Chapter 460: Meeting and stealing ideas

Chapter 460: Chapter 460: Meeting and stealing ideas The county magistrate and his entourage did not stay for long, but after they left, the courtyard was still quite lively. The whole family had given themselves a holiday. The three daughters-in-law gathered together, chatting animatedly. With the few plates of peanuts, melon seeds and fruit on the table, the eldest son, Mei Guosheng, invited the elderly people who had come to watch the fun in to have tea. He was usually so composed, but now he was quite excited and had no heart for work.

Mei Jianzhong, who received the most compliments, was the calmest of all. He called Feng Zhenchang, who had stayed behind, aside and said, 'It's also thanks to you that I'm being treated like this in my old age. But as the old saying goes, "He who gives a gift expects something in return". A county magistrate coming to see an old man like me in such a big way is probably not asking for anything trivial. They can be happy,'

He pointed to his son and daughter-in-law over there, 'You need to keep a cool head. I know Yiping is doing well at the company, but no one's money comes from thin air. Don't agree to their demands just because you're hot-headed.'

'Dad, I know. Besides, even if I wanted to agree, I don't have the authority. Don't worry, Yiping and the others have thought of everything. Even he himself knows that it won't work if just one person agrees.' Feng Zhenchang once again praised his son's arrangements. Sёarᴄh the NôvelFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

To be honest, when his son started the company, his brother-in-law became vice president, but he himself didn't get a position in the group. He sighed a few times at the time, but now he thinks it's a good thing, otherwise things like today would annoy him to death.

'That's good. And also, you must tell Yiping that it is unavoidable to deal with these officials, but we are just doing business, so don't get involved with them too much and don't make things difficult for yourself. Although I have never done business before, I know that in business, you either make a profit or a loss, or you break even. It's simple. Officialdom is much more complicated.'

After you don't care about many things, you can clearly see the pros and cons. This is what Mei Jianzhong is doing now.

'Dad, don't worry about this, Yiping doesn't need us to tell him,' he said in a low voice, 'Yiping actually has connections with the mayor of the city, Fang. The mayor's nephew works at the software company. I heard him say that after his nephew helped the company do a business deal in the city through Mayor Fang, Yiping later specifically told him not to rely on these connections to get business.'

Mei Jianzhong nodded in agreement. 'That's the way it should be. If someone helps you now, do you think they'll expect something in return later? How could there be such a good thing in the world? In that case, Yiping has put our minds at ease,'

Feng Zhenchang also nodded. If it weren't for the influence of his own son, he wouldn't have been as calm in front of these officials as he is now. A farmer who has been scratching a living from the soil for decades is suddenly treated as a VIP by a county magistrate. A few compliments and it's not surprising that he'll do whatever he's asked, right?

'Yu Xuan is also very good. She has changed a lot over the past few years, becoming more and more composed and down-to-earth every year. She's doing very well! But she's not young anymore. She was born two days before *** passed away, and this year is the year of the dragon, so she's 24. It's time for her to find a husband. The young people don't need to worry about it, but you parents need to pay attention to it.'

'We can't help it, Qiu Ping often urges us, and she says there's no rush,' Feng Zhenchang is also a little worried about this matter. Fortunately, his daughter is in the provincial capital. If she were still at home, it would really be a major problem for a 24- or 25-year-old girl who had not yet married.

'Qiu Ping and I are going to the provincial capital in a couple of days, so we'll definitely urge her again.' It was time to go and visit the noodle restaurant run by the villagers who had joined the chain and had not paid a single penny in fees. This year, more and more people had joined the chain, and the restaurant could not afford to damage its reputation.

...

Whenever the leaders made an inspection, there were inevitably various meetings and speeches, and today was no exception.

The small meeting room in the town hall was packed to the rafters. County Chief Zhao sat behind a table in the middle of the room. 'I haven't been to the town much, just a quick look earlier, but there has been a lot of progress. This is such a lively street, not something you see much of in other parts of the county.

A lively street tells you a lot.

First, there are more people opening shops. Why are there more people opening shops? Because there are more people buying things. Why are there more people buying things? Because people are doing better, and have a bit of money in their pockets.

Therefore, the fact that the street is bustling not only shows that business is good, but also that our agriculture is also developing quite well.

Moreover, there have been many new buildings on both sides of the street, including the two large factories in front. This is a great improvement, and it is the result of everyone's hard work. Especially for a town like ours, which is not geographically advantageous, it is rare to have such achievements. Therefore, on behalf of the county party committee and the county government, I would like to first express my gratitude for everyone's work.'

There was an immediate burst of applause in the meeting room.

But when listening to a leader's speech, the most important thing to listen to is what he says after the 'but'.

Sure enough, County Magistrate Zhao then changed the subject. 'Of course, there are problems,' he said, smiling and pointing outside. 'This whole way over, the streets, including those around the corners, are all excessively clean, but normally, are they as clean as they have been these past two days?'

'In the countryside, people don't just clean up when they have guests. They clean up the house and the outside as well. For our Communist government, this should be a basic requirement. The town is not very big yet, and there are various objective reasons for our economic backwardness, but there is no reason for our hygiene to lag behind!'

'I'm not saying this to assign blame, but I've emphasised this issue everywhere I've been this year. Poor hygiene is actually a reflection of the attitude of our party members and cadres towards their work. Do they care about the masses? Do they genuinely want to work for the welfare of the people? My view is that if they don't care about such things around them, and let sewage flow freely and rubbish pile up, how can they care about their work?'

'There's another thing that also reflects our attitude towards our work,' County Head Zhao took a sip of water.

'When you arrive in town, the first thing you see is Jiasheng Kitchen Cabinet Factory.

I have also visited many places for investigation. To be honest, the first impression is that this factory, apart from not being too large in scale, is not inferior to those factories along the coast in other respects.

This should be a very good start. It is not easy to have a modern factory like this in a place like ours. However, have we done a good job in the follow-up work? It should be average.

As everyone knows, the owner of Jiasheng is from our town. Now the Jiasheng Group is developing very rapidly. I went to their headquarters in the provincial capital and their office building in the capital a couple of days ago. In terms of scale, this is a large group company that involves several fields and has assets of at least 500 million. Moreover, there are continuous investment projects, such as the silk base and silk quilt factory project that we are striving for this time, which totals tens of millions of yuan.

In theory, there is a sense of nostalgia. Previously, large and small, they have already set up four factories in the town. They also have a friendship with the town, and there are many sericulturists in the town. This project should be tailor-made for the town. However, why didn't Jiasheng naturally set this project in the town as well, but instead approached many other places?

Not to mention that they are businessmen, so they only care about profit. If they really only care about profit, would they set up the factory in the town? You may not know that Jiasheng has built a bigger furniture factory in Shenzhen. Not to mention anything else, just at the Canton Fair that just passed, they received more than 5 million US dollars in export orders. What an easy business!

While they got rich, they wanted to do something for their family! But why didn't they want to continue investing in the town when these suitable projects came along later? Why is it that we have such big investors around us, but instead of cultivating good relationships, we go out of our way to spend a lot of money to attract investment from other places, only to come back empty-handed?

This shows that there is something wrong with our attitude and our work.

For a small town in the mountains like ours, it is not easy to achieve a breakthrough and build a modern factory. When looking for other investments, this can also be used as a model. However, if things continue like this, it is questionable whether this model will survive.

If this really happens, who will and who dares to invest?'

When County Magistrate Zhao said this, he slammed his hand on the table. Wang Ganqing's heart trembled. Although the leader did not name anyone, as the town mayor, he naturally could not escape responsibility for these problems.

'I won't pursue what happened before, but after this, I hope everyone can change. Even if Jiasheng's silk base and silk quilt factory don't choose to be in our town this time, it's fine.

I made a commitment in the capital, in front of Mr. Jin of Jiasheng, that in the future, if there are any problems, you can come directly to me, and I promise to give her a satisfactory answer within one working day.

Jia Sheng has even more projects with even greater investments in the pipeline, so whoever makes things difficult for Jia Sheng, whoever goes against Jia Sheng, is making things difficult for all of us, is going against all of us. This also applies to other investors.'

When he praised them earlier, he spoke in general terms, but when he talked about problems later, he got so specific that none of the people at the meeting had an easy expression on their faces.

'You go to the canteen first, Lao Zuo, you three stay behind,' said County Chief Zhao, pointing at the three of them.

'County Magistrate, I want to make a self-criticism to you,' Secretary Zuo and Wang Ganqing spoke at the same time as soon as the others had left, making Huang Chengzhong wonder if he should follow suit.

'Alright, alright, you both have not done your jobs properly. I didn't come here to hear your self-criticisms. As long as you listen to what I say, and do your jobs well in the future, that will be better than anything else,'

County Magistrate Zhao stopped them both. 'I've done some calculations. According to what Jiasheng has said so far, the investment that suits us is at least 30 million yuan. Think about it: How much GDP will this 30 million yuan investment add to the town? How much tax revenue will it increase? You can't think that just because they are from the town, they will definitely invest in the town. This kind of thinking is not allowed.

Still, as I said, do the cadres in the town value Feng Zhenchang as much as I do?'

'Yes, County Magistrate, we haven't done our jobs well enough. To remedy the situation, I have two ideas. The first is to discuss with the town hospital and ask them to send a doctor to Fengjiachong twice a week to provide medical services, so as to solve the problem of difficulty in seeking medical treatment.

Second, as many people from Fengjiachong have returned in the past two years, we will help to strengthen the teaching staff at the village primary school to solve the education problem that parents are worried about.' Wang Ganqing eagerly told Huang Chengzhong the two ideas.

County Magistrate Zhao was very pleased to hear this, saying, 'That's great. As long as we base ourselves in reality and give full play to our subjective initiative, we will definitely be able to find a solution.'

Huang Chengzhong had expected something like this to happen, but when it did, he was inevitably a little upset. After thinking about it, he held his temper. But if he couldn't hold his temper, what could he say?