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

In recent years, He Yuzhu has been thriving in the Special Security Division of the Central Security Bureau, but he has maintained his low profile and kept a low profile. Only his increasingly sharp and menacing eyes make people afraid to look him in the eye.

He went straight into He Daqing's room.

"Dad, I'm back to pack some things. I'm going on a long business trip soon," He Yuzhu said as he stuffed a few changes of clothes into his tactical backpack.

He Daqing was sitting on the kang (a heated brick bed) smoking when he heard this and was taken aback: "A long business trip? Where are you going? It's almost the New Year."

"Go to Shanghai. Jiangdong New Area." He Yuzhu lowered his voice, a chilling murderous glint in his eyes. "The commander personally gave this order. Jiangdong is going to be developed on a large scale, and a large amount of foreign investment and foreign construction teams will soon flood in."

He Yuzhu zipped up his backpack and gave a cold laugh.

"When the waters get muddy, all sorts of scoundrels want to sneak in and fish. Foreign commercial spies want to steal our construction data, while local gangsters and thugs want to hold out in that lucrative area and extort money from the country. The commander sent me with a special operations squadron to Shanghai to be fully responsible for the initial security and counter-espionage work in the Jiangdong New Area."

He Yuzhu slung his backpack over his shoulder, stretched his thick neck, and his joints cracked.

"Anyone who dares to cause trouble in the area designated by the leader, I'll make them eat like a turtle at the bottom of the Huangpu River!"

Looking at the fierce aura emanating from his son, He Daqing knew he was about to do something big. He nodded and tapped his pipe.

"Go. Protect the commander's plate. Be extra careful."

Time is like a tireless, rampaging beast.

Spring of 1980.

Shanghai, on the banks of the Huangpu River.

The muddy beach in Jiangdong, which used to be covered with reeds, has now been transformed into a bustling super construction site.

Countless heavy excavators and bulldozers roared wildly through the mud. Hundreds of construction trucks, loaded with stones and soil, shuttled back and forth day and night.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the "Jiangdong National New Area and Guomao Building Phase I Project" is being held here.

There were no red tape or elaborate displays of pomp and circumstance.

There were only a few hundred engineering technicians wearing safety helmets and armed police officers in full gear responsible for perimeter security on site.

Lin Yang, wearing a black jacket and a yellow hard hat, stood on the muddy construction site.

To his left was Zhou Dingbang, the Party Secretary of Shanghai, whose face was filled with shock and excitement; to his right was Lou Xiao'e, dressed as a strong woman under the pseudonym "Chairwoman Lou".

Not far away on the river, several huge military engineering vessels were anchored steadily in the middle of the river. Giant bridge steel columns, which were being produced day and night by several special steel plants under the Ministry of Heavy Industry, were being lifted high by the heavy cranes on the ships.

Those are the main steel columns of the piers of the first cross-river bridge that will soon connect Jiangxi and Jiangdong.

"President Lin," Zhou Dingbang said, his voice trembling as he looked at the magnificent, world-changing scene, "Amazing!"

I never imagined that in just a few months, the funding would arrive, the policies would be implemented, and even the engineering corps to build the bridge would come in. You truly created a miracle on this muddy land!

Lin Yang did not look at Zhou Dingbang.

His gaze was fixed on the massive steel pillar on the river, weighing hundreds of tons and resembling a pillar that stabilized the sea.

"This is not a miracle. It is the inevitable result of the rejuvenation of a great power."

Lin Yang's voice pierced through the deafening roar of machinery on the construction site, exuding an unparalleled domineering aura of someone who could rule history.

He suddenly raised his right hand and forcefully swung it downwards in mid-air.

"Drive the piles!"

Accompanied by a command that pierced the clouds.

The heavy military pile driver on the river roared like an ancient dragon.

At that moment, the enormous hydraulic hammer, carrying immense force, slammed down on the top of the main steel column.

boom--!

The dull thud caused the land on both sides of the Huangpu River to tremble violently.

That giant steel pillar, representing the indomitable will of the new era, forcefully pierced through the murky river water.

With an unstoppable momentum, it sank deep and firmly into the hard rock strata that had been dormant at the bottom of the river for thousands of years.

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The loud sound of pile driving in Jiangdong New Area still seems to echo on the surface of the Huangpu River, and a month has quietly passed.

The cold air of November traveled south along the vast plains of Siberia, pouring unhindered into the old industrial base known as the "heart of steel in the Central Plains"—Hanjiang Province.

The wind here isn't the dry, dusty cold of Beijing; instead, it's a damp chill mixed with the strong smells of coal smoke, engine oil, and rust.

Hanjiang Province, a major heavy industrial province that was built with the full support of the nation in the early days of the People's Republic of China, is currently experiencing a suffocating pain and tearing apart.

Outside the main gate of the Hanjiang Third Steel Joint Plant.

A dense crowd completely blocked the factory gate, which was over ten meters wide. Everywhere you looked, there were people wearing worn-out blue work clothes. They held up rough cardboard banners with slogans written crookedly in black ink: "Resolutely resist smashing our jobs" and "Give us back our blast furnace, give us back our livelihood."

The air was thick with a sense of irritability, fanaticism, and deliberately incited hostility.

Inside the factory gate, Pei Yihong stood alone on the hood of a jeep, like a steel nail driven into the frozen ground.

His gray jacket was covered in mud, and his hair was disheveled in the cold wind. His eyes, already bloodshot from years of staying up late, now shone with a reckless madness and coldness.

"Shut up, all of you!"

Pei Yihong held up a large tin megaphone, his hoarse voice cutting through the cold wind and drowning out the shouts and curses from the crowd in front.

"You keep saying I ruined your livelihoods! Ask yourselves honestly what exactly was smelted in that old No. 2 blast furnace that I ordered to be blown up!"

Pei Yihong slammed the megaphone onto the car roof, producing a piercing bang. He bent down, grabbed a thick rebar from beside him, and with a single effort, bent it into a breathtaking angle at his knee!

With a "crack," the bend in the steel bar burst open, revealing a substandard cross-section filled with air holes and impurities.

"This is what you call a job!" Pei Yihong slammed the broken steel bar onto the open ground in front of the factory gate. The sound of metal hitting the concrete ground sent a chill down one's spine.

"The carbon equivalent is seriously excessive! Sulfur and phosphorus impurities haven't been filtered out at all! This kind of scrap steel isn't even good enough to make a tractor track! The government allocates 2,000 tons of high-quality iron ore to the three factories every month, and what they produce is this kind of garbage that crumbles at the slightest tap!"