Hard times: I worked as a truck driver in the county town

In the Yi'an County Supply and Marketing Cooperative, the director is the top leader in terms of business operations and real power. However, in terms of administrative power, the Party branch secretary of the cooperative is the true leader.

The director and secretary of the county's supply and marketing cooperative are both at the level of section chief, while Liu Kaihong is the deputy director, also at the level of deputy section chief.

The current director of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative is Yang Wenbin, who is 56 years old this year and once participated in revolutionary work. The Supply and Marketing Cooperative of Yi'an County was established in 1951. At that time, there were not so many outlets and grassroots supply and marketing cooperatives in the county. Yang Wenbin was the first director of the county.

According to domestic retirement standards, ordinary male workers should retire at the age of 55. However, the director of the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives is an administrative cadre, and the retirement age for cadres is 60.

However, Yang Wenbin's health is failing, and he may have to retire early due to illness. If he retires, and promotions are made internally, Deputy Director Liu Kaihong will likely take his place.

However, it would be difficult for Liu Kaihong to be promoted, because this is not an ordinary cadre position. Moreover, internal promotion is only suitable for cadres below the level of director.

To put it simply, regardless of which department head retires, the chances of internal promotion to someone from the same department are only 10%. Ninety percent of the time, they are transferred from other departments.

To put it simply, Liu Kaihong is a deputy section-level cadre. If he were to become the director, it wouldn't just be an increase in power, but his administrative rank would rise to the full section-level.

So, the people competing with Liu Kaihong for the director position weren't other cadres from the supply and marketing cooperative, but rather deputy section-level and section-level cadres from the entire county.

The director and secretary of the county supply and marketing cooperative are at the same level as the heads of various departments and bureaus in the county. However, because the supply and marketing cooperative is in charge of materials and has a lot of lucrative opportunities, their actual status is higher than that of ordinary bureau chiefs.

Therefore, if a department director is transferred to a supply and marketing cooperative as a director, that can be considered a "promotion." Also, there's the issue of limited positions; if some deputy section-level cadres in a county make outstanding contributions but there's no promotion available in their own unit, they might be transferred to other departments to take on leadership roles.

At the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, Deputy Director Liu's only advantage is an internal recommendation. However, the position of director has always been appointed by the county party committee.

Fortunately, Director Yang isn't retiring due to age. He'll see how he is; if things go well, he might continue working. If he needs to be hospitalized, Liu Kaihong will at most temporarily take over his duties.

As long as Director Yang chooses to retire due to illness, the county will immediately convene a meeting to recommend a suitable person to serve as the director of the supply and marketing cooperative.

So, Liu Kaihong has a chance to advance his career, but it's slim. If he wants to be valued by those above him, it's simple: the Supply and Marketing Cooperative manages supplies, and if he can procure unplanned supplies that benefit many cadres in the county, that would be a demonstration of ability, and a promotion through special channels wouldn't be impossible.

A deputy director in the county has some power within his local area. However, getting him to contact and procure supplies from outside the county is a challenge, requiring both connections and resources.

The county supply and marketing cooperative had the right to purchase goods from outside, but it didn't own any cars, so it relied on oxcarts, horse-drawn carts, and donkey carts to purchase products from surrounding communes. Purchasing products from neighboring counties was generally handled by the director; even the deputy director wasn't qualified.

Having a car and the ability to buy things from other places, and demonstrating one's resources and connections before Director Yang retires, are crucial for Deputy Director Liu to have a real chance of being promoted from deputy section chief to section chief and eventually to director.

In the past, Liu Kaihong felt he wouldn't have had that opportunity. He had the ambition, but sometimes ambition alone isn't enough to accomplish something.

Like some clerical writers, they need to write well to be noticed. But often, to write well, one needs to learn and read a lot, yet they often don't even have the opportunity to learn.

Liu Kaihong also wanted to improve his skills, but given the conditions in the county town, let alone getting goods from other places, even if he could, he probably wouldn't be able to transport them to the county town.

Now, Liu Kaihong feels that he still has a chance.

~~

Inside the rest room of the county transportation station, Liu Kaihong sat on a bench chatting with Jiang Cheng.

This morning, Liu Kaihong arranged work for some staff members of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative. It's almost Chinese New Year, and while other units will be on holiday, the Supply and Marketing Cooperative has to stay open, so there are many things to arrange.

After Liu Kaihong had arranged everything, he returned to his office to read the newspaper when someone notified him that the drivers at the bus station were looking for him.

As the deputy director of the supply and marketing cooperative, he actually held a very high position in the county. It was not easy for the communes and some small units below to get in touch with him.

But the truck drivers at the transport station were different. Although they weren't officials, they held very high positions. Before, the county didn't have any cars, which was fine, but now that they did, who could guarantee they wouldn't have to ask them for help in case of an emergency?

Yesterday, there was a transportation accident, and Liu Kaihong went to the trucking station to borrow a vehicle. He had to be polite to the driver.

So when Liu Kaihong heard that the drivers from the transportation station were looking for him, he went out of his office to meet them personally.

Liu Kaihong initially thought the driver was someone he had just met yesterday, but today he was trying to ask him to buy goods through internal channels. He thought it wouldn't be good to offend this young driver, so he just sold him some things that didn't require coupons.

However, Liu Kaihong did not expect that Jiang Cheng had asked him to help "handle" scarce items.

Fifteen catties of apples and three catties of fatty pork—the members of the supply and marketing cooperative could actually buy some meat every month without ration coupons. But the quantity was limited; getting one or two catties a month was considered good. Even if a large family ate an extra one or two catties of meat a month, they would still be short of oil and fat.

No one would complain about having too much meat, especially fatty meat. One pound of fatty meat can yield seven or eight ounces of oil. The cracklings are also very fragrant, and not a single bit will be wasted.

The key point is that Liu Kaihong heard Jiang Cheng mention apples, something even the cadres of the supply and marketing cooperative could only occasionally obtain. Even if the county had apples, the common people rarely saw them; some county leaders even had to look after them.

Ordinary people simply cannot obtain apples, so Liu Kaihong felt that Jiang Cheng was not just a driver, but also seemed to have some special connections behind him.

When Liu Kaihong arrived at the transportation station's break room, he was slightly surprised to see the apple.

The apple Jiang Cheng showed him was large and bright red; it looked festive.

Liu Kaihong works at the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives and is very knowledgeable about many products.

The most popular apple variety right now is the Guoguang Small, which is yellowish-green with a hint of red. It has a thick, hard skin, a slightly sour taste, a strong apple flavor, and no aroma.

Green banana is the name of a variety of apple, not a banana. It's yellowish-green and tastes pretty good.

Red Jade apples are indeed red in color. But red doesn't mean sweet. Red Jade apples are small, very sour, and the flesh is soft and easily falls apart.

Fuhua skin has a bland taste and does not keep well.

The best Red Delicious apples, also known as red bananas, are large, glossy, thick-skinned, and fragrant.

The one Jiang Cheng got seemed to be a large Red Marshal caliber, but its condition seemed a bit different. However, even with this condition, it was already quite good.

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