cannot be located too close to food factories, which involves the layout of the factories.

Then, although placing different types of factories together might be inconvenient, proper planning can actually improve efficiency. It's like a chicken: after leaving the farm, it goes to the slaughterhouse; then the meat goes to a processed food factory, the feathers go to a down processing plant, and so on…

This is called upstream and downstream enterprise collaboration.

Chen Fan talked for over an hour until his throat was dry, so he went to the kitchen and cooked a pot of mung bean soup.

After placing the pot on the coal stove and turning back, I saw Secretary Yang ask, "So, in the end, is your opinion to move it or not?"

Chen Fan looked at his expressionless face, then at Captain Zhang and the others who looked at him with approval, and began to have doubts.

What did I just say?
Don't you guys have any opinions at all?

The next second, Secretary Yang and the others threw their heads back and burst into laughter.

Zhang Wenliang patted Chen Fan's arm, casually pulled a filter-tipped Magnolia cigarette from his pocket, and even looked a little disgusted. "Why isn't it Zhonghua?"

He pulled out a cigarette and put it in his mouth, then stuffed the remaining half-pack into his pocket and said, "Since you've said so much, let's plan to move there as soon as possible."

Zhang Changjiang stopped laughing, searched Zhang Wenliang's pocket for cigarettes, took one for himself, and handed the rest to Ye Shubao, saying, "We'll go to the commune again tomorrow to discuss it. Once we've agreed on the terms, we'll prepare to move."

Secretary Yang took the cigarette Ye Shubao offered, lit it, and said, "Perfect timing. The food factory hasn't even started construction yet, otherwise it would be a real hassle."

Xiao Liewen was still smoking his own pipe. "When we were building the house at the beginning of the year, we formed several construction teams ourselves. But now only the decoration team of Team 6 is still around. We'll take this opportunity to reorganize the construction team so we don't have to pay the construction teams in town anymore."

She said this with great indignation, "The construction team originally belonged to our village, but the commune forcibly took it over without even offering any benefits."

Zhang Changjiang: "A higher-ranking official can crush a lower-ranking one. What can we do? Anyway, the tables have turned this time. They can't take away our side businesses in Lujiawan. On the contrary, the commune is coming to us, asking us to move all our side businesses there. Let's see if I don't rip them off!"

Finally, Secretary Yang gave a concluding speech, saying, "This matter is settled. We'll discuss it tomorrow."

He turned to look at Chen Fan, "Is there anything else you need to explain?"

Chen Fan clicked his tongue, looked around at everyone, and chuckled, "What I mean is, let's not rush to move."

The group was taken aback by what they heard and exchanged bewildered glances.

Xiao Liewen looked at him, puzzled. "Why aren't you in a hurry to move?"

Zhang Changjiang: "You used to say that we should hurry up and build the garment factory and the food factory, so that we could make money as soon as possible. Why are you not in a hurry now?"

Secretary Yang seemed to realize something, his expression changed slightly, and he looked at him and asked, "Could it be that there's a problem with the down jacket fabric production line at the cotton mill?"

Ye Shubao wanted to join in, but couldn't think of any problems, so he just stared at him expectantly.

Chen Fan smiled slightly and said, "Didn't you say that Secretary Qian and the others want results? In that case, there's a meeting in Beijing in a month, so why not wait another month and see how the meeting goes?"

If, as many people think, the priority is to focus on the economy and set policies, then after the meeting, they can officially announce the establishment of the 'Luwan Industrial Park' in Nanhu Commune. Wouldn't that be considered an immediate achievement?!

Upon hearing this, Secretary Yang and the others' eyes lit up.

Captain Zhang squinted and muttered, "If this doesn't count as a result, then what does?!"

Xiao Liewen clicked his tongue, "Good heavens, this is going to be a 'uprising'."

Ye Shubao was, at the very least, the "first uprising" in the Yunhu area.

Zhang Wenliang looked left and right, somewhat puzzled. It was just a production team's sideline industrial zone, why call it a "first uprising"? Was it really necessary?
(End of this chapter)