"Sister He, what's the reason for this today?" asked a young man in a conductor's uniform, grinning at another young woman in her early thirties beside him.

"Don't be hippie and smiling all day long, you ask me, I ask who to go! This is a temporary task, and the boss has repeatedly told me to take care of the guests. You just take care of your hard-seat carriage and don't come around to me. If I am complained by the VIP, even I will be affected by you!" the young woman glared at the young man next to her, who was the conductor of the sleeper car.

This morning, the train crew suddenly received a notice to add a luxury soft sleeper car between the original No. 9 dining car and No. 10 ordinary soft sleeper car. A soft sleeper is different from a hard sleeper in that it has only upper and lower bunks and no middle berths. In addition, the bed board of the sleeper bed is wider, which makes it more comfortable to lie down and rest.

Each small compartment has only four beds, and there is a door separating it from the outside aisle for more privacy. Therefore, in comparison, soft sleepers are more comfortable than hard sleepers. Sleeper tickets are not sold to ordinary passengers, and cadres at or above the department level need to purchase them at the station with their work permits or letters of introduction from their units.

Compared with ordinary soft sleepers, the comfort of riding in the car is higher. Ordinary sleeper cars generally have 6 or 8 small boxes, but luxury sleepers generally have only two rooms. There are no bunk beds in each room, only a spacious queen bed, a small living room with a coffee table and sofa, and a separate bathroom.

However, this kind of luxury sleeper car is rarely added to ordinary trains, and will only be temporarily hung when meeting VIPs, and such VIPs are generally at least provincial and ministerial level.

The young woman's name was He Li, and she looked at Xiao Cai next to her with a curious look on her face, and couldn't help but smile a little. Xiao Cai has just turned 18 years old this year, and his father recently retired early, so that he could be recruited as a conductor in place of his father's quota, and he has been on the job for less than three months, which is the first time he has encountered such a special situation.

But He Li has been a conductor for more than ten years, and this is not the first time she has encountered this special task. The identity of these special passengers is usually the governor or secretary of the provincial party committee who goes to the sister provinces and cities for inspection, and occasionally the ministers of the central ministries and commissions who come to the local area for investigation. According to He Li's previous experience in reception, although this kind of guest has a noble status, he is very well cultivated and is not difficult to serve. The two small boxes are usually one for the chief and the other for the secretary.

"It's coming!" Xiao Cai shouted softly.

He Li raised her hand and looked at her watch, and found that there were still ten minutes before ordinary passengers began to check in, and then she looked up into the distance. Sure enough, a group of people came out of the VIP passage. He Li carefully identified it, although she didn't know most of them, but the identity of the person she knew was amazing.

Director Liu of the Huhai Railway Bureau and Stationmaster Wei of the Huhai Railway Station, these two are big people who need to look up to He Li, a small conductor, and their words and deeds can determine the fate of her and the rest of the train crew. But He Li was surprised to find that these two leaders could only follow the periphery of the crowd, which showed that many of the people who saw them off had a higher status than them.

So He Li immediately looked towards the middle of the crowd. Soon, she opened her mouth wide in surprise, because everyone was surrounded by a young man in his twenties!

"Mayor Zou, Secretary General Kang, please express my gratitude to Secretary Zhao and Mayor Wang on my behalf, thanks to the warm hospitality of the leaders of Huhai City! As well as Minister Chen, Director Liu, and Stationmaster Wei, please come to see me off!" Li Xuan thanked him from the bottom of his heart.

The Huhai Municipal Party Committee and the Huhai Municipal Government respectively sent three deputy ministerial-level cadres in charge of overseas Chinese affairs, the secretary general of the municipal party committee, and the director of the United Front Work Department of the municipal party committee to see him off. As a railway department, the director of the Shanghai-Haihai Railway Bureau, a department-level cadre, who came to accompany him to see him off, naturally had to stand aside in this situation.

"Mr. Li, welcome to have the opportunity to visit Huhai City again in the future!" Vice Mayor Zou is the most qualified of the three members of the Standing Committee of the Municipal Party Committee, so he said enthusiastically on behalf of the Huhai Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government.

"Mr. Li, this is Comrade Jiang Dayong, the conductor of this train, and this is Comrade He Li, the conductor who provides services for your soft sleeper car. If you have any questions during your trip, you can always contact them!" Director Liu of the Huhai Railway Bureau personally introduced Li Xuan.

After that, he turned his head to the two subordinates and said, "Commander Jiang, I handed over Mr. Li to you." I hope that your car team can have a satisfactory journey with the fullest enthusiasm and the best quality service!"

"Captain Jiang, Ms. He, I'll nag you next!" Li Xuan politely shook hands with the two, and then waved goodbye to everyone and boarded the train.

When I went to Hong Kong for the first time, I took this train to go to Guangdong City first, and then transfer from Guangdong to the Deep Sea Special Economic Zone. At that time, it was difficult to ask someone to buy a hard seat ticket, and the carriage was densely packed with people. Halfway through, I wanted to get up and go to the toilet, just like the Red Army's 25,000-mile long march, it was too hard!" Li Zhi walked into the box, and she was amazed by the spacious and luxurious layout inside.

"So although this journey is a little longer, it will definitely not be hard!" Li Xuan looked at the already crowded platform outside the car window and said with a smile.

It only takes a few hours to fly back to Hong Kong from Shanghai, but Li Xuan chose a slower train. Although Li Xuan chose to take an express train with fewer stops along the way, it also took 45 hours to start from Huhai City and arrive at Yuezhou City, the terminal station in the south.

Whether it is in his previous life or in this life, Li Xuan has very little experience in taking trains. Especially this long journey with an overnight stay on the train is a very fresh experience. So he didn't choose to take a plane, but asked his assistant to help him buy a train ticket.

But unexpectedly, after learning of this situation, the Huhai Municipal Government directly coordinated with the Huhai Railway Bureau to add a luxury car for him in this train sent from Huhai to Yuezhou, which is the power of privilege.

In fact, the reason why Li Xuan didn't fly back to Hong Kong directly was to go to Guangdong to meet someone. After Liu Junliang's team completed the development of the prototype of the DS-2000 digital programmable machine, Shun Lì manufactured two prototype systems.

After several months of preliminary testing and modification, the two DS-2000 prototypes were coordinated by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and were connected to the Yuezhou Municipal Telecommunications Bureau and the Shenhai Municipal Telecommunications Bureau in eastern Guangdong Province for intense combat testing.

This is also the advantage of the domestic planned economic system, the upper face of the commission of a paper, the following telecommunications bureau will be at the expense of a part of the user's interests, with Liu Junliang's team to make the DS-2000 program control machine in the practical application of quickly find the shortcomings, so as to carry out targeted improvements. This is many times more efficient than modifying it in the real yàn room.

If it is under the conditions of foreign marketization, how can there be a telephone company that is willing to use its own network to give equipment manufacturers a test! If the program-controlled machine fails during the test, the users' phones cannot be reached, and the telephone company is not allowed to be sprayed to death, and it is very likely that a large number of customers will be lost the next day.

The reason why the two DS-2000 test machines were placed in the telecommunications bureaus of Guangdong and Shenhai is because with the opening of the curtain of reform and opening up, the economic development of these two places is the fastest in China, and the ensuing telephone installation rate and usage rate have also increased rapidly. If we can complete the practical application challenge in these two high-intensity areas, we will have more confidence when the DS-2000 is introduced to the market in the future!

After the two DS-2000 digital program-controlled telephone exchanges were connected to the Guangdong Telecommunications Bureau and the Shenhai Telecommunications Bureau respectively, the digital program-controlled machine R&D team also went south to Guangdong Province. The whole team was also divided into two groups, and lived in the computer rooms of the two telecommunications offices 24 hours a day, and solved all kinds of sudden failures at any time.

And Liu Junliang personally sat in the Yuezhou Municipal Telecommunications Bureau, and Liu Xuan specially passed by Yuezhou this time to meet him. With the advent of the DS-2000 prototype, the project has begun to enter the final stage of finalization testing, and Liu Junliang and his team have already demonstrated their own value.

So far, Li Xuan has invested a total of 5 million Hong Kong dollars in R&D funds for the DS-2000 programmable machine project. Half of the HK$5 million cost was spent on the manufacture of the two prototypes. At the current pace of the project, it is estimated that another one or two million Hong Kong dollars will be invested to complete the closure.

A large number of telephone exchanges commonly used in the domestic telecommunications system are all old-fashioned first-generation and second-generation exchange products, which have been eliminated in foreign countries as early as ten years ago. With the development of the domestic economy, the telephone installation rate has gradually begun to rise. These old switches, which are inefficient and have a high failure rate, are increasingly unable to adapt to the development of the times.

At the beginning of this year, the Rongcheng Telecommunications Bureau in Minnan Province imported the country's first 10,000-door digital program-controlled telephone exchange from Japan, spending $2.74 million on it. The reason why the price is so low is because this 10,000-door digital program-controlled switch from Fujitsu in Japan has just completed the test and has not yet accepted the real test of the market. The reason why Japanese companies are willing to sell their products at low prices is to set up a model project to convince other customers in the future. Otherwise, like the Dutch Philips company, the price of the 10,000-door digital program control machine is at least 35 million US dollars.

And even so, in order to buy this program-controlled machine, the entire southern Fujian Province has also tightened its belt, because this year, the state allocated the province's foreign exchange quota is only 10 million US dollars.

However, not every telecommunications bureau can be as lucky as Rongcheng, and it is impossible for most places to spend such a huge amount of foreign exchange to buy advanced foreign products. The domestic old-fashioned vertical and horizontal switches, and most of them have low telephone connection rates, which is embarrassing and useful, which gives DS-2000 a huge market.

According to the collection and analysis of the number of DS-2000 units in the mainland by the Institute of Oriental Economics, there will be at least 500 units of DS-2000 sales space in the next three years. And because there is no competition from domestic products of the same kind, the price given by Dongfang to the DS-2000 will definitely not be low.

The price of 2,000 digital programmatic machines in the world is about 500,000 US dollars. When the DS-2000 is launched, it will be lower than this price, such as 450,000 US dollars, which is converted into 900,000 yuan per unit. At this price, the DS-2000 will generate sales of up to 450 million RMB in the next three years.

This is enough to attract Li Xuan's attention. And Liu Junliang's team, which brought him such a broad market, Li Xuan, the big boss, naturally had to come forward in person to take care of it. R1152