Chapter 683: A Major Personnel Reshuffle

He Yuzhu smiled: "This is also quite good; I, for one, want to see what kind of mess that Li Huaide can make of the factory."

Secretary Liu also smiled: "That's the spirit; you have to give others a chance, too!"

In the days that followed, He Yuzhu poured all his focus into the project of producing Chinese-character typewriters.

For a Tractor Factory to build such precision equipment was no small feat; many of the production tools had to be crafted by his own hands.

The typewriter He Yuzhu had was originally made by him inside his space. Over the years, the equipment in the space had long been upgraded to be quite advanced, but to replicate this equipment, he had to manufacture it part by part, which was quite difficult.

Just as he was fully immersed in scientific research, Li Huaide received his appointment letter as acting Factory Director.

The moment he held the appointment letter, he felt every pore on his body relax—the thing he had dreamed of for all these years had finally come true.

At the factory office meeting, with He Yuzhu's figure missing, Li Huaide naturally sat right in the center of the table.

After years of experience, he had managed to cultivate a certain air of authority.

Li Huaide cleared his throat and began: "This time, the organization has trusted me to act as Factory Director. I am very honored, yet also very apprehensive. I have worked in this factory for nearly twenty years and have deep feelings for it; you could say I grew up alongside the factory. All along, I have known what our factory's advantages are, and I also know our factory's problems... In fact, the key to the problems in the factory right now is the human element. Moving forward, I will be making some personnel adjustments. I hope everyone will not hold grudges if the adjustments fall on them; I am simply dealing with matters as they stand."

For a moment, the conference room was deathly silent.

Li Huaide continued: "First, what I want to change is the division of labor among the Deputy Factory Directors; I am going to conduct a major reshuffle. The work overseen by each Deputy Factory Director cannot remain static; it must be rotated frequently. Staying in one position for too long easily breeds corruption and fosters bureaucracy."

As his voice fell, everyone looked at each other in dismay.

Some were happy, and naturally, some were unhappy.

Those who were unhappy were mostly the ones holding real power—such as He Daqing. He had been in charge of the factory's logistics for many years, and a massive amount of supplies had passed through his hands. Although this was definitely a lucrative position, He Daqing had never taken anything home; on the contrary, he had often contributed his own resources.

Yet, he had sat in this position for seventeen or eighteen years.

Upon hearing this, He Daqing knew Li Huaide was coming for his position.

In fact, for years, Li Huaide had been eyeing He Daqing's position.

He Daqing said: "Factory Director Li, I really have some reservations about your idea. First, our factory is currently at a critical juncture of accelerating cooperation with the Military Factory. If the division of labor among the Deputy Factory Directors is swapped, it will easily cause chaos and directly lead to certain supplies not coming in, or even cause mishaps."

Li Huaide nodded: "I will take that into consideration. However, compared to the long-term development of our factory, temporary growing pains are nothing."

The conference room fell into a stalemate; no one wanted to get involved in this debate.

It was Deputy Director Nie who spoke up first: "I agree with Factory Director Li's opinion. If one person manages one area for too long, it is indeed easy to breed corruption; we must crack down on such behavior."

He Daqing then said nothing more.

Deputy Factory Director Sun said: "I disagree. Some things seem logical, but in reality, it depends on the person. If you have a relationship with someone, they will give you things without a word; if you don't have a relationship with them, you could treat them to ten meals, and they still wouldn't give you anything."

Li Huaide said sternly: "According to Deputy Factory Director Sun, does that mean newcomers will never have a chance to become Deputy Factory Directors?"

"That is not what I meant. If Factory Director Li insists on doing this, I am willing to cooperate. But if something goes wrong, in the end, don't push the blame onto us," Deputy Factory Director Sun said sharply.

"Deputy Factory Director Sun, you are overthinking it. We haven't been in contact for long, so you don't understand me yet. I have nothing else, but my only merit is that I am responsible and can tolerate others," Li Huaide said proudly.

"Then I have nothing more to say." Seeing that Li Huaide's mind was made up, Deputy Factory Director Sun stopped talking.

Deputy Factory Director Zhao immediately expressed his stance: "New people, new atmosphere; our factory has been stagnant for a while now. I support Factory Director Li's assumption of office this time, as he can reform the bad habits and drawbacks existing in the factory."

Currently, there were five people in total—the Factory Director and the Deputy Factory Directors—so Li Huaide passed this resolution by a majority vote.

The personnel adjustments were soon in place.

He Daqing was arranged to manage the labor union and propaganda, while logistics were handed over to Deputy Director Nie.

He Daqing returned home and fumed for half the day.

Seeing He Yuzhu return, he couldn't help but grumble: "Zhuzi, Li Huaide completely swapped the division of labor for the Deputy Factory Directors, putting me in charge of propaganda and the labor union. I'm not familiar with this area; that's fine, I can learn. But logistics involves such complex matters—can it really work to let Deputy Director Nie, who has zero experience, manage it?"

He Yuzhu said: "Dad, what time do you think it is? You still haven't seen your own position clearly? Just let him mess around for now."

He Daqing said: "But the Tractor Factory is cooperating with the Military Factory; will it be affected?"

He Yuzhu comforted him: "Do your best and leave the rest to fate. Dad, I'm no longer the Factory Director; what happens to the factory has nothing to do with me. Later, I'll have the Liushi Trading Company pause helping our factory import machine tools. Why should we do the work for Deputy Director Nie? Every year, to import these things, the Liushi Trading Company loses several million."

He Daqing widened his eyes: "Zhuzi, you've been Factory Director for so many years, how can you watch the factory collapse?"

He Yuzhu smiled: "What kind of person is Li Huaide? He always thinks he's a heaven-sent genius. If I don't show him a thing or two, he'll always think he's omnipotent."

He Daqing nodded: "That kid is indeed crooked. Even if he does some good things, he has an ulterior motive. It's good to let him take a tumble this time!"

He Yuzhu smiled: "The first thing he did upon taking office was to move against you. If I don't show him a thing or two, he'll really think our family has taken advantage of the factory."

He Daqing nodded: "Zhuzi, you must have a sense of proportion. Otherwise, we'll be letting down Secretary Liu, who trusts you so much."

He Yuzhu sighed: "I understand. I'll just store that batch of goods in Hong Kong for now, and when the person in charge changes, I'll ship them back immediately."

He Daqing reminded him: "I suspect the next step for Li Huaide will be to recall Ershuan from the Beidaihe Yangzhichang and Erkui from the Dongbei Nongchang. He won't let your people continue to run such two important places."

He Yuzhu said: "He can recall Ershuan, but once Ershuan leaves, there won't be any fish there. Erkui, however, is registered with the higher-ups; after all, we have many Experts from our factory still over there!"

He Daqing said: "Zhuzi, since that's the case, hurry and call Secretary Liu; don't let him touch Erkui's side."

He Yuzhu nodded and immediately dialed Secretary Liu's number.

After He Yuzhu explained the specific situation to Secretary Liu, Secretary Liu said: "Your awareness is getting lower and lower, kid. If the factory's equipment supply can't keep up, that batch of Heavy Trucks will definitely be affected. Have you thought about the consequences?"