Nominal: The Handong Game, the Energy System's Counterattack

After the arrangements were made, Zhou Chuyi went down to conduct research the next day with his secretary and working group.

In the winter of Handong, the leaves of the plane trees lining the highway are golden, fluttering in the breeze stirred up by the wheels.

Zhou Chuyi's research itinerary was packed, and as he traveled, his heart grew heavier and heavier.

As a time traveler, he knew the overall development trend of the country over the next ten years or so.

However, seeing the specific situation of many resource-dependent large enterprises at this point in time is disheartening.

The task assigned to him by the old men was very clear, yet not simple—besides sorting out the resources of the energy system.

He also needs to thoroughly analyze the asset status, operating conditions, debt levels, and personnel arrangements of large state-owned enterprises, including state-owned assets and provincial state-owned assets.

In addition, it provides detailed sample materials on the bottlenecks and difficulties encountered in the previous round of reforms, so as to provide a basis for the next step of industrial upgrading.

The scale of state-owned assets in Handong Province is considerable, and its operations are extensive.

State-owned enterprises, provincial enterprises, and municipal enterprises have assets totaling hundreds of billions of yuan, spanning multiple sectors such as resources, manufacturing, and investment.

However, the problems are equally alarming: many companies have high debt ratios, long-term losses in their main businesses, bloated organizations, and overstaffing.

Some senior executives even treated state-owned enterprises as their own "money bags" and "private plots".

Especially in Huaizhou, northeast of Hanzhong, he experienced many different things.

Huaizhou Mining Group is a large state-owned enterprise in the province, and its livelihoods are related to tens of thousands of miners.

It also involves a complex network of social relationships—from top to bottom, from officials to businessmen, forming countless chains of interests.

Resources in old mining areas are nearing depletion, and development of new mining areas has stalled for various reasons.

The company's debt-to-equity ratio is over 80%, its overstaffing problem is deeply entrenched, and its social security contributions for retired employees have been in arrears for several months.

During a meeting with local municipal party committee and government leaders in Huaizhou.

The secretary of the Huaizhou Municipal Party Committee looked at the young vice governor with a mixture of wariness and a kind of inexplicable probing.

Some people indirectly mentioned certain practices of certain individuals when they were in charge of Huaizhou, while others insinuated that certain problems in Huaizhou's mining industry involved higher-level personnel.

When others reported on the situation, Zhou Chuyi simply listened quietly.

His face was expressionless, but the notebook in his hand was filled with crucial information.

He has never been one to blindly believe appearances, and having worked at the grassroots level and in ministries for many years, he is well aware of many internal affairs.

Those from the Provincial Government Office and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission who accompanied the research were secretly surprised.

This Governor Zhou looks young, but he is as shrewd and experienced as a veteran.

When you go to a company, you must never allow your subordinates to only give their opinion to one party.

The key point is that the issues raised by Zhou Chuyi went straight to the heart of the matter, leaving many who wanted to give a perfunctory answer feeling utterly humiliated.

Unbeknownst to anyone, before each investigation, many insiders would send some materials to Secretary Lin Xiaofeng in advance.

Zhou Chuyi's preparations were more thorough than anyone had imagined.

Zhou Chuyi's research work appeared to be progressing smoothly, because he rarely expressed his opinions.

However, the occasional instructions he gave made the subordinates who accompanied him on the research both admire him and feel a heavy pressure.

Those familiar with internal affairs knew that this vice governor seemed to have come and gone in a hurry.

However, its discerning eye and ability to grasp the core issues are by no means as simple as just skimming the surface.

It seems that with just a simple visit of one or two days, this young member of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee was able to know where the money for a certain project went and the cause-and-effect relationship behind every decision.

This insightful perspective sends chills down the spines of many with guilty consciences.

However, the provincial government officials who accompanied Zhou Chuyi on his research trip were full of admiration for him.

Time flew by in the daily research and visits.

Starting from Jingzhou, we traveled through Lüzhou, Lincheng, Yantai, Huaizhou, and so on.

Zhou Chuyi traveled to almost all the important industrial cities and clusters of state-owned enterprises and provincial state-owned assets in Handong Province.

During the investigation, information provided by internal cadres was combined with on-site visits.

He has seen too many problems and conflicts, and has also discovered many unreasonable phenomena.

At the same time, it was noted that many grassroots state-owned enterprise cadres and employees are struggling to survive in the face of resource depletion and increasingly severe environmental conditions, and are in urgent need of reform and transformation.

During this period, Zhou Chuyi's secretary, Lin Xiaofeng, received several phone calls from Qi Tongwei, inquiring about the governor's itinerary and return date from the research trip.

Qi Tongwei was clearly in a hurry, after all, he already knew that Deputy Director Luo Junzhen had gone to report to Zhou Chuyi on behalf of the provincial department.

As soon as there were any new developments in Zhou Chuyi's research trip, he would come to inquire about the news, hoping to schedule a time for the report as soon as possible.

However, Zhou Chuyi didn't seem to be in a hurry.

During the research process, Zhou Chuyi kept himself fully occupied with his schedule.

In the morning, we inspect the site and check the accounts; in the afternoon, we hold discussions and conversations; and in the evening, we write research summaries and organize the day's data and information.

Sometimes I'm busy until 11 or 12 at night, and the lights in my room are still on.

When Secretary Kobayashi went in to deliver documents, she could always see him hunched over his desk.

With a furrowed brow, he scribbled on the paper with his pen, leaving behind dense annotations and question marks.

Days like this went on, one after another, and before we knew it, a week had passed.

......

During the few days that Zhou Chuyi was away in Jingzhou for research, Luo Junzhen, Zhao Dehan, Sun Liancheng, and Cheng Du received instructions from Zhou Chuyi.

Without the slightest slackening, after obtaining approval from the provincial government.

A special task force was quickly established to address the major public safety hazards posed by the wind farm, and various tasks were carried out intensively.

To support this operation, the provincial government issued a special notice from the General Office of the People's Government of Handong Province on solidly carrying out fire safety prevention work at the end of the year and the beginning of the new year.

At the same time, the Provincial Fire and Rescue Corps also issued the "Notice of the Handong Provincial Fire and Rescue Corps on Implementing Winter and Spring Fire Prevention and Control and Carrying Out Comprehensive Fire Safety Inspections".

With the provincial-level safety and fire inspection deployment in place, the provincial department and fire brigade came to Dafeng Factory under the pretext of fire inspection.

When the factory security team saw the fire department personnel, they refused to let them enter the factory area for inspection.

Afterwards, Sun Liancheng, the district head of Guangming District, carried documents from the provincial government and the fire brigade.

After explaining to these people for half an hour, I finally led them into Dafeng Factory.

After on-site investigation and confirmation, the firefighters leading the team confirmed that more than 20 tons of gasoline were indeed stored inside the Dafeng factory.

The team was led by Jiang Huamin, the director of the Fire Supervision Department of the Provincial Fire Brigade.

After understanding the situation, they summoned Zheng Xipo, the person in charge of Dafeng Factory at the time and the chairman of the labor union.

"Chairman Zheng, where did your factory get these twenty-odd tons of gasoline?"

......