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"Director, what about Guangling..."

Chen Ping raised his hand to interrupt Jiang Fan.

"Let's talk about it back in the office."

The two went back to the third floor. Chen Ping closed the door, and Jiang Fan handed him his phone. The screen showed an urgent email from the purchasing department of the Corefire Center.

Email Subject: "Report on the Unilateral Suspension of Supply by Three Chemical Raw Material Suppliers"

Chen Ping glanced at the main text.

Tiancheng Chemical, Ruifeng New Materials, and Zhonghao Fine Chemical in Guangling all sent letters at the same time, citing the exact same reason: "Due to environmental rectification leading to a decrease in production capacity, external supply is suspended, and the resumption time will be notified separately."

The three companies' letters were almost identical in wording, with even the phrase "declining production capacity" appearing on the same line.

Chen Ping flipped to the attachments in the email; scanned copies of three official letters with red headers were placed side by side. All were dated today.

No sooner had Sun Zhaohui been taken away than Guangling began to disrupt the supply chain.

The speed was so fast it didn't seem like a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Chen Ping tossed his phone onto the table, opened a drawer, and pulled out a folder. The cover read "Memorandum of Understanding on Industrial Collaboration and Linkage among Four Cities (Internal Draft)".

This memorandum was signed three months ago at the second closed-door meeting of the "Standards Alliance." Representatives from the management committees of the high-tech zones in the four cities of Nanzhou, Donghu, Qingjiang, and Beiping were each sent to agree to establish a mutual guarantee mechanism in the field of key raw materials.

At that time, Chen Pingfang mentioned that the core of the four-city linkage was not joint procurement, but joint inventory preparation.

The specific plan is outlined in Article 7 of the memorandum: Donghu City, leveraging its deep-water port advantages, will serve as a distribution and transshipment hub for overseas raw materials, maintaining a regular reserve of key chemical raw materials sufficient for at least six months' use. The reserve list will be jointly drafted by the technical committees of the four cities.

This was written by Chen Pingfang himself.

At the time of writing, the supply chain of the Chipfire Center had not encountered any problems.

Jiang Fan stood across the table, his hands resting on the back of the chair.

"Director, Tiancheng Chemical and Ruifeng together supply 60% of the high-purity reagents to the Corefire Center. If the supply is cut off for more than two weeks, the pretreatment process on the pilot production line will have to be stopped."

"It won't stop."

Chen Ping flipped to the appendix to Article 7 of the memorandum, which listed the inventory details of the Donghu Port warehouse. The combined inventory of high-purity sulfuric acid, electronic-grade hydrofluoric acid, and ultra-clean hydrogen peroxide was enough for the four cities to use for eight months.

He picked up the landline and dialed the direct line to He Jianguo, the director of the East Lake High-tech Development Zone Management Committee.

He answered after one and a half rings.

"Old He, three chemical suppliers from Guangling in Nanzhou have cut off supplies at the same time."

He Jianguo snorted on the other end.

"I just received the news too. One restaurant in Qingjiang was also shut down, but the quantity wasn't large. These people in Guangling are really shameless."

"Article 7 of the Memorandum: Can the reserves at Donghu Port be used?"

"We just checked the inventory yesterday, and all three parameters for the high-purity reagents are above the safety line. How much do you need?"

"We'll order two months' worth of stock first, using the dedicated logistics line from the port to Nanzhou. My purchasing department will send the order over this afternoon."

"No problem. I'll get the port authorities to prioritize the dedicated line, so the goods can arrive as early as the day after tomorrow."

Chen Ping hung up the phone and immediately sent a reply email to the purchasing department of the Chipfire Center, with a subject line of only one line:

"Plan B for the four-city linkage has been launched. Goods will be prepared and shipped directly from Donghu Port. Purchase orders must be submitted before 16:00 today."

After sending the email, Chen Ping leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.

The simultaneous supply disruptions by three chemical companies in Guangling were a strategic move to exploit the time difference. Under normal circumstances, there are no alternative suppliers in Nanzhou, and finding new sources would take at least a month. This one-month gap is enough to bring the Xinhuo Phase II pilot production line to a complete standstill.

Fang Zhiyuan was betting on this window of opportunity.

However, he was unaware of the existence of the four-city joint memorandum.

This memorandum was not reported to the provincial level; it was an internal agreement between the four cities, signed through a horizontal channel between the management committees. It cannot be found in the provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology's document system, nor is it accessible through Guangling's information network.

Jiang Fan moved his laptop to Chen Ping's table and pulled up the business registration information of the three companies that had stopped supplying him.

The actual controller of Tiancheng Chemical is Liu Guodong, a native of Guangling and a member of the Provincial Political Consultative Conference. Ruifeng New Materials' major shareholder is an investment platform under the Guangling Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Zhonghao Fine Chemicals is the smallest in scale, but its legal representative, Zhou Haibo, is from the same hometown as Fang Zhiyuan.

All three companies have backgrounds pointing to Guangling.

Chen Ping tapped the table twice with his fingers.

"Xiao Jiang, pull up the supply contracts for these three companies. Take a look at how the breach of contract clauses are written."

Jiang Fan spent five minutes flipping through the documents and pasted screenshots of the breach of contract clauses from the three contracts into a single document.

Chen Ping glanced at it.

The breach of contract clauses in the three contracts are almost identical: if the supplier unilaterally stops supplying goods for more than 15 working days without justifiable reason, the buyer has the right to claim liquidated damages of 20% of the total contract amount and reserves the right to pursue indirect losses caused by the suspension of supply.

Is "environmental rectification" a legitimate reason?

Chen Ping opened his phone and sent a message to Su Qingwan.

"Could you please check whether the Guangling Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment has issued any environmental rectification notices to Tiancheng Chemical, Ruifeng New Materials, and Zhonghao Fine Chemical in the past three months?"

Two minutes later, Su Qingwan replied with a screenshot.

The most recent environmental rectification notice published on the official website of the Guangling Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment was issued 47 days ago, and the recipient was a livestock farm. None of the three chemical companies' names appeared on the notice.

Without a rectification notice, the claim that "environmental rectification led to a decrease in production capacity" is false.

If the reason for the supply cut-off is not valid, the default clause can be activated.

Chen Ping saved the screenshot and forwarded it to the management committee's legal office. He added a sentence:

"The three companies that have stopped supplying us have no record of environmental rectification, which constitutes a unilateral suspension of supply without justifiable reason. Please issue a lawyer's letter today to the legal departments of the three companies, and also send a copy to the Guangling Municipal Market Supervision Bureau."

After doing all that, Chen Ping stood up and walked to the window.

In the parking lot downstairs, the two black Passats belonging to the Discipline Inspection Commission had already driven away. The sun was setting, casting long shadows on the ground.

The phone rang again.

News about Su Qingwan.

"Fang Zhiyuan departed from Guangling at 4:30 this afternoon, heading to the provincial capital. He was accompanied by two people in a car with license plate number Su D·XX738. He had arranged to meet a deputy secretary-general of the provincial government office tomorrow morning."

Chen Ping stared at the message for five seconds.

Fang Zhiyuan realized that cutting off the supply hadn't stopped him from his predicament, so he skipped the intermediate steps and went straight to the provincial government to file a complaint.

Chen Pingfang could guess what Fang Zhiyuan would say. Chen Pingfang created the Four Cities Alliance and established standard barriers to exclude Guangling enterprises and disrupt the industrial balance in the Yangtze River Delta region.

This hat is big enough.

Jiang Fan finished tidying up the documents on the table and walked to the window.

"Director, should we inform Mayor Li beforehand about Fang Zhiyuan's trip to the provincial capital?"

Chen Ping didn't turn around.

"It won't work."

Jiang Fan was stunned for a moment.

"If he goes to file a complaint, someone has to answer it. What's the surname of that deputy secretary-general in the provincial government office?"

Jiang Fan glanced at his phone.

"His surname is Tang, and his given name is Tang Zhigang."

Chen Ping's thumb stopped on the windowsill.

Tang Zhigang. During the acceptance of the first phase of the Chipfire project last year, the materials submitted by the provincial department were ultimately forwarded to the governor's office meeting through Tang Zhigang.

This person had received the materials Chen Ping had handed over and knew all the cards on the deck of the Corefire project.

What will Fang Zhiyuan see when he hands the complaint to Tang Zhigang?

Chen Ping turned around, pulled out a chair, sat down, picked up the landline, and dialed a number.

It rang three times before the other end answered.

"Director Liu, this is Chen Pingfang. There's something I need to discuss with you beforehand. Guangling might be reporting the situation to the provincial government regarding the Four Cities Standards Alliance. Could you please have the Technical Equipment Division prepare a complete explanatory document for the Chipfire Center's international standard filing documents and overseas inventory list, and submit it to the Provincial Government Office by 9:00 AM tomorrow?"

On the other end of the phone, Liu Mingyuan was silent for two seconds.

"You mean, let the materials arrive before Fang Zhiyuan's complaint?"

"It wasn't that we arrived first. Our things were already on the table before Deputy Secretary-General Tang Zhigang even looked through Fang Zhiyuan's materials."