Restarting life by going to the countryside to support medical work

Chapter 606 Success
Li Yancheng strolled slowly in the backyard of the brigade while smoking a cigarette.

He was considering how to handle this thorny issue in a way that would prevent it from escalating into a storm and allow it to pass smoothly.

"report"

Just as he was deep in thought, a report interrupted his train of thought.

"What's wrong?" Li Yancheng looked up at the sound and saw the duty officer from the brigade. He frowned slightly and asked, as he didn't like being interrupted when he was thinking.

"Director Li, Comrade Luo Yang is looking for you. He's in the guard room at the main gate."

???

Upon hearing Luo Yang's voice from the gatehouse, Li Yancheng was momentarily stunned.

Why did this friend and brother-in-law come all this way to see him?

After thinking it over, he nodded and walked towards the main gate.

"I see."

Soon, he saw Luo Yang in the guard room at the main gate, who was casually reading a newspaper.

"Have you finished handing over your work?"

"Almost done, just one last set of documents to sign." Hearing footsteps outside, Luo Yang put down his newspaper and stood up.

When are you planning to leave?

"If nothing unexpected happens, we should meet outside to talk sometime this week."

"There's something going on here!" Li Yancheng raised an eyebrow, nodded, and replied, "Okay, why don't you have lunch here this afternoon before you go back?"

It's already past five o'clock. We don't know how late we'll finish talking. Luo Min has class tonight and won't be going home. The two kids will still be taken back to Luo's place by the family's security. He'll definitely eat in the cafeteria before going home. It's better to invite Luo Yang to eat here with him. After dinner, we can give him a ride home.

"No, no, I have plans tonight. Quite a few people have come to see me off these past two days, so you'll have to make an appointment in advance if you want to have dinner with me," Luo Yang said with a smile.

"Alright, tell me, what brings you here specifically? Don't tell me yet, let me guess. Did someone come to you asking for your help? Could it be Shen Bin?"

!!!

Luo Yang's eyes widened instantly, and he looked at his brother-in-law beside him with an expression as if he had seen a ghost.

Even without him saying a word, just by looking at his expression, Li Yancheng knew he had guessed correctly.

Is it hard to guess?

It's not difficult at all. He already knows that Shen Bin is Sun Yiqing's cousin. And when Chen Xiangyang was explaining earlier, he also mentioned the fifth son of the Shen family. This guy also took oil from him and sold it, and the amount was not small.

Without even asking Shen Bin, Li Yancheng knew that this kid must have followed the path of his second brother who worked in another province.

The second son of the Shen family served as the deputy director of the organization department in a city in another province. His work included overseeing the supply and marketing cooperative. Shen Bin bought a lot of oil from Chen Xiangyang. If he sold it in a scattered manner, who knows how long it would take, and it would be very easy to be exposed. Going through the supply and marketing cooperative was the simplest way.

Therefore, as soon as his brother-in-law arrived, Li Yancheng immediately guessed his purpose.

Since he had been guessed correctly, Luo Yang stopped hiding it and nodded frankly, saying, "That's right, it was Xiao Bin who asked me for help, so I came here."

After hearing his story, I guess you're probably having a headache too. I have an idea you might want to consider.

His words immediately piqued Li Yancheng's curiosity.

"Hmm, go ahead and tell me, I'll listen."

……

Li Yancheng, who had been listening to Chen Xiangyang's explanation all afternoon, was still a little confused. He couldn't understand what Luo Yang meant by "focusing on the big picture and letting go of the small details" or "raising the bar high and letting go lightly." He was too lazy to think about it, so he just said...

"Alright, stop being so mysterious, just tell me what you think."

"Actually, this can't be said to be my idea. It was a suggestion from Xiaobin. I thought about it and thought it was pretty good. Of course, whether or not you want to do it is your own choice."

What I mean by "focusing on the major and letting the minor ones go" is that those who commit serious crimes must be dealt with severely, without a doubt.

But for those relatively minor offenses, such as merely dealing in scarce supplies or helping Chen Laosan dispose of stolen goods, but without any other connection with him, could they simply be punished?

First, the stolen goods must be returned; this is mandatory. Second, a fine should be imposed.

They can be fined until it hurts, and finally, they should be warned that if they continue to engage in this kind of smuggling of scarce resources, next time it won't just be a fine, but jail time.

I think this method is worth trying, what do you think?

fine?

After listening, Li Yancheng did not rush to express his opinion, but instead frowned and began to think.

Fines are a form of administrative enforcement. In later years, news of certain units in certain places using fines as a substitute for proper management frequently broke online.

Substituting fines for management refers to a special administrative enforcement method in which administrative law enforcement officers collect fines from violators and then allow them to continue their illegal administrative acts without correcting them.

If he does as Luo Yang suggested this time, it won't be groundbreaking, but it will definitely open up new avenues of thought for many people.

Should we open this "Pandora's box"?
He hesitated for a moment, but only for a short while before he made up his mind.

Report it!

The confession given by Chen Xiangyang and this solution should be reported together. The specific steps will be decided by the leaders.

He felt that the leaders would definitely adopt this method, because, to put it another way, it was the least likely to cause a disturbance, punishing those people while also serving as a deterrent.

Of course, this method shouldn't be used too often. If used too often, it might only have some effect in the first few times, but if used repeatedly, it will only embolden those people to become even more brazen.

Thinking of this, Li Yancheng nodded: "I understand. I will give your suggestion a good consideration."

Upon hearing that he would consider it, Luo Yang knew that the matter was settled. He grinned and said, "Then I won't bother you any longer. You go ahead and do your work."

"You came all this way just to talk about this?"

"Yes, I should go now that I've finished talking."

"Alright, since you have other plans, I won't keep you any longer. Remember to let me know when you've decided on your departure date."

"No problem," he said, waving his sleeves and leaving without a trace.

At the main gate of the headquarters, after watching Luo Yang board the bus across the street, Li Yancheng turned and walked into the courtyard, returning to his office.

Upon returning to his office, the first thing he did was pick up the phone and report to Director Gao, explaining the method of confiscating the embezzled funds and then imposing fines.

After obtaining Comrade Lao Gao's approval, someone was immediately arranged to start writing a case report and recommendations for handling the case.

Unfortunately, he had to obtain approval from his superiors before he could proceed with this.

The result was somewhat unexpected. After the proposed solution was submitted, both the city and headquarters leaders strongly supported it.

For the next period of time, the Criminal Investigation Division was extremely busy.

Except for a very few individuals who were detained for personally participating in and committing multiple assault cases, the others returned the stolen goods, paid fines, and were detained for ten days to half a month.

After going through all the trouble, it was already the end of 1980, December 27th, a Saturday, and it had already snowed twice.

"Director, phew... I feel like this winter is especially cold."

In the director's office on the third floor of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau building, after entering the office, Li Yancheng first saluted Director Dai Liwei, who had already stood up from behind his desk, and then began to speak.

"Comrade Yancheng, please don't be so polite. Please have a seat."

In early December, Director Gao Shuyuan officially retired. After several rounds of power struggles, Dai Liwei finally became the director, and like Gao before him, he also served as a member of the headquarters leadership team, rising to a new level.

As expected, Li Yancheng became the executive deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau. In addition to assisting the director in handling the bureau's daily administrative affairs, he was also in charge of criminal investigation work, and he also temporarily held the position of the head of the Criminal Investigation Corps.

However, he doesn't go to the headquarters much anymore. His daily work is now overseen by Political Commissar Wan Changyou, with the Deputy Chief of the Headquarters assisting him.

He came to the bureau chief today to report on the final results of the series of cases brought up by Chen Xiangyang.

After Director Dai sat down, Li Yancheng placed the case closure report he was holding in front of him before pulling out a chair in front of his desk and sitting down.

Director Dai didn't look at the report; instead, he picked up a cigarette from the table and tossed one to Li Yancheng.

"I heard that they collected quite a bit of money this time, including returning the stolen goods and paying fines?"

There's no place that's not short of money these days. Just clear out those people who're dealing in resale goods and you can make a lot of money. So why not get moving?

“There is indeed a lot of money,” Li Yancheng said after lighting his cigarette. “It’s just 140,000 short of a full 20 million.”

!!!

The numbers that Li Yancheng uttered made Old Dai, who had just put a cigarette in his mouth, forget to spit it out. He stared blankly at his deputy sitting opposite him, as if trying to confirm whether he was getting old and his hearing was failing, and that he had misheard the numbers.

"Director, don't doubt your ears, you heard right, it really is 140,000 short of a full 20 million."

Seeing Old Dai's expression, Li Yancheng knew what the old comrade was thinking, so he grinned and repeated the number again.

Well, Director Dai finally realized he hadn't misheard. He exhaled the smoke he had inhaled but hadn't exhaled, stood up abruptly, stared wide-eyed at the young deputy sitting opposite him, and exclaimed in surprise.

"How come there are so many?"

To be honest, Comrade Dai had never seen so much money before.

When he was the executive deputy director, he assisted the director in managing the finance department. The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau's annual budget didn't even amount to that much money, let alone a year's budget. Even the combined budgets for two or three years wouldn't be that much.

Now that the amount of money recovered from a single case, including embezzled funds and fines, is so much, a strange thought suddenly popped into his head: how should he spend all this money?

Indeed, a large portion of the annual budget of various units is not allocated in cash. In the era of planned economy, all that was needed for procurement by various units was a written order.

For example, if the Municipal Public Security Bureau needs to change its uniforms this year, the total number of people in the bureau and the number of sets of uniforms needed are fixed. Then the logistics department just takes the slip issued by headquarters to the factory that specializes in making police uniforms to pick up the goods, without having to pay anything.

Because all the factory's expenses were covered by government funding, it didn't have to bear its own profits and losses; it would ship the goods as soon as it saw the order.

This was the business model of that era, which continued until 1992, when the establishment of a modern enterprise system was proposed at the third meeting that year, marking the beginning of the reform phase of property rights system reform.

This year was also a crucial juncture for deepening reforms, as the establishment of the socialist market economy system spurred the comprehensive transformation of state-owned enterprises.

However, starting in the mid-to-late 1980s, there were documents requiring the establishment of a modern financial system, requiring each enterprise to be responsible for its own profits and losses. It was from this time that the "iron rice bowl" of state-owned enterprises was broken.

It was also from this time onwards that "approval slips" became less effective.

The requirement from above to be self-sufficient in profits and losses means that the products manufactured in the factory must be able to be sold and converted into money.

Leaving aside the digressions, in response to Comrade Dai's question, Li Yancheng bent down and reached out to open the case closure report that he had just placed on the table.

"Chief, here are detailed records of how much money each person returned and how much fine they paid."

Because the amount of money was too large, in order to avoid trouble, Li Yancheng did not let the head team handle each payment of embezzled funds and fines. Instead, he invited people from the headquarters' supervisory office, finance department, municipal supervisory commission, and auditing department to help him.

As it turned out, he made the right move.

From the end of October when the first person, Shen Bin, the cousin of Luo Yang's wife, voluntarily returned the stolen goods and paid the fine, to the mid-November when the fifth person was received, rumors circulated that Li Yancheng had embezzled funds in this case.

As for why such rumors exist, it's quite simple. In early November, a batch of precious timber and some building materials arrived at the Li family's mansion located in Ya'er Hutong. It is estimated that these items together are worth no less than 50,000 yuan, not including the cost of buying the mansion.

Many people believe that it would be impossible for Li Yancheng and Luo Min to save so much money based solely on their salaries.

If it's impossible for him to have so much money on his salary, then where did he get the money from?

They definitely lined their own pockets.

Speculation aside, no one reported it, and the rumor only circulated in a small circle among the public.

Li Yancheng knew this because Tong Xiurong told him.

Ever since this woman reconnected with Luo Min, she would visit the Political Science Academy every few days. Each time she went, she would choose lunch or dinner time to invite Luo Min out for a meal at a restaurant and chat. Occasionally, she would even join him for a meal at the academy's cafeteria.

But apart from the first time I visited the Li family, I never went there again.

She had a good sense of propriety in this regard. She knew very well that she was just Luo Min's friend and that it was enough to maintain a good relationship with her. There was no need for her to try to get closer to Li Yancheng, as that would only cause her to lose friends.

In mid-November, after hearing the rumors circulating, she took the initiative to call Li Yancheng for the first time, only telling him what she had heard.

(End of this chapter)