50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 780 A Small Change to History

This Six Nations Hotel is an old building that was first built in 1900.

After the Eight-Nation Alliance withdrew, Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Japan, and Russia joined hands to build this magnificent hotel in the Legation Quarter of Dongjiaomin Lane. This was the earliest "Six Nations Hotel".

The newly built "Six Nations Hotel" had four floors above ground and one floor below ground, and it was the tallest building in Beijing when it was first completed.

Initially, the Six Nations Hotel was only open to foreigners, and it was the first choice for ambassadors, officials, and upper-class people from various countries to stay and dine.

It wasn't until after Zhang Xun's Facebook post that the Six Nations Hotel began accepting Malaysians.

It is said that the introduction of ballroom dancing to Beijing began at the Six Nations Hotel, whose dance hall was famous at the time.

For nearly a century afterward, countless high-ranking officials, social elites, and military and political figures socialized and gathered here, enjoying a life of extravagance and debauchery.

The Six Nations Hotel is like a history book, recording many major historical events in modern China over the past century.

This book contains stories such as Yuan Sikai's assassination of Zhang Ziwu, a hero of the Wuchang Uprising; the plot of female spy Kawashima Yoshizaki seducing her adjutant to murder Zhang Zilin; and the scandalous story between the young marshal and Hu Die, among others.

Because this place was located in the embassy district, it enjoyed extraterritorial rights under the XC Treaty at the time and was protected by the embassy troops of various countries. The Republic of China's military and police could not interfere.

It became a refuge for some disgraced military and political figures, and many celebrities wanted by the government also hid here to avoid arrest.

Today, after more than half a century of weathering, the overall structural problems of the Six Nations Hotel have become increasingly serious.

Earlier this year, there was even an incident where the exterior wall collapsed and nearly hit a passerby.

In view of this, the relevant departments made a decisive decision to renovate it, hoping to revitalize this building that carries a rich history.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the main entity and manager of the Six Nations Hotel, entrusted this renovation project to a house renovation company in Pujiang.

However, the Pujiang decoration company did not start construction directly, but instead subcontracted part of the project to a certain company under a certain construction bureau.

Without hesitation, a certain construction bureau and a certain company subcontracted the work again to a shell company in Beijing.

This construction team only has four people, which clearly means they are not capable of undertaking such a large and complex renovation project.

As a result, the subcontracting chain continued to extend, and in the end, the renovation project of this century-old building actually fell to a farmer construction team in a certain county town.

However, by this time, most of the originally sufficient construction budget had been eaten up in layers of subcontracting, leaving only a little money for this unlicensed farmer construction team to carry out the work.

To be honest, the workers in this peasant construction team weren't incapable of doing the project. If they were paid enough, they could have easily dragged it out.

But after changing hands so many times, there wasn't enough money left. They could only send out a small number of amateur migrant workers and start the renovation project in a very frugal manner.

There are still many unlicensed farmer construction teams like theirs in various places.

These construction teams are all led by local capable people who take on small projects from legitimate construction companies in the city, along with their relatives and fellow villagers.

Even so, riding the wave of reform, they still made real money, and many of them built new houses.

This has led to more migrant workers without construction experience joining unlicensed construction teams across the country.

To reduce construction costs, many contractors completely disregard construction safety; in fact, many contractors themselves lack knowledge of safe construction practices. The four construction workers he rescued from the basement today were there to cut and replace a section of old ventilation duct.

But they had no idea that there was a layer of flammable foam insulation material in the interlayer of the old ventilation ducts of the Six Nations Hotel.

The open flame from cutting the pipe ignited the insulation material instantly.

The construction workers tried to put out the fire themselves, but once the foam plastic is ignited, it's not so easy to extinguish.

Before long, the fire not only failed to be extinguished, but instead grew larger and larger. When the thick smoke filled the basement, they didn't even have a chance to escape and were knocked unconscious by the toxic smoke.

If Sun Zhiwei hadn't accidentally smelled the burning odor and rescued them from the fire in time, these four people would certainly have perished in the basement.

The fire will inevitably spread throughout the building and eventually destroy this historic Six Nations Hotel.

What will stand here in the future is a newly built high-rise building, which will be the Huafeng Hotel at No. 5 Qianmen East Street.

However, history has now changed. Sun Zhiwei saved this historic building, and the Huafeng Hotel will no longer exist here.

When he finished lunch and went downstairs, the place was still a mess, with charred building materials and water stains left from the fire fighting everywhere.

Sun Zhiwei was the first to discover the fire and also saved four construction workers. He still needs to write a report about this.

After returning to his office in the afternoon, he wrote down the details of the incident, then spent his time drinking tea and reading the newspaper in the office until he left work.

After the get off work bell rang, he lingered a few minutes to avoid the peak flow of people going downstairs before going to the bike shed to get his bicycle and go home.

Upon arriving at the gate, Sun Hongying and Xiao Qihang were waiting there, each pushing a bicycle.

The two greeted Sun Zhiwei with "Dad!"

Sun Zhiwei didn't keep a straight face; instead, he smiled and nodded at them. The three of them then rode their bicycles towards the courtyard house on Fuyou Street.

In the afternoon, Yang Guihua received a phone call at home and began to prepare. When the three of them arrived at Hongying's courtyard, Yang Guihua had already prepared a table of delicious dishes.

After the three of them finished dinner, Sun Zhiwei rested in the yard.

The next day, after arriving at work, Sun Zhiwei handed two reports to Xu Yimin. Xu Yimin saw the firefighting report from the previous day and learned what had happened.

"So you were the one who saved people at the guesthouse yesterday. No wonder."

The most dangerous part of yesterday's fire was not the open flame, but the smoldering fire hidden in the ventilation ducts.

Thanks to Sun Zhiwei for pointing out the location of the various pipes, the fire department was able to identify the pipe lines in advance, preventing the fire from spreading.

Otherwise, what they would see today would be a charred ruin, and who knows how many people would have died in the fire along the way.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Guesthouse is no ordinary place; the hotel above it houses either diplomats temporarily returning home or staff members of foreign missions.

Sun Zhiwei truly deserved this credit.

(End of this chapter)