The Fiery Era: Becoming an Industrial Giant

Chapter 47 Section Chief Lü: Tell me in detail
After making the decision, Zhou Zhiqiang used the collection and deduction function, first taking out all the relevant books in his house.

That's definitely not enough. He also needs to look for information in libraries and universities. His factory also has information on relevant agricultural machinery parts.

The decision to choose small tractors as the next research and development direction was not made haphazardly by Zhou Zhiqiang.

Currently, their industrial system is being built by the Russians, and even their rural development model will be modeled after the Russians in the future.

However, they are very different from the Russians. Although they can now produce tractors, the consumption is too high.

In Russia, where land is vast and sparsely populated, a single tractor can manage a large area, so the focus is on high power and high efficiency.

But the situation in China is different. Their rural farming methods are relatively scattered. Even if the communes are used to combine the production brigades of various villages, it is impossible to organize all the fields together.

Decentralized operations are a trend, and they are inexpensive, making them suitable for the production needs of village collectives.

Once it is produced, the advantages and value of small hand tractors will surely be accepted by everyone.

Zhou Zhiqiang was in high spirits at the moment. Even though he had just finished having sex with his wife, he didn't feel tired. He stayed in his study reading books related to mechanical engineering.

More than two hours passed.

It was already past midnight when Zhou Zhiqiang finally felt sleepy. He then looked at the [Collection and Deduction Assistant] and said with satisfaction, "This is quite fast. I believe it won't be long before we see results."

It's as if he and his deduction assistant are progressing together, and he still needs to review it himself. Moreover, in the process of reviewing, he gradually understands and deepens his knowledge.

When I finally received the results from the simulation assistant, it was like a flash of inspiration. I quickly recalled and integrated the knowledge I had seen before, and then innovated upon it.

It's quite humane; it doesn't just give him a bunch of results he can't understand.

The results that the simulation assistant is now providing to Zhou Zhiqiang are technical results that he fully understands.

As the year draws to a close, the atmosphere in various factories is gradually turning into a festive one.

In recent years, the Lunar New Year has been the happiest time for the workers.

After the public-private partnership, the public sector has been working hard to improve the status of workers. Previously, capitalists were stingy and reluctant to give workers welfare rewards at the end of the year.

Back then, small factories with a few hundred employees were very stingy, but now they are large factories with thousands of employees, and the government is very efficient in distributing benefits.

A restless atmosphere has emerged in each workshop, and people are not very careful when working.

This puts the technical department in a difficult position, as production safety issues also fall within their responsibilities.

Zhou Zhiqiang was particularly concerned about this matter. Now that he was also a member of the factory's management team, he didn't want to be blamed by his superiors because of production safety issues.

Therefore, the technical department has to patrol twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and they have to talk about production safety before production starts.

Although doing this will be troublesome for the workers on the front line, at least it will make them pay attention to something before they start production.

Moreover, Zhou Zhiqiang is now the deputy head of the technical department, so he can delegate these workshop inspection tasks to other technicians.

He himself stayed in the technical department, studying materials and preparing to design and develop the technology for hand-held tractors.

For several days in a row, Zhou Zhiqiang was in this state.

After arriving at the technical department in the morning, I assigned some production safety matters, and then focused on my own work.

Moreover, with the year drawing to a close, there isn't much work to do at the factory. Previous production targets have been largely met, and new production tasks won't be finalized until next year. Section Chief Lü is quite pleased with the current state of the technical department; he doesn't feel at all that Zhou Zhiqiang's daily task assignments within the department are a usurpation of his power.

On the contrary, it saved him, the head of the technical department, a lot of trouble.

With Zhou Zhiqiang, a technically skilled and meticulous deputy section chief, helping to share the workload, Section Chief Lü is now much more relaxed than before.

The technical department's tasks were largely taken over by those with technical expertise, which made his job much easier, but he still deserved some credit.

What's not satisfying about this?
Today is the day the factory distributes holiday gifts and New Year's goods. After today, the factory will be cleared out tomorrow and the day after, and then we'll have the New Year holiday.

When Section Chief Lü came out of the office, he found that only Zhou Zhiqiang was left in the technical department, and he was sitting at the table writing and drawing.

Zhou Zhiqiang was in this state a few days ago. When asked about it, he simply replied, "I have some ideas, I'm researching some things."

Zhou Zhiqiang was still studying the date for receiving his paycheck today, which piqued Section Chief Lü's curiosity, so he leaned over and asked...

"Zhiqiang, why didn't you go to collect your New Year's gifts? By the way, the New Year's gifts prepared for you this time are based on your deputy section chief's salary, so the benefits are quite good, and your salary is too."

Zhou Zhiqiang casually said, "I'm not in a hurry. There are too many people queuing up in finance and logistics. Let the workers go first. Anyway, the stuff is there and there won't be any shortage."

"That's true. I heard the benefits are pretty good this year; each worker gets two jin of meat, and we get five jin."

When he said this, Section Chief Lü lowered his voice slightly.

Even though there were only the two of them in the technical department office, Section Chief Lü still didn't relax and was very careful when talking about the benefits for cadres.

Each of the section chiefs and deputy section chiefs weighed five jin (2.5 kg) of meat, the deputy factory director certainly weighed ten jin (5 kg), and even fifteen jin (7.5 catties) wouldn't be considered too much for the factory director and secretary.

This only happens once a year, and although the economy is now dominated by a planned economy, the unplanned economy should not be underestimated. Even their Dafeng Machinery Factory has a lot of unplanned agricultural machinery left over every year.

This year, they used a lot of agricultural machinery to exchange for three pigs with several counties and townships around Beijing; otherwise, their New Year's goods wouldn't be so good.

"Zhiqiang, what have you been up to these past few days? I've seen you constantly writing and drawing in the office, and you haven't even rested much after lunch."

"This one is almost finished, but we still need to find someone to verify it or build it out directly to see how it performs."

Zhou Zhiqiang pulled out a blueprint and said to Section Chief Lü with a smile, "Section Chief, this is an idea I had before: a small hand-held tractor. I was thinking that if possible, our factory could try to manufacture it."

If it benefits farming and planting, then our factory will have a signature product in the future.”

Continuing to produce spare parts is not a long-term solution; the factory is not profitable and has a low status in the eyes of the industrial bureau leaders.

After all, it's just a processing and manufacturing machinery factory; it's highly replaceable.

However, having your own exclusive products makes all the difference. For example, the First Machinery Plant and the First Tractor Plant both relied on producing their own products, resulting in year-on-year profit growth.

Workers from these factories have prestige when they go out, and the factory's signboards are always well-known.

"A small hand-held tractor? You've been researching that lately?"

Section Chief Lü immediately became interested. Just from the name, he could guess what the product's function was, but he still wanted Zhou Zhiqiang to explain it in detail.

"Zhiqiang, tell me about it. If there are no problems, I will definitely give you my full support."

(End of this chapter)