Chapter 205 Changshan Iron and Steel Plant (Part 2)
As soon as you enter the door, you can feel the warm air. The Finance Department has changed its office since it gained financial power.
Now its office is the largest in the entire county hall, covering an area of more than 400 square meters, but it has at least 200 workstations, with an average of only 2.1 square meters per workstation. It is so crowded that one can only walk sideways in the aisle.
Every workstation is piled high with documents and paper files are everywhere.
Several large heaters were placed in the corners of the walls, continuously emitting heat. Several people were constantly moving and adjusting the positions of the heaters, and it looked as if they had just been installed.
In this vast sea of people and books, Lin Wen immediately saw Old Xie running towards him. His fat body was weaving in and out of the gaps, as agile as a strange creature.
The moment Old Xie broke through all the obstacles and came to his side, Lin Wen raised his hand to stop him from speaking.
"Let me ask you, how do you manage to work overtime?"
Old Xie was taken aback, and quickly suppressed his joy, saying, "Not much, not much, just 12 hours of overtime every day. We are hardworking and persevering..."
Lin Wen looked at him sternly: "What happened to those three girls just now?"
Old Xie was stunned. "They are weak and may not be used to the heating. They have been sent to the hospital. Honestly, they are not strong enough. They need to be as strong as me to better serve County Mayor Lin..."
"Shut up!"
Lin Wen interrupted him.
If he had come one minute later, the three girls would have been doomed.
Not only will you lose a good opportunity, but you may also end up with bad luck.
However, Lin Wen also knew that this was not Lao Xie's fault, it was a work problem.
This is the world's problem.
good!
Then I'll change it.
Lin Wen said, "From now on, employees in any department of the County Hall may not work more than 36 hours of overtime per month, and overtime pay will be calculated at 150% of their original salary. If you need to work overtime beyond 36 hours, please apply to me."
Old Xie was stunned. "Why is this happening, County Chief Lin? I'm fine, aren't I? The Finance Department has such a heavy workload, and I..."
Lin Wen said calmly, "Using overtime to cover up incompetence is the worst kind of leader."
“A top leader is one who can improve the efficiency of their team.”
"He enables his employees to complete heavy work within eight hours, and then go home happily to recharge their batteries so that they can come back to work in a more efficient state the next day, forming a virtuous cycle."
“Incompetent leaders only torture their employees by making them work overtime and deducting their wages, forcing them to complete their work indefinitely and with extremely low efficiency.”
"Then the next day, employees come to work at a lower efficiency and are forced to work longer overtime, creating a vicious cycle."
"Do you understand?"
Old Xie's face was dull, and his nostrils were wider than his mouth.
In the traditional cognition of the empire, someone who can make the department work overtime and longer shifts without spending money is a good boss, a good leader, and a good official. This is a reflection of his ability because it proves his control over the department.
Old Xie has been working overtime like crazy without receiving overtime pay, just to silently prove his ability to County Chief Lin.
Unexpectedly, in the mouth of County Governor Lin, the ability he was proud of became a manifestation of incompetence.
He still couldn't accept the result of his worldview being overturned: "But, but this..."
Lin Wen glanced at him and said, "If you don't change your mindset, I'll replace you."
Old Xie suddenly became dispirited. He kept picking at his bald head, looking frightened and uneasy.
Of course, Lin Wen also knew that it would be difficult to change the ideas he had formed over the years in a short period of time, and the Finance Department was indeed busy.
He thought for a moment and said, "You can hire someone or ask the Ministry of Personnel to lend you some staff to share the pressure. Don't just work overtime."
Seeing that Old Xie was still frightened, he patted his shoulder again and opened his heart.
Just listen to it say:
"Only a leader like this is the Lao Xie in my mind. This is my expectation of you, and this is also where you are better than Lao Lei."
Suddenly, just like blowing up a balloon, the originally listless Old Xie suddenly swelled up and seemed to be floating up.
"I understand! I understand! So that's how it is! I will definitely not let you down. County Governor Lin has a keen eye, and my admiration for you is like..."
"alright."
Lin Wen interrupted him.
"Now report to me on the industrial situation in Changshan County."
Enthusiastic Old Xie immediately explained the whole situation to him in detail.
Changshan County originally had no industry. The only products that could be exported were cotton, tobacco, and tea. The crops they grew were not enough for their own consumption.
When the flood came, the three industries of cotton, tobacco and tea were completely destroyed, and the three related companies also stopped production.
This is a local asset belonging to Changshan County. Once it is closed, Changshan County’s industrial income will drop sharply.
Then comes the main loss-making project: Changshan Steel Plant.
This was a project ambitiously introduced by the previous county governor. Due to lack of funds and accidents, only part of the plant can be operated. It loses money when it is in operation, and loses even more when it is not in operation.
In addition, there is a farm and a textile factory, both of which are super small factories with monthly turnover of no more than 50,000.
Lin Wen wrote it down and asked, "Does Changshan County have an agency to manage them?"
Old Xie said, "Are you talking about the Imperial Capital Office? Yes, but the people inside have been arrested."
Lin Wen was silent for a moment and decided to go find Xia Xiaoxiang, because he seemed to see the Imperial Capital Office on Xia Xiaoxiang's list of officials.
After bidding farewell to the rejuvenated Old Xie, Lin Wen found Xia Xiaoxiang buried in a pile of documents in the Ministry of Personnel. She raised her head and seemed unhappy to be interrupted in her work, not showing her previous charm and approachability.
"What do you want? I'm very busy right now."
Lin Wen asked, "You are also responsible for the construction of the county government office and the discipline of officials, right?"
"right."
Xia Xiaoxiang was very concise in her words and actions at work. While answering Lin Wen's question, she wrote on a file:
All officials who have never worked at the grassroots level but are commanding on the front lines will be put on probation;
Any official who sits in his office and boasts that he can complete the project ahead of schedule will be put on probation.
All officials who only use task indicators and standard answers to guide their work will be put on probation;
“Now add a labor law.”
Lin Wen said that he memorized the Changshan County Labor Law, which he had just created on his own without any reference.
Xia Xiaoxiang raised her head, her eyes sparkling, and her pretty face was filled with a serious expression that made people dare not insult her.
“What if the workload is heavy?”
"When hiring people, you can allow them to work overtime, but you have to pay them overtime. Any overtime beyond the limit must be approved by me."
“Why don’t officials get overtime pay?”
"They have a bright future and want to become officials. How can they not work hard?"
Xia Xiaoxiang laughed: "You give tangible benefits to ordinary staff members and promise big things to officials. I've never seen anyone do this before."
"You see it now."
Xia Xiaoxiang lowered her head again: "Okay."
"Also, who is in charge of the Imperial Resources Office now?"
"Zhao Pengyuan."
"good."
Lin Wen turned and left.
Xia Xiaoxiang looked at his receding back, a thoughtful look on her pretty and lovely face.
The Imperial Capital Office had not yet been registered in the County Government Hall, so Lin Wen directly asked Fang Weiwei to find him.
As the county chief's only secretary, Fang Weiwei has had nothing to do except occasionally sitting on Lin Wen's lap since her duty of supervising Old Xie was replaced by the Security Department.
She was so bored that she could only read some acting books every day, cry or laugh in front of the mirror, and practice her acting skills.
When Lin Wen finally returned to his county governor's office and assigned her a task, Fang Weiwei was almost cheering.
Although it was just a simple task of finding someone, she did it very seriously.
Zhao Pengyuan was inspecting the Changshan Iron and Steel Plant. When he heard that the county governor was looking for someone, he immediately brought the factory director Zhang Xiaoda with him.
Lin Wen didn't waste any words and asked directly: "What's the situation with the steel plant? Why is it making losses?"
Zhao Pengyuan had a chubby face and Zhang Xiaoda had a big beard. Although it was the first time they met the legendary County Magistrate Lin, they had long heard of Lin Wen's reputation for killing people without blinking an eye. They were all trembling with fear and hung their heads.
Zhao Pengyuan said, "Your Excellency, the Changshan Iron and Steel Plant is small in scale. We didn't have enough funds at the beginning. The ironworks was fully built, but the steelworks lacked some auxiliary facilities."
"The county was truly broke, but stopping the project wasn't an option. County Magistrate Zhao summoned the engineers for consultation and forced the project to begin. The first few weeks went well, with some minor issues resolved. But within the second month, a major incident occurred. Power to most of the furnaces was lost, and the molten steel solidified into lumps, rendering all the furnaces useless."
"Now there is only one steel furnace that can be used, and it can't handle the molten iron."
"At the time, County Magistrate Zhao was very ambitious. He bought the best Xu-brand blast furnace for the ironworks. This furnace cannot be stopped once it is fed with materials. It can run continuously for more than ten years. If it stops once, it will go from a first-generation blast furnace to a second-generation blast furnace, and its efficiency will drop significantly."
"The blast furnaces for ironmaking cannot be shut down, but the amount of molten iron is too much for the steel furnaces to absorb. We can only reduce the blast furnace feed rate, but this will reduce the efficiency of the blast furnace. Now the price of coke has risen, which has led to our huge losses."
Lin Wen asked: "Why don't you buy a new steel furnace?"
Factory Director Zhang Xiaoda replied in a low voice, "They told us to wait and see, and that we would buy it soon. But we waited for a long time, until County Chief Zhao was transferred away, and there was still no news..."
As he spoke he actually began to cry, and big tears fell into his beard.
"It's been a year, a whole year. We have over 2,000 people working at Changshan Iron and Steel Plant. We were so excited when we built it, thinking we could end the poverty and backwardness of Changshan County. But we've been losing money for a whole year, and everyone is almost starving to death!"
"Chief Lin, please think of a solution."
Lin Wen didn't say anything. He decided to go and see if the factory was worth saving.
If there is, save it.
If not, forget it.
In Lin Wen’s plan, if he wanted to make a lot of money, steelmaking was obviously not cost-effective.
Because this is a basic product, the profit will not be very high unless you build a steel group with an annual output of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of tons.
But Changshan County does not have the capital to build such a large enterprise.
What Lin Wen really wants to do is to produce some low-cost, high-value-added and high-profit technological products. The overall technological level of the empire is relatively backward. Some industries are relatively advanced, such as biotechnology, but some industries are very backward, such as mobile communications and nuclear industry.
According to Lin Wen's knowledge, there are thousands of ways to make a fortune. Robbery, fraud, plunder, corruption and bribery, and learning to make fried dough twists are just one of them. There are many more better options.
The key is time cost and management cost.
Lin Wen doesn't like to make things too complicated or involve too many things in the physical world.
Because these are worldly affairs that he really dislikes and will pollute his spiritual heart.
Therefore, his philosophy has always been the simpler the better, the more violent the better, the less involved the better, and the sooner the perfect reincarnation is achieved the better.
There will be another update at 6 o'clock
(End of this chapter)
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