On the north bank of the Yangtze River, on a barren beach, a yard with an area of 1,500 acres is unfolded neatly. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 In the info yard, there are countless loads of different sizes and shapes. Some of the goods were packed in wooden boxes and neatly stacked together, while others were wrapped in thick canvas so that not even a single crack was exposed.

Among these goods, there are many large guys with a diameter of several meters and a length of tens of meters, and if you are familiar with chemical equipment, you can see that they are the most common spherical tanks, heat exchangers, separation towers and so on in chemical plants. There are hundreds of these big guys, and walking among them is like walking into a labyrinth of steel.

This is the freight yard of the Lecheng ethylene project, stacked in the freight yard, is a complete set of 300,000 tons of ethylene plant equipment, the total weight of 150,000 tons. The equipment has been shipped to China three years ago, unloaded at the dock next to the yard, and then sent to the yard for safekeeping. The loading, unloading, acceptance, maintenance, and defense team composed of more than 500 people has been here for three years, fighting severe cold, high temperature, and water resistance, and carefully taking care of this batch of baby bumps worth 800 million US dollars.

This set of equipment is one of the four sets of large-scale ethylene equipment imported from abroad in 1979, which was originally planned to start construction in 1980 and completed and put into operation in 1985. However, when the first batch of foreign equipment was shipped to China, the country's economic policy was adjusted, and a large number of major projects beyond the national economic capacity were shut down and transferred, and Lecheng ethylene was also included in the list of "suspended construction" projects.

The State Development Planning Commission, the Economic Commission, the Ministry of Petroleum, the Ministry of Machinery, and other departments organized three rounds of serious discussions, and finally decided to first accept the imported equipment, keep it on the spot, and wait for the country's economic situation to improve before starting construction. Since then, the team of 500 people has been stationed on the barren beach along the Yangtze River, and has begun to receive equipment and store it in separate categories. Some equipment has strict temperature and humidity requirements when storing, and the project headquarters has specially built a warehouse with constant temperature and humidity to store it.

In charge of the management of this 500-person team is Lai Yongjia, deputy commander of the Lecheng ethylene project headquarters, who is in his 40s, with myopic glasses on the bridge of his nose, and a polite appearance. But those who know him know that his personality is soft on the outside and tough on the inside, and he is meticulous in his work, even if it is this seemingly boring and unpromising equipment maintenance job, he also insists on it as an important mission.

The project headquarters is located in a corner of the freight yard and is a temporary two-story building. In front of the door of the small building, there is a big sign with the slogan proposed by Lai Yongjia 3 years ago:

"Not a single screw is allowed to be lost, and not a single screw can be rusted!"

This is how Yongjia asks his team, and this is what he asks of himself. For the past three years, he has been living in the yard, walking around the yard more than a dozen times a day, not missing a single mistake. Someone in the team once made a bet on him that the deputy commander-in-chief would be able to tell which equipment was placed in which place without having to consult the equipment register. At first, some people didn't believe this, because there were tens of thousands of pieces of equipment in the yard, and some of the names of the equipment were difficult to remember, but the appearance was almost the same, even if they stood in front of them, it was difficult to identify, let alone point out a random piece to tell the location of the storage. As a result, all the unbelievers lost the bet, and in the end, even if it was a 10-to-1 odds, no one dared to bet on the opposite.

"Finally keep the clouds open and see the moon!"

Standing on a small dirt slope by the freight yard, looking at these familiar equipment, the corners of Lai Yongjia's mouth showed a smile.

At the beginning of this year, the State Economic Commission issued a notice to resume the construction of ethylene in Lecheng. The project headquarters, which had only one empty shelf left, swelled up all of a sudden, and the small building next to the freight yard was far from sufficient, so the headquarters rented all the classrooms and offices of a middle school in Lecheng City and transformed it into the work place of the headquarters. Cadres from national ministries and commissions and various fraternal units in the system are bustling to fill the various offices, planning, bidding, finance, logistics, party and masses and other work are rolled out across the board, construction teams from all over the country are gathering in Lecheng, all kinds of high-nosed, loop-legged Westerners and Orientals are also appearing in groups on the streets of Lecheng, and a large-scale construction is about to begin.

A few days ago, the leaders of the State Economic Commission, accompanied by Nie Jianping, the commander-in-chief of the project, came to inspect the freight yard and inspect some of the equipment. Seeing that the equipment that had been stacked for nearly three years was dusty and there was no rust, the leaders of the Economic Commission couldn't help but be moved. After the inspection, Zhang Kejian, director of the Economic Commission, shook the hand of Lai Yongjia and said: "Comrade Yongjia, you are the biggest hero of the Lecheng ethylene project, and I thank you on behalf of the country and the people." ”

After the leaders of the Economic Commission left, Nie Jianping came back to tell Lai Yongjia that the state had approved the establishment of Lecheng Petrochemical Company, Nie Jianping served as the company's first general manager, and Lai Yongjia was appointed as one of the five deputy general managers, responsible for ethylene infrastructure work.

Lai Yongjia was not surprised by this appointment, nor was he overjoyed. He feels most gratified that his three-year wait has finally not been in vain, and the Lecheng ethylene project, which was predicted by some people to be completely abandoned, has finally been restarted. The $800 million in imported equipment was not lost in his hands, which is worthy of his pride and pride.

"Come to the president, Mayor Shang is here again, saying that he wants to talk to you. ”

A young man rode his bicycle all the way up the hill, panting and reporting to Lai Yongjia. He is the secretary of Lai Yongjia, named Li Tao, a college student majoring in computer science, who only graduated last year and was assigned to the Lecheng ethylene project headquarters. The young man is enthusiastic and unrestrained, but occasionally he seems a little rough, Lai Yongjia likes him quite a lot, and he also breaks the corporal, worships him as a teacher, and lets him teach himself computers, and the relationship between the two is quite close.

The mayor Shang that Li Tao said is Shang Renye, the deputy mayor in charge of industry in Lecheng City, who has been dealing with him a lot in the past few years, and he is very familiar with him. However, the relationship between Lai Yongjia and Shang Renye has always been very unharmonious. In the first two years, Lai Yongjia often had to ask Shang Renye to help solve some problems in terms of water, electricity, transportation, etc., Shang Renye was generally able to hide and push, but he couldn't help the project headquarters solve some difficulties. A few days ago, after the state notified Lecheng of the resumption of ethylene construction, Shang Renye's attitude towards Yongjia took a 180-degree turn, and he put on a posture of treating Yongjia as a nobleman, which inevitably made Yongjia have a sense of apprehension about being visited by a weasel.

The Lecheng ethylene project landed in Lecheng, but it does not belong to Lecheng's enterprises. The newly established Lecheng Petrochemical Company, which is directly under the newly established State Petrochemical Corporation, is a large enterprise at the vice-ministerial level, while Lecheng is only a prefecture-level city. In other words, as the deputy general manager of Lecheng Petrochemical, Lai Yongjia is at the same level as the mayor of Lecheng, and Shang Renye has to be regarded as a subordinate in front of him.

Local governments have always been more resistant to the state-owned enterprises in their jurisdictions. The presence of these big businesses, apart from increasing local visibility, does little to help the local economy. Under the planned economic system, the supply of raw materials and the output of large enterprises are uniformly allocated by the state, and the local area does not benefit from it. These large enterprises tend to have higher wages and better benefits, which will drive up local consumption levels and compete with local residents for limited living materials, causing dissatisfaction among local residents.

In addition, due to the high level of large enterprises and the backers of the upper echelons, the local government has to be cautious and try to avoid conflicts when dealing with these enterprises. To put it in layman's terms, this kind of large enterprise is like an ancient prince, who cannot bring any benefits to the local area, but likes to provoke some right and wrong, and there is no way to cry when local officials.

Of course, local officials are not fools, and in the course of long-term practice, they have gradually accumulated experience in dealing with large enterprises and have also figured out the skills of relying on the mountains to eat from the mountains, thus turning burdens into opportunities, which cannot but be said to be a kind of political wisdom. Lai Yongjia knew very well that Shang Renye frequently came to the freight yard to find him this time, obviously seeing Lecheng Petrochemical as a plate of oily braised pork, and planned to rub a little oil and water on it.

"Mayor Shang, how can you have time to come to our ruined temple today, so that we are here to shine. ”

Riding Li Tao's bicycle back to the old building of the original headquarters, Lai Yongjia greeted Shang Renye who was waiting there with a smile.

"Haha, it's so modest to come, you have a big temple made of gold here. I've heard that the investment in your Lecheng ethylene project is 6.5 billion, tsk, our entire Lecheng city is not worth so much money if it is sold. ”

Shang Renye, who was young and fat, was shy with a large-scale beer belly, got up and shook hands with Lai Yongjia, and responded with the same smile.

"6.5 billion yuan is used for equipment and civil construction, and we don't dare to move it to build a temple. Look at my office, you have to report to your superiors for approval when you install a ceiling fan. The state's investment and financial management are very strict, but it really does not have as much autonomy as your local government. ”

Lai Yongjia said meaningfully. He didn't know what Shang Renye was thinking, so he needed to cry poverty to the other party at the first time. His meaning is very clear: if Shang Renye thinks that the investment in the Lecheng ethylene project is large and can scavenge a little benefit, then die of this heart as soon as possible, this money is really not at the discretion of Yongjia.