The Fiery Era: Becoming an Industrial Giant

Chapter 70 Good News from the Factory [Seeking Monthly Tickets!]

Upon hearing that someone in their family could work in the city, the village chief's family agreed without hesitation.

The village chief's son and daughter-in-law were doing the same thing – one was pouring water, the other was wiping a stool – which made the village chief feel extremely ashamed. He kicked them both back outside and told them to go and call his eldest grandson back.

Now that the busy farming season has just ended, people in the countryside can finally rest for a day or two each month.

The village chief's eldest grandson, Zhao Tiandong, went to the mountain to chop firewood today. Putting everything else aside, Zhao Tiandong is definitely a hard worker.

No matter how hard you work, in this small plot of land in the village, you can only fill your stomach at best, and perhaps after decades of farming you can save up a meager fortune.

But if there's even the slightest natural disaster or man-made calamity, this family's fortune will be completely wiped out.

Although workers and peasants are now considered one family and have equal status, anyone with a discerning eye knows that agriculture supports heavy industry, and the countryside supports the city.

Being able to go to the city to work is definitely a good choice.

The old village chief chased his son and daughter-in-law out to call for help, partly because he felt they were too shameful, and partly because after driving them away, he wanted to kneel down and kowtow to Zhou Zhiqiang.

They saw Zhou Zhiqiang as clever back then, and despite their family's complaints, they delivered grain to him. As a result, they received such a great benefit a few years later. In all calculations, their family made a profit.

However, Zhou Zhiqiang, with his sharp eyes and quick hands, immediately stopped the old village chief and pulled him up.

If one or two of them are like this, and if others find out, Zhou Zhiqiang will be the first to get into trouble.

This could be considered an act of oppressing farmers, and luckily there was no one around, and Zhou Zhiqiang pulled him up in time.

"Village chief, if you keep doing this, I'll never dare to come back again."

Zhou Zhiqiang paused for a moment before continuing, "You helped me when I was a child, so it's only natural for me to repay you now that I'm older. Don't overthink it."

"Tian Dong is learning his trade well in the city. I'll be watching over the factory; nothing will go wrong, so you don't need to worry."

Upon hearing this, the village chief chuckled awkwardly and remained silent. He admitted that he had indeed been a bit agitated, which was why he had acted that way, but he had no intention of harming Zhou Zhiqiang.

Before Zhao Tiandong returned, the village chief and Zhou Zhiqiang talked about other things.

The village has had a pretty good harvest in the past two years. Although a lot of grain has been handed over to the government, every household has enough surplus grain to eat until they are about 70-80% full.

If you're diligent, you can find some work to do during the off-season, even something as simple as chopping firewood in the mountains and carrying it to the county town to sell. You can earn three or four cents a day.

The coal supply for urban residents is actually quite limited, especially in autumn and winter, as coal is burned not only for cooking but also for heating.

Many people buy firewood, and Zhou Zhiqiang's family bought quite a lot last winter. Of course, their family also burns coal for heating quite frequently. Even at noon, they will burn coal whenever it's cold, so they use a lot of it.

When the conversation turned to the village's harvest, the village chief suddenly remembered something and said to Zhou Zhiqiang, "Zhiqiang, about your family, I just remembered something; your family used to be quite wealthy, didn't you notice?"

"rich?"

Zhou Zhiqiang was taken aback when he heard this, but then he quickly remembered that his family seemed to have a lot of houses.

The land was allocated according to the number of people after the map was changed, but each family built their own houses; the Zhou family had four brick houses, and the Zhou family had the most and best houses in the whole village.

The village chief continued, "The villagers of Hongqi Village all moved here individually, but after your family settled down, you built a brick house not long after, which caused quite a stir in the village at the time."

"I don't remember much. Never mind, let's not talk about the Zhou family, it's just upsetting."

Zhou Zhiqiang shook his head and said, "The Zhou family raised me for twelve years, and I sent them money for decades. In the end, the Zhou family still made a profit. Now I don't want to have anything to do with them."

The village chief nodded and said, "That's true."

Five yuan a month, that's sixty yuan a year. An ordinary family can only save sixty yuan a year; if it takes thirty years, it will be eighteen thousand yuan, which is already a huge sum of money.

Raising one child wouldn't cost that much, especially since Zhou Zhiqiang mostly ate at the homes of his middle school teachers and the village head after middle school. The chat hadn't lasted long when Zhao Tiandong, who had gone up the mountain to chop firewood, was called back.

Zhou Zhiqiang and the village chief also talked to him about going to the city to work as a laborer. Zhao Tiandong agreed without much hesitation. In fact, even if he didn't want to agree, his parents would force him to.

If you go to the city to work as an apprentice, you can earn 18.5 yuan a month. If you are frugal with your expenses, you will spend a maximum of about 6 yuan, and you can save 12 yuan a month.

Saving up over a hundred yuan a year is the confidence that allows a family to support themselves with just one job in the city.

After explaining the job in the city to Zhao Tiandong and the approximate time he would be going to the city, Zhou Zhiqiang planned to ride his bicycle back.

Zhao Tiandong will first go to the village to find Wu Xiaojun, and then go to the city with Wu Xiaojun to find him; Zhao Tiandong had delivered grain to Zhou Zhiqiang before, so he knows where Teacher Wu Ming lives.

Although Sanhe Township has a telephone, it belongs to the township government, and Zhou Zhiqiang cannot make a phone call for this matter, so he has to make the trip himself.

Seeing that Zhou Zhiqiang was about to leave, the village chief's family didn't try to keep him any longer. They knew how dangerous it was to travel in the dark, and that they might run into some robbers.

While it's still light, we should get back to the city as soon as possible.

------

"Section Chief Lü is not here today, so I'll call a meeting for you. I've already discussed this matter with him beforehand."

On Monday, after Zhou Zhiqiang arrived at work, he gathered everyone together and assigned tasks to the technical department.

After arriving in the morning, Section Chief Lü greeted Zhou Zhiqiang and then went to find the factory director.

"As you all know, the project team manufactured small tractors in Workshop 9, and the factory plans to mass-produce small tractors next."

However, to do a good job, one must first have the right tools. Before production, we need to modify the factory's main machine tools to produce specific parts.

"Machine tool modification is important, but other tasks in the factory are also important. So starting today, the machine tool modification team will be temporarily set at six people, but we will rotate every two days. I will try my best to teach you all the key points of the modification."

Grouping and assigning production tasks—that's what Zhou Zhiqiang, the deputy section chief, is responsible for.

Previously, there were a few people in the technical department who were not very convinced of him, but as Zhou Zhiqiang's prestige in the factory gradually increased, they suppressed their little thoughts and did not even dare to have any bad ideas.

After assigning the tasks, Zhou Zhiqiang led his men to move the machine tools.

First, move all the machine tools that need to be modified to Workshop 9, and move the ones that don't need to be moved out.

Once the first batch of machine tools is modified, Workshop 9 can immediately deploy personnel to start production.

After three hours of work that morning, ten people from the technical department, more than twenty porters, and a crane were needed to move fifteen machine tools.

Although Zhou Zhiqiang didn't actually lift the load, running back and forth giving instructions kept him exhausted.

Moving machine tools is hard work; those things are incredibly heavy, and even with tools, it's still difficult to push them.

As noon approached, the two shifts of porters were exhausted, so Zhou Zhiqiang told them to stop.

After you finish eating, rest for a while, and come back at 2:30 pm to move the rest.

After the meeting was dismissed, Zhou Zhiqiang went back to the technical department to get his lunchbox. Although it wasn't lunchtime yet, he had already gone to the cafeteria to queue up.

However, as soon as Zhou Zhiqiang returned to the technical department, he was called into the office by Section Chief Lü, who said to him with a smile, "Zhiqiang, our factory is doing well now. Do you know what the factory director and the party secretary just finalized?"

Zhou Zhiqiang asked curiously, "What is it? Section Chief, don't guess, just tell me."

Section Chief Lü said with a smile, "They are discussing building a dormitory and a new factory, and they plan to complete the construction in about a month."

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(End of this chapter)