Development of productivity started in 1981

Chapter 153: Policies are changing unpredictably, and the direction of development needs to be adjusted

During dinner in the evening, Wang Jiankun asked about the team's plan to buy a tractor.

"Jiankun, the tractor factory can't sell us tractors now. They said there is some policy and asked us to wait. The team is not in a hurry, so I didn't tell you to worry about it.

How did you know about this? Did Wang Liping tell you? "

"Yes, he came to me for help and asked me to find a way to buy him a tractor for transportation."

"Jiankun, if you can get it, then do it. If you can't, don't force it. In the second half of this year, the restrictions on individual and private businesses seem to have tightened a bit. Many state-owned enterprises won't sell their products to private individuals or team-run enterprises like ours unless they have some connection with the company."

"Oh? The policy was tightened. When did it happen? I haven't paid attention to this for a long time, so I didn't know about this situation."

"It seems that the crackdown on private and commune-run enterprises started in Zhejiang Province next to us in the first half of 82. It mainly focused on the hardware and electrical industries, and did not allow private and commune-run enterprises to buy cars, tractors, motor boats and other large transportation vehicles to engage in trafficking. This policy was passed on to us relatively late. Last year, we ordered tractors early so we got them quickly, but this year it is no longer possible."

After hearing what his father said, Wang Jiankun asked Chieko to help him retrieve some newspaper news that he had collected in his mind to see what this policy was all about.

After Zhizi sorted and summarized the information, Wang Jiankun learned the reasons and relevant regulations of this restrictive policy.

It turned out that after two years of reform and opening up, the domestic economy recovered, but some problems also surfaced.

During these two years, hundreds of thousands of small businesses have sprung up outside of state-owned enterprises. They either operate independently or form alliances to compete with state-owned enterprises for markets, raw materials, employees, and profits.

As a result, a discussion on protecting state-owned enterprises began at the top level.

The market faction believes that decentralization and profit sharing are limited reforms, and advocates that the focus of reform should be placed on "reform of the price management system" and "reform of distribution channels", gradually abolishing the administrative pricing system, and establishing commodity markets and financial markets.

Another opinion holds that state-owned enterprise reform "must strengthen centralization and unification" and "the final destination is centralization and unification."

Some people therefore proposed the "cage and bird" theory, which means that an enterprise is like a bird and its wings cannot be tied all the time. It must be allowed to fly freely. The state-owned economic system is a big cage. No matter how much the bird flies, it should not fly out of the cage. Private enterprises and small collective enterprises are wild birds outside the cage.

The latter argument obviously gained more trust from the central leadership, so the "cage and bird" theory began to appear frequently in the newspapers.

This judgment of the central government was soon echoed by state-owned enterprises.

Soon, a large number of voices appeared in the media and internal reports across the country, all of which accused those unplanned small factories of competing with regulated state-owned enterprises for raw materials, disrupting the market order, and causing state-owned enterprises to suffer huge losses.

In short, the pilot reform of state-owned enterprises has not been carried out well, and it is all caused by the wild birds outside the cage.

Based on this judgment, the reform policy took a clear turn. The policy department clearly issued the "Instructions on Strengthening Market Management and Cracking Down on Speculation and Smuggling Activities", which stated that "individuals (including private partnerships) are not allowed to sell industrial products without the approval of the industrial and commercial administrative department", "rural collectives can traffic in second and third category agricultural and sideline products that are in excess and not purchased by the state after the collective and nearby collectives complete the state procurement tasks and fulfill the negotiated purchase contracts", and "private individuals are not allowed to purchase large transportation vehicles such as cars, tractors, and motor boats to engage in trafficking."

Wang Jiankun read the relevant policy documents carefully and found that they did not have much impact on the industries he currently supported and founded.

The lighter industry is not originally available in China, so there is no competition with state-owned enterprises, and the production of lighters has nothing to do with it. However, sales have not increased since the second half of this year. Wang Jiankun has always thought that it was because of the price, thinking that it was too expensive and the consumer base was limited, so sales were stable. He did not expect that there was also a reason for the prohibition of the trafficking of industrial products.

Those small vendors may be restricted by this policy and no longer dare to sell matches openly. After all, the matches are manufactured by state-owned enterprises, and they are certainly unwilling to see lighters taking away part of their business.

However, since Wang Jiankun set the price relatively high at the beginning, the impact on match sales is limited at present, and there has been no strong regulatory authorities.

As for the Yangtze River shipping he is running, he is doing well for now because he did not purchase ships from existing state-owned shipyards and did not squeeze out the ship purchases of the state-owned transport fleets. He also played the card of misaligned competition, specializing in serving high-end customers and some private bosses, and did not compete directly with those state-owned shipping companies.

The others are joint ventures or enterprises established in the special administrative regions, which are not within the scope of control of these documents, so he has not received any feedback on this policy issue from relevant personnel.

However, this policy is a big blow to the newly developed private economy. At least it cannot develop as rapidly as last year.

He originally wanted to have several group companies support some domestic collective enterprises and private enterprises starting this year, helping them to improve their technological level and incorporate them into the industrial chain of several groups under his control.

Now that I have seen the summary of these documents and Zhizi's analysis of future policy directions, I have decided to wait and see how this policy is implemented in various localities.

In the next two years, the only area we can invest in with confidence is probably the Special Administrative Region. After all, it was designated by the top leaders and has strong policy support.

However, if investing in the special economic zone, it must be mainly for export. If it wants to sell domestically, it will still encounter restrictions of this policy. After all, he does not want to sell products through the state-owned supply and marketing system.

Wang Jiankun quickly checked the information that Zhizi had helped him organize in his mind, while thinking about the future path, and his eating speed slowed down.

"Jiankun, is the rice not tasty? How about grandma make it for you again using old rice, which is tastier than this hybrid rice." Grandma saw that Wang Jiankun ate more slowly and thought he was not used to this kind of rice.

"Ah, grandma, you don't have to make it again. I just remembered what dad said just now and was so absorbed in thinking about it. This rice tastes okay, not as bad as I imagined."

"That's good. Eat more vegetables. If you can't finish the rice, leave some and feed it to the chicken." said grandma.

If it was the year before last, grandma would never have said that. She would have picked up and eaten even a grain of rice that fell on the table. Now that life is better and there is enough food, she feels sorry for her grandson and lets him feed the chickens with the leftovers in the bowl.

"You can finish it. The rice is just a little hard. It should absorb more water. Grandma, next time you cook rice, don't scoop out the rice germ. It might be better to add more water and cook it directly." Wang Jiankun suggested.

Because rice was very expensive in the past, in order to make the rice look more, people usually cooked the rice until it was half-cooked, then scooped out the rice embryos and steamed them in a rice steamer. This kind of rice would be looser and take up more space when served. If it was not compacted hard, a bowl of rice might actually be just half a bowl.

These were all ways that poor families devised to fill their stomachs during that era of food and clothing shortages. Many people could eat three bowls of this kind of rice at a time. Besides being hungry because there was no oil or water, another reason was that the rice was soft and not filling.

"Will it be better to steam it directly? I'll try it tomorrow at noon. It's easier this way, but there won't be rice milk for the pigs to eat."

"Grandma, we still raise pigs at home. Didn't you go to the factory to help with the work? Why do we still raise pigs? It's too hard." "We don't raise many, just two, one big and one small. If we don't raise pigs, we won't have anywhere to put the leftovers from the vegetables we grow in our private plots, so it's a waste. If we raise pigs ourselves, we can kill them and eat them during the Chinese New Year. This year we won't sell the pork to others, we'll keep all of it."

"Okay, grandma, you should not work too hard. Just go to the factory to help pick vegetables and cook to kill time. You should do less work for other things!"

"Grandma knows. You should eat more. This fish was sent by Yongjin at noon. I braised it according to the method you taught me. You should eat more."

"Let's eat together. This sea fish has no small bones and is rich in nutrition. If it tastes good, I will ask Yongjin to send some back every month in the future."

"It's delicious. This garlic meat has no bones. Oh, brother, please ask someone to send more to our home!" The little foodie sister picked up a large piece of meat from the back of the fish and put it in her mouth, saying vaguely.

"Okay, eating fish won't make you fat. You should eat less fatty meat in the future."

"Fat meat is delicious too! Okay, from now on, I won't eat fat meat, I'll eat fish instead."

"Just eat less. Some people in our team are fishing in the East China Sea right now. The fish there are big and delicious, and there are many varieties. I'll have someone send some back every now and then."

"Jiankun, can those who were sent to the sea come back during the New Year?" asked his father.

"They will definitely come back for the Chinese New Year. It doesn't matter if they don't have time to come back during other times. The distance is too far and it takes a lot of time to go back and forth. They will be given 25 days off for the Chinese New Year. They should know this news. I notified Wang Huawei some time ago and asked him to convey it."

"25 days? That's fine. Their families want them to come back for blind dates and arrange a marriage if they're suitable."

"Are you in such a hurry? I specifically chose those young ones, they are only 17 or 8 years old."

"17 or 8 is not young anymore. Most of us who got married late before did so because we didn't have money. Now that we have money, our families have to make the most of it."

"They signed a five-year work contract. They will definitely continue to work at sea after the Chinese New Year. What will happen to their wives after they get married?"

"I heard from their family that they are going together. There seems to be dormitories there. And don't they go ashore to rest for a few days every seven or eight days or half a month? So it's okay to take my wife with me. They can also do some manual work and earn some money there."

"You're not even married yet and you're already thinking about going there to make money. There are a lot of older men at the beach, so it's not good to take your wife there. So, I'll go and advise them not to be so anxious. You're still young, and there are good wives ahead. Earn more and find a better one in the future."

"Jiankun, you should ask the manager of that company to speak up. You and they are from the same hometown. Their families may not understand you, and it would be bad if they complain."

"Dad, you make sense. I'll send a message to the manager of Sihai Fisheries later. Even if you marry a wife, you can't take her with you. If you do take her with you, she can't live in the company dormitory. That place is close to the sea, and it would be bad if something happened if there were so many people mixed together."

That evening, after dinner, Wang Jiankun began to send messages to the manager of Sihai Fisheries who was far away at Jinshan Wharf in Shanghai, asking him to implement his opinion of dissuading the newly recruited people from bringing their wives with them, and then asked the manager to consider how to coordinate the conflicts between the work and life of these boatmen.

Snowflakes were flying on New Year's Day and heavy snow fell at night. The next morning, Wang Jiankun opened the curtains on the second floor. The mountains in the distance seemed to be covered with a layer of white quilt, and the accumulated snow reflected dazzling light in the sun.

Listening carefully, I could hear the sounds of children playing and frolicking in the snow outside, along with my sister's voice.

Wang Jiankun went downstairs to wash up. When his grandmother saw that he had gotten up, she cooked egg noodles for him.

My father was watching the kettle boil water in preparation for plucking the chicken. A large red-crowned rooster was already lying on the side, waiting to be poured with hot water and then plucked.

After Wang Jiankun finished his noodles, he went to watch the children playing snowball fights.

Seeing that the snow was quite thick, Wang Jiakun acted as the leader of the children and took a group of children to the parking lot where trucks were parked. He led them to gather the accumulated snow and make a tall ice and snow slide.

Then he went home and used his super powers to make a few sleds with smooth bottoms for them to play with.

The children in the village had never played this before, and they all started scrambling for it. Wang Jiankun asked them to line up and play, and not to scramble for it.

My younger sister is also a little kid and she is not afraid. She slides down the high slide and cheers loudly when the speed increases.

It was not until his father came to call him back to eat chicken that he walked home with his sister who was still in high spirits.

Wang Jiankun certainly couldn't eat such a big rooster by himself, so he shared some with his family members, and his sister also got a big chicken drumstick and a big chicken wing.

After eating the chicken, Wang Jiankun took his sister to the ski resort again and did not return home until lunch.

"You are still like a child, playing crazy with them." The father said unhappily when he saw Wang Jiankun coming back with his sister whose pants were already wet.

"Our Jiankun is still a child, isn't he? He's just tall, and he'll only be 16 after the Chinese New Year." Grandma said protectively.
"Other people get married at the age of 16, so you are not young anymore." The father muttered in a low voice.

"Okay, Jiankun comes back so seldom, so it's okay to go play in the snow and relax. Let's eat. Today's meal was cooked according to the method Jiankun said, and it tastes much better. It seems that the hybrid rice is better cooked directly, so we don't need to use that method to cheat our stomach in the future." Grandpa said at the dinner table.

"Really? Let me try it. Hmm, it's definitely much better. Not so hard anymore. It's about the same as the rice before. It smells a little better."

"That's for sure. The rice slurry is not controlled separately, so the aroma of the rice must be stronger. Grandpa, tell the team members about this method later. If you don't do this, you don't have to change the rice."

"Of course. It's not worth exchanging rice. Others only exchange rice because they want to make a profit. Now that it tastes good using this method, why should we exchange rice?"

After discussing this topic, the family ate the delicious dishes and the even more fragrant rice without saying anything else.

Relaxed and comfortable times are always short. Wang Jiankun spent the whole afternoon basking in the sun at home, and then the next morning, he rushed to the county town with a load of things prepared by his grandmother.

(End of this chapter)