The Fiery Era: Becoming an Industrial Giant

Chapter 136 Chen Li: Come to my house for dinner [Please subscribe]

While other families may be worried about not having enough supplies, Zhou Zhiqiang's family has too many tickets.

They spend little but earn a lot, and Zhou Zhiqiang has been commended quite frequently.

Guo Yuting placed the child on the bed beside her, took the box, opened it, and counted the contents.

Inside, there were thirteen feet of cloth coupons alone, enough for them to make two sets of clothes, as well as sugar coupons and tobacco and alcohol coupons, all sold by weight.

"Zhiqiang, what did you do this time? Why did you give so much?"

Guo Yuting was shocked after counting the tickets. It was too much. The wine tickets alone could buy five bottles, and this was the least amount given.

The cloth ration coupons were enough for each of them to make a complete set of clothes, plus two large item ration coupons.

"This is an award from the ministry. It's because I discovered a problem and helped to recover some losses."

After glancing at them, Zhou Zhiqiang said, "Many of these are recent tickets; it looks like they'll be used before the end of the year."

"Ask your colleagues about large-item tickets; try to get some from them if possible. We don't need anything else, so you can buy whatever you think is appropriate."

"Don't worry about spending money, our combined salaries are more than enough to cover everything."

After hearing this, Guo Yuting said happily, "Okay, then I'll buy the things back later."

“It just so happens that someone at the neighborhood office wants to buy a bicycle, but doesn’t have a ticket, so I’ll go and ask him to help me.”

The couple saves their wages very easily, and now they have almost two hundred yuan in savings. No matter how they spend it, they can't spend two hundred yuan a month.

This salary can only go up in the future; it's almost impossible for it to go down.

After Fang Mengjie returned from grocery shopping, Guo Yuting helped with the cooking.

Zhou Zhiqiang was watching several children play in the yard. His son was almost a year old and was now practicing walking, albeit unsteadily. He was much easier to take care of than before.
However, during the most difficult period of the child's care, Zhou Zhiqiang was away on a business trip and not by his son's side.

It did allow him to slack off.

Compared to taking care of babies, researching technology is what Zhou Zhiqiang finds most relaxing.

Six or seven-year-old children are already quite old. Yu Jingyu and Yu Xunan were riding Guo Yuting's 26-inch bicycle in the yard.

Moreover, it wasn't even riding; it was just sitting on the crossbar of the bike and pushing it along.

Seeing this, Zhou Zhiqiang suddenly realized that if the scrap steel in China could be recycled and smelted, even the lowest quality steel could be used to make some children's bicycles.
However, as soon as the idea popped into his head, Zhou Zhiqiang shook his head and dismissed it.

Everything is now giving way to industry, and within industry, everything is giving way to heavy industry and the military.

The production of bicycles for adults is being reduced to save steel for the development of heavy industry, so his idea certainly cannot be approved.

Twenty years from now, when the heavy industry has laid a solid foundation, we may gradually start developing consumer goods and products.

After dinner was ready, Zhou Zhiqiang called the three children over to eat together.

------

Once November is over, we will enter the last month of 1958.

This year, the Lunar New Year will be earlier; we'll start preparing for the holiday in January and then begin making preparations for the celebrations.

The Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Factory was working overtime to keep production going.

It was already close to the end of the year, and the Chinese New Year was just around the corner.

Other factories may have already completed their production targets set at the beginning of the year.

However, Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Equipment Factory is different; they have almost completed their production targets from last year.

But they still have next year's, and maybe the year after next.

After all, the Canton Fair is held every year, and the country makes every effort to invite people from all over the world to visit it.

Even people from countries like Britain, Germany, and France will be invited. Whether they come or not is their decision.

Even on the last day of the holiday, Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Equipment Factory may not be able to relax.

Although the technical department wasn't as busy as the production workshop, Zhou Zhiqiang's recent work on developing a combine harvester kept them occupied.

Developing a combine harvester suitable for the current production conditions in China is not easy. It requires considering modular production, as well as improving threshing technology and operational precision.

Simply relying on the technological achievements provided by the simulation assistant is not enough. Although we can produce combine harvesters by copying them, many parts are not interchangeable.

Zhou Zhiqiang is making changes to these parts again, otherwise production alone will be difficult. If the parts are not interchangeable, several more production workshops will need to be opened.

Future maintenance will also be a big problem. If they want to sell overseas, they will definitely need to consider using standardized parts.

As a result, the technical department also got busy, but they were efficient.

Zhou Zhiqiang was in charge of the research, while others helped collect data, run errands, and calculate various statistics. In just over a month, they solved quite a few problems.

At the current pace, they should be able to produce a prototype by March or April next year to test how their combine harvester compares to Aramco's.

The progress was going well, and Zhou Zhiqiang no longer urged the technicians below him to work as he used to.

Just go to work and leave work normally, and do your job when it's your turn. That's all.

After a busy year, it's good to take a break at the end of the year; and they're not exactly slacking off, they just go home normally when it's time to leave work.

After all, the workers are already very skilled in the production processes and techniques on the front line. For more than a year, they have been producing the same batch of parts and using the same assembly process.

If you keep doing the same thing over and over again and you don't become proficient, you'll have to be reassigned.

This morning, Zhou Zhiqiang arrived at the office early, brewed himself a pot of tea, and then picked up the newspaper to read.

The newspapers were subscribed to by the factory. After they were delivered to the factory office in the morning, they would send someone to distribute them to the various departments.

Thanks to Zhou Zhiqiang's presence, the technical department was the first to receive the gift, aside from the offices of several factory directors and deputy factory directors.

If there aren't enough newspapers available that day, the factory office will prioritize sending them to the technical department.

As the year drew to a close, Zhou Zhiqiang didn't want to push himself too hard, so early in the morning, he picked up a teacup and started reading the newspaper.

Many news items in the newspapers are very useful; if you can pay attention to them, it's like you can 'predict the future'.

At least Zhou Zhiqiang knew that communal cooking had been abolished in rural areas.

Last month, the top leader criticized this behavior in the newspaper and then demanded that all regions correct the practice of "one level and two transfers".

This month, reports began to emerge from various regions, indicating initial positive results. Furthermore, most of the blast furnaces have been shut down.

However, it is already the end of the year, and many rural areas have already finished refining what they were supposed to. Iron pots and locks have become scrap steel. They can't be refined back, can they?

Zhou Zhiqiang didn't know how many resources the Ministry of Metallurgical's announcement could salvage. He had issued the notice in mid-October, and the Ministry of Metallurgical then released the announcement at the end of October.
We should be able to recover about a quarter of the losses, right?
Zhou Zhiqiang clicked his tongue and then stopped thinking about it; unless he was from the Ministry of Metallurgy, no one would tell him such a thing, not even if they had connections.

dong dong!

Just as Zhou Zhiqiang was reading the newspaper, someone suddenly knocked on the door.

"Come in."

After Zhou Zhiqiang finished speaking, Chen Li pushed open the door and walked in.

Seeing Zhou Zhiqiang drinking tea and reading the newspaper, he couldn't help but say with some surprise, "Section Chief, this is the first time I've seen you not working."

"I'm not a robot, of course I need to rest."

"robot?"

Seeing Chen Li's puzzled expression, Zhou Zhiqiang suddenly remembered that at this time, there was no research on robots yet, and even if there was research abroad, no one in China knew about it.

Zhou Zhiqiang explained, "It's a machine that can do things automatically without human control, but can do things almost as well as humans—that's a robot."

"Could something that miraculous really happen?"

Chen Li didn't quite believe such a thing existed, but she had come for other reasons, so she said, "Section Chief, my dad asked if you want to come to our house for dinner this year?"

"To your house?"

Zhou Zhiqiang was taken aback when he heard this. This really surprised him. Why would Comrade Chen Junfeng call him for no reason?

Chen Li glanced down at the ground, then looked up and said, "My mom used to visit Uncle Yu's house during Chinese New Year and invite Aunt Fang over."
Uncle Yu came back last year, so I didn't invite him. He's not here this year, so he asked me to ask if you wanted to come along; it'll be more lively with more people.

"Oh, I see. I'll go back and ask. I'm not quite sure."

Zhou Zhiqiang said, "I'll get back to you in a couple of days, Deputy Section Chief Chen."

"Okay, I see."

"Speaking of which, never mind, it's alright."

Zhou Zhiqiang was curious and wanted to ask Chen Li about her marriage, wondering why she was still unmarried at twenty-five.

In his time, it was quite normal not to get married by twenty-five, and there were even many who didn't.

But in this era, that's extremely rare.

However, this matter involves personal privacy, and asking might be met with disapproval, so Zhou Zhiqiang suppressed his curiosity.

"You can still arrange today's work, Deputy Section Chief Chen. I need to think about the combine harvester's power transmission components from yesterday."

"Okay, then I'll make the arrangements as usual."

Just as Chen Li finished speaking, someone knocked on the door again.

After Zhou Zhiqiang called him in, a technician from the department pushed open the door and said to Zhou Zhiqiang, "Section Chief, Secretary Yan's assistant said that Secretary Yan is looking for you."

"Okay, I see."

Zhou Zhiqiang stood up and said, "It would be great if you could install a telephone in our department. Then we could notify each other with just one call if anything happens."

Chen Li followed and said, "Then you, section chief, have to apply. I'm afraid the others won't be able to get approved."

I think it's unlikely too.

Zhou Zhiqiang knows his situation; he might be changing jobs soon, so why is he still making these demands to the factory?

Deputy Leader Wu also returned with the senior leader some time ago.

They surveyed the industrial situation in the south, but they didn't know what adjustments would be made next year.

However, Zhou Zhiqiang thinks next year is unlikely, as this year's economic damage has been too great, and relations with Russia are not good either.
Zhou Zhiqiang remembers that the Russians especially needed combine harvesters to cultivate their large farms.

It seems they bought tens of thousands of units from Amer.

If they can produce combine harvesters when the country starts repaying its debts, the damage to agriculture will be greatly reduced.

Agricultural products have the lowest value; industrial products, which are developed and manufactured, are the ones that can best offset debts.

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(End of this chapter)