The next morning, Wan Feng and his group went to the police station to retrieve their passports, visas, and money.
When entering the police station, Wan Feng saw that Li Mingzhe was still locked up inside and greeted him.
After completing some necessary procedures, we started to count the items.
The passports and visas were returned intact to Wan Feng and others, but something went wrong when it came to the money.
When they came, Wan Feng and his companions had a total of 10,000 rubles on them. After deducting the cost of train tickets, food and accommodation to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, they had more than 9,400 rubles left.
Now there are only 8,300 rubles left, a loss of 1,100 rubles.
The police handling the case acted arrogantly and said they didn't know where the money went.
Fortunately, the remaining rubles, rice dollars and the wine samples they brought were given to Alexei and his friends when they stayed in the hotel, otherwise the loss would have been even greater.
The possibility of getting the money back was slim, so Wan Feng pointed at Li Mingzhe and said, "We won't ask for the money. Just consider it as a ransom for that person and let him go."
The police officers in charge of the case discussed it and finally released Li Mingzhe.
After leaving the police station, Li Mingzhe thanked Wan Feng profusely and left him the address of his habitat, telling him to come to him if he needed anything.
"Brother Li, we've been through thick and thin together, and you've been in Gongqingcheng for quite a while. You must be more familiar with everything here than we are. Are you interested in being our guide?"
"Be a guide?"
"I won't let you work for nothing. I'll give you five rubles for a day's tour, including food and lodging. How about that?"
Four rubles a day, including food and lodging? Is there such a good deal?
Although five rubles was not much, it was more than the wages of the factory workers.
Li Mingzhe felt like he was hit by a cornmeal pancake falling from the sky, and it was hit so hard that it even left a bump on him.
"Hey brother, are you serious?"
"Of course it's true. Do you think I'm joking?"
"Hey, then I won't be polite, brother."
"Then let's go back to the hotel and discuss it."
This minor disaster delayed Wan Feng two days of precious time. Next, he must race against time to do something practical.
At the hotel where they were staying, Wan Feng held their first meeting after arriving in Gongqingcheng.
"We've already lost two days, so our work might be more urgent. Our next step is to contact the steel mill in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The largest steel mill in Komsomolsk-on-Amur is the Amur Steel Mill. Brother Li, are you familiar with the Amur Steel Mill?"
The Amur Iron and Steel Plant is the largest steel smelter in the Soviet Far East. It mainly produces special steel for military use, but also produces some civilian steel.
Gorbachev is now implementing reforms in the Soviet Union. Like China, a large number of military-industrial enterprises will be converted to civilian use. A large number of military-industrial enterprises in Komsomolsk-on-Amur will be affected. I just don’t know whether the Amur Iron and Steel Plant is among the military-to-civilian conversions.
"It's OK. The Amur Steel Plant has a total of four smelting plants. Plants one, two, and three are military plants, producing special steel for Komsomolsk-on-Amur shipbuilding, aircraft, and tanks. Only Plant Four, established last, produces civilian steel."
Li Mingzhe's answer impressed Wan Feng: "Brother Li, you are quite familiar with the Amur Steel Plant?"
"I work odd jobs. I've worked odd jobs in many companies in Gongqingcheng. I've been to Factory No. 4 several times."
"So do you know what kind of steel these four factories produce?"
"I'm not sure about the details, but they're just profiles and steel plates and stuff."
"So do you know how their production is going now?"
Li Mingzhe was a little embarrassed: "I really don't understand what you said, but it seems that their production situation is not good, and they often take holidays."
"Brother Li, your task now is to find out the details of this Fourth Factory. I'll give you three days, and someone from my side will accompany you. Okay?"
Li Mingzhe thought for a moment and nodded: "Okay!"
Alexei assigned one person to Li Mingzhe.
Wan Feng paid Li Mingzhe twenty rubles in advance, stating that these twenty rubles were not included in his wages, but were the cost of his travel expenses and meals.
Li Mingzhe went there happily.
"Uncle Alexei, I have to find you a mission. It's inconvenient for our people to go out here, and we don't have any declarations to use them. I can only use your people."
"Tell me what the mission is. When I came here, Shamilov told me to follow your command."
"I need to know about the current policies being implemented in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. That is, the various changes that the reform policies being promoted by your Soviet leaders have brought about in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. They are mainly targeting businesses. I need newspapers and magazines from Komsomolsk-on-Amur over the past year."
Alexei pondered for a long time and asked doubtfully, "I don't quite understand this mission. Is it just to steal newspapers?"
Wan Feng smiled. "You can steal or buy. Most companies have newspaper folders or something like that. Bring me some."
Alexei felt a little aggrieved: "You asked me to steal the newspaper, this... "
What he meant was that he was wasting his talent. If word got out that he, a former bodyguard for the president, was stealing newspapers...
This task was not difficult for Alexei. He only spent one night to find all the newspapers published in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in recent times.
I don’t know where he got the newspaper clip from. Several kinds of newspapers were neatly stacked together, weighing dozens of kilograms.
Wan Feng couldn't understand these weird things, so he gave them all to Zhang Zhiyuan.
Zhang Zhiyuan began to play his role, collecting all the information about Gongqingcheng’s reforms from the newspapers and translating them one by one for Wan Feng.
This factory stopped production, that factory was reorganized, another Akula submarine was launched, and another plane took off...
Wan Feng sorted these fragmentary reports into categories and then analyzed them bit by bit.
Through the analysis of these newspapers, Wan Feng discovered that the Soviet Union was indeed implementing reforms, which to some extent were similar to China's reforms and were also promoting privatization.
However, unlike China's gradual progress, the Soviet Union's reforms seemed more radical and took bigger steps.
This is very consistent with the Soviet way of doing things, but it is also very easy to get into trouble. This also proves that the collapse of the Soviet Union in two or three years had a lot to do with this.
Many enterprises in Gongqingcheng also have this privatization tendency, but it has not yet been implemented.
In addition, there are indeed some military-industrial enterprises that are shifting, and their destination this time, the Amur Steel Plant, is one of those military-to-civilian enterprises. The shipyard has also begun to accept orders for civilian ships.
Perhaps the only place where there is no movement is the Gagarin Aircraft Manufacturing Plant.
It turns out that the enterprises in Gongqingcheng are also in turmoil.
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