My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 714 One trick, and you're set for life
No matter how much hype they gave it before, the West Wharf was still far from being up to par in the eyes of experts.

The largest berth is for bulk carriers with a capacity of 3.5 tons, while the container berths are still equipped with simple gantry cranes.

Last year, the total number of containers shipped was less than 30,000, averaging only 80 per day.

Only seven-thousandths of that in Hong Kong!

The throughput is only equivalent to that of Singapore plus one day throughout the entire year.

They neither have that much cargo volume nor that much capacity.

It all depends on Wei Dong making empty promises.

With the installation of the two shore cranes completed, the West Wharf finally took on the rudiments of a modern wharf.

The sparsely packed containers at the dock, with a relatively small actual area and only two quay cranes, mean that the throughput and operational processes are still far from adequate.

Wei Dong had been thinking about how to make the West Wharf look less deserted.

You can't blame Lao Fang for strictly controlling things to avoid the frenzy and overheating that's happening in the city, but he still needs a lively atmosphere to encourage discussion.

Now, this inexplicably new aircraft carrier seems capable of undertaking this important task.

So we immediately started the interior and exterior renovation.

And they acted immediately, using large trucks to purchase tons of colored anti-rust paint from the Yuezhou Paint Factory.

Although there aren't as many colors and patterns available due to current product limitations.

But sky blue, pure white, and bright red are also fine; buy whatever you have.

As long as it looks bright and cheerful, that's fine.

Hundreds or even thousands of construction workers, receiving overtime pay, were suspended on the ship's side, polishing and removing rust, applying primer, and then topcoat.

Someone even invented a method to easily and extensively brush the inner curve of a boat hull by using a bamboo pole several meters long to hold a roller.

Everyone knows that this "building" at sea was cleared out to serve as a dormitory. The soldiers of the infrastructure regiment, who are used to living in prefabricated houses or even simple bamboo sheds, have extremely strong combat capabilities.

Within a few days, you can see the entire ship as if it has been swept across by a high-speed printer.

All parts above the water surface quickly transformed.

They magically transformed the dilapidated and worn-out steel behemoth into a colorful marvel that posed no military threat whatsoever.

There are no patterns or designs; you just need to paint out the colors you purchased, in vertical stripes two or three meters wide.

The varying widths of the fabric created a strange kind of beauty, reminding Wei Dong of the vibrant ethnic styles he had seen on the plateau.

Previously, Lao Fang had to serve the industrial development zone in everything he did. After seeing these fancy things, he surprisingly agreed to allocate electricity according to the company's needs and transmit the still precious and scarce imported electricity to the ship.

Drive those beautiful painted lights to illuminate the giant beast in an amusement park style.

Wei Dong made an even more ingenious request to hang red and white striped sunshades all over the flight deck, not only to make it look nice at night, but also to reduce the high temperature of the entire deck being directly exposed to the sun during the day.

This way, the new galvanized iron ventilation ducts can transport and replace the air in the cabin without straining the system.

Fortunately, before summer arrives, a large water-cooled air conditioner, custom-made by Shangzhou Machinery Factory, can be installed at the stern of the ship. It will be delivered and installed in a few months, ensuring that the temperature inside the entire ship remains cool and comfortable.

The internal renovations are rather bizarre.

The front cabin was cleared out and divided into dozens of dormitories to accommodate thousands of people. The rear cabin, which was originally intended for officers, pilots and technicians, was divided into hundreds of rooms for couples with families, especially those with children.

Finally, the central hangar hall serves as a connecting transfer point between the front and rear cabins, as well as an office area for infrastructure and tourism companies.

The original five- or six-meter-high hangar could be transformed into a two-story atrium, similar to a factory office area, to accommodate a considerable number of employees.

Having just received the news, Liu Xiaoyong brought several design technicians from Shanghai, originally intending to immediately come up with a plan to renovate the interior of the two buildings that Li Xuehong had finalized, turning them into a hotel.

Seeing the commotion on the giant ship, he quickly offered his advice to the captain: "Fire safety regulations must be strictly followed. I was studying skyscraper construction at Citibank, and they particularly emphasize these details. I'll immediately redo the interior design of the cabins to ensure a comfortable, beautiful, and safe living environment!"

This was the reason why Wei Dong wanted to send the surveyors abroad in the first place, and he happily agreed.

Liu Xiaoyong also expressed some regret: "We also brought back books of this kind. In fact, the simplest way to decorate this kind of cabin is to use woodworking and then apply fire-retardant paint. I asked them to send the books over."

Wei Dong jokingly scolded him, saying, "Isn't Hong Kong right next door? I just brought my passport and applied for the paperwork to go there and buy it."

Those people, including architecture students from Shanghai and surveyors, genuinely envied this leader who had already studied abroad.

Liu Xiaoyong still couldn't bear to spend his precious time going to Hong Kong. He called his companions to send the books and immediately led his team, along with hundreds of surveying technicians, to comprehensively upgrade the renovation plans for hotels and ship cabins in the city.

Having been able to navigate the reform frenzy for three or four years, Li Xuehong's work style had become that of a local strongman in the special economic zone.

They easily finalized deals for the building housing Fengchi Automobile Company and another eight-story building nearby. Each building could accommodate over a hundred rooms.

Her original idea was to suggest that they could buy everything. She must have known that for someone who could afford an aircraft carrier, buying a brick-and-mortar building that costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a month would be no problem at all.

The price she offered was clearly reasonable, even a bit below market price.

However, Wei Dong only instructed that the other properties in the building where she already owned several apartments be purchased under the name of the local infrastructure unit, while the other building would remain rented.

"The reason is simple: we don't care about this amount of real estate at all. Firstly, we don't want to highlight how much real estate we have at this stage, so as not to attract attention. Secondly, considering that similar hotels across the country, most branch offices can only rent them, we need to create a complete template so that we can teach the provincial branches to follow it in the future."

He Yuemei followed suit and also transferred a lot of "first-term hotel trainees" from Guangdong to come for internships: "It seems to be different from what you said about Shanghai."

Wei Dong shook his head repeatedly: "Don't follow the example of Shanghai. Shanghai has a foundation from many years before liberation. Those high-rise buildings full of historical charm have all kinds of complicated backgrounds. Pengzhen is more suitable as a model. Seven- or eight-story high-rises have only become popular in the last few years. Maybe we should find some three- or four-story old buildings with a large area to renovate as models."

Li Xuehong quietly went to find another building like that.

Wei Dong inwardly gave him a thumbs up; this prodigy's combat skills were indeed even stronger.

Then build three budget hotels of different grades in Pengzhen at the same time.

The advantage of chain stores is that the joint venture hotel companies that were previously established in Beijing and Shanghai can now easily expand to branches across the country after obtaining the relevant qualifications.

All the construction workers were readily available here. After receiving Liu Xiaoyong's rough plan, they immediately started demolishing and rebuilding walls and redividing the rooms, making the process extremely efficient.

If it weren't for the relentless construction of factory buildings, dormitories, and residential housing in our own industrial park, we would have been in a much better position.

They could mobilize enough troops to demolish the entire building in one night and rebuild the partition walls.

They also made special care to reuse the old bricks that were smashed down to build the wall.

They're being so frugal these days.

Even if it's done in two or three days, it still doesn't feel like we've really built up any momentum.

However, the renovation will be slow. In addition to the scarcity of materials, manpower also needs to be trained. Wei Dong took the opportunity to have Liu Xiaoyong and He Yuemei select more people from the infrastructure team to form a special hotel renovation team. In the future, this team will likely conquer the whole country.

It's been about ten days. The interior decoration is still underway, but the exterior of the hotel building is becoming clearer.

Regardless of the original building materials, the current unified exterior wall decoration features a clean and simple style with a touch of North American flair.

The large metal lettering signs have all been installed.

They even helped He Yuzhu's "X Computer Center" to make a similar storefront.

Learning from foreigners has taught me that some things aren't so difficult after all.

In the era before molded and shaped acrylic glass signboards, lettering was cut from sheet metal, and sheet metal ten or twenty centimeters thick was welded to the sides for added thickness. The outside was painted and the inside had lights hidden. A single character, taller than a person, might look a bit rough up close, but when hung on an exterior wall dozens of meters long, it looked exceptionally exquisite and eye-catching.

The infrastructure team even set up this platoon separately to do this job.

But none of these can compare to the aircraft carrier, whose interior is still under renovation.

The more than 5,000-square-meter aircraft carrier deck has now become a well-known "Free Night Market" for the citizens of Pengzhen, students of Pengda University, surrounding factories, and villages.

That's right, it's the kind of night market that Wei Dong set up at the North Parade Ground in Shangzhou and the Pingjing Automobile Manufacturing Plant.

First, ensure it's for your own enjoyment. The basketball court is the center, with an open-air cinema and roller skating rink on one side, and various barbecue and snack stalls on the other.

Priority will be given to ensuring that family members and even employees of industrial parks and infrastructure companies can switch to this business, and locals from surrounding villages and towns can also set up stalls here if they want.

Anyway, you can go up the gangway, which is four or five stories high, from the shore by following the gangway to participate in leisure and entertainment activities.

The open-air cinema is free, basketball is free, there are no dance halls that are likely to cause trouble, but there is "square dancing" that Wei Dong suggested. In addition, there are inexpensive roller skating and night market food, which easily attracts people.

The aircraft carrier deck is covered with waves of red and white striped tarpaulins, plus light bulbs to create an amusement park atmosphere, ensuring that at least the basketball players won't find it deserted.

Once the aroma of barbecue stalls and stir-fried seafood fills the air, the entire industrial park comes alive with the vibrancy of everyday life.

It's no longer the kind of mindless screw-driving machine that's most criticized in industrial parks.

Of course, back then, capitalists weren't as adept at exploiting people to the extreme as they would later become. After get off work, people could relax and have some fun, and they felt like they had something to look forward to in life.

For Pengzhen, where slogans like "Time is money, efficiency is life" are plastered everywhere, it still takes time to get back to work.

Even the cadres under Lao Fang, most of whom came from directly affiliated agencies to build the special economic zone in Shenzhen, felt that we had emphasized hardship too much in the past few years. In fact, it is possible to balance work and life.

It was only then that Wei Dong returned to Hong Kong to invite the various Hong Kong business tycoons.

(End of this chapter)