Back to 1978

Chapter 150: Actively Asking for a Pitfall (13000 monthly tickets plus more)

"When I was a kid, I was always very curious about what kind of life the workers in the city led at home." Xie Hushan took off the sack on his shoulder, handed it to Song Tiesheng who came out to greet him, walked towards his house, looked around and said:

"Now that I see your home, the environment has completely shattered the good impression I had since I was a child that the workers enjoyed a good life."

"I said, why don't you let your mother live in our brigade for a while? I'll arrange a place for her. If you're not sick, you'll get sick from living here. Rural houses are a bit shabby, but they're bright. Even if your house is new, it's like a cage, and it's cramped to live in."

Song Tiesheng's home is still a temporary row of houses built after the railway earthquake.

There is a narrow courtyard at the entrance, which is no more than five or six steps long and four or five meters wide. The roof of the courtyard is covered with several pieces of tattered tarpaulin sewn together to protect against wind and rain, and no sunlight can be seen.

On the left side of the courtyard is a simple small kitchen, and on the right side is a large water tank. The aisle in the middle can only accommodate one adult, and anyone who is a little fat will have to walk sideways.

The house was even more simple, with only two rooms, the outer room was the living room and also Song Tiesheng's bedroom.

There was not even a bed. During the day, the only possessions of his family were placed on two cabinets: a cupboard for chopsticks, rice bowls and plates, a clock and an old tube radio.

At night, they put all the things on the floor, put two cabinets together, and covered them with bedding, which became Song Tiesheng's bed.

In the inner room there is a large bed and a small bed made of benches, which is where Song Tiesheng's mother and two younger sisters sleep.

"Mom, this is the third brother I mentioned." Song Tiesheng put the sack in the outer room and led Xie Hushan to the inner room. He called out to his mother first, and then whispered to Xie Hushan:

"Don't worry, my mother is cured. The doctor said it's not contagious. She's just still weak. She needs to rest more and can't rush to work in the fields."

When Xie Hushan walked in, he saw a middle-aged woman with a haggard face and a slightly pale complexion lying on the bed resting. When she saw Xie Hushan coming in, she sat up from the bed and greeted him with a smile:
"Hurry up and sit down, kid. Tiesheng mentioned it many times, saying that it was thanks to you that I was hospitalized last time..."

"Aunt, that happened so long ago. Didn't Tiesheng tell you that I was grateful for his help?" Xie Hushan pulled a stool next to the bed and sat down, smiling and saying:

"I've wanted to come for a long time, but I had something to do at the brigade's steel mill and couldn't leave. Now that I'm finally done with my work, I'd like to take advantage of the time before the official production starts to come and see you."

Tiesheng's mother was a gentle and kind person. Xie Hushan chatted with Song Tiesheng's mother for a while. Fearing that she would be tired, he took the initiative to get up and say goodbye. He politely declined the other party's offer to keep him for dinner, saying that he would come back for a meal when his aunt was better.

He came to the county town this time for another important matter.

Song Tiesheng also guessed that Xie Hushan must have something going on when he came to the county town, but he could tell from Xie Hushan's appearance and didn't know the specific circumstances, so he asked his mother to continue to rest in bed and he sent Xie Hushan out himself.

The two stood at the door and smoked. Xie Hushan said to Song Tiesheng:
"The things in the sack are what I asked the doctor about. They are the food that can help patients recover after they are discharged from the hospital with tuberculosis. There will be some every month. Tell your mother not to save them. I will have someone send more for you after you finish eating them."

Song Tiesheng didn't pay attention to what Xie Hushan said. He kept looking at Xie Hushan. Since he saw Xie Hushan just now, he had been wanting to ask if something happened.

Today, Xie Hushan was wearing a ash-grey jacket, black pants, and a pair of sweat-stained Feili sneakers. His hairstyle had also changed, originally a thin, short, crew cut. Since we hadn't seen each other for some time, Xie Hushan might not have had a haircut, so his hair had grown longer and looked a little sloppy.

The overall feeling is that from the way he is dressed, you can tell that his family is well off, but he is just very sloppy and doesn't know how to clean himself up.

This look doesn't look like the ruthless big brother that Song Tiesheng had seen before. Instead, he looks more like a shy young bachelor with some money?

Song Tiesheng asked tentatively: "Third brother, what's the matter? Sister-in-law doesn't want to live with you anymore..."

"Does the railway system care about passengers in the same fucking tone as you do?" Xie Hushan scolded Song Tiesheng angrily.

"No, why are you dressed like this? You don't look like yourself..." Song Tiesheng smiled a little embarrassedly. At this time, he heard some noise at the entrance of the alley. He turned his head and saw Han Hongbing and Chen Daxixi walking towards him happily, waving at him as they walked.

When Song Tiesheng saw Han Hongbing and Chen Daxi, a smile appeared on his face and he waved at them. He was about to ask them why they didn't come in when he suddenly realized that the two guys didn't change at all. They looked the same as they did when everyone was drinking, and they were always ready to fight.

Why does the third brother seem a little out of place?

He looked at Xie Hushan and lowered his voice:
"Third brother, are you and the other two coming to the county town for something?"

Xie Hushan was tidying up his clothes and said, "Take them for a walk and teach them how to run their business."

"What to teach?" Song Tiesheng thought he had heard it wrong.

None of the guys in Zhongping seems to be able to lower themselves to do business. Although Song Tiesheng has never done business himself, he has seen the people in charge of running errands in the factory come to the railway to ask for help. That's how servile they are.

In order to get the railway to arrange carriages to transport the goods from their factory, those people really had to lose face. Giving gifts is the last thing to do. You have to talk to the railway leaders first, right?

Help railway leaders clean their homes, take out the trash, carry cabbages and coal briquettes in winter, deliver ice and soda in summer, and even help pick up children from school and accompany the elderly to see doctors...

You have to be more filial than your own son. I don’t know how long you will work like this before your boss takes a liking to you and his family members also approve of you. Then you will get the following sentence:
"Come to my office tomorrow."

This is what the leader is doing, giving you a chance and being willing to listen to what gift you give and whether it is worth arranging a carriage for you.

Judging from their looks and aura, Han Hongbing and Chen Daxixi don't look like buyers or supply and marketing men who can travel outside.

If these guys who would stab people with bayonets if they didn't agree with them after a few words could all do business, Song Tiesheng could become the head of the supply and marketing department.

"It's business. Speaking of this, I have to thank you and that old man Liu Changhai." After Xie Hushan tidied his clothes, he pulled up his cuffs slightly to reveal his watch, trying to make himself look more corrupt, and then asked Song Tiesheng.

Song Tiesheng looked at Han Hongbing who came over and high-fived him. He was overjoyed and looked at Xie Hushan:
"What business? The second son of Liu Changhai has also committed a crime? Are you going to take out his second son and put him in the crematorium furnace for a bit of ideological reform?"

"Commander Xie is serious about business. Han Hongbing said to Song Tiesheng with a smile, "Show the letter of introduction to Tiesheng." Xie Hushan, holding a cigarette in his mouth, took out a letter of introduction from his jacket pocket and showed it to Song Tiesheng.

Song Tiesheng took it and took a look at it. It was indeed a letter of introduction. It was written with the letterhead of Zhongping Cold-rolled Strip Steel Plant and was stamped with the factory's seal. The content was introducing the purchasing agent Comrade Xie Hushan to come to Yaoshan area to purchase scrap steel.

"No wonder you looked so strange in your outfit. It turns out you're a buyer. After putting on this outfit, you do look a bit like me, third brother." Song Tiesheng returned the letter of introduction to Xie Hushan and said with a smile:

"What kind of business are you doing? Don't you just want to find some OEM work? Just give some gifts to the leaders of the steel mills that Lao Liu mentioned, and ask them to give your factory some small orders that they don't want to do. Just drink with them and say you are the factory director. They will definitely not drink with you if you look like this. You don't look generous at all, and you look a bit stingy."

Xie Hushan said, "This is the temperament I want. I was originally planning to get some gifts and send them according to the normal process, asking the leaders to give me some soup. But by chance, Han Laoer told me some new information. When I heard it, I didn't have to kneel to make money. I could make money standing up. So why should I send gifts or ask people for help? I can just run the business normally, so I came here."

"Come on, what good person would bring them along on a business trip? Lao Er and Da Xi obviously have weapons on their waists." Song Tiesheng glanced at Han Lao Er and Chen Da Xi's waists and said in a positive tone:
"Second brother, what information have you got? Can you tell me?"

"Didn't you and Old Man Liu Changshan send a few workers to the steel rolling mill? This information was given to me by one of the workers." Han Hongbing introduced the information to Song Tiesheng.

During this period, Liu Changhai worked very hard for his crazy son and followed Song Tiesheng around. In addition to the drawings, he also introduced five full-time technical workers to the Zhongping Cold Rolled Strip Steel Plant.

Of course, these five were problematic workers who had made mistakes before and were fired from their factories.

Their mistakes were basically speculation, profiteering, work style problems, left-right problems, etc. However, Xie Hushan, Han Hongbing and others did not discriminate against them just because they made mistakes. They treated them according to the salary and benefits of the county factories, treated them as masters, provided them with good food and drink, and let them teach Han Hongbing and others steel rolling technology.

As for the business of processing and purchasing scrap steel, Xie Hushan was indeed prepared to go to Jiao Peng's house to give him gifts, but Jiao Peng had just taken up his new post and had a lot of things to do. Xie Hushan wanted to wait a few more days until Jiao Peng was done with his work, and then have Minister Jiao show him some support and build relationships with him. Otherwise, the leaders of the big factories might not pay attention to a small rural workshop like his.

I didn't expect the fired workers to be able to help with business, but coincidentally, one of the five was a worker named Zhou Yanlin.

This guy in his forties used to work at a special-shaped steel processing factory in Bingyang County. He had good pickling and annealing skills, but was fired from the factory last year for speculation.

In order to learn his pickling and annealing skills, Han Laoer brought a few militiamen to chase him all day long and called him master. Knowing that he liked to drink, they provided him with roadside drinks three times a day and took turns to drink with him.

As a result, the night before yesterday, this guy drank a little too much. When Han Hongbing was drinking with him, he mentioned that Xie Hushan might go to the county town to run business in the next few days to see if he could get some scrap steel or processing orders and officially start work.

After drinking, Zhou Yanlin said disdainfully that if Xie Hushan had no connections, he would not be able to get anything, and that was only because he was a local. If he was an outsider, not only would he not be able to buy any scrap steel, but he would also be cheated out of whatever money he had.

Han Hongbing's heart was moved, but he remained calm and continued to persuade people to drink and ask questions, and finally got a piece of information out:
This old guy Zhou Yanlin was fired not because of speculation as he said, but because of the serious crime of extortion.

This bastard actually used fishing tactics to cheat several salesmen from other places who came to Bingyang County to purchase scrap steel.

Because of the developed steel industry in Yaoshan area, salesmen from all over the country who want to purchase various steel materials basically come to Yaoshan area to visit large and small steel factories. These salesmen have money, and once an order is settled, they can always pay a deposit of several thousand yuan.

Zhou Yanlin was targeting these salesmen. Of course, he was not the mastermind, but just a follower. The mastermind was a deputy director of the factory, and the accomplice was the public security department of the processing plant.

Yes, Public Security Department.

Many state-owned steel mills in Bingyang County have their own "enterprise public security" departments.

These public security officers working for major enterprises, like the public security police officers in the county bureau, have uniforms, work permits, investigation powers, interrogation powers, etc. They receive their salaries and benefits from their affiliated enterprises, but the related business is, in principle, managed by the county bureau.

If the factory is large, the public security organization will also be large, usually the public security department of a certain factory. If the factory is slightly smaller, a public security section of a certain factory will be set up.

Generally speaking, in Bingyang County, it is equivalent to hanging two signs in the factory security department.

In factories of all sizes in Bingyang County, the price of a ton of scrap steel fluctuates between 600 and 700 yuan. The deputy director of that factory vaguely told the out-of-town salesperson that he had a batch of scrap steel that could not be stamped with an official seal and issued a receipt, and the price could be sold to the salesperson at 450 yuan per ton. He asked the salesperson to contact Zhou Yanlin to find out the details.

This kind of behavior of harming the public interest for personal gain is very common, so many salesmen will hardly doubt it as long as they are sure that the other party is the deputy director of the factory, the real leader.

As for whether these scrap steels are sold secretly or openly, that is not a problem for these salesmen. They only care about whether they can bring the steel back to their factories.

Moreover, the deputy factory director would also say that they could ship the goods first and collect the money later. Zhou Yanlin and others would first deliver the scrap steel to the freight yard for delivery so that the salesperson could see it with their own eyes and it could be loaded and shipped away at any time. They could then pay after signing for it with complete peace of mind.

However, once the salesperson pays the money, the scrap steel will be quickly seized by the police from the Public Security Department of the Bingyang Special-shaped Steel Processing Plant.

The reason was that this batch of scrap steel was stolen goods they had seized, and the factory leaders had been arrested and had revealed the whereabouts of the scrap steel during interrogation, so they came to recover the stolen factory property.

How can out-of-town salesmen distinguish the difference between corporate police and county police? Moreover, when they are away from home, they often have to suffer in silence. The end result is that their money is drained away, and they don't get the goods, so they can only leave in disgrace.

As a result, when Zhou Yanlin and his colleagues used this trick on a non-local salesperson last year, they accidentally hit a wall. Although the non-local salesperson was from another place, he happened to have a retired comrade-in-arms in the Bingyang County Bureau who is now the deputy director of the County Public Security Bureau.

After being blackmailed by these people, the salesman went straight to his comrades, who came forward to help recover the money that had been defrauded, and reported the matter to the factory. Eventually, the deputy factory director gave Zhou Yanlin a small sum of money and promised to let him return to the factory after the storm had passed. Only then did Zhou Yanlin come forward alone and take on all the responsibility.

The factory ultimately characterized the incident as a serious act of speculation and ended the whole thing by announcing the expulsion of Zhou Yanlin from the entire factory.

Until now, Zhou Yanlin has not been able to return to work in the factory. He said after drinking:
Those bastards are still comfortably making money by cheating outsiders, drinking Fenjiu and Xifeng every day. They are the only ones who are unlucky and have to end up drinking loose liquor in a rural steel mill.

Han Hongbing told Xie Hushan about this, and Xie Hushan felt that it was simply God's advice for him to make money while standing.

So this time when I came to the county town, I took a letter of introduction and some money, disguised myself as an out-of-town buyer, spoke Cantonese, and actively sought to get a bargain.

(End of this chapter)