Courtyard House: My Wife is Xu Huizhen

Page 396

Director Li immediately became anxious and shouted, "What nonsense are you talking about? How could you say something so carelessly? This is a policy from higher authorities, and we'll be having meals together from now on."

He Yuzhu quickly admitted his mistake, saying that he could not question the policies of his superiors.

It's fine to talk about it with others, but Director Li is my superior, so I can't speak like that in front of him.

He Yuzhu then asked about the specifics, but Director Li couldn't explain it clearly either. However, he guessed that they would be using courtyard houses as units to launch attacks in a centralized manner.

He Yuzhu breathed a sigh of relief; living in a courtyard by himself meant he no longer needed to partner with anyone else.

Honestly, if I have to eat with other people, I'd rather eat all three meals a day at the machine factory.

The factory now operates on a shift system and provides three meals a day.

As the factory director, I have a rest room next to this place, and several small courtyards and employee dormitories have been built separately behind it.

If all else fails, we can bring Huizhen and the others here to live. Eating in the cafeteria every day is much better than sharing a meal with others.

If everyone cooks together, each household will take turns, making it difficult to guarantee the quality of the food.

Director Li said, "I just informed you in advance. As for the specifics of what will happen next, the official documents may not be issued until autumn."

"I understand. The blast furnace issue is resolved. The next step is the factory expansion plan. I feel that the previous plan was a bit conservative."

Director Li asked, "Why do you say that?"

"This machinery factory was built in a somewhat rushed manner at the beginning, without a long-term plan, and it was built step by step."

Director Li nodded: "That's true."

At first, I just wanted to use those machine tools to produce some parts for simple processing.

However, He Yuzhu later brought in another batch of machine tools from Moscow, which allowed him to expand the factory and hire workers.

Later, they were able to produce lathes on their own and continued to expand the workshop, adding supporting facilities.

With the increasing number of machine tools, construction is constantly underway around the factory.

Now that the blast furnace has been installed, the factory has the ability to produce steel on its own, and the factory has grown to employ five or six hundred people.

However, the supporting infrastructure has always been developed on a case-by-case basis, without any long-term planning.

He Yuzhu said, "I think I should re-plan and adjust. The first step is to build the entire project with a scale of 3000 people, and then the second phase is to design it with a scale of 6000 people."

"Is a scale of 3000 people really necessary?"

Chapter 288 Factory Expansion

He Yuzhu laughed and said, "As long as we maintain the current pace of development, I think we can easily reach 3000 people."

Director Li thought for a moment, knowing that He Yuzhu never liked to boast and always spoke his mind, so he said, "Then explain in detail."

He Yuzhu said, "Actually, there's not much to it. As long as the street doesn't withdraw the funds back to the machinery factory, the profits on the books can be used to buy raw materials. We produce the lathes ourselves, so we only pay some labor costs. This way, the cost of expansion will be very low."

Director Li nodded. Lathes are now rare pieces of equipment. The whole country is moving towards large-scale industry, and many provinces and cities are requiring local governments to build their own small factories.

The first step in building a factory is to have lathes so that parts can be produced.

Alternatively, they can directly purchase parts. Recently, more and more companies have been approaching us to order lathes and parts.

He Yuzhu also gained the confidence to propose the first step of the plan to build a factory with 3000 employees.

The factory currently only has five or six hundred employees, so when Director Li first heard that a factory with 3000 employees was to be built, he was really shocked, which is equivalent to expanding five times the existing scale.

A factory with 3000 employees was something I never dared to dream of before.

This is a local industry, and it can provide employment for at least 2500 people in the area.

Director Li asked, "Does the subdistrict need to make any further financial investment?"

He Yuzhu said, "Initially, the street office did need to invest funds, but we can repay the money to the street office after we start production in the next few years."

Since most of the profits would be handed over to the local government anyway, He Yuzhu didn't expect the factory to benefit him personally.

The value of the cash and items in my personal space has long exceeded one million, and I can't spend all that money.

He wanted to expand the machinery factory simply to complete his own business.

I'm still young, only in my early twenties, and I have a long life ahead of me, so I need to have something to do.

You can't just laze around all day and be a street urchin.

Director Li said, "There's not much money on the street."

Then he asked, "Can't you send another batch of canned goods from Moscow?"

He Yuzhu retorted, "You can get your hands on railcars? This isn't just about domestic railcars, but also railcars that travel all the way from the port to Moscow."

Director Li shook his head; it was just a joke. He didn't have the ability to solve the problem of supplying railcars within Moscow.

"Let's talk about the factory's planning."

He Yuzhu didn't want to make another trip to Moscow. The last time, such a big incident happened, and only now, with the news so scarce, did people here not know about it.

He took out a sketch and said, "This is what I'm thinking: we need to fence off this area next to it, rebuild the workshops, and separate the blast furnace, lathe production, internal combustion engine production, and general parts production into separate workshops, with supporting facilities in the surrounding area."

A factory with thousands of employees certainly cannot all be gathered together.

Putting everything else aside, the cafeteria problem alone cannot be solved in one go.

The steel rolling mill, with its tens of thousands of employees, has more than a dozen canteens scattered throughout the factory.

In addition, the office area, warehouse area, staff dormitory, family area, and reception area all need to be well planned.

Director Li nodded and said, "It seems you've thought this through carefully. Very well, I'll take this plan back first and then discuss it with others."

"It's okay to make some changes. I've been working on this behind closed doors, so there are bound to be things I haven't thought of."

After the two finished talking, they saw Director Li off. This plan cannot be completed in one step. It will take at least two years to expand from the current five or six thousand people to a scale of nearly 3000 people.

After all, industrial workers need to be trained from scratch. If a lathe is produced but there aren't enough operators, it's just a pile of scrap metal.

Call Xu Xiaomei over and ask her about training workers.

Everyone entering the factory must undergo pre-job training. It is not the traditional master-apprentice model, but rather like the vocational training of later generations, where teachers give lectures first.

Of course, the instructors we hired were all skilled workers from the factory. We just let them give us extra subsidies for teaching.

Xu Xiaomei said, "Things are going very smoothly. It was announced before that only those who pass the exam can start working and those who don't will be sent back to the street office. So they are all very enthusiastic about learning. Only a few people are really not good at it and can't learn no matter how you teach them."

"So what if they're a bit slow? They'll just leave their movers behind. Do they really think they can just return it to the street?"

At that time, finding a job was not easy; for many families, it was the hope for survival. Each person had their own job, and if there was no job here, the only option was to do manual labor such as pasting cardboard boxes, which were arranged by the neighborhood committee.

Xu Xiaomei said with some surprise, "I thought you were going to return them all."

"The way you're talking makes it sound like I'm a bad person."

Xu Xiaomei pouted and said, "Isn't that right? You bullied my sister and now you're bullying me too."

He Yuzhu laughed and said, "You two sisters clearly both want to get into my bed, yet you say I'm bullying you?"

Xu Xiaomei stamped her foot in embarrassment and shouted, "I didn't!"

He Yuzhu said, "Even though your sister treated me like that, I didn't harm her. Instead, I introduced her to someone and helped her marry into such a good family."

Xu Xiaomei said, "Who knows what you're thinking? My sister divorced her man, but in the end, she still obediently gave birth to your son."

He Yuzhu asked, "Then when are you going to give me a son too?"

Xu Xiaomei said, "I won't give birth to your child. Let your wife give birth to your child."

After saying that, he turned and left. Just before leaving get off work, He Yuzhu walked past the outer office and handed him a key, saying:

"Go to that courtyard and wash up properly, then wait for me."

Xu Xiaomei snorted, her face full of pride, but she still took the key in her hand.

He Yuzhu didn't bother to say anything to him; as long as he was willing to go, that was fine.

First, they arrived at the courtyard house and brought some grain and meat.

Just as he entered the gate, a figure hurriedly ran out with its head down, not watching where it was going. He Yuzhu, who was carrying things, couldn't dodge in time and the person fell headfirst into his arms.

He Yuzhu naturally reached out his hands to support the other person, and in doing so, he pulled the other person into his arms.

Looking down, he was surprised to see that it was Qin Huairu, Jia Dongxu's wife.

She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed, with two tear tracks on either side of her nose. At that moment, she realized that He Yuzhu was holding her in his arms, and her beautiful, fair face turned as red as if it were about to bleed.

Qin Huairu immediately struggled, but He Yuzhu was momentarily stunned and still held her in his arms.

"You...let me go."

He Yuzhu then came to his senses, released his embrace, and freed Qin Huairu.

He asked, "Did Jia Dongxu bully you? Tell me, and I'll stand up for you."

"Hmph, you're a bad guy too. Haven't you bullied our family enough? Now you want to bully me too?"

He Yuzhu asked in surprise, "Who bullied you? You need to explain yourself clearly?"

Qin Huairu showed no kindness whatsoever, and said:

"Anyway, getting involved with you is bad luck, move aside, I'm going out."

At this time, Qin Huairu had only given birth to Banggeng, and Xiaodang was not pregnant yet. She was only twenty-five years old, in the prime of her youth and beauty.