My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 558 The Gap Between People
The remaining canyon scenery was not in Wei Dong's plans.

The canyon will be completely different after the water level changes, and those who invest now have no idea what it will become in the future.

It feels like the small canyon that stretches for twenty or thirty kilometers before connects to the Yangtze River, and then suddenly opens up here, giving a sense of refreshing openness.

Standing beside that miniature ancient city gate, which is over a thousand years old, Wei Dong couldn't help but describe it to his daughter: "Look at this scenery, it's simply beautiful, I can't describe it. The distant mountains are hazy, like an ink painting, and the boats on the river..."

Xiaodie is being kind; no "Holy crap," just keep your eyes wide open and look carefully.

The old leader's voice came from behind: "So early, did you figure something out?"

If Wei Dong looks back, he guesses the old man has a habit of getting up early to practice Tai Chi, but the others haven't caught up yet.

He then laid out his thoughts: "Initially, I wanted to demolish the old city walls of Kuizhou and move them to the opposite side of the Baidi Scenic Area to gradually form an ancient town. This is because Kuizhou City already has too many buildings constructed later, and urban development cannot be affected by the various fragmented old historical sites. The old ones should be demolished and rebuilt elsewhere to play a special role in tourism."

It sounds a bit unbelievable, but considering that it was completely submerged later, this rescue operation is nothing.

So, disregarding the factor of flooding, even the old leader was a little surprised: "The city wall? The city wall of Kuizhou was demolished and rebuilt?"

Actually, I dare not say much at this point. From Shangzhou to Jiangzhou, the places Weidong visited were full of relics, including the Xishan Factory that made cameras and the Hongguang Factory that refined titanium. When they started building in the countryside, they often started with a landlord's mansion.

Therefore, when walking through the factory buildings and dormitories, you will often suddenly see similar interesting high-walled courtyards that serve as kindergartens, canteens, or clinics, and very rarely, there will be a monument marking them as cultural relics protection units.

Most of them are taken for granted and considered commonplace.

It's possible that less than forty years have passed since liberation, so what kind of cultural relic or historical site is the landlord's mansion?

But looking at it from the perspective of people forty years from now, it's amazing: "Yes, I... when I'm traveling around, I often come into contact with all sorts of experts. Every era has the significance of preserving relics. As life gets better, everyone will like to travel around, to see the Terracotta Warriors, the gardens of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the ice and snow of the north, the sea and coconut groves of the south, and the scenery of our southwest region. We have to provide something for people to see. Building a new tourist city near Qutang Gorge, where people can eat, drink, stay, sing, dance, and watch shows, will boost the local economy."

The old leader was still wearing his neat Zhongshan suit. Yesterday, when he went hiking, he simply took it off and draped it over his arm. Looking up at his surroundings, he wondered, "Are there really so many people traveling everywhere?"

But after a brief pause, he said with certainty, "It will happen. Things will definitely get better and better. Xiao Rang, you must build this place up well."

The tone wasn't harsh, but the weight of the message was significant.

This would prevent Wei Dong from having the same apprehension and fear as Director Zi: "Construction... can also be messed up. For example, what if someone who doesn't know anything comes along and insists on making this place brand new and tidy? Wouldn't that just ruin it?"

Pointing to the buildings next to him, he said, “No matter how much it is renovated and reorganized, it will never be as good as the original one. What’s most precious about this place is that there are almost no new buildings constructed later. So the preservation of the current state and the details of the renovation allow the entire ancient town to be presented to tourists from all over the country and even the world like a living fossil. My strength is sales. I can promote the ancient town as a product to everyone, but it takes a lot of effort to make the product good.”

The veteran leader asked attentively, "For example?"

Wei Dong used Shangzhou as an example: "West Second Street has great preservation value. It is another way of showing the history of Shangzhou's foreign trade. The same old houses next to the tax bureau are not very meaningful, but West Second Street has been damaged more. For example, I built a glass building there. I can agree to demolish it in a few years, but will the manufacturers on West Second Street agree? It's not enough to just use administrative means to demand relocation. We need to find a suitable place to settle down and gradually clear out West Second Street, and then invite restaurants and hotels to move in. It's the same here."

It was only when Jin Zhuoqun and his team came to film a TV series that Wei Dong's idea of ​​protecting historical sites was revitalized.

He had gotten used to it before and didn't think it was a big deal.

Now, the more I look at that glass room, the more it bothers me.

But now this house is quite useful in promoting the changes on West Second Street, so let's use it for now.

So I came up with my initial idea: "Look at the old houses on that street, aren't they all dilapidated? Old houses have this characteristic. Once no one lives there, they quickly decay without people. So protection and repair are one aspect, but people also need to live here. My idea is to exchange them for commercial housing in this county or Shangzhou. They can choose to live in the city or keep the house for their children to study in the city, but continue to live and work here. The property rights will gradually be concentrated in the tourism development company."

The old leader paced slowly: "So you're going to turn this place into a company, a business, with unified management and operation?"

Wei Dong nodded: "A street of inns, a street of restaurants, a street of salt shops, and I heard there are even old opium dens. They are all worth developing into tourist attractions. But not like the tourist area where they just make clay sculptures and glass cases and try to make money. Right now, our Jiangzhou Zoo has 10,000 to 20,000 visitors every day, and tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands on weekends and holidays. They really just use the animals as a gimmick to attract people. Selling T-shirts and backpacks with animal prints and buying food and drinks are the real money-makers. If there is no unified management here, everyone will see what others are doing to make money and rush to do it. It will be chaos."

The old leader made the decision: "Then let's do it your way..."

That's why so many people like to work hard around their leaders; the efficiency is truly high.

You Qili liked to take this route, but he looked down on prefecture-level cities and longed to go directly to the highest levels of government.

But Wei Dong learned from Lao Shi that when the leader is in a good mood, everything is agreeable, but when he is in a bad mood, things get even more ridiculous.

Therefore, his actions were precisely to avoid a drastic change in attitude after a change of leadership.

At least we should use the property ownership structure to control the situation, so that Wei Dong's current influence in Shangzhou, Jiangzhou, and even Pingjing and Shanghai will be maintained, and everything will have to be resolved through formal channels.

Of course, the county also enjoys its own benefits.

Similar to the branch of the tourism development company established in Kuizhou, the branch established here also has a 19% share held by the county, 10% held by each of the three townships along the Xiaoxia Valley (Kuimen), and 51% held by the tourism headquarters. The tourism company does not hold the operating rights of the scenic area, but only owns the commercial property rights of the investment projects, and then shares the profits with the shareholders. Its main role is to provide professional guidance and supervision.

Shangzhou Tourism Development Corporation is a privately owned enterprise with independent legal person status. The city government holds 20% of its dividend-paying shares as a special tourism fund.

Looking back from the perspective of 30 or 40 years from now, there are many shady dealings in this structure.

At the very least, how much profit a company makes is ultimately up to Wei Dong, the legal representative.

No matter how many tourists or how much advertising expenses are incurred, it can all be offset.

If Wei Dong were just an ordinary merchant from Shangzhou, the counties and even the townships here could easily control and restrain him.

But as a pioneer of reform, his investment scale in Shangzhou alone has made other counties and townships envious. During the yacht conference on the way back, someone even suggested that he should invest in the county to build real estate.

Shangzhou is now the birthplace of the earliest commercial housing in the country, which is why Wei Dong previously only worked as a consultant for a real estate development company in Jiangzhou, assisting with the "collective housing construction" model.

The new urban area of ​​Shangzhou Beijiaochang Industrial Park was the first to openly sell newly built houses to the public.

People from all over the country came to visit, investigate, and learn from the experience of the reform series of reports on the TV station. They witnessed the construction of the entire new urban area, obtained the complete set of operating procedures, and even printed and distributed the documents!
It can be said that Shangzhou is taking on the challenge of economic system reform, a status unique to Jiangzhou, and is bracing itself for the worst.

If anything goes wrong in the construction and sale of this apartment, the former leader will take full political responsibility.

Of course, the solution devised by Wei Dong and Chi Shiming was indeed flawless.

You might not be able to learn it elsewhere, even if you wanted to.

Will the local government dare to take such responsibility? Does the developer have the start-up capital? Does the construction company have the complete construction capabilities? Can the bank guarantee that the loan will be issued without any issues?

If anything goes wrong, the whole thing will collapse.

Therefore, the "Suggestions and Guidelines for Real Estate Development in Shangzhou" repeatedly emphasized that these aspects must be strictly controlled.

This, in turn, frightened many places into acting cautiously.

For example, these counties are all asking prefecture-level cities to provide guidance on development.

The original intention was to have the city take the lead and assume responsibility; I wasn't thinking about getting a big piece of the pie.

Wei Dong really wanted to say, "Both of your counties are destined to be flooded in the future, so what's the point of developing and building them?"

I could only make eye contact with the leader from Kuizhou who had discussed the water level with me. The leader immediately understood and took over the conversation, discussing how the higher authorities had started requiring various places along the route to conduct relocation and resettlement pilot projects last year.

It is still in the stage of deliberation on whether or not to build the Three Gorges Dam.

In this situation, either all urban expansion plans and construction must be shelved and await decisions from higher authorities, or construction must proceed to higher ground.

For example, Kuizhou County just passed a resolution before the Lunar New Year to build a new county government building and the entire county government compound. What should be done?
Although Xiaoxiakou County is located within the Three Gorges area, its town is built on a steep slope, so even if the water level is raised, it will not be completely submerged, and there is more room for relocation and construction to higher ground.

Kuizhou County is entirely situated on a riverbank. In ancient times, this area was used to block the river for military operations, and the mountains behind it are also very steep.

If we consider building a dam to store water, we would have to move the county government to a mountainside, which would be far from the county seat and the people. Moreover, there is still no decision from higher authorities. Moving it to a mountainside or somewhere else now seems a bit too far-fetched.

But this is precisely the point Wei Dong made last time, highlighting the difference between him and Director Zi: "Yes, the higher-ups definitely have a comprehensive plan, a holistic approach, which differs from the starting point of our respective counties. So what we need to consider is how to conform to this holistic plan, how to do what is most conducive to overall development. Why build the Three Gorges Dam? Downstream, it's to prevent floods and control flood peaks; upstream, it's to raise the water level and increase the carrying capacity of 10,000-ton ships entering the upstream area. So, will the dam be built?"

After a brief pause, he gave his conclusion: "It will definitely be built. The dangers of the Yangtze River flood peak are obvious. Jiangzhou has been designated as a national pilot city for economic system reform. This shows that the dam must be built. Even the existing dam is designed to accommodate 10,000-ton ships. So, a new one will definitely be built in the future. The reason for the consideration and weighing of the situation is probably because of the impact of building the dam. How large a scale of relocation and resettlement will be required in the counties near the dam? Shouldn't the areas along the river be considering how to overcome all difficulties and share the burden of solving the problem as much as possible? Therefore, I think the construction of the county government building can be postponed, and the focus should be placed on studying the series of tasks brought about by the dam's water storage."

Upon hearing this, Wei Dong couldn't help but lead the applause, knowing that this person's future was definitely bright.

The problem-solving approach is clear, and the answer is precise.

Moreover, last time, just seeing that the Beijiaochang New City that Wei Dong had developed was at a high level, I realized that he seemed to have left room for maneuver.

Their vision goes without saying.

However, when Wei Dong looked up and saw his old leader slowly clapping, but his eyes were on him, he quickly restrained himself.

You might accidentally give yourself away.

(End of this chapter)