I was reborn without dreams

Chapter 159 Open your mind, and progress will come naturally.
The first month of the lunar calendar is actually a time for everyone to let loose or enjoy themselves, and the festive street music can make everyone feel much better.

The old man was very willing to accept the guidance of his clever younger generation, and he indeed contacted old friends in his own village, as well as in the neighboring village and even the neighboring city.

The thick phone book had long since yellowed with age. Some families without phones would call "Pineapple Boy" and have him drive them there in his Passat.

They even specially prepared two small red flags to place in the car, fully meeting their spiritual needs.

I didn't mean anything by it, I just wanted to show off.

The old men were quite happy. Those who were doing well at home were even happier; those who were not doing well at home, their children hesitated and trembled with excitement when they saw Zhang Qihong in his "cadre's uniform" with shiny leather shoes and a gleaming watch, as they accepted "Hua Zi's" gift.

Leaving behind a bag of miscellaneous "New Year's goods" ensures family harmony in the new year, and even children who were previously unfilial will likely vie to show their respect.

This is the prestige of the Passat.

It has a much higher level of credibility in rural areas than the Audi A6.

However, there were also some unpleasant things, such as an old friend from Shanghu City who passed away the year before last.

After the old man returned, he kept telling Zhang Da'an how hard and conscientious this person was in his work, and how he helped this person and that person when he was working on the river.

How could he have died?

"Grandpa, there's a saying passed down from our ancestors: 'The way of Heaven is constant; it doesn't exist for Yao, nor does it perish for Jie.' You've heard of Yao, Shun, Yu, and Tang, right? They were wise rulers thousands of years ago. You know King Zhou of Shang, right? And the one on par with him was Jie of Xia. This saying means that whether there are good people or bad people, it doesn't affect the objective laws. What are objective laws? Birth, aging, sickness, and death are objective laws. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow morning, right? Take it easy."

"Who said that? It's so old-fashioned. It's almost like saying 'seek truth from facts'."

Xunzi.

"That person must be similar to Confucius."

"They're about the same, but his thinking is a bit more specific."

Zhang Qihong wasn't very educated, and he was just grateful that his children could get an education.

"Good people should live longer, so that society can be a better place."

"Then the bad guys have to be even worse to balance things out."

"..."

My wonderful mood during the first month of the lunar year was completely ruined by my nephew.

Zhang Qihong has already planned his travel route. His first stop is Northeast China, where he will go to the Yalu River to see the sun shining brighter.

After finishing everything, go to Beijing to bow, climb the Great Wall, watch the flag-raising ceremony, eat a Peking duck, and then go to eat "donkey meat sandwich".

He had an old comrade-in-arms who treated him to this once, and it tasted really good.

There's no need to worry about expenses; he did dream about it. He originally planned to be frugal, but his nephew said that if he spent 10,000 yuan a day, that would only amount to 3.65 million yuan a year.

He can earn it in two or three days.

The old man was determined to splurge. He would eat two roast ducks at a time and add extra meat to his donkey meat sandwiches!
Douzhi'er gave "Pineapple Boy" a bowl of douzhi and then another bowl, watching him drink it.

After the old man had something to do, his energy was indeed greatly increased, and Zhang Da'an let him be. When people get old, they are no different from children.

Two days before the start of construction and opening on the seventh or eighth day of the Lunar New Year, several departments from Shazhou City came to pay their respects, mainly to confirm the location of the new campus of Xindongwei Port Middle School.

The city also sent people to Zhongwu City to communicate. Governments are generally more aware of the ins and outs of things, such as the future plans for Zhongwu City.

The order in which areas are developed, whether early or late, is actually related to the capital strength behind them.

Both state-owned capital and private capital are judged by their strength. Larger state-owned capital has more power, and smaller state-owned capital has to give way to larger state-owned capital. They are all government agencies, but there are still huge differences between them.

Normally, the planning of Zhongwu City is undoubtedly to prioritize the urban area over the suburbs. It's not that they don't want to develop along the river, but rather that development along the river is relatively far from the city center and relies entirely on road transportation.

But building roads is never a simple matter of laying out a map and connecting lines.

Who gets the land sometimes determines the priority of a route; the level of the land also determines the specifications of the route.

This communication also included observers from Jiyang City. The main reason is that if it were held at the border of Jiyang City and Zhongwu City, then the Mazhou Branch and Jianggao Branch of Xindongwei Port Middle School could be used as a reference, and the feasibility of a branch school in Jiyang could be explored in the future.

In fact, Yixing City, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Zhongwu City, was also interested. However, because "Zhang An Education" wanted to run a junior college, the negotiation process involved choosing between the Xindongwei Port Middle School branch and the junior college.

Just last year, Jiangkou Yixing Ceramic Industry School underwent restructuring and was upgraded to Jiangkou Taihu Industrial Art Vocational College. In November, the plan was finalized, and "Zhang An Education" took a ride on it, which can be regarded as "school-enterprise co-construction". Relying on Jiangkou Taihu Industrial Art Vocational College, it is preparing to build Jiangkou Yixing Vocational College.

Furthermore, there are two commitments involved: first, "Zhang An Education" will not participate in the ceramics industry, especially the Zisha teapot industry; second, "Zhang An Education" will pay a portion of the school co-construction fees each year.

In this way, Yixing Vocational College in Jiangkou Province can use the existing facilities of Taihu Industrial and Art Vocational College until the entire school is completed, at which point the co-construction fee will no longer be required. Zhang Da'an's local junior college in Yixing City also primarily recruits students not from recent high school graduates, but rather as employees of the "Zhang An Industrial Alliance" for further education.

They will recruit a number of candidates from the general public, but these positions will be linked to companies.

This is why they are not worried about student enrollment even though they have located the school in the small city of Yixing.

Taking the "team of a thousand illustrators" as an example, many illustrators and artists will come here for full-time study. The three-year course will be condensed into one year by removing some unnecessary subjects.

The main teaching objective during this period was to equip the "team of a thousand artists" with basic engineering knowledge, rather than just experience in art and aesthetics.

Besides these, there are "coders," a group that's like operators on an industrial assembly line. They may not seem as prestigious as architects or other serious programmers, but you really can't do without them.

The development of computer-related products, which involves a large amount of "outsourcing," essentially involves non-mental work time, which is unnecessary for the core team.

Because the added value of products in the computer, electronics, and software industries is extremely high, the salaries of "coders" who are also assembly line workers are about five to ten times that of front-line operators in manufacturing, which is quite respectable overall.

Therefore, in the process of preparing for the Jiangkou Province Yixing Vocational College, the purpose of "Zhang An Education" was to enable students to earn money upon graduation, and to disregard everything else; just as the purpose of Xindongwei Port Middle School was to achieve the college entrance examination score target, and everything else was trivial.

From the perspective of employment rate and tax revenue alone, Yixing City would naturally be interested. Furthermore, having another university in the area would be a plus in terms of science, education, culture, and health.

Furthermore, since "Zhang An Education" doesn't deal with Zisha teapots, it avoids conflicts with local big players, resulting in a high level of mutual satisfaction.

Meanwhile, Zhang Da'an also established connections with the Jiangning University Cluster, becoming a core enterprise in building the local computer software and hardware industry in Jiangning. In terms of faculty, Du Xiaoshuai from Wudu University alone could handle Yixing City without needing to alarm the university management in Jiangning.

These plans were only mentioned briefly on the official website of "Zhang An Education," without any details, indicating that they are still in the stage of keeping them under wraps.

However, the professional content offered by junior colleges is quite clear and concise. Yi Hsing Vocational College mainly focuses on computer graphics, painting, and related fields, with a minor connection to the food industry, specifically packaging design within the food industry.

It is different from "Zhang An Academy", but Zhang Da'an himself will decide whether to merge the two schools based on the scale of development.

Ideally, however, they should not merge, but rather develop independently without interfering with each other.

Unless one of the schools encounters difficulties and has to be merged into one school, the school's existence can be preserved by increasing its size.

Zhang Da'an had kept his secret for a while, but even so, Jiangkou Province still launched a publicity campaign. Especially since there was no high-end, sophisticated leader in private education at the moment, Zhang Da'an, as a "three-time champion," had established two universities, even if they were both small-scale, which was still quite worthy of being boasted about.

This reputation was actually something that Zhongwu City and Yixing City wanted to use to promote Zhang Da'an's "three-time champion" title.

The entire negotiation process involved Shazhou City. The reason for this is that the first private university in the country was located in Shazhou City. It had no prestige among students, but at the government level, it had absolute power.

The use of words like "first," "firstly," and "for the first time" is not something that can be used haphazardly. In the past, it required a considerable amount of resources to acquire them.

Shazhou City actually wants everything, whether it's "Zhang'an College" or "Yixing Vocational College," they want to get their hands on both. However, since there are already plans for a university and a university campus, they can't push the limits any further.

However, laying an ambush and making a good connection is a basic tactic.

I visited Zhang Da'an on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, not simply to solicit donations. Various departments in the city have certain targets, such as poverty alleviation and education assistance. It would be best if enterprises could cooperate, but it's not impossible to complete them without their cooperation. My visit to Zhang Da'an was about gauging the appropriate level of intimacy and discussing future plans.

Zhang Da'an thought that if "unexpected events occurred," he would merge "Zhang'an College" and "Yixing Vocational College" to firmly control at least one university, which was a golden opportunity; Shazhou City had a much more elaborate and exciting plan than him.

“Mr. Zhang, just like the programs offered by Yixing Vocational College, our local universities can also offer similar programs. Professor Du Xiaoshuai didn’t even have any questions when he became the principal. Besides, we’re all from Shazhou. If Mr. Zhang’s business continues to thrive and the school expands, Shazhou should definitely be given priority when considering branch campuses. We’re all from Shazhou, and a good hometown makes you look good, Mr. Zhang. We’ll also benefit from your success…”

"The school only starts enrolling students in the second half of this year, and I'm already thinking about how the school is getting bigger and bigger?"

"Oh, Mr. Zhang, others might not dare to dream of this, but you're a natural scholar! It's just that you're not taking the college entrance exam now, otherwise you would definitely be the top scorer this year. With you around, anything related to education is possible. What does it mean to be a capable person? Mr. Zhang, you're a born capable person. We all respect you very much. These past few years, thanks to you, Binjiang Town has become quite well-developed. If it weren't for Xindongwei Port Middle School, who knows how many more years it would have taken to develop there..."

He flattered Zhang Da'an relentlessly, making Zhang feel incredibly pleased.

However, the city's idea is very firm: if the scale does need to be expanded in the future, the school doesn't need to grow in its original location; they can simply open branch schools in their hometown.

Even though the people who came came from different departments, they all had plenty of equipment.

While some people flatter him, others choose to make empty promises, while simultaneously laying out their plans on the table for Coach Zhang to review.

"Mr. Zhang, this is an idea from our future planning for the north of the city. This area was originally intended to be developed into an industrial zone, but if you are willing, Mr. Zhang, 500 acres of land are reserved for you to build a branch school. You can move your construction company headquarters here first, set up some warehouses, and turn it into a material storage yard. As long as we can explain it to you, that's fine."

"So determined?"

"Absolutely, Mr. Zhang. Schools are popping up all over the country these days, but we in our city believe the vast majority are just jumping on the bandwagon to make money. The more hype there is now, the more desolate the future will be. The logic is simple: sustainability is nowhere to be seen. Running schools without sustainability is just a one-off business. Only your situation is different, Mr. Zhang. We've been tracking and researching this for two or three years, and since we're all from Shazhou, we have the most comprehensive and firsthand information. We firmly believe that you, Mr. Zhang, will find a different path. That's why representatives from several banks in the city are here today to express their support. Regarding funding, in short: Mr. Zhang, just name your price, and we'll give you whatever you need, no discounts!"

We desperately want to improve...

If it weren't for Qiu Jianmin, Zhang Zhengdong, Sima Cong, Liu Yuanshan, Liu Jingbo, and Yuan Yecheng... they wouldn't have gone all in like that.

There are simply too many success stories. Uncle Zhang can be left out, after all, he is Coach Zhang's uncle; but Sima Cong and Liu Yuanshan, these two losers, one actually managed to get ashore and the other managed to turn their lives around, completely exceeding the understanding of the local bumpkins.

That's Jiangning, a place where the "flags on the city walls have changed hands so much these past few days" that is second only to the capital. It's unbelievable that someone could accomplish such a feat. It's truly astonishing that someone would refuse to cling to such a powerful figure.
Coach Zhang's fellow villagers all share the same sentiment: Let's join hands and create a better future together!
(End of this chapter)