Returning wealthy individuals develop their hometowns and become rich in the 1980s

In early September 1980, Lianzhai Village, Jiping Commune, Nanshan County, Tuocheng City

At the Lianzhai Industrial Park at the west end of Lianzhai Village, the factory buildings have been fully completed, and the main structure of the dormitory building next to it has been finished. The bamboo scaffolding on the exterior wall has not yet been removed. The workers are laying mosaic tiles layer by layer. Once the exterior wall tiles are laid and the bamboo scaffolding is removed, the interior will be finished after a simple painting.

A silver Mercedes-Benz 450 slowly drove up the cement road. Chen Zaiguang was driving carefully in the driver's seat, while three other people were sitting in the passenger seat and the back seat, talking to Chen Zaiguang. Chen Zaiguang would occasionally smile in response.

The Mercedes arrived at the newly built park gate, honked the horn, and the Lianzhai village militiamen in the guard room heard the sound, came out and saw that it was Chen Zaiguang's Mercedes. They hurriedly slung their rifles behind their backs, opened the gate, and stood to the side, smiling at Chen Zaiguang.

Chen Zaiguang didn't drive the car in directly. Instead, he stopped the car, rolled down the window, took out two cigarettes from the handrail, and lit them up.

"Thank you, Brother Zaiguang!"

Chen Zaiguang smiled and waved, then stepped on the gas and drove the car into the park. The militiaman then tucked the cigarette behind his ear, reluctant to smoke it, and closed the gate again.

The car stopped in front of the dormitory building. Chen Zaiguang opened the door and got out. The people in the car followed him out and said to Chen Zaiguang, "Zaiguang, the dormitory building at your Guangdong Company is pretty good!"

"Yes, it's so much better than the dormitory buildings at our Water Transport Bureau!"

Among the people who came was Chen Zaiguang's former leader at the Water Transport Bureau. Because of Guangdong Company, Chen Zaiguang is currently on leave without pay at the Water Transport Bureau.

The Water Transport Bureau is also having a tough time right now. Its profits are poor, and most of its ships are old and dilapidated. With no financial subsidies, it can only rob Peter to pay Paul to keep the business afloat.

The reason I came here this time is to see if the company started by Chen Zaiguang, his former subordinate, can help solve the problem of some laid-off workers' jobs. After all, the water transport company was Chen Zaiguang's old workplace.

Listening to these people's words, Chen Zaiguang smiled and said, "These were all my cousin Zaidong's ideas. Let's go in and take a look."

"Okay," the three followed Chen Zaiguang and were about to walk towards the stairs when Chen Zaiguang walked to the large iron gate next to the stairs and pressed the button, which surprised the three of them.

With a ding, the elevator doors, still covered with protective paper, slowly opened. Chen Zaiguang stepped in first, and the three of them stared blankly at the interior of the elevator car, which was made entirely of stainless steel, so shiny it could be used as a mirror.

"Come in," Chen Zaiguang said when he saw the three of them standing there in a daze. "Let's go up to the twelfth floor first, and then look down floor by floor."

After the three entered, Chen Zaiguang pressed the '12' button on the panel, and the elevator doors slowly closed. The three turned to look at the elevator car, and Director Qi from the Labor Bureau couldn't help but ask, "Comrade Zaiguang, this elevator isn't made in China, is it?"

"No," Chen Zaiguang said casually, "They're from the German side, I think it's called Siemens. The ones who came to test the elevators were from Shanghai."

Ding!

The elevator reached the top floor, the twelfth floor. Chen Zaiguang stepped out of the elevator first. The twelfth floor was equipped with couples' rooms. The corridor could be seen from one end to the other. At this moment, all the room doors were open. There were many wires and white plastic junction boxes in the corridor. The electricians from the power company were laying the cables in each room.

Unlike the concealed wiring of later generations, China in this era was basically still using exposed wiring, requiring junction boxes to be installed on the walls, and each room also had an independent electricity meter outside.

Each room has a certain amount of free electricity per month. Someone will come to read the meter every month. If the amount exceeds the limit, the factory will deduct the electricity fee from the employee's salary card.

The four of them entered a room, a 50-square-meter room. There was a small living room and a bathroom at the entrance, and then the main guest room. The space seemed very large. Chen Zaiguang introduced to them, "In Guangdong, we provide meals, so we don't have a kitchen in each room, but a bathroom is standard."

"A carpenter will also come to build everything, including sofas, beds, and cabinets!"

Director Qi nodded repeatedly, "Comrade Zai Guang, your Guangdong Company is truly thoughtful, thinking of everything for you. Employees can move in with just their bags!"

"Hahaha!"

The other two laughed along. Besides the one from the Water Transport Bureau, there was also Director Cao from the Educated Youth Office. There was no other way; in those days, to help those rural youths who had returned to the city find employment, Director Cao from the Educated Youth Office had to run around to various state-owned factories.

Sometimes, you have to talk until your lips are dry just to get one or two positions. Now that the Guangdong Company is about to start operations, he, as the director of the educated youth office, has to pull some strings to see if he can snatch a few more positions from other units so that he can place those unemployed young people at home.

"Comrade Zaiguang, I see that your dormitory building is quite large. How many people can it accommodate?"

Director Cao of the Youth Affairs Office casually inquired, intending to find out how many people Guangdong Company planned to recruit this time by checking the exact number of residents in the dormitory building.

"According to the current plan, there are 270 people," Chen Zaiguang said. "Floors one through six are single rooms, with only one person allowed in each room, making a total of 150 people!"

"Floors seven through twelfth are all couples' rooms; excluding children, that's 120 people!"

Chen Zaiguang walked out of the room and pointed to a dormitory building under construction not far away in the corridor. "That's another building over there, but it will be fifteen stories high and can probably house more than three hundred people!"

Two hundred and seventy people. That is to say, this is the number of workers that Guangdong Company recruited in the early stage. Director Cao was calculating in his mind how many quotas he should ask the county for.

A hundred people? That's probably a bit difficult. The county won't allocate that many slots to educated youth. I estimate that getting sixty or seventy slots would be great.

After hearing this, Director Qi of the Labor Bureau was already calculating how to allocate these 150 positions. If you ask why it's not the full 270, you're overthinking it. All the production brigades in Jiping Commune are eagerly watching.

Moreover, the communes along the way in Zhaoyang County were all hoping to get jobs at the Guangdong Factory and receive government-subsidized grain rations, and the Zhaoyang County Educated Youth Office was also keeping an eye on them.

Of the 270 factory positions, each village in Jiping Commune was allocated a share, a dozen or so were allocated to the communes along the Nanzhao Highway in Zhaoyang County, and Nanshan County could only get a maximum of 150 positions. These positions were also allocated with the educated youth office.

But Director Cao of the educated youth office was unaware that he was still thinking about how to get more factory jobs.