The Fiery Era: Becoming an Industrial Giant

Chapter 206 Decentralization of Power: The Experiment Begins

There was nothing that could be done when the mission came. Although Guo Yuting was a little unhappy when she found out about this, she could understand because she had always known that her father was busy.

Guo Yuting remembers that when he was in high school, his father was always busy and not at home, and his brother went to join the army.

She was very happy at home by herself. When she ran out of money, she would ask her family for more, and she didn't mind buying clothes and snacks.

In the end, it was only after Guo Linhua finished his school affairs that he took the time to severely punish Guo Yuting, which made her reconsider her ways and prevent her from going astray.

Although she later experienced some new youthful ideas, she was corrected and returned to family life after marrying Zhou Zhiqiang.

Hearing that it was a task assigned by the ministry, there was no way to refuse, and Guo Yuting could only sigh and understand.

Fortunately, she won't be able to leave until April or May, so it's not particularly bad news for her.

Staying at home for this long is enough.

These past few days after the Lunar New Year.

Zhou Zhiqiang took his family out for two days, but they didn't go anywhere too far. They just strolled around Beihai Park nearby.

Guo Yuting wanted to go with them, but her mother-in-law, Mei Xiuxue, stopped her because of her big belly. Her due date was less than a month away, and she still wanted to go out and play. Her mother-in-law just poked Guo Yuting home to rest with a few fingers.

Finally, he watched with a displeased expression as Zhou Zhiqiang took the children out to play.

The park is poorly managed during holidays, and many activities are suspended. In the end, Zhou Zhiqiang could only take a few children for a walk by the lake.

With his instructions and warnings, the children did not go into the water, and Zhou Zhiqiang kept a close eye on them.

He personally supervises the children, so their safety is absolutely guaranteed; even groups of human traffickers, as long as they don't carry guns, would never be able to steal the children from Zhou Zhiqiang.

If it were the era of cold weapons, Zhou Zhiqiang wouldn't use his super intelligence; instead, he would use his super strength.

After leaving the park, Zhou Zhiqiang took them to a special store, where each of them bought something. In the end, even four-year-old Zhou Bocai was stuffed with coffee candies.

Special supply stores are for high-ranking cadres and require special tickets; although Zhou Zhiqiang's rank is not high enough to be a full-time secretary or driver, he can still receive these special supply tickets for in-demand goods on time every month.

After Director Ren lost his New Year's goods to Zhou Zhiqiang last time, he bought them from the special goods store during the Spring Festival. This store is the only one that stays open during the Spring Festival.

After playing, the children bought a lot of food and went home satisfied.

However, this relaxed period did not last long. As soon as it was time to start work, Zhou Zhiqiang returned to the factory to work.

The first day of work was a meeting of all factory cadres.

Assigning tasks, supervising production, and getting the entire factory into production mode quickly are the things that cadres should take the lead in doing.

The Second Machine Tool Plant performed very well last year, and Zhou Zhiqiang doesn't need to say much for the new year. Anyway, the production tasks have already been determined, and the workers just need to put in their best effort to produce after they arrive.

The production and testing department needs to pay more attention. Machine tools for export must be absolutely flawless and there can be no quality problems.

They probably won't have a moment's rest every month, as the technical department will be constantly checking things out.

Zhou Zhiqiang also oversees the CNC machine tool project team. He usually sets the general direction for production within the factory and then delegates the specific management and execution to Deputy Factory Director Liu.

He hadn't expected this before, but even so, he couldn't be accused of being power-hungry.

However, during today's meeting, Zhou Zhiqiang specifically instructed that after Director Liu signed his name as the factory director, Secretary Li must also sign his name.

Major matters in the factory, such as monthly machine tool exports and factory expenditures exceeding 20,000 yuan, require the signatures of both the factory director and the party secretary to be effective.

It was a bit of a hassle, but it was just one more procedure, and Zhou Zhiqiang was always cautious; he didn't want to leave himself any weaknesses that could be exploited.

They talked about a lot of other things, but it was all about production.

Grandma Jin's task at the Second Machine Tool Plant was still production overtime, production overtime; other departments were all in service of production efficiency.

The mushroom cultivation workshop will definitely be closed down after this year's autumn harvest. We'll buy some production machinery and equipment to turn it back into a production workshop.

Fortunately, the Second Machine Tool Factory still has more than 100 openings this year. We can transfer some experienced workers over there and make use of the new workshop.

After finishing discussing almost everything that needed to be said in the meeting, Zhou Zhiqiang adjourned the meeting, got up to return to his office, and called Factory 190 to inquire about the testing of the integrated circuit's logic function.

However, Zhou Zhiqiang had just stepped out of the meeting room when Secretary Li called him back.

"Director Zhou, what happened?"

After Secretary Li and Zhou Zhiqiang reached a secluded spot, Secretary Li asked in bewilderment, "Why are you suddenly asking me to sign something? And it's about production matters. I don't know much about production. Asking me to sign something is like a joke."

We were in a meeting just now, so Secretary Li didn't directly refute it.

If he were to argue with Zhou Zhiqiang at the meeting, word would spread that the Party Secretary and the Factory Director of the Second Machine Tool Plant were at odds, ruining the promising future of the plant.

"Secretary, I had no other choice but to say that."

Zhou Zhiqiang sighed and said, "A few days before the New Year, some people said that I was abusing my power and that I was making arbitrary decisions in the factory and ignoring the Party Secretary's leadership in production."
"Can I really do this without your signature? If things continue as they were before, I might not even be able to control production and would be directly quarantined and sent for investigation."

"when did it happen?"

Secretary Li was bewildered after hearing this, but he quickly realized that it was probably something that higher-level leaders had said in a meeting, and then Zhou Zhiqiang found out. Maybe it was Director Ren or Deputy Leader Wu who told him.

As a result, at the first meeting after the New Year, Factory Director Zhou invited him to participate in the factory's production management.
But he's the Party Secretary, not the factory director!
Now it's a factory director responsibility system under the leadership of the Party Secretary. The factory director is in charge, not the Party Secretary!
Moreover, Li Younian doesn't understand production. What if he makes a mistake if he's put in charge?
The factory is currently producing for export orders. If something goes wrong, he, as the Party Secretary, will bear even greater responsibility. In that case, he will definitely be held accountable for interfering in things he shouldn't have.

Just like in the military, the political commissar won't interfere too much with military planning, otherwise you'll be the first to be held responsible if something goes wrong. "Who's talking nonsense like that? The Second Machine Tool Factory is doing just fine; it's not their turn."

Li Younian was about to complain a few words, but when he saw Zhou Zhiqiang make a shushing gesture to him, he immediately stopped.

The person who said Zhou Zhiqiang must be of a high rank, so he couldn't complain about it in private.

"But Director Zhou, we should know what's going on in our factory. Why should we change things just because of what they said?"

"No, no, Secretary Li, let's be more formal. I'll have to trouble you a bit more from now on."

After waving his hand, Zhou Zhiqiang gathered some more people and said in a slightly lower voice, "In three months, after I've arranged the factory's production tasks, I might have to go on a business trip for a while."

"When the time comes, you, as the Party Secretary, will definitely be making decisions about things at the factory, so consider this a trial run."

"How can this be allowed, Director Zhou?"

"Secretary Li, I need to make another call. Let's leave it at that. Call me if anything goes wrong."

After saying this, Zhou Zhiqiang waved goodbye and walked towards his office.

Leaving Secretary Li alone, he muttered a final curse to himself before heading towards his office.

I don't know who was the one who said those few words, but it brought him such a huge workload.

It would be one thing if it were just a job, but the problem is that he doesn't understand the job, and he has to take responsibility for his mistakes.

This is no less absurd than removing the military commander before the war even begins and then putting the political commissar in command.

------

After returning to his office, Zhou Zhiqiang made a phone call and immediately told his driver to wait for him downstairs.

After getting into the car, we drove towards Factory 190.

When Zhou Zhiqiang arrived at Factory 190, the security guard at the gate glanced at him and let him through. Now, returning here is just like returning to the Second Machine Tool Factory. The people serving food in the canteen all recognize him, and most of the factory's employees also know him.

After getting out of the car, Zhou Zhiqiang walked towards the technical department. When he got to the door, he pushed it open and went inside. He saw a group of people gathered around a table, seemingly discussing something.

"Comrade Zhiqiang has arrived. We were just discussing the test procedures and were waiting for you."

Zhao Chenghui waved to Zhou Zhiqiang and said.

Zhou Zhiqiang casually placed his briefcase on the table, then leaned over to take a look.

The test bench design is complete; the core equipment consists of only a few items, such as a single-trace oscilloscope, a mechanical pulse signal generator, and a vacuum voltmeter, among others.
We should start by testing and verifying the functionality of the basic logic gates, since there are so many logic gates that we need to debug and verify them one by one.

Then, if all the static logic, combinational logic functions, etc., pass the tests, then their integrated circuit can be considered successfully developed.

Zhao Chenghui, who was standing to the side, said, "The equipment is a bit old, and the testing platform is also quite rudimentary."

"But there's nothing we can do, Comrade Zhiqiang. This is all the resources we can offer; even these few pieces of equipment took us a long time to negotiate with the Russians before we could buy them."

"They have imposed a very tight block on us on some key technological equipment."

"That's fine. Let's start with simple logic testing. As for the more complex system integration and instruction set verification, that's something for later."

We have to take it one step at a time. To be honest, at this point, I think the chances of success are very high.

Zhou Zhiqiang looked at the test procedures and spoke.

When he said the last sentence, "The hope is already very high," he had already reviewed all the experimental and testing procedures discussed by the CNC team.

He also compared it in his mind with what he had expected, and the integrated circuits he manufactured had no problems, with a success rate of at least 90%.

"Is the testing platform ready?"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Chenghui replied, "It'll be ready soon, this afternoon. The equipment was all applied for from the ministry, and it was delivered shortly after I called this morning."

"That's good. Once this step passes the test, we won't be far from manufacturing CNC machine tools."

Zhou Zhiqiang said with a smile, "This machine tool has been in operation for more than a year, it's time to finish manufacturing it and put an end to its operation."

"Hey, Comrade Zhiqiang, are you showing off? It's already unimaginable that you could develop a CNC machine tool comparable to the world's top standards in such a short time!"

Zhao Chenghui pointed at Zhou Zhiqiang, then said with a smile, "Moreover, for our Factory 190, the most valuable component is still the silicon transistor."

After we sent the performance test report to the computer research institute, they immediately replied that they would redesign and develop the computer, and that the resulting computer would definitely be more powerful.

"It can be used in many places across the country."

Zhou Zhiqiang asked, "Comrade Chenghui, have you told the Computer Research Institute about our integrated circuits?"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Chenghui shook his head and said, "No, it hasn't passed the test yet. What if it fails? Wouldn't that be a waste of time?"

"If you tell them after you succeed, they might immediately start requesting your production data to develop other computers."

Zhou Zhiqiang said with a smile, "No matter what, your factory must reserve a share of CNC machine tools for me."

(End of this chapter)