Chapter 66: Our Ten-Mile Camp Truly Is Full of Exceptional Talent

"Xiao Yu, please lend me the two funds that were allocated to Yujia Village recently."

"Don't worry, Leader, I won't run away."

These two sentences seemed completely unrelated, yet they plunged both men into silence.

Back then, Yu Yang had used a single PowerPoint presentation to make cheap plastic greenhouses look sophisticated and high-end in the eyes of the leadership.

First, Old Dong had his subordinates leak the mechanization of the greenhouses to the outside world, attracting investment delegations from surrounding areas.

Then, he personally traveled to Yujia Village and misappropriated 25.00 million from the appropriations originally intended for the Agricultural University's road repairs and relief housing construction, using the funds instead to build roads and parking lots for Yujia Village.

Immediately after, he secured a 20.00 million interest-free loan for Yujia Village from the Urban Bank to finance the construction of residential buildings.

This series of maneuvers served three purposes. First, it sent a message to the provincial government: *Look, everyone attaches great importance to mechanized plastic greenhouses. Now that the end of the year is approaching, Taishi's fiscal expenditures have already exceeded its revenues and severely blown past the budget. It is out of sheer necessity that I am suspending these other two projects in order to keep Sanyuan Agriculture locally.*

Second, it signaled to Yu Yang: *Look how much I value you; you simply must stay here.*

Third, it conveyed to the subordinates: *Look, even the general manager's projects are ones I dare to suspend; who among you dares to defy my will?*

All in all, in the previous round, Old Dong had won by a landslide.

But now.

Perhaps the Taishi General Office had made a move.

Or perhaps the front-page spread that Liaoshi had bought for Old Dong in the Dongshan Evening News yesterday was taking effect.

The problems triggered by the reform of Taishi's official enterprises—such as old men and women sitting in the streets to obstruct traffic, and laid-off workers holding up banners—could no longer be covered up simply by raising a few pigs.

Coupled with the fact that Dongshan Agricultural University had noticed the withdrawal of the Road and Bridge Group and had also started reporting the matter upward...

As this new round opened, Old Dong was already in a complete state of chaos.

Today was the eighteenth day of the eleventh month in the lunar calendar, January 4, 1999, in the Gregorian calendar.

Although the city had begun recalculating its revenues and expenditures anew, this was merely statistical data.

Whether the account books showed money or not was tied to actual tax revenues and other income; funds could not possibly materialize at the very beginning of the month.

This included the loan quotas allocated to banks by the Central Bank, which had to be distributed layer by layer from the headquarters down to the branch offices and sub-branches; it would take at least until mid-January before they could start issuing external loans.

Therefore, the best way for Old Dong to make up for the Agricultural University's road-repair funds and the special relief-housing funds was to shift the 25.00 million back.

The meaning behind Yu Yang's words was simple.

Back then, you worried that Yu Sanyuan would run away, and to retain Sanyuan Agriculture, you smashed 25.00 million over here.

Now, Sanyuan Agriculture was burning through over a million every single day, and had already exhausted a 5.00 million loan along with an additional 5.61 million in investments added by the shareholders. Yu Sanyuan wasn't running away anymore, and Sanyuan Agriculture couldn't leave either—yet now you planned to take the 25.00 million back?

Doing this would make your own people's hearts grow cold!

You were supposed to be the top financial patron.

How could you ask for a refund?

Even though Old Dong was shrewd and cunning, having the young man call him out to his face still left him somewhat embarrassed.

"Xiao Yu, it was only an expedient measure back then, and I had no choice. But right now, I really need the funds urgently."

"Leader, as you've said before, the public evaluation of you isn't very flattering."

Yu Yang brought up a classic case from another space-time dimension. "I made a trip to Liaoshi recently and heard about a rather unconventional operation over there. I have a lingering feeling that I'm encountering the exact same thing right here with you."

"What do you mean?"

"Look at it this way: back then, to keep me here, you slammed down 25.00 million to build roads and parking lots. Now that I can't leave, you're withdrawing the funds while leaving the projects behind. Will you end up telling me after some time that the funds for the roads and parking lots weren't enough, and since Sanyuan Agriculture is so profitable, wouldn't it be better for our company to fund the continuation of the project ourselves? Good grief, the village roads and parking lots originally belonged to the village collective, but once you launched a project, these roads and parking lots became publicly owned, categorized as public facilities under the jurisdiction of the city. You set up the project, our company spends the money, and once the roads and parking lots are built, they belong to the city for management. Will the city start charging Sanyuan Agriculture toll and parking fees in the future? Even if you don't do that, will it turn into the city using the roads and parking lots as capital to take a stake in Sanyuan Agriculture, turning the company into a state-controlled enterprise?"

"Yu Sanyuan, no matter how ruthless my methods are, I would never resort to such low-down tactics against a local enterprise!"

"Leader, look, you're getting agitated. I was just drawing an analogy. We folks from Shiliying like to be direct and straight to the point without beating around the bush. That's why I'm saying what I understand right to your face, Leader, so the two of us can avoid mutual suspicion in the future."

Old Dong was rather irritated and lit a cigarette. "Someone must be spreading rumors about me again!"

"Leader, we're all family here. Take the 25.00 million and use it. If it's not enough, I'll help you scrape some more together."

"If you don't trust me, then I'll temporarily cancel the road and parking lot construction project. Don't worry, now that the new year has just begun, I will definitely make it up to you in other ways."

Upon hearing this, Yu Yang felt a stir in his heart and decided to test the waters by proposing something that probably only the provincial government could handle. "What a coincidence, Leader. My construction, maintenance, irrigation, and everything else over here all require water from Pingdong Lake. Once the company gets on the right track, I'm planning to raise some specialty produce in Pingdong Lake—water chestnuts, lotus roots, hairy crabs, and the like."

"You want to lease Pingdong Lake?"

"Yes!"

"How large an area do you want?"

"All of it."

"Pingdong Lake is the Yellow River reservoir, a flood-discharge area, and it's also tied to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal regulation project..."

Old Dong took a deep breath of his cigarette, tempted to refuse and advise him to take just a small corner instead. But with the words on the tip of his tongue, he changed them to, "I'll find a way."

"Thank you, Leader."

After hanging up the phone, Yu Yang contacted the vice president of the county sub-branch and instructed him to wire the 25.00 million into the city's public financial account.

His own side had never actually planned to use these misappropriated funds anyway; they had originally been eyeing the modification of the public highway overpass tunnel.

Seeing that the call had ended, Old Sixth Yu couldn't help asking, "The money is gone, how are we supposed to modify the overpass tunnel now?"

Sitting nearby, Mayor Huang, who served as the exclusive driver for the AMG W126 S-Class, looked over with disdain and said, "You command such a huge enterprise, and you're the chief steward of the company—can't you have a bit of ambition? Why are you always fixated on drilling through tunnels?"

"If we don't drill through the highway overpass, how are we supposed to cross the highway?"

"Are you stupid? Just step right across it! Once there's a traffic jam, I'll have a reason to raise the provincial highway, build a four-way intersection for the expressway, and install a traffic light. I can't wait to see the expression on the face of that scoundrel Dong!"

"???"

To say nothing of Old Sixth Yu, even Yu Yang was dumbfounded.

True to form, Shiliying was brimming with talent!

...

The next day.

True to his word, the mayor started right away and actually led a team to survey the provincial highway and the expressway.

Yu Yang thought about offering a word of advice, but was this illegal?

It seemed the laws of this era didn't have any regulations covering this sort of thing either.

So he simply let it go and went for a stroll around the various construction sites.

Several days passed, and a pair of hundred-meter-long steel rails had appeared on either side of the Shiliying provincial highway, forming a large U-shape spanning a thousand meters along the shore of the East Lake before looping back.

Yu Yang had originally intended to ask why, upon reaching the terminal station, they didn't just switch the locomotive from the front to the back and drive back the other way.

However, after taking in the scenery of Pingdong Lake, the village and town center, and the two thousand sets of molds for precast ballastless tracks, he decided the U-shaped rail design wasn't half bad either.

As for other projects, the installation of utility poles had reached the brick kiln, and steel cable power lines had been strung up as well.

Twenty more fake plastic greenhouses had been added.

The leaves of the soybeans cultivated over half a month ago had turned yellow, and they estimated that after another week of sun-drying, they could harvest the seeds.

The bean sprouts were being planted and wholesaled normally.

The brick kiln had been tidied up by the sisters-in-law and planted with shiitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, and the like.

After checking on his family enterprises, Yu Yang returned to the small Western-style villa, picked up pen and paper, and pondered over the New Year goods plan.

He had heard that the monks at the temple were no longer buying bean sprouts.

Meanwhile, seeing that bean sprouts were profitable, large-scale cultivation in the south had already begun moving northward, including not just soybean sprouts, but black bean sprouts, pea sprouts, and mung bean sprouts as well...

Therefore, his own enterprise needed to add a new product with high profit margins and high yields.