Siheyuan: Game of Red Dust

Chapter 11 Onboarding
Li Weidong left Nanluoguxiang and soon arrived at the steel rolling mill.

After explaining the purpose of my visit to the security comrade, I was led into the steel rolling mill by a security guard.

Li Weidong followed the security guard to the door of the factory director's office in the office building.

"Comrade, please wait a moment, I will report to the factory director," the security guard turned around and said to Li Weidong.

"Okay, thank you for your help, comrade."

The security guard waved his hand and knocked on the office door.

"Come in!" came from the office.

A few seconds after the security guard entered the office, the door suddenly opened, revealing a middle-aged man in his fifties. The moment he saw Li Weidong, he burst into laughter, extended his hand, and said, "Hello! Engineer Li, you're finally here. Secretary Zhang and I have been thinking about you day and night!"

Li Weidong stretched out his hand and shook hands with the factory director.

"You're being too kind. I'm just a fresh-faced kid who just graduated from school. I'll need more criticism and guidance from my superiors in the future."

"Come, let's talk in the office." The factory director pulled Li Weidong into the office.

"Xiao Liu, go call Secretary Zhang and tell him that Engineer Li, whom he has been longing for day and night, is here." The factory director said to the security guard.

"Yes, Director." The security guard said and went out.

After a while, the door opened again, revealing a middle-aged man in his fifties wearing glasses. Before the middle-aged man even entered the door, he said to the inside, "Old Wang, is Engineer Li here?"

Li Weidong stood up quickly. The middle-aged man had already entered the office and shook hands with Li Weidong excitedly.

"Mr. Li, you're finally here. Ever since you contacted our steel mill, we've been looking forward to your visit, and today you're finally here."

"Secretary, thank you for your praise!" said Li Weidong.

Director Wang said to Secretary Zhang, who was holding Li Weidong excitedly, "Old Zhang, come on, let's sit down and have some tea and chat. Engineer Li is here, and he hasn't had a sip of water yet."

Secretary Zhang hurriedly said, "Yes, yes, look at me. Mr. Li, please sit down and have some tea."

The three of them sat down and introduced themselves. In front of Li Weidong were the factory director and the secretary, both of whom looked quite old.

At this time, the steel rolling mill was not yet dominated by Director Yang and Deputy Director Li.

However, Li Weidong also knew that Director Yang and Deputy Director Li would soon be promoted.

But now, it has nothing to do with these two people.

"Director Wang and Secretary Zhang, here are my graduation certificate and letter of introduction."

Having said that, Li Weidong also took out the certificates and letters of introduction he brought with him and placed them in front of the two of them.

Neither Secretary Zhang nor Director Wang went to see Li Weidong's situation. They had not specifically learned about it, but rather some information conveyed from the Ministry of Industry. Some of the content was only known to the two of them in the entire factory, and no third party was allowed to know it.

They had long been aware of the various honors and achievements that Li Weidong had achieved. Although their understanding was not in depth, they were already astonished.

"I heard that you submitted a watch in your graduation project. I wonder if we can take a look at it." Secretary Zhang asked curiously.

Upon hearing this, Li Weidong immediately understood that the two men had fully understood his situation. He simply showed the watch on his wrist, untied the strap, and placed it in front of the two men.

This is a very exquisite watch. On the dial, there is a prominent red flag of the flower growers, which takes up the entire dial, and five yellow five-pointed stars are scattered on it.

The entire dial is a full 44 millimeters, and it feels very substantial when held in the hand.

But it feels good, and there is a mechanical rotating clockwork stopwatch around the outside.

Turn it and it will start to rotate, one circle per second, with a crisp clicking sound.

“This is a mechanical watch that we manufacture entirely in-house. All parts, processing, and assembly are done by us independently, without borrowing any external technology.

This is a fully automatic mechanical watch. Unlike the current mainstream manual-winding mechanical watches, it does not require manual winding from time to time.

You just need to wear it on your wrist and it will be constantly tightened as your hand moves. When you keep it at home for a long time, you only need to shake it from time to time, or put it on a movable device and you can keep moving.

The movement technology of this watch is not much worse than the top watch movements in Europe.

Unfortunately, we currently have too few precision machine tools, so we can only focus on key projects, and general machine tools are unable to process such precise watch parts.

Therefore, we are currently only producing this watch on a small scale to export and earn foreign exchange.”

In this era, mechanical watches are high-end products, especially automatic mechanical watches, which are synonymous with high-end watches.

It is the pinnacle of cutting-edge craftsmanship in the Western world. When this watch, designed by Li Weidong himself, was first unveiled, it naturally caused a huge sensation.

Mechanical watches would have been commonplace in later times, and the flower growers had dozens or even hundreds of their own movements.

Li Weidong started designing and developing this watch when he was a ninth-level engineer. It took him almost two years to complete it, and it became his graduation project.

Then he put it on his wrist.

This is the reward given to Li Weidong by the higher-ups. If this mechanical watch were to be put on sale, given the special meaning given to the five-pointed star on it and the fact that it is the Flower Growers' own Red Star brand mechanical watch, its price would be at least several hundred yuan.

However, it is more about special supply or export to create foreign exchange.

"There are many machine tools in the factory. Can it be put into production?"

Director Wang asked somewhat unwillingly, the watch is a good watch, and it is also the flower grower's own watch, but there is no way to mass-produce it, which is the most regrettable thing.

The main job of a steel rolling mill is to carry out steel rolling operations, but with development, it also has its own processing workshops, industrial workshops, and section workshops, which can process steel ingots and manufacture accessories and important parts by itself.

At the same time, the steel rolling mill is also a parts supplier for military factories, such as manufacturing gun barrels, springs, triggers and other parts, and also produces some vehicle parts.

If it was the original steel rolling mill, it actually had a scale of only one or two thousand people. Now it has developed to tens of thousands of people. The steel rolling mill is no longer just a small steel rolling project.

It is also a comprehensive factory that integrates a series of functions such as steel rolling, production, processing, and parts assembly.

The technical level of the steel rolling mill is not low, and it is also an important factory under the heavy industry of the Ministry of Industry.

Otherwise, the factory director and secretary would not be able to reach the department level.

You should know that many leaders of the Ministry of Industry are actually only at the bureau level.

Li Weidong understood Director Wang's thoughts and shook his head, saying, "I've also learned some information about the steel rolling mill at Harbin Institute of Technology. This was a manufacturing industry that was expanded when the Russians provided aid. The machine tools and other equipment were all supported by the Russians.

However, these machine tools are all old models. After years of use, their precision and processing capabilities have further declined, making them completely unable to process the various precision components inside watches.

In fact, Li Weidong didn't say anything. Now as a senior fitter, he can easily rub all the watch parts by hand.

But that was too slow and the work was very delicate, so Li Weidong would not waste his time on it.

Upon hearing this, Director Wang and Secretary Zhang returned the watch to Li Weidong reluctantly.

Li Weidong took it back and put it on his wrist again.

This is a reward from above, so it naturally cannot be given to others.

Li Weidong asked, "Director, Secretary, when can I start work?"

Although the work has been handed over to Harbin Institute of Technology, he still needs to come here in person to see the attitude of the steel rolling mill.

It's actually just a formality.

Hearing Li Weidong's words, Director Wang and Secretary Zhang both laughed.

The two men took out the documents they had prepared long ago and placed them in front of Li Weidong, saying, "We naturally welcome top talent like Mr. Li with open arms. We were also worried that Mr. Li might have other opportunities and not come to us."

Li Weidong smiled and opened the document handed to him by Director Wang, which contained the arrangement of Li Weidong's position in the steel rolling mill.

The director of the technical department is in charge of the entire technical department.

Not only that, there are also fifteen levels of administrative subsidies including the salary of a level seven mechanical engineer.

This is consistent with the results of negotiations with Harbin Institute of Technology.

Li Weidong naturally had no objection to this.

It is the first time for me to receive the fifteenth-level administrative subsidy at Harbin Institute of Technology.

In fact, engineers from Harbin Institute of Technology rarely receive such administrative subsidies, let alone directly reach level 15.

Administrative subsidies of this level require approval from the ministerial level, and the steel rolling mill does not have this right. You must know that the factory director and secretary are only at the twelfth administrative level.

Of course, every year there are some graduates from Harbin Institute of Technology who have experience in management and project leadership and are directly given administrative positions after arriving in local areas.

This is also for the purpose of better hosting future work, but there is no such overnight success. It would be great if you could reach level 20.

(End of this chapter)