My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 525 Too Many Boatmen Caused the Boat to Capsize

Wei Dong was, after all, a seasoned veteran who had worked in government agencies for forty years.

The more marginalized you are, the easier it is to remain a bystander.

No one would be wary of this disabled security guard. Even Old Shi ended up planting flowers and chatting with him.

The person who walks the furthest in the workplace is never the one who is best at toasting.

We told Wei Dong not to bring any local specialties when he came back from Kuimen. Instead, we told him to bring cigarettes, alcohol, tea, and other such things when he visited during the New Year.

He only brought a small photo album.

It was during this trip back that I discovered there are now places in Shangzhou that develop color photos, and Triumph film is being sold quite well.

For everyday shooting and documentation, the Triumph Color Roll has no issues whatsoever.

For example, it doesn't matter if Wei Dong's work record photos don't have a high-end SLR camera to zoom in.

The main purpose is to take photos with a mobile phone and describe them: "Look, this is what our scenic spots are like now. Spotless temples, lifeless clay sculptures, curtains and draperies covered in dust. They're just standing there. Besides collecting entrance fees, what else can we make? When we travel, we have to bring our own steamed buns, pickled vegetables, and water bottles!"

The old leader's understanding was definitely overturned: "Otherwise what?"

Isn't that how it is these days?

Let Wei Dong, that shrewd businessman, say: "If there were an actor playing Guan Yu wielding a sword here, wouldn't the tourists watch longer? If Lady Gan were putting on makeup or dancing, or if Liu Bei were lying in bed acting out the scene of entrusting his son to someone, wouldn't they stop to watch?"

The old, white-haired leader, his hair practically standing on end, said, "This... how do you make money from this... it seems kind of interesting, but how do you actually make money from it?"

Let Wei Dong explain: "Yes, there might be fools who would choose to pay to see a dance or a performance, but that's not how it works. I've contracted the Jiangzhou Zoo, which sees a peak of 150,000 visitors a day, and even on weekdays we can maintain 10,000 to 20,000 visitors. The goal is to keep people here, let them eat when they're hungry, sleep when they're hungry, climb mountains when they're asleep, and keep them here. That's what I call consumption!"

The old revolutionary blinked hard, trying to discern if there was any violation of discipline involved.

No.

I can't think of anything wrong with it.

Tourist attractions are set up to get tourists to pay for tickets, so that there are funds to maintain the attractions, manage the scenic area, and pay the salaries of so many employees.

Wei Dong simply maximized this: "So, is it appropriate to make tourists travel several kilometers to the county town to stay? Obviously, it's too troublesome. We should create a tourism consumption area near Baidi City, where hundreds or thousands of people can work and live, attracting more tourists to stay for a few more days. That's what we call tourism economy."

It's true, having guarded the Three Gorges for thousands of years, everyone says the scenery here is beautiful, but no one knows how to turn it into money.

The two counties in this area are extremely poor; apart from a little agricultural harvest, they are definitely impoverished counties.

Everyone thinks they're begging for food while holding a golden bowl, but even a golden bowl can't produce rice.

Now so many job opportunities have been created directly.

Hearing it made everything clear.

Wei Dong was only vaguely aware of it, but he had at least visited Songcheng in Hong Kong and dared to give orders to amusement park tycoon like Uncle De: "Yes, some people might wonder how to pay the salaries of hundreds or thousands of people. We have a trump card premise: when we publicly advertise these activities at the Three Gorges Scenic Area on TVB, do you think more people will come? So we need to make these preparations based on the assumption that there will be many tourists."

The old leader looked through the photos, still maintaining his composure, closed them, and put them aside: "I'll keep them as a pledge. How was it? I heard you encountered some social conflict in Kuizhou?"

She has a lot of control.

He asked Weidong to come back and deliver the printed photos, and he came to visit the next day.

The message was delivered quickly and accurately.

Let Wei Dong not dwell on this detail: "When the mainstream attitude is that hard work leads to wealth, and there are enough opportunities to make money, there won't be so many idle people sitting in teahouses chatting idly. If we want to develop tourism, we must improve public security. Local thugs are the biggest obstacle to the experience of tourists from other places. It's better to have problems now than later."

The former leader, as if standing on the scene, asked: "Can Director Zi of the County Education and Culture Bureau guarantee the implementation of such an important task?"

Wei Dong suppressed his expression and said, "It should be fine. I think he's quite proactive in his work. We can definitely finish the walkway this year, and try to start construction on the cableway within the year. Then we can advertise and promote the Three Gorges tourism, hold events to gradually increase tourists, and make an impression on the national audience. It will probably take five or six years to actually get it on the road. And to reach the kind of tourist consumption area with hundreds or thousands of people working there that I mentioned, it will probably take ten or twenty years of preparation and accumulation. Good things come to those who wait."

That Director Zi was actually promoted to one of the top positions in the county because of his achievements in promoting the scenic area.

But because of his advanced age, he didn't advance much further.

The problem arose here: he was in charge of attracting investment and developing the tourism industry, and he had seen many wealthy businessmen come and go, especially his colleagues who had made a lot of money after going into business.

He actually started thinking about making money while still in office, and later his scheme was exposed, leading to him being implicated in a fraud case involving hundreds of thousands of yuan.

After all, anyone who sees an agreement with his signature would assume it's a government endorsement.

He ended up in jail for a few years.

This is an extremely rare case in Shangzhou, and perhaps even nationwide. It's not about abusing one's power on TW, SH, or FB, but about personally participating in economic crimes involving the forgery of official documents.

These are outrageous cases that the tax system lists every year.

Therefore, Wei Dong could observe its movements and cast his line at any time.

Wasn't the old leader observing him? "Why don't we promote him a bit, so he can better cooperate with your work?"

Wei Dong waved his hand repeatedly: "No need, no need. This is just the beginning. In the past, I mainly trained college students in the national sales system to improve their work skills. This time, I also want to try training local youth. I found two local employees from Kuizhou who work in a sanitary napkin factory to try to learn related work. Maybe in the future, it will develop into a large-scale operation and bring more job opportunities to local young people."

He's only about to turn twenty-two, yet he's so mature and composed.

The old leader couldn't help but gently comb his white hair: "I'm so happy to see you, as a representative of the young people, taking on responsibilities. I'm getting old, and I hope that before I retire, I can climb to the top of that mountain to see the beautiful land that my comrades fought for one another, and let them see the increasingly beautiful Three Gorges."

Wei Dong calmly joked, "Okay, I'll go back to Jiangzhou and urge the elevator factory to hurry up and get this cable car project done as soon as possible, so you won't get tired climbing the mountain."

The old leader quickly emphasized again that there was no rush: "No rush, no rush. We must follow the objective laws of development and ensure safety..."

Indeed, after returning to Jiangzhou, the elevator factory also emphasized to Wei Dong that safety is the most important aspect of such equipment. While they hadn't worked with single-line circulating systems, fixed grips, or chairlifts, there were already technical documents available in China that had been introduced from elsewhere; they could learn by simply looking at them.

Regardless of whether the patents come from Europe or North America, the mainland doesn't recognize these capitalist barriers right now.

The single-line loop is like a rotating sushi tray, going up on a single line, turning around and coming down again at the top. Two people are hung on each chairlift by steel cables. The core of the patented technology is the fixed cable gripper.

It can be completely imitated.

The problem is that currently, domestically, we can only maintain a distance of around 1,000 meters. If we go beyond that, we have to add a transfer station, and the cost skyrockets.

This overturned Wei Dong's previous plan to launch the cable car from the gorge where the iron chain blocked the river, and instead, the cable car traveled along the river, allowing those who walked alongside the trail to ascend as well.

It's about ten kilometers to walk from here, and four kilometers as the crow flies.

Anyway, after looking at all the photos, the elevator manufacturer suggested that the major shareholder should choose to pull it up from the back mountain.

The summit of Mount Kuimen is like a pyramid that has been vertically cleaved, with the riverbank on this side almost vertical and a rather steep slope on the other side.

Then, on the hillside behind, there was the kind of rural landscape of Beifeng Mountain that Wei Dong was familiar with: a few scattered households on the rolling hills.

There are definitely no roads right now.

Fine, Wei Dong had no choice but to ask the elevator factory to send technicians to the site to find a way out.

The only decision he could make was not to build the cable car too high, but to keep it as close to the ground as possible, and if necessary, to cut down trees on the hillside to make a path.

It doesn't need to be erected high in the sky.

There are also strong winds and gales in the Three Gorges area. Hanging on the steel cable, they blow like rattles, which can be deadly.

Running close to the ground is fine as a means of transportation.

At that time, the management of tree and forest logging was not so strict, unlike later when the tax office had to apply to the relevant departments for permission to prune, cut down, or move a large tree.

Now that Rang Weidong has completely established connections with the locals, he can still guarantee that this matter will be resolved.

The elevator manufacturer was overjoyed and sent a working group to the site.

They belong to Hongyan Machinery Factory, which gives Weidong a 60% stake. In the past year or so, they have been continuously ordering construction elevators and passenger elevators, and now they have even made the "model" for Shanghai Wanguo Building.

In a market environment where competitors either form joint ventures to introduce brands or spend heavily on loans to acquire technology, they have managed to carve out their own path and gain a foothold.

Naturally, we must closely follow the major shareholder.

Wei Dong then instructed them to upgrade their technology and plan the construction of the Shanghai-based foreign community, which would certainly not use a purely manually controlled elevator that requires an elevator operator inside.

Elevator manufacturers must learn the tricks of the trade by following the construction and installation techniques of imported elevators from that side.

We can now explore and develop the computer boards and electronic chips ourselves.

Then I completely stopped caring about tourism projects.

After all, this is a long-term business that currently only requires investment, and the construction and groundwork will take years to complete.

With the resumption of work in the spring, the immediate task is to expand production capacity and sales of various products.

The first to be affected was X Computer.

The target for this year is to sell 500,000 units nationwide.

On average, each province would need tens of thousands of [units of currency], making it quite difficult.

In addition to boosting consumer spending power, we also need to improve our own production capacity.

The production capacity of Jinling Plant has increased to five or six hundred units per day, and it is continuously receiving orders from branches and sales companies all over the country.

There are barely nearly a hundred units in Jiangzhou.

Currently, circuit boards are mostly completed by manual soldering, and it will take time to train skilled electronics workers.

Previously, third-tier factories only transferred technical personnel to participate in problem-solving, but now large numbers of workers from third-tier electronics factories are being transferred and relocated to the Economic Development Zone.

The Xishan Electronic Computer Building is still about half a year away from being topped out, and the hotel, commercial center, office building and mixed-use building are only half completed.

However, the small block of eight-story Khrushchev-style buildings, which were under construction at a rush, has already been completed.

At this point, we stopped talking about individual households. Originally, there were four households per floor in the three-bedroom buildings. Now, we'll just use them as dormitories, with twenty or thirty people living on each floor. With a thousand or so people crammed into the four buildings, we'll start production immediately.

This also allows these skilled electronics workers who have been doing this for over ten or twenty years to quickly earn money so they can immediately arrange to buy a house and properly settle down in Jiangzhou.

However, compared to computer and electronics industries, the main difference lies in the faster pace.

What's even more troublesome is Hong Tiancheng's cosmetics factory.

Previously, Wei Dong had guessed that in these collectively owned factories, people might be able to endure hardship because the meals served in the same pot didn't offer much oil or fat, and everyone was used to it.

Now, they have suddenly become rich, especially Hong Tiancheng, who has clearly prospered by following "foreign investment".

The people in this factory are indeed getting restless.

The working class still thinks they are in charge.

(End of this chapter)