Courtyard House: From Deputy Division Commander to Civilian, Progressing All the Way

The entire room fell silent.

Everyone stared wide-eyed at the area on the map called "Jiangdong".

In the eyes of Shanghai residents, it was a corner forgotten by the world. There were only vast reed beds, stinking mudflats, dilapidated farmhouses, and a few old dock warehouses.

There is a local saying that has been passed down for a hundred years: "I'd rather have a bed in Jiangxi than a room in Jiangdong."

To throw the nation's most valuable strategic resources and hopes for reform onto a piece of farmland with no foundation whatsoever? That's utterly absurd!

"President Lin...this...this is insane." Zhou Dingbang's voice trembled. "There's nothing on Jiangdong! No roads, no sewers, even the power grid is decades old. Most critically, there's no bridge across the Huangpu River! How will hundreds of thousands of construction workers and heavy equipment get across? By those dilapidated ferries?"

"No road? We'll pave it! No bridge? We'll build it! No money? We'll find it!"

Lin Yang placed his hands on the map, his posture upright like a pine tree, his voice like a resounding bell, deafeningly loud.

"Comrades, the great power rivalry is a contest for the nation's destiny over the next century! Western capital has already begun to shift to Asia. If we don't offer a sufficiently large and sincere blank canvas, how can we absorb this global industrial transfer? How can we build Asia's financial and trade center?"

Lin Yang turned to look at Shen Yan and decisively gave the order.

"Shen Yan, take notes! In the name of the National Development and Reform Commission, the 'Jiangdong Development Project' has been officially listed as a top-level national strategic project! The planned area is 500 square kilometers! It is divided into four core sections: a financial and trade zone, a bonded zone, a high-tech park, and a deep-water port area!"

Shen Yan immediately took out his pen and quickly wrote down notes in the thick, top-secret notebook, the pen tip trembling slightly with excitement.

"Secretary Zhou," Lin Yang looked at Zhou Dingbang again, "I'm going to cross the river first thing tomorrow morning. I want to personally step into that muddy beach."

The next morning.

Thick fog blanketed the Huangpu River, and the water lapped against the banks with a low, rumbling sound.

An old, iron-hulled ferry sounded its hoarse whistle and slowly sailed away from the dock in Jiangxi.

Lin Yang, wearing a black trench coat, stood at the very front of the ferry deck. The river breeze ruffled his coat, carrying with it a scent of seaweed and diesel fuel.

Zhou Dingbang and several leaders from the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee accompanied him, each wrapped tightly in a coat, looking somewhat uneasy in the cold wind. They remained reserved about this outlandish idea.

The ferry docked.

The scenery in Jiangdong is even more desolate than it appears on the map.

As soon as we disembarked, we were on a bumpy, uneven dirt road. It had rained the night before, and the road was covered in ankle-deep mud. In the distance, there were vast expanses of withered reeds, and a few low, dilapidated brick houses were scattered among the farmland. Several elderly farmers in straw raincoats were struggling to walk along the ridges of the fields, carrying buckets of manure.

Looking at the devastated scene, Zhou Dingbang earnestly advised, "President Lin, you see, the soil here is extremely loose, consisting entirely of silt from alluvial plains. Building skyscrapers here would cost an astronomical sum just for the foundation. Even if the government poured money in, we wouldn't see any returns in the short term."

Lin Yang ignored his complaints.

Without hesitation, he strode forward and stepped directly into the mud. His expensive custom-made leather shoes were instantly covered in mud, but he didn't even flinch.

He strode to a slightly higher mound, turned around, and gazed at the opposite bank across the wide Huangpu River.

Across the river in Jiangxi, the century-old Western-style buildings of the Bund appear and disappear in the morning mist, proclaiming the glory of once being the premier financial center in the Far East. But here, it's a desolate wasteland.

Lin Yang squatted down, stretched out his right hand, and started drawing directly on the wet mud.

"Zhou Dingbang, your vision has been limited by this river," Lin Yang said in a deep voice as he drew.

His fingers traced a massive outline in the mud.

"This area faces the pointed tip of the Bund. The water is deep enough, and the view is unobstructed. In the future, this will be the financial hub of Lujiazui in Jiangdong! I want to build the tallest skyscraper in China here, and attract banks and securities companies from all over the world to move their headquarters here!"

The fingers continue to extend outwards.

"To the east lies a vast expanse of flat land. It has been entirely designated as a national-level free trade bonded zone. All imported raw materials and semi-finished products will undergo duty-free processing here before being directly loaded onto ships for export. This is equivalent to us establishing an absolutely free special economic zone within our own territory!"

"Further south, near the estuary, with the support of the Ministry of Heavy Industry, we will build a massive international deep-water port capable of handling 100 million tons of cargo! We will manage all the logistics from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River through this port!"

Lin Yang stood up and patted the dirt off his hands. His deep eyes gleamed with a divine light that seemed to pierce through the fog of decades of history.

"This is a blank canvas. A perfect blank canvas, free from the shackles of old forces and the burdens of demolition. Here, we can draw the newest and most beautiful picture of modern industry and finance for all mankind."

Zhou Dingbang was stunned as he listened to this grand blueprint, which sounded like something out of a science fiction novel.

He looked at the few rudimentary circles on the muddy ground, then at the familiar prosperity across the river, and a surge of uncontrollable fervor suddenly flashed through his mind. If all of this could truly come to fruition, Shanghai would be completely transformed, becoming a world-class metropolis on par with New York and London!

But reality quickly extinguished this fervor.

"Chairman Lin, no matter how good the blueprint is, it needs to be backed by real money." Zhou Dingbang swallowed hard. "To carry out infrastructure of this scale in Jiangdong, just the initial road construction, water and electricity supply, and the construction of the cross-river bridge will cost at least several billion yuan. The national treasury is already stretched thin, and even if the National Development and Reform Commission has a lot of power, it can't conjure up that much money."

Lin Yang looked at Zhou Dingbang, a mysterious and unpredictable sneer curling at the corner of his mouth.

"Who said I was going to use public funds?"

Lin Yang turned to look at the surging Huangpu River, his voice deep and powerful.

"Capital has a keener sense of smell than wolves. As long as we set the stage and set the rules of the game, foreign money will pour in like the waters of the Huangpu River."

three days later.

In the old city of Beijing, near Qianmen Street, there was a secluded courtyard house inside the Ministry of Heavy Industry.

Security here has been quietly raised to the highest level, and the surrounding alleys are filled with elite Central Security Bureau officers in plainclothes.

Beside the sandalwood wooden table in the main room, Lin Yang was holding a black Go piece, staring at a Go endgame in front of him.

The light sound of high heels tapping on the bluestone slabs came from outside the door.