Sail across the sea

Chapter 360 It would be strange if there wasn't something fishy going on here.

"Director Qiao, are you not busy? I have something I'd like to report to you."

"Are you Ma something from that cleaning company?"

"Director Qiao has a good memory. My name is Ma Jin, and my little shop is called Little Ma Cleaning Service Center. Last year, Director Qiao gave me some business and asked me to clean the toilets in the Education Bureau office building."

"Yes, I remember. What do you need me for?"

"Well, Director Qiao helped me with my business last time, and I don't really have anything to thank him for. I recently got some urea, and I wonder if Director Qiao has any relatives who farm and want some."

"Oh, urea... What, you said you got your hands on urea!"

"Yes, a friend helped me get some. I wonder if Director Qiao would like some."

"Of course I need it! How much is a bag of urea you got?"

"It's the price from the agricultural supply company: 40 kilograms per bag, 20 yuan and 4 jiao per bag."

"how much do you have?"

“If Director Qiao wants them, I can spare four packs.”

"Oh dear, could you get a little more? Director Wen's wife's younger brother lives in the countryside, and last time Director Wen asked me if I could get him some urea. You know, it was Director Wen who approved the last time we sent you to clean our office building..."

"Is that so? Then there's no problem. I'll take out the portion I set aside for my uncle and add four more packs for you. What do you think, Director Qiao?"

"Okay, okay, you're a good young man..."

Similar conversations have been taking place in the offices of various units in Cangyuan County these past few days. Just as Ma Jin had predicted, with urea clearing the way, there really wasn't a door that couldn't be opened.

When Ma Jin first came to their door, the officials all had cold faces. Most of them didn't even remember his name, and those who asked "Ma something-mei" were considered relatively approachable. But after hearing that he could get urea, everyone's faces changed from sullen to human, and they started calling him "Little Ma" or "Brother Ma," and made all sorts of empty promises in order to get more urea from him.

The rural areas have now implemented a contract responsibility system, and farmers are farming for themselves. They have a strong demand for production materials such as seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides, and these demands will naturally be passed on to their relatives and friends working in the county town.

Even officials with little connection to rural areas wouldn't refuse urea offered to them. If they didn't need it themselves, they could ask which leader needed it—wasn't that a significant favor?

Following Gao Fan's instructions, Ma Jin provided each official with a small amount of urea: four bags for higher-ranking officials and two bags for lower-ranking officials. The urea from Canghai Fertilizer Plant came in 40-kilogram bags, with 25 bags per ton. Gao Fan provided Ma Jin with 50 tons of urea, a total of 1250 bags, enough for him to sell to three or four hundred government officials.

When delivering the urea, Ma Jin also mentioned that he could continue to obtain urea in the future, which prompted many cadres to exchange contact information with him and make empty promises such as "let's have a couple of drinks together sometime."

Ma Jin knew, of course, that no one would actually go drinking with him. After all, he was just a self-employed toilet cleaner; how could he possibly be of any interest to the officials?

"Yifen, didn't your brother say he wanted to get some urea last time?" Wen Kaishun, the director of the county education bureau, asked his wife Jiao Yifen as soon as he got home from get off work.

"Yeah, so, Lao Wen, did you find a connection?" Jiao Yifen asked uncertainly.

“There’s a self-employed guy who used to clean the toilets for our bureau. He said he has connections and got some urea, and he can give me four bags,” Wen Kaishun said casually as he sat down on the sofa.

Jiao Yifen solicitously brought Wen Kaishun's travel mug and placed it on the coffee table for him, then asked in surprise, "How does a toilet cleaner manage to get his hands on urea?"

“How would I know?” Wen Kaishun said. “He contacted Qiao Dongsheng, saying that he had a relative in Luping who got the fertilizer directly from the fertilizer plant in Luping.”

"Luping? I remember now, isn't that the Canghai Fertilizer Plant mentioned in the newspaper?"

"That's the one."

"Didn't the newspaper say that the factory underwent some kind of renovation with central government funding, and now it can produce 4 tons of urea a year? Old Wen, could you try to find some connections and contact that factory directly? If a small business can produce urea, you're a bureau chief, asking for a few dozen bags of urea shouldn't be a big deal, right?"

"Well... it's really hard to say. Canghai Fertilizer Plant is in Cangtang County. I know a few leaders in the Cangtang Education Bureau, but our relationship is just so-so. If I go to them for this kind of thing, they might not be able to help."

"Could our county's agricultural supply company import some urea from Cangtang? They produce 4 tons a year. It should be easy for our agricultural supply company to contact them and get a few hundred tons, right? Then we can divide it among the various units, and we can even get ten or eight bags."

"I actually asked Lao Guan from the agricultural supplies company about this. He said that Canghai Fertilizer Plant prioritizes supplying urea to Luping City, and other cities in the province get very little. When it comes to Cangyuan, there's even less."

“The agricultural supply companies can’t get them, but individual vendors can. There’s something fishy going on here!” Jiao Yifen muttered.

She was initially happy that her husband had managed to get four bags of urea, but when she heard that the urea had actually been given to them by a toilet cleaner, she became somewhat unhappy.

It's truly an insult to an official's dignity for a high-ranking bureau chief to have to buy urea from a private business owner and owe them a favor.

"By the way, Lao Wen, I remember reading in the newspaper that the province plans to upgrade several more ammonium fertilizer plants to urine, and Yuxi was mentioned among them. Our county's nitrogen fertilizer plant is the largest in Yuxi City. Is it possible that the province will select our county's nitrogen fertilizer plant for upgrades?" Jiao Yifen remembered another matter.

She was also a government official, and reading newspapers was a major part of her daily work. She had read the article in the Maolin Daily, but hadn't thought much of it at the time. Now, stimulated by the urea issue, the Canghai Fertilizer Plant mentioned in the article immediately formed a concrete image in her mind, which then made her think of the article's mention at the end about converting ammonium to urea in Yuxi.

"The province has approached the county about this matter; they do indeed want to upgrade the nitrogen fertilizer plant. However, the county's attitude isn't very enthusiastic, and they're still arguing with the province," Wen Kaishun said.

A county isn't that big. When they go to the county for meetings, the bureau chiefs and directors often get together to exchange information. There's nothing in the county that can be kept from them.

"What does 'split the score' mean?" Jiao Yifen asked.

Wen Kaishun shook his head: "This is complicated. The county's idea is that the province is more anxious about this matter, and the county can delay it and let the province agree to some conditions."

(End of this chapter)