Sail across the sea

Chapter 537 is not my forte.

"Xiao Fan, you're putting me on the hot seat."

On the outskirts of Ruizhang City, in an old campus near Yaohu Lake, Zhou Xiaoyun, the newly appointed dean of the Canghai Research Institute, accompanied Gao Fan as they inspected the old buildings on campus, jokingly complaining as she went.

This old campus was originally the Chemical Engineering Technical School, which belonged to the Chemical Industry Bureau. After the Chemical Industry Bureau was abolished, the Chemical Engineering Technical School stopped enrolling students. After sending off the students it had previously enrolled over two years, the original faculty and staff, except for a dozen or so who stayed to look after the campus, were all reassigned to other units, leaving the campus vacant.

In the past few years, several organizations have tried to acquire this campus, and some real estate developers even approached the Finance Department, hoping to buy the land at a very low price to develop it into suburban villas. However, due to disagreements over issues such as price, these transactions all fell through.

This time, Gao Fan wanted to build a research institute in Ruizhang and was looking for a site. When Xu Ying received Gao Fan's call for help, the first place that came to her mind was this place.

The Chemical Engineering Technical School was established in the 50s. At that time, the land management system was relatively extensive. The Chemical Industry Department said it wanted a piece of land to build a school, and the Ruizhang Municipal Government simply drew a circle on the map and allocated 150 acres of wasteland by Yaohu Lake to the Chemical Industry Department.

It is said that the leaders of the Chemical Industry Bureau at the time absolutely did not want so much land, saying that it would be too troublesome to manage and that thirty to fifty acres would be enough.

However, the Ruizhang City Government also had its own considerations. There was too much wasteland by the lake, and they couldn't manage it all. They were happy to give the Chemical Industry Department an opportunity to manage it.

Forty years have passed, and the land is now worth much more than it was then. Ruizhang City once wanted to take back the campus for 50,000 yuan per mu, but the Provincial Economic Commission, which took over the campus, asked for a high price of 200,000 yuan per mu, on the grounds that the land was no longer wasteland, but contained several teaching buildings, laboratory buildings, office buildings and student dormitories, and the value of these buildings should also be included in the value of the campus.

The price expectations of both parties were too different, so naturally they couldn't reach an agreement. At this time, Ruizhang's urban area had not yet expanded as it would later become, and the area around Yaohu Lake was still considered a suburb with little development value. Therefore, the Ruizhang municipal government didn't bother to argue with the Provincial Economic Commission.

For the Provincial Economic Commission, keeping this campus is also a burden. No subordinate unit can use such a large space, and leaving it idle requires people to guard it and a lot of money to maintain it every year, making it extremely useless.

Upon hearing that Gao Fan wanted a plot of land, Xu Ying told him about the campus situation. The campus occupied 150 acres of land, but only one-third of it was actually used, with the remaining 100 acres lying fallow.

Of course, saying it was abandoned is not entirely accurate, because some teachers used to cultivate their own plots of land on those wastelands to grow vegetables, and some even raised chickens and ducks.

When Xu Ying mentioned it to Gao Fan, she asked if he thought the site was too big. If it really didn't work out, they could occupy part of it first, and the Economic Commission could contact one or two other units to share the land.

To her surprise, Gao Fan was overjoyed to hear about the large area and immediately expressed his willingness to take it all. As for the price of 20 yuan per mu proposed by the Economic Commission, Gao Fan didn't pay much attention to it, made a token bargain, and finally reached an agreement with the Economic Commission at a price of 18 yuan per mu, which of course included all above-ground and underground buildings.

Considering that a one-time transfer fee of 2700 million yuan would be too much of a burden for the company, the agreement stipulated that Canghai Chemical would pay the full amount in three installments of 900 million yuan per year, with no additional interest.

A few days ago, Gao Fan had his company transfer the 900 million yuan transfer fee to the provincial finance department's account, and the campus now belonged to him. Along with acquiring the site, Gao Fan also finalized an agreement with Zhou Xiaoyun to appoint her as the director of the research institute. Zhou Xiaoyun resigned from her position as chief engineer at the fertilizer company, took a leave of absence without pay, and immediately took up her post.

At this moment, Gao Fan brought Zhou Xiaoyun to familiarize themselves with the venue. Following behind them were Xie Qin, the supervisor Gao Fan had transferred from the company, and a logistics worker who had stayed behind from the original chemical technical school, named Ding Xinghuo.

“I’ve always felt that Aunt Zhou deserves to have such a research institute.”

Hearing Zhou Xiaoyun's complaint, Gao Fan chuckled and said.

“Your Aunt Zhou doesn’t have that much ability. I’m just here to help you watch the stall temporarily,” Zhou Xiaoyun said. “My interest is still in scientific research. Management is not my forte.”

Gao Fan said, "Actually, I invited Aunt Zhou here to do scientific research. As for the daily management, Xie Qin is in charge. The company appointed her as the assistant dean to handle these tasks."

Upon hearing Gao Fan mention her, Xie Qin quickly replied, "Yes, Dean Zhou, just leave the routine errands to me. You can focus less on managing research."

Zhou Xiaoyun smiled at Xie Qin, then turned to Gao Fan and said, "Xiao Fan, what is your overall vision for this research institute?"

"We will build the world's strongest chemical research institute within 30 years," Gao Fan replied without hesitation.

Zhou Xiaoyun was momentarily speechless, unsure whether to rebuke Gao Fan for being overly ambitious or simply take his words as a joke. After a moment's thought, she said helplessly, "Let's talk about things 30 years from now. What kind of work do you hope the research institute will be doing in the next five years?"

"First, the original purpose of establishing the research institute was to provide technical support for several fine chemical projects that Canghai Chemical is about to launch," Gao Fan said.

Zhou Xiaoyun nodded: "That's not difficult. The product has already been developed by your side. All we need to do is design the process and continuously optimize the process during production. However, you will need to recruit a group of experienced chemical process engineers. This kind of work requires a lot of production experience."

“I will,” Gao Fan nodded, and continued, “Secondly, I will undertake independent research projects. Some of these projects will be arranged by me, while others can be conducted at the request of clients. For example, the process research of the large-scale potash fertilizer plant that Aunt Zhou will be leading is this type of project.”

“Your father has already told me about this, and I have absolutely no problem with it,” Zhou Xiaoyun said.

"As for the third point, I hope that the research institute can carry out some cutting-edge research in chemical engineering. This kind of research will not be planned in advance, but will be determined entirely based on the interests of the researchers. Every researcher in the institute can propose cutting-edge research topics, which will be evaluated by the expert committee to determine whether to approve and fund the projects."

(End of this chapter)