Chapter 74: High-Level Power Struggles Are Surprisingly Plain
Hearing the tone in his younger son’s voice, Xiao Changhua smiled.
“You’ve got quite the ambition, kid.”
“What exactly happened to Secretary Chen back then? Is there any chance of overturning the case?” Xiao Liang asked.
“What else could have happened? Chen Cheng was dragged into the water, and the evidence against him was solid.”
Thinking back on those old events, Xiao Changhua couldn’t help sighing. It was the first time he had ever spoken of this at home.
“Someone used that to threaten Secretary Chen into dropping the investigation into the Xudong Road corruption case. But Secretary Chen refused to submit and went to the province himself to report Chen Cheng’s problem.”
“In the end, the Xudong Road case did bring down some people, but Chen Cheng was involved too, and the amount was large. Once certain people in the city saw that Secretary Chen was bound to fall from power, they swarmed in and pursued him relentlessly. They dug up every old account they could find and finally pinned nearly two hundred thousand yuan on him.”
“Secretary Chen should be released by the end of this year. Chen Cheng was initially sentenced to ten years, but he never came to his senses. He hated Secretary Chen for not protecting him. After entering prison, his temperament turned extreme, and he injured someone inside, so more time was added to his sentence. Who knows when he’ll come out.”
“High-level power struggles really are plain and unadorned,” Xiao Liang sighed.
Thinking carefully over the corruption cases that had surfaced over the years, large and small, nearly all of them had relied on every possible method to target leaders and the people around them.
Even if many leading cadres kept themselves clean, they could not always prevent those close to them from wavering, falling, and ultimately dragging everyone down with them.
Occasionally, there were people like Chen Fushan who refused to yield. But even then, it was difficult to completely cut ties with family and close associates. And after years in a high position, even the exchange of gifts during holidays was enough to accumulate a criminal amount.
In his previous life, public opinion on the Chen Fushan case had been sharply divided.
Some believed Chen Fushan had held a high position for many years, yet the final amount confirmed against him was less than two hundred thousand yuan. Losing such a promising future over that, and causing Dongzhou’s officialdom to remain turbulent for over a decade—with frequent leadership changes and missed development opportunities—was a great pity.
Others believed Chen Fushan’s son, Chen Cheng, had accepted millions in bribes, yet Chen Fushan was not identified as an accomplice only because someone had downplayed the matter to protect him.
For Dongzhou, Chen Fushan and Chen Cheng were already part of the past. Xiao Liang now wanted to sort through the rights and wrongs because he needed to weigh how the entire matter might negatively affect his family in the future.
A large number of Dongzhou officials had been promoted by Chen Fushan himself. After his fall, their own political careers suffered twists and setbacks as well.
Some switched sides from the start and kicked him while he was down. Some were implicated and investigated, ending up in prison or receiving disciplinary punishment. Many more were squeezed out and marginalized.
Of course, officialdom changed constantly. Temporary marginalization did not mean there was no chance of a comeback.
The people who had exhausted every effort to bring down former Municipal Party Secretary Chen Fushan were led by then-Mayor Yan Feng and Executive Vice Mayor Yu Shufu.
Afterward, Yan Feng and Yu Shufu got exactly what they wanted, taking the seats of municipal Party secretary and mayor respectively.
They became the two mountains pressing down on the old Chen Fushan faction, leaving them unable to breathe.
However, two years had passed. If Xiao Liang remembered correctly, Yu Shufu should have just been diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer, and the province might already have appointed a new mayor to Dongzhou to take over municipal government affairs. He simply hadn’t noticed any relevant news reports yet.
As for the current Municipal Party Secretary Yan Feng, whether or not his life trajectory changed, he would reach retirement age by the end of this year and move to a secondary post. That meant his influence in Dongzhou was destined to fade.
In his previous life, Xiao Liang’s father had failed to make a comeback. Part of that was because the entire incident had hit him hard, leaving him disheartened and uninterested in politics. But another part had also been Xiao Liang’s own influence.
…
It was rare for Xiao Changhua to talk about old matters in front of his two sons. He rambled on until two in the morning, and Xiao Liang gained rare firsthand insight into Dongzhou’s internal affairs—far more detailed than anything he had investigated from the outside in his previous life.
After meeting Xu Jianqiang today and learning Yuan Wenhai’s attitude, some of Xiao Liang’s thoughts had changed.
He took a quick shower, still not sleepy, and went to his brother’s room to continue talking.
After the new company was registered, he would resign from the juice factory and draw a clear boundary, leaving no handle for others.
Next, the new company would, through a business cooperation model, take over sales of Nanting Lake Juice in Xijiang and Dongzhou, further improving market promotion and sales in both places while expanding and refining the sales team.
At the same time, production preparations for the oligosaccharide health supplement had to begin urgently.
Scaling an oligosaccharide supplement from small-batch laboratory preparation to mass production and bottling on a production line would require further process optimization and improvement, as well as adding auxiliary equipment.
They needed to contact equipment manufacturers immediately, visit factories, inspect, and negotiate.
On the new company side, they also needed to handle approval for the health supplement launch, trademark and brand registration, packaging design, and other matters simultaneously.
The municipal pharmaceutical factory already had mature experience producing traditional Chinese medicine decoctions. Connecting that with the juice factory’s small-bottle filling line would not be too difficult. If they hired several engineers and process specialists from the municipal pharmaceutical factory to assist Gu Peijun, the early production organization should go smoothly.
However, production and operations management would at best reach the municipal pharmaceutical factory’s level, not far beyond it.
Xiao Liang hoped that his brother and Gu Peijun could, during early production preparations and the recovery of Nanting Lake Juice production, initially establish processes for on-site process control and improvement, production planning and schedule control, product quality inspection, and safety management. That way, they wouldn’t have to perform major surgery later.
Although his brother would not openly join the juice factory, he was the most critical link in coordinating production processes. Xiao Liang naturally needed to take the time to discuss these matters with him thoroughly.
“I want to bring Chen Zhu directly to the juice factory. Do you think it’s possible?” Xiao Xiao lay on the bed with his hands behind his head and asked.
The desk fan sat by the window, swaying and whirring.
“It’s possible, but if you want to bring Chen Zhu over now, you’ll have to explain some of our plans clearly to him. If he’s willing to come, he’d definitely be in the same tier as Xu Lihuan. Even if the juice factory can’t pay him much for now, when the factory is restructured, I’ll make up the difference to him.”
Xiao Liang continued,
“Of course, even if restructuring the juice factory runs into obstacles, we’ll still find a way to prepare our own production base. In short, we’ll try to straighten everything out within a year.”
Chen Zhu had a good personal relationship with his brother, and Xiao Liang also knew a great deal about him from his previous life.
In that life, the municipal pharmaceutical factory had gone through several reforms and restructurings. Large numbers of workers had been put on standby, laid off, or had resigned to seek other paths, but Chen Zhu’s personality was relatively conservative, and he had stayed at the factory the whole time.
Chen Zhu had both technical and management ability, and he was highly valued at the municipal pharmaceutical factory.
In 2010, when the factory was reorganized into the state-owned Dongzhou Pharmaceutical Group, Chen Zhu was already a deputy general manager. Later, he successively served as executive deputy general manager and general manager, eventually becoming the head of Dongzhou Pharmaceutical Group.
Although Dongzhou Pharmaceutical Group had not achieved breakthrough development under Chen Zhu, there were many reasons for that, including his own conservative temperament.
But as someone in charge of production in the health supplement and pharmaceutical fields, Chen Zhu was absolutely qualified. In all of Dongzhou, there might not be anyone more suitable.
If there was any chance, how could Xiao Liang not want someone like Chen Zhu to join them?
Even now, though Chen Zhu had only been working three or four years, his level was already far above average.
Of course, trying to recruit someone as conservative as Chen Zhu—already deputy head of the process department at the municipal pharmaceutical factory—would not be persuasive with a salary of only two or three thousand yuan.
Although the pay of a deputy process department chief at the municipal pharmaceutical factory was also ordinary, Chen Zhu had entered the factory as a graduate student. His starting point was high, and the attention he received was far beyond that of ordinary technical school or college graduates.
At the same time, both Chen Zhu’s parents were renowned teachers at Dongzhou Senior High School, so his family was relatively well-off.
All of these were reasons behind Chen Zhu’s conservative personality. Ordinary conditions would never persuade him to give up his current position and decisively leave the municipal pharmaceutical factory.
That meant they would need to reveal their real plan to stir his calm heart.
“That’s exactly what I wanted to say,” Xiao Xiao said, energized. “A salary three or four times higher really might not move Chen Zhu. He’s doing pretty well in the process department now, with a bit of authority, and he’s too comfortable to move. But when I dragged him to the Institute of Technology before to help assess things, he definitely had some thoughts. Now it depends on whether he’s willing to step out.”
“Alright. Sleep. It’s almost two, and we still have to get up early tomorrow.”
Sleepiness finally came over Xiao Liang. He wanted to seize the chance to sleep three or four hours, so he yawned as he spoke.
