Chapter 613

"Li Ye, your submission has been published again. Aren't you busy writing your graduation thesis these days? How do you still have time to submit articles?"

The new class monitor, Chen Xiaoling, walked into the classroom with an Economic Daily and threw it in front of Li Ye, who was hunched over writing.

Li Ye glanced at it and nodded, saying: "This seems to be something I wrote casually last month. I guess they received too many submissions and it's only being published now after waiting in line."

"Good grief, 'wrote casually'—can you be any more infuriating when you speak?"

Chen Xiaoling said with envy, jealousy, and hatred: "I looked at it when I walked over just now; this article of yours is enough to serve as a graduation thesis, yet you say it was 'written casually'."

"It's a pity that we foolish people rack our brains for a graduation thesis and still can't get it done."

"Let me see, let me see. I'm getting a headache writing my own graduation thesis! Let me see if I can get some inspiration."

Classmate Pu Xianghe took the Economic Daily and saw the large headline of Li Ye's submitted article: "The Inevitable Trend of Reform in Our Country's Transportation Market."

Pu Xianghe asked in surprise: "Li Ye, do you also have research on this topic?"

Li Ye smiled and said: "I have some views and conjectures, just wrote it casually, it doesn't count as research."

"You're being modest, you're being modest," Pu Xianghe shook his head and said: "Li Ye, we've all experienced your modest nature for four years; don't try to fool us like that."

"Come, come, come, let's analyze and study Li Ye's casual masterpiece."

Several classmates gathered around and read the article in the newspaper with great interest.

The content of Li Ye's submission was not profound; it was aimed at the natural drawbacks of the mainland's "Railway Boss," asserting that only by vigorously developing road transportation could the "transportation difficulty" problem for mainland small and medium-sized enterprises be solved.

Based on the road transportation market, Li Ye asserted that the medium-sized trucks, which currently have the largest inventory in the mainland, were unable to handle the increasingly heavy transportation tasks.

Therefore, heavy and light vehicles with breakthrough technologies should be vigorously developed to fill the diversified demands of the transportation market.

The highlight of this article lay in the large amount of data Li Ye presented, such as the difficulty of obtaining railway freight cars, the comparison of economic parameters of several old mainland car models, and the gap with mainstream international transport models, etc.

Ultimately, Li Ye's conclusion was that the current mainland automotive industry was seriously dragging down the pace of economic construction modernization and must undergo drastic reforms.

This was also a development trend confirmed by history; in the eighties, without freight cars, long-distance trade was basically impossible to achieve.

And decades later, for business spanning five thousand kilometers across the mainland, a line of large trucks could deliver goods point-to-point for you, and faster than rail transport at that.

The newspaper was passed around among the classmates and landed in He Dazhuang's hands.

After reading it carefully, he sighed softly and then cast a glance at Li Ye.

"It seems that Li Ye didn't understand a single word of the story about Journey to the West that I told that day!"

"."

Li Ye looked at He Dazhuang's image as a master who understood the ways of the world and asked with a cooperative smile: "Master He, what do you mean by that?"

He Dazhuang raised the newspaper in his hand and said in a deep voice: "Li Ye, this is a national-level economic newspaper. All the large and small car manufacturers and transportation enterprises across the country subscribe to it. Li Ye, you don't have a single chair under your butt; now that this article is out, do you know how many people you've offended?"

"Offended people? Who did I offend?"

Li Ye was actually surprised; when he wrote this article, he hadn't thought about offending anyone.

He Dazhuang smiled mysteriously and then asked: "Li Ye, since you've investigated mainland road transportation, do you know which one is our country's largest car manufacturer?"

Li Ye chuckled and said: "Does that even need asking? Of course, it's the Jilin Provincial Automobile Manufacturing Plant!"

"Right, it's the Jilin Provincial Automobile Manufacturing Plant."

He Dazhuang slapped the newspaper on the table, picked up a fountain pen to mark a few sentences, and then said: "Look at these data points you listed, and these judgments—every one of them is talking about the problems of the Jilin Provincial Automobile Manufacturing Plant."

"To put it bluntly, you are practically pointing your finger and accusing them of being the root cause of the backwardness of the mainland automotive industry. You can't possibly not know how powerful the Jilin Provincial Automobile Manufacturing Plant is, right?"

Li Ye was stunned for several seconds before he said with a laugh: "Listening to you say that, it seems quite serious~"

The Jilin Provincial Automobile Manufacturing Plant was a towering tree with deep roots and tangled branches; even here in the capital, and even within Peking University, who knows how many connections and relationships it had.

If Li Ye really offended it, he might truly get into trouble.

But Li Ye didn't feel like he had offended them! Their current flagship product was 18,000 per unit, and the Dongfeng 140 was 24,000 per unit. As a result, people were lining up to fight for the 24,000 ones, while the 18,000 ones were lining up to rust. Shouldn't the one offending them be the 24,000 one? What does it have to do with a small author like me?

"Sigh, Li Ye! You are still too much of a scholar. If you had spent a few months in the ministries, you wouldn't have such naive thoughts."

He Dazhuang shook his head and then suddenly said with a grin: "Li Ye, I've always felt you were a smart person. You shouldn't be unaware of these principles, so was this article of yours written at someone else's request?"

"At someone else's request? At whose request?"

He Dazhuang pointed mysteriously at the newspaper: "It's written right here! We should develop heavy-duty trucks, such as Steyr."

"Steyr is an enterprise in your Dongshan provincial capital, right? I remember your Qingshui County is very close to the provincial capital. If you aren't planning to go work for Steyr, why would you blow their horn?"

"But Li Ye, just as I said before, if you aren't in that position, you shouldn't say a single inappropriate word."

"Now everyone is at the critical juncture of job assignment. Li Ye, you are being so casual... if something goes wrong, it'll be dangerous!"

"."

Li Ye was truly surprised. He wasn't some old-society scholar who would write articles to blow horns for people just for a few coins; he was the boss who paid others to blow horns for him, okay? Who could afford to hire him to be a shill?

Li Ye helplessly picked up his fountain pen and circled a large section of content in the newspaper.

"Master He, you only saw the heavy trucks I wrote about. Did you not see the larger space I dedicated to advocating for light vehicles and agricultural vehicles?"

In the period from the late eighties to the early two-thousands, heavy-duty trucks and light agricultural vehicles in the mainland were undoubtedly the two categories that developed the fastest, especially agricultural vehicles, which grew from nothing to something.

Therefore, heavy-duty vehicles and agricultural vehicles were both a red ocean for the mainland automotive industry, and the threshold for the latter was unknown how many times lower than the former.

Didn't Foton Motor, which came later, start from agricultural vehicles and eventually become one of the giants in the mainland automotive industry with a full range of light and heavy categories?

But after hearing Li Ye's words, He Dazhuang laughed: "Agricultural vehicles? Li Ye, have you really studied the transportation industry seriously? Agricultural vehicles are just tractors!"

"Our province isn't a major industrial province, but we have four or five large tractor factories. The tractors produced are durable and don't break; the grandfather uses them, and the grandson can continue to use them. Does this still need vigorous development?"

Li Ye was speechless.

Could it be that in He Dazhuang's eyes, rural people only deserve to use tractors?

Do they not have the qualifications to use a small "covered" iron horse?