Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

"The factory manager?"

Zhao Shanhe's fingers, which were holding the Daqianmen cigarette, suddenly trembled, and a long piece of burning ash fell directly onto the back of his hand, burning him and making him wince.

"Director Li, please don't make fun of me."

Zhao Shanhe hastily brushed the cigarette ash off the back of his hand, shaking his head repeatedly with a wry smile: "I, Zhao Shanhe, am just a country bumpkin who hunts in the forest, barely literate. I can manage to lead a dozen or so brothers into the mountains to make a living, but you want me to manage a state-owned factory with hundreds of employees? I've never done that before, and I have no interest in such a scheme!"

"Don't play dumb with me, kid."

Director Li snorted coldly, tapping the mahogany tea table with his rough fingers, producing a dull thud: "These past few months, you've led Dazhuang and his dozen or so guards to completely wipe out the gray squirrel fur market in the entire county, and you've even managed to train a force that's more disciplined than a regular army! And you call that inexperience?"

"How can that be the same?"

Zhao Shanhe gave a bitter laugh and threw the cigarette butt, now burned to the sponge, into the furnace pit: "My crew is just a makeshift operation. They'll work for money, and if they don't obey, I can fire them anytime. State-owned factories are like pigs holding onto their iron rice bowls; you can't hit them or scold them. If I, an outsider and a self-employed individual, went there, wouldn't I be devoured alive?"

"Who gave you the authority to take care of the food, drink, and toilet needs of those hundreds of workers?"

Director Li's tone was shrewd: "The factory's original leadership team will be used to manage the factory's petty employee disputes, arrange wage payments, and conduct political propaganda and study sessions. But matters concerning actual production will be entirely decided by you, Zhao Shanhe!"

"Of the foreign goods produced, you take 20% of the profits, and the factory keeps 80%!"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Shanhe frowned even more deeply.

He stared intently at the flickering flames in the furnace, his mind racing, trying to figure out what Director Li was really up to. A 20% foreign exchange profit was an astronomical figure.

"Director Li, this deal sounds like I've gotten a great deal."

Zhao Shanhe raised his eyelids and asked realistically, "But what's the factory after?"

"We're after foreign exchange! We're after the big cuts the Russians are making! And most importantly, we want Kim Jong-un to trust us!"

Director Li lowered his voice and laid down a shocking figure: "To tell you the truth, Lao Jin and I wanted to change our business model several years ago. Think about it, we men, young and old, risked our lives to get the best leather, our hands and feet chapped from the freezing cold, and all we got in return was a pittance! We shipped mountains and mountains of leather to the Soviets, who took it back and made it into high-end leather coats and gloves, which they could then sell for exorbitant prices! We only made a tiny bit of money, so why should we? That's why we had to start making our own leather coats and other finished products! We had to do some light processing."

Director Li gritted his teeth, a hint of bloodshot appearing in his eyes.

"Doing this requires a lot of capital. A couple of years ago, in order to blaze this trail, Lao Jin and I made a private decision. The bureau gritted its teeth and squeezed out a portion of its public funds, and Lao Jin personally stepped in a large sum of real money. On the surface, this was called a pilot project for public-private partnership!"

"We scraped together all the capital and went through a lot of trouble to bring back these expensive gadgets: leather splitting machines, softening machines, and vacuum drying machines. It all came from Lao Jin's hard-earned money and the bureau's savings! At the time, we were hoping that the people below could use these machines well and make good coats for export. But what was the result?"

Director Li's voice was forced out through clenched teeth: "The machines had barely arrived at the workshop, and they hadn't even been used for a few days, yet there was already a chorus of complaints! Go ask the workers why they're not working! They have a perfectly reasonable excuse! State-owned factories offer job security; no matter how much you work, you get a fixed salary of thirty-six yuan a month. Making high-end fur coats is dirty, tiring, and smelly, and you have to learn new techniques all over again. Who wants to suffer like that?"

"When the workers started to get upset, with large numbers taking sick leave and engaging in passive resistance, what were those factory managers doing?"

Director Li's face was full of sarcasm and exhaustion, as if all his strength had been drained away: "They're afraid of taking responsibility, afraid the workers will go to the city to petition and overthrow their jobs! Those bastards didn't dare utter a single word, they just shut down the workshop! They just watched helplessly as the foreign exchange equipment we worked so hard to acquire gathered dust and rusted in the damp warehouse!"

"The work stoppage isn't over yet!"

Director Li gritted his teeth and reopened the old wound: "After a few months, the factory couldn't handle the mess anymore, and they couldn't pay basic wages, so they started targeting those dusty machines! You check the accounts, but you can't find anything wrong with them!"

"Under the pretext of revitalizing the factory's assets, they secretly sold off those expensive imported peeling machines and vacuum drying machines as scrap metal! Part of the money was used to pay the rioting workers their basic wages to appease them, and the rest became holiday gifts for cultivating relationships and the factory manager's trunk full of good cigarettes and alcohol!"

These words laid bare the bloody truth of the "iron rice bowl" system of the 1980s, a system where "no one takes responsibility and everyone benefits from each other's misfortunes."

Zhao Shanhe leaned back in his chair, finally understanding the deadlock he had been in.

"So Lao Jin has finally given up completely."

Director Li revealed his hand, word by word: "He doesn't trust those state-owned enterprise officials who only know how to compromise and coast along! This time, Lao Jin and I only trust you, this ruthless and uncompromising blade! Shanhe, the new machines will be delivered to the Hongxing factory immediately. You choose the people in the special economic zone workshops, you set the rules! Whether it's firing the troublemakers or promoting your own cronies, as long as you can get things done, as long as it benefits production, the city and I will give you complete control!"

Zhao Shanhe's fingers, which were holding a cigarette, suddenly paused. This power was too much, too hot to handle.

Before he could speak, Director Li's voice became unusually heavy.

"The 20% profit from this workshop is a benefit Lao Jin gave you, but I'm shamelessly sitting here today because I have my own selfish motives. I only ask that your special economic zone factory succeed, that it can genuinely earn foreign exchange, and that it can completely revitalize those workers at the Hongxing Factory who are almost starving! I need you to use real money to set a precedent for survival for the entire city, and even the entire province!"

The matchstick in Zhao Shanhe's hand snapped without him noticing, making a crisp sound.

"The higher-ups have leaked information; the knife of state-owned enterprise reform is about to fall."

Director Li's voice trembled with suppressed fear and despair: "Those small light industrial factories in the south, they can just change their ways and go back home to do some small business. But what kind of place is our Northeast? This is the eldest son of the Republic! It's all heavy industry, all state-owned factories! Millions of mouths, millions of families, generation after generation, are tied to these rusty lumps of iron!"

No sooner had he finished speaking than Director Li suddenly reached out and grabbed Zhao Shanhe's arm, his rough fingers gripping him like iron clamps.

"If we follow the reform methods of the South, which involve smashing the iron rice bowl and starting from scratch, where will these millions of men and women find food? They'll all be laid off and starving!"

The air inside seemed to freeze, with only the howling wind and snow outside pounding against the windowpanes.

"We can't just sit here and wait to die, we can't wait for others to take away our livelihoods! We have to forge a new path ourselves, one that's fraught with hardship and bloodshed, so that these factories can survive by earning foreign exchange on their own!"

Director Li's heavy breathing turned into white mist in the cold air, his tone resolute: "You, Zhao Shanhe, are the stone I threw out to ask for directions! This job, those spineless cowards within the system can't do it; only a reckless scoundrel like you, who dares to rip a hole in the sky, can handle it!"

Director Li released his grip, picked up the cup of tea that had long since gone cold, drank it all in one gulp, and slammed the enamel mug onto the table with a bang.

"I've laid all my cards on the table! Give me a straight answer, brother: are you going to take this killing blow or not?"

……

Dear readers, after finishing this chapter, I feel like I'm not far from going bald.

Although there were only two chapters today, every line of dialogue and every logical point was painstakingly painstakingly extracted by me while staring at the computer screen.

Let me share some real information with you:

First, this is not made up. This model of "individual businesses affiliating with state-owned factories" or "bringing capital into factories to develop special economic zones" has a real prototype in our reform history in the early 1980s.

Many of the big shots of that era used this "red hat" to complete their initial accumulation of wealth.

Zhao Shanhe's "wild knife" cutting into the rusty system was the highlight of my carefully planned scheme.

Secondly, the plot has undergone a major transformation. Zhao Shanhe has officially transitioned from simply collecting hides to engaging in light industrial processing and earning big foreign exchange. I'm actually quite apprehensive; I wonder if everyone can accept this shift from "hunting in the mountains" to "factory competition"? Is this a significant turn?

Third, I'm seriously going bald! Writing these kinds of dramatic scenes is a hundred times more tiring than writing action scenes; every conflict of interest has to be plausible. If you guys thought this part was alright, could you leave a comment and give me some feedback?

Please, please, even just deducting a "1" would be fine, don't just run away! Seeing the backend data not moving, I'm even more anxious than Director Li.

I'm waiting for your feedback online; your support is my encouragement.