Chapter 2317 - Danzhou Development Seminar

Hundreds of kilometers from Lingao, along the shores of Danzhou Bay, a storm was sweeping across the land.

Surging dark clouds shrouded the sky as torrential rain mixed with lightning and thunder poured down upon the earth. The leveled ground was washed away, and fierce winds tore at the straw mats and tarpaulins barely covering the stored materials, sending them spiraling into the air like kites.

The sea surged under the gale, crashing against the coastline. Fortunately, Danzhou Bay was an inner sea, and the waves had weakened considerably by the time they reached shore. But even so, the several H800 freighters docked at Yangpu Wharf were tossed about on the swells like toys.

Less than one kilometer from Yangpu Wharf, several container huts still stood erect against the storm. The branches and leaves that had originally shaded them from the sun had long been scattered to unknown places. Rainwater that couldn't drain quickly enough gathered at the containers' bases—the containers themselves had been raised on stones, temporarily escaping the flood, but the equipment and goods in the yard couldn't avoid the disaster.

Through the wind and rain, one could barely make out a few black characters on a wooden sign hanging in front of one container hut: "Danzhou Industrial Park Construction General Headquarters."

Indeed, this was the key project of the Second Five-Year Plan: the Danzhou Industrial Park.

The Danzhou Industrial Park wasn't a single factory, nor merely a few factories—it was an entire chemical industry system. To describe it simply: a chemical industrial park. In other words, the crude chemical enterprises the Senate had cobbled together since D-Day would undergo comprehensive integration and upgrading here. Not only would they begin producing many chemical products they hadn't dared even contemplate before, but they would also achieve a leapfrog increase in output of basic chemical categories that were currently pitifully small and could only rely on constant low-level repetitive construction.

In the long term, this location would also develop industries such as petroleum refining, pharmaceuticals, and related machinery manufacturing. The ambitions were vast. Reading the description of Danzhou's industrial future drafted by the chemical industry department was enough to set one's heart racing with excitement and infinite yearning. But at present, the Danzhou Industrial Park consisted of nothing more than these few container huts.

Construction of the industrial park had begun almost simultaneously with the Senate's launch of the mainland strategy. Yet compared to the army's momentum—splitting bamboo, invincible—the industrial park's construction was struggling.

The reason was simply insufficient resources. True, the Senate had launched this project to solve the resource problem, but before any project could generate returns, it required significant resource input.

The Second Five-Year Plan was quite ambitious. Although some obviously unrealistic projects had been "paused" according to Senators' suggestions and actual conditions before launch, the Planning Commission still faced a situation of too many monks and too little gruel. On one side was the rollout of the Second Five-Year Plan; on the other was the enormous expense of the Liangguang battlefield. Large amounts of productive capacity were occupied by military production, and the occupation of transport capacity also slowed material circulation. This caused substantial reductions in investment and materials allocated to industry and agriculture. Two months after construction began on the Danzhou Industrial Park, by the third month, work stoppages due to delayed materials had already appeared.

The Senators who had originally arrived ambitious and prepared to accomplish great things in Danzhou could only gather in the container huts with nothing to do but curse. High-level Government Administration Council leaders—from Ma Qianzhu to Wu De to Xi Yazhou to Cheng Dong—none escaped their venom.

Seeing the project wasn't going smoothly, Ji Tuisi figured that rather than letting everyone congregate just to curse, they might as well do something else. So he convened a "seminar" for the main backbone personnel of the chemical industry in Danzhou.

Since it was a seminar, the natural focus was "relaxation"—letting everyone decompress. Serving in the chemical industry sector was definitely a test. Senators not only faced danger at all times but frequently confronted death. The mortality rate in the chemical sector had long ranked first in the Senate's industrial system. Consequently, salaries and subsidies were also the highest in the Senate, on par with the metallurgy sector.

Almost every chemical industry Senator had witnessed various ways naturalized workers died. They could easily film "A Thousand Ways to Die in the Chemical Industry," which had made their nerves somewhat unbearable. Moreover, they often faced sudden fatal accidents just like the naturalized workers—it was only that their vigilance was far higher, and they strictly followed rules and regulations in all aspects. Thus they had fortunately maintained a safety record of no Senator deaths or serious injuries for ten years.

Such mental pressure naturally needed timely relief. For this Danzhou seminar, Ji Tuisi had entrusted the General Office and the newly appointed Director of Danzhou to prepare "programs" locally.

Unexpectedly, before the programs could begin, the group encountered a storm just after walking around the civil engineering site of the Danzhou Industrial Park.

The Senate's weather forecasting capability was quite weak. After all, they had no satellites, no computers, and no weather radar—relying only on manual observation to infer weather conditions. Accurate forecasts were pure fantasy.

The storm came suddenly, and they couldn't withdraw to Danzhou City in time. So the group gathered in this construction headquarters, idly chatting and killing time while waiting for the storm to pass.

At that moment, none of them paid attention to the wind and rain outside. Instead, they stared intently at the "Danzhou Industrial Park Project Planning Blueprint" hanging on the wall, densely marked with various factories and institutions covering the entire Danzhou Bay area.

However, currently under construction were only auxiliary facilities like the Yangpu Lighthouse, Yangpu Wharf, and the Industrial Park Transportation Center—roads and railways leading to other locations on the blueprint would converge here. Right now, there weren't even worker dormitories; the thousands of construction workers building the Danzhou Industrial Park could only live in simple work sheds.

As for production facilities, only the civil engineering of the oil shale refining plant was slowly underway. Other factories were even less than a glimmer.

The blueprint was fierce as a tiger; looking back, it was just a sick cat. This was the current reality of the Danzhou Industrial Park. Observing the contrast between the two, the attendees felt increasingly disgruntled.

"We've been transmigrated for almost ten years, and our basic industrial construction is still a pile of shit..." Zhang Xiao sighed. "Let alone our chemical industry—simply the shit among shit. Up to now, production scale is at most laboratory level. For several of our most basic products, a single pilot test output by my senior brother exceeds our largest workshop's output!"

"If it weren't a pile of shit, why would we be here? The chemical industry has been held back!" Zhang Hao followed without missing a beat. "The main culprits are first the Planning Commission, then the metallurgy sector. The former constantly suppresses and suppresses, and the latter shirks and shirks!"

As head of the chemical industry, Ji Tuisi naturally couldn't allow the "Two Zhangs" to attack "friendly sectors" like this, let alone the omnipotent Planning Commission. He coughed. "The Planning Commission can't conjure materials out of thin air—it's just a distribution department. As for metallurgy, if stainless steel can't be made, it can't be made. You can't expect them to produce nickel and chromium from nothing."

"Last time working on silicon steel, huge resources were invested, and the result was a pile of scrap iron. Got the electric power sector excited for nothing."

"That technical route was wrong to begin with!"

"Then tell us your technical route?"

"My technical route is stuck at several key nodes. The mechanics guys can't make it—say they're missing key materials."

"Isn't that obvious? This is a damn infinite loop!"

"If it could have been achieved back then, that would have been good. If the electric power sector had made a breakthrough, everyone would benefit—at least we'd be much better off with non-ferrous metals, and some rare elements wouldn't choke us. Now not only has the electric power sector produced a half-baked project, but we have to add a power workshop when modifying the factory!"

"Multi-rivet steam steel—Ma Qianzhu's favorite."

"The factory using water vats of various sizes as distillation equipment for so long fits Ma Qianzhu's aesthetic perfectly, but it's killing us."

With everyone adding their piece inside the container, the gathering threatened to become a complaint session. Ji Tuisi laughed. "Enough of this useless griping. This seminar was originally meant to discuss coordination issues for industrial park construction. We've been engaged in construction here for years—we can't keep using the same old excuses anymore. We need to bring out some new breakthroughs and new approaches. Zhan Wuya is coming the day after tomorrow too."

"Even a clever housewife cannot cook without rice." The speaker was named Zhou Wei—a young man, though to say "young" wasn't quite right. In short, he was the kind of "young man" whose exact age was hard to determine. But since he was a Ph.D., he was probably around thirty.

Dr. Zhou had come with his wife; they were one of the few Ph.D. couples in the Senate. His participation in the transmigration had also been an accident: purely because his wife had seen it online and thought it sounded interesting—might be fun to check out. Zhou Wei had assumed it was some organization scamming money and fooling people, but since his wife found it interesting, he figured he might as well participate. At most they'd spend a few thousand yuan, treating it as a trip to Leizhou. If there was a chance to shoot some videos and post them online as "Records of the Destruction of an Internet Fraud Group," maybe he could become an internet celebrity.

Unexpectedly, this "trip" turned into a "permanent tour" for the couple. Zhou Wei had stomped his feet and beat his chest in frustration. In the old timeline, he'd held a management position at a commercial bank—decent position, good money, plenty of attractive young women... now it was all damn gone! Gone!

As for his wife, she had also held a management position in banking. Such superior conditions led many Senators to believe they had joined the transmigration truly for "ideals," and Dr. Zhou had to accept his persona by mistake.

Since he'd come, he might as well settle in. Fortunately, his major was still useful. He had successively participated in preparatory work for the Planning Commission, Delong Bank, Cheka, and other finance and tax departments. Plus Zhou Wei was sociable and always had good popularity. Everyone assumed he was aiming for the position of future President of Delong or the Central Bank—but he wasn't. His ambition had nothing whatsoever to do with finance.

(End of Chapter)