Chapter 1290: Factory Director Wang

At the train station, Song Yunping gazed tenderly at Wang Yan, reluctant to part.

"Go then, study hard and make progress every day." Wang Yan patted her head, then instructed Song Yunhui, "There are many people on the train; you two sisters must stay safe."

The siblings had stayed back for half a month to relax, but now they had to leave again and return to campus to continue their studies.

Originally, Wang Yan intended to see his wife off, but Song Yunping said he had too many matters and was too busy with work, so he need not go; Song Yunhui then voluntarily offered to escort his older sister to Beijing, using the opportunity to see what the capital was actually like.

As the saying goes, regardless of whether Beijing has delicious food or fun attractions, its status as the capital stands firm, and everyone wants to go see it...

Fortunately, they had a wealthy brother-in-law who was sending his sister off to school; going along to take a look, stroll around for two days, and broaden one's horizons was also a good thing.

Swallowing ten thousand words, Song Yunping finally boarded the train with Song Yunhui and departed.

Wang Yan watched until the train pulled away from the platform before he himself left.

Recently, there were indeed many matters in the county.

Matters previously decided at meetings had already begun to be implemented.

Investigation teams dispatched by the county visited village after village, inspecting each one; they gathered information from villagers, audited village accounts, removed numerous village and commune cadres, and as for village bullies and tyrants, none escaped unscathed.

The county had previously conducted special crackdown campaigns, but those had mainly targeted idle loafers, chicken thieves, dog stealers, and brawlers within the county town, thereby implicating some bullies and tyrants in the townships and rural areas below; most of those dealt with were famous figures in the county, effectively cleansing the county town's public security environment.

A bunch of small fry had been terrified back then, hiding obediently, while those in the rural areas naturally stayed quietly in their villages, engaging in deceit and seeking gain without labor; over the past year, restrictions had loosened considerably, and since their nature is hard to change and their viciousness difficult to reform, they jumped up again.

Although they were all small fry, when they played the rogue in the villages, the villagers had little recourse; scolding was useless, fighting might not result in victory, and even if one could win, it would still cause trouble since the rogues feared no beating; apart from killing them outright or crippling them, there were no good solutions, but those acts were crimes subject to punishment.

The little hooligans were not stupid; they knew the entire village disliked them, yet they would not offend the whole village, only bullying a few honest people, which made everyone extremely angry...

Therefore, for this cleanup operation, the county unified its stance: light offenses received heavy sentences, heavy offenses received harsher sentences, and all were sent to labor reform; if the city's review opinions differed, they would study the matter again, but in any case, the county intended to deal with them severely; in fact, as long as the sentence was not life imprisonment or death, the city would not interfere too much; even if an appeal led to a retrial and a reduced sentence, it would be no great loss, since reduced sentences meant assigning heavier labor.

In any case, prisoners from the county would be brought back from the city prison to perform heavy labor without having to stay in the prison...

As for the report on forming a group company for the textile mill, it had long been submitted to the city; the city acted decisively, holding a brief coordination meeting before directly forwarding it to the province for approval.

After two days of discussion and thorough exchange of opinions in the province, the application documents were now on their way to Beijing...

As for the most critical land issue, the county had issued a document prohibiting the private division of land, detailing future policies in full; everyone simply needed to wait for the textile mill to grow and strengthen, then enter the factory with peace of mind.

Of course, there were voices of dissatisfaction; they did not even understand what land division meant, only knowing that land possibly meant for them would not be given; yet no one opposed entering the factory, since working in the factory earned more than farming, and factory employment also came with apartment buildings; they knew it was very difficult to farm one's way into an apartment building, so despite their dissatisfaction, no one opposed it.

Since the solution to the land problem had been announced via official document, the pace of absorbing rural population into the city naturally had to accelerate; otherwise, if farmers waited too long, troubles would multiply.

This problem, of course, was for Wang Yan to solve.

While proceeding with the internal structural adjustment of the textile mill, he also added production lines for several products.

The footwear and garment factory began producing tracksuits, socks, and a greater variety of athletic shoes; thus, both the footwear and garment factory and the textile mill needed to increase manpower, and the supporting small workshops producing zippers, buttons, and the like also needed to add workers.

Since the textile mill and the paper mill had already acquired the capability to produce according to hygiene standards and were manufacturing sanitary pads, this expansion saw Wang Yan open production lines for medical masks and gauze; these were fast-moving consumables, yielding small profits per unit but large sales volume, a steady stream that could also generate income.

He also took the machines he had researched and improved over the past two years, creating a jacquard loom and a spinning machine, and added them to the scope of mass production and sales.

Because accelerating the liberation of rural labor required expanding the supply of agricultural machinery, the scale of the agricultural machinery factory naturally had to be enlarged.

Whether agricultural machinery or textile machinery, both were interdependent with other industrial sectors; for instance, various special requirements for raw materials involved metallurgy, so the county's steel plant, copper and aluminum plant, and others all needed to correspondingly add production lines; motors, lubricants, and various other components used required factories and workshops of all sizes throughout the county to increase their production lines.

Operating this entire system would, over the coming period, easily absorb over ten thousand people into the city.

Of course, this was the ideal scenario; in reality, things were not so smooth, because development faced constraints.

These constraints did not come from the supply of various raw materials; as a vanguard of reform and a benchmark region renowned nationwide for its wealth, the textile mill enjoyed ample raw material supplies.

What truly constrained Jin Ling's development mainly involved two points.

First was the housing issue for rural workers entering the city; although the first phase of worker housing had been completed, accommodating over two thousand factory employees, with vacated houses converted into dormitories sufficient to double capacity to four or five thousand people...

... in reality, most rural workers lived in unsafe prefabricated houses, because the calculations were not so simple to make clear; after all, there were marriages and childbirths to resolve.

The vacated houses had actually been allocated to those who married and had children; of course, it was no longer one courtyard per family as before, but shared living: in one courtyard, the east and west rooms each housed one household, courtyards with side rooms were expanded, those without had side rooms built, and two additional households were arranged.

The small county town, amidst its rapid expansion and development, indeed faced many challenges.

Therefore, to solve this problem, Wang Yan approved an additional budget for forty buildings, bringing the total under construction to one hundred; this nearly reached the current financial limit of the textile mill, since funds were needed to update equipment, expand factory buildings, cover public construction expenditures, pay worker wages, and so on, leaving all remaining money for building houses.

At the same time, this nearly touched the ceiling of the county's labor force; there were many projects in the county, not just worker housing; other roads, water conservancy, and similar projects were also underway simultaneously, along with factory building construction and staffing various factories; rural populations still had to farm, rural women had to look after children, and so forth.

Furthermore, as population moved into the city, supporting education, healthcare, living necessities, and the like also required simultaneous construction; the funding for this naturally fell upon the textile mill, and it also consumed labor.

As for those outsiders hawking goods, the volume they traded was insufficient to supply the entire county; however, their advantage lay in the novelty of their goods, which were mostly insignificant items that did not cost much, yet they still earned considerable money, as these items were scarce in Jin Ling; at present, the factory had no time to produce them, and even if it did, it would not produce such things.

After all, one cannot cover every aspect; since they earn others' money, one must allow others to earn theirs...

The second point constraining development was the aforementioned electricity.

Not to mention this era, even into the 1990s or the early twenty-first century, electricity remained a major issue; during peak usage, planned blackouts occurred, limited-area power cuts were enforced to ensure the city's normal operation, while counties and townships suffered outages, and so on.

Currently, Jin Ling County's electricity supply was naturally insufficient; even though buildings had been constructed, they only achieved having floors above and below and toilets inside the buildings; electric lighting and telephones were inadequate; come nightfall, only the factories were lit.

For industries like steel and textiles, once machines started, they could not easily stop; the county's electricity was entirely dedicated to ensuring factory production; yet for the growing demand for electricity, the county's supply was completely unable to keep up; the city had electricity, but it had more factories, more people, and greater needs to guarantee.

Therefore, starting last year, Wang Yan had already planned a power station complex: one hydroelectric plant and one thermal power plant.

There was a river within their territory where a reservoir was already to be built to supply the tap water plant; taking advantage of this, a hydroelectric plant was added; although its installed capacity was not large, considering costs and returns stretched over several years, it was always appropriate; moreover, its operating costs were lower than thermal power, though its construction cost was higher.

The thermal power plant had commenced construction in the latter half of last year, with an installed capacity of three million kilowatts; by that time, besides supporting the county's industrial production, it would also supply electricity for people's daily lives, enabling the installation of streetlights and the like.

Of course, the investment was enormous; however, a small portion of this funding came from state allocations, while the majority was a loan from the province obtained by the county for construction, to be repaid gradually by the textile mill; moreover, this installed capacity represented a surplus for the county, sufficient to last until all rural populations had moved into the city; excess electricity generated could also be sold to the city to offset loan repayments.

Coal supply was similarly guaranteed; Jin Ling always acted with propriety; when negotiating prices with relevant units in Shanxi Province, they settled slightly above the planned supply price, also taking care of the people of Shanxi Province, since everyone had their difficulties.

With urgent development needed, Wang Yan added many more workers; although adding more people to the thermal power plant's construction would not drastically accelerate progress, it could still speed things up somewhat, and gaining even one day was valuable.

Including Wang Yan himself, who frequently visited the site to help solve problems and prevent errors and rework, thereby saving even more time.

Simultaneously, he devoted some energy to the overall structural adjustment, clarifying internal job ranks, corresponding responsibilities and authorities, wages, benefits, and so on; he streamlined institutions, eliminated useless departments, abolished redundant leadership positions, simplified administrative procedures, and while delegating authority, also dispersed power.

Going further, he established a trade union within the factory to represent the interests of all workers and supervise the leadership...

After a series of major changes, grassroots workers were unaffected, and no one's interests were harmed; after all, the factory had previously undergone rectification, and the departments and leadership positions abolished this time had already been ignored previously; now they were completely abolished, with workers reassigned to other posts.

At the same time, the wage structure was clarified: basic wages and benefits within the factory were issued uniformly according to worker rank, followed by additional position wages and subsidies based on different roles and posts, plus overtime pay, night shift allowances, high-temperature subsidies, marriage and childbirth care, and a series of other factors calculated according to working hours.

Factory regulations were also revised, explicitly stating that there was no distinction of high or low, noble or base within the factory, only differences in division of labor; everyone performed their respective duties, and under the Party's leadership and the supervision of the Workers' Congress, they would lead everyone to realize socialism...

Under this series of major moves, money flowed out like water, yet also flowed in like water.

Jin Ling's water jet looms were famously excellent; although Wang Jingwei had also produced them, they had not yet caught up with Jin Ling, showing gaps in various parameters; furthermore, Jin Ling's looms were basically close to foreign looms in performance, reliable and durable, with excellent after-sales service.

Under these circumstances, Jin Ling launched spinning machines and jacquard looms, both of which were quite popular. It was just like in "Feather Flies to the Sky," where Chen Jianghe had to expend tremendous effort to buy and research jacquard machines.

The previous sales team went out again to explain the various parameters, and orders came flying in like snowflakes, bringing money into the accounts.

Clothing was even more so; Jin Ling's garments enjoyed an excellent reputation across the vast region of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, becoming synonymous with fashion and quality.

This benefited from the first-mover advantage in denim jeans, the influence of nationwide reports and commendations, and the success of foreign trade.

This year, leaders at all levels from Beijing down to the province and city pinned high hopes on Jin Ling, expecting it to achieve new heights at the Canton Fair.

In fact, since the Canton Fair, Jin Ling's foreign exchange earnings had existed intermittently; some bought weaving machines, some placed additional clothing orders, and others, having seen people make money abroad, inquired about Jin Ling and placed follow-up orders to sell.

At this Canton Fair, the textile factory had more clothing, hats, and shoes; the machinery lineup now included spinning and jacquard machines; they possessed considerable experience and received personal guidance from Factory Director Wang, successfully securing orders worth sixteen million US dollars, which truly pushed the factory's annual output value past sixty million, approaching seventy million...

During the New Year, besides the Song siblings, all college students from the county who had passed the entrance exams returned home.

They all received subsidies from the factory, and their families had also entered factory employment.

College students did receive state subsidies, but the amount was not large, making food and drink still tight; however, with the additional factory subsidies, their meals became quite decent, and they could even afford a small stir-fry dish in the canteen once every ten days or half a month.

If, on top of that, their families became factory workers earning significantly more and remitted some money to them, their lives became even more comfortable; in terms of wealth, few on their campuses were richer than them.

Jin Ling had treated them well.

Wang Yan delivered a deeply emotional speech, discussing reform, policies, the national and international situation, Jin Ling's development, and their future; he even directly outlined Jin Ling's development plans, answered questions on the spot, and instilled in people a sense of superiority as Jin Ling natives.

He did his utmost to persuade these college students who had left Jin Ling to study hard for a few years and then return to build Jin Ling together...

With such a wonderful year passed, Jin Ling's great development entered its third year.

Shortly after the Spring Festival, the county convened its annual Representative Assembly.

At the meeting, last year's work report was delivered, and a series of personnel adjustments were made, among which only three were most important: first, Secretary Gong was transferred to a leisurely post in the city, marking that the old boy was about to retire; second, County Head Xu was promoted to become Secretary Xu.

As for the appointment of the new County Head, it was unimportant, because Secretary Xu would not become another Secretary Gong, nor would he have another County Head Xu under him...

The third was that Wang Yan, who had served as deputy factory director for two years, was confirmed in the full position; however, Old Factory Director Qi did not retire and remained as Party Secretary.

"Congratulations, congratulations, Leader."

After the meeting adjourned, Wang Yan smiled and clasped his hands in greeting to Secretary Xu.

"Cut it out," Secretary Xu said with a laugh, waving his hand. "It's no different from before."

"Isn't that just because the Leader is capable?"

"It's still thanks to your support, Factory Director Wang."

"The Leader is scolding me again."

County Head Xu chuckled, did not dwell on this, and instead said, "Let me tell you some good news."

As Wang Yan helped light his cigarette, he took a puff and said, "The matter of establishing a group company for our Jin Ling has received special approval from Haizi; I only received the news before the meeting."

"Within expectations," Wang Yan said. "We haven't changed anything; the goal is merely to establish the Jin Ling brand. It was just those people upstairs making various issues out of it, which dragged things out for half a year. But it didn't delay anything; we had already changed the organizational structure and added the trademark long ago."

Previously, the Chinese characters for "Jin Ling" were written on the inside lining of the clothes; now they were printed on the outside as a trademark resembling the symbol 'π', derived from the abbreviation of Jin Ling's initial letters, looking like 'Wu', but not actually representing the mathematical constant pi.

Designed personally by Wang Yan, the outside of the clothes was embroidered with 'Wu', while the inside featured the Chinese characters "Jin Ling" reverse-embroidered next to the label; although labels were not required at this time, Wang Yan proactively added them to emphasize formality and high quality, making the product look superior.

Not only on clothing, hats, and shoes, but everything manufactured by Jin Ling, including masks and gauze, bore this trademark; for larger areas, such as on machinery, the trademark was followed by Chinese characters, while for smaller items like masks, only the trademark was stamped.

After this period, consumers had already recognized it, knowing it was the Jin Ling brand, and the effect was very good.

"Having a formal name and not having one are always different, aren't they?" County Head Xu said with a smile. "Our county's development is truly getting better and better. How many workers do we have now?"

"Over thirty-four thousand."

Over the past period, the textile factory, now renamed Jin Ling Group, had been merging all factories in the county; the merger was not yet complete and would still require some time.

"How long until all factories in the county town are integrated?"

"After the thermal power plant connects to the grid, it is expected to happen before September."

"What about housing?"

"Currently, construction remains at one hundred buildings; adding the twenty from the first phase, nearly one hundred buildings are already occupied; this accounts for thirty-six Company Commander, resettling nearly twenty thousand people; once the current hundred buildings are completed, it is estimated that all county town workers will be resettled."

"Aren't you calculating based on the order of joining? There were still several thousand people queued up before," Secretary Xu shook his head and asked the question concerning him, "Since construction speed has accelerated, we must discuss county affairs; how do you plan to arrange these government personnel?"

"There are only over a thousand government civil servants, and many are family members of factory workers, some of whom have already moved into apartment buildings; Leader, if the county compiles a list of everyone working in the county town, removes duplicates, with one hundred buildings this year and another hundred next year, we can move everyone in the entire county into apartment buildings by the end of next year."

"I can't stop you, nor do I want to; just put in more effort and make something of it," Secretary Xu nodded satisfactorily, speaking from the heart.

"I will resolutely complete the task," Wang Yan laughed heartily.

"Aiya, Secretary Xu, Factory Director Wang, what a joyful conversation you're having!" The booming voice sounded again as Lei Dongbao approached with a smiling face...