Chapter 4 4. Confidence

In the morning, Xia Wentian took Zhu Wenjin, Secretary General of the Municipal Party Committee, Lin Dake, Executive Deputy Mayor, and Feng Baochun, Director of the Municipal Economic Commission, to the Ouhua Automobile Factory under Dongzhou Automobile Manufacturing Group.First get off the workshop, and then listen to the report. Originally, Xia Wentian was invited by Ji Dongxiang, the new chairman of Dongzhou Automobile Manufacturing Group, to hold an on-site office meeting for the secretary, but he returned to the municipal party committee office with a lot of questions. This inspection touched Xia Wentian a lot. He didn't even eat lunch, and sat in the office smoking one cigarette after another.In any case, he couldn't figure it out. Over the past few years, almost all the money earned by the dozens of companies under the Dongqi Group from tractors and agricultural machinery was thrown into the Ouhua Automobile Factory. The light bus technology imported from Japan's Toyota Corporation With the ability to mass produce internationally advanced light buses, it should be said that Ouhua Automobile Factory looks like a modern factory, but the production of Ouhua brand light buses is currently in trouble.

This made Xia Wentian puzzled. He began to doubt whether the way of technological innovation he proposed was correct. Before he knew it, he ran out of two packs of cigarettes, and the afterglow of the setting sun slanted on Xia Wentian's solemn face through the glass window. At this time, Xia Wentian's secretary Long Xiaobo gently pushed the door open. "Secretary Xia, it's time to entertain guests from Shenzhen, we should go." "Xiao Bo, please communicate with Comrade Yongnian's secretary, and ask Comrade Yongnian to treat me on my behalf, and then call the home of Comrade Pan Zhengzhao, the old chairman of Dongzhou Automobile Manufacturing Group, and tell him that I am going to visit Pan's hometown." Long Xiaobo agreed. After closing the door gently, Xia Wentian casually lit another cigarette.

Pan Zhengzhao is an old car. It can be said that he has worked in the auto industry all his life. It has been two years since I retired, but I still think about Dongzhou's automobile development in my heart. Last week, I wrote a letter to Xia Wentian, explaining deeply my sadness and concern for Ouhua Automobile.Looking at the letter written by this veteran entrepreneur who had worked in the era of planned economy for nearly twenty years and was defeated in the tide of market economy, Xia Wentian had mixed feelings. In the letter, Pan Zhengzhao strongly appealed to Dongzhou Automobile Manufacturing Group to establish a modern enterprise system, clarify property rights, and implement a joint-stock system. Only when system innovation and technological innovation go hand in hand can Dongzhou Automobile Industry have hope.

After Xia Wentian read Pan Zhengzhao's letter, he couldn't calm down for a long time, and felt very uncomfortable.This morning, after he inspected the Ouhua Automobile Factory, this feeling became even stronger, so he decided to cancel the banquet and visit Pan Zhengzhao himself. The home of Pan Zhengzhao, the former chairman and president of Dongqi Group, is located behind the Yaowang Temple in the south of the city. It is a small Japanese-style building built during the Japanese Puppet Period.There are dozens of such buildings in this area, and all the old cadres at the bureau level live there.Each small building has a small courtyard. Since these small western-style buildings have been around for a long time, both the style and the facilities can be said to be old and outdated. However, they are hidden among towering trees and the environment is very quiet. .

Pan Zhengzhao likes this quietness. He lived here when he was the director of Dongzhou Machinery Bureau, and he refused to move out for more than ten years.Now the Municipal Bureau of Machinery has been abolished long ago, and has become the Equipment Manufacturing Development Office and the Automobile Industry Development Office under the Municipal Economic Commission. When Xia Wentian's Audi car parked in front of the small courtyard, it was already dark. Xia Wentian was in charge of the province's industry when he was the deputy governor. At that time, Pan Zhengzhao was also the chairman of Dongqi Group, and the two of them knew each other very well.

After Pan Zhengzhao received Long Xiaobo's call, he was very excited. He never expected that Xia Wentian, the secretary of the municipal party committee, would come to visit him in person after receiving his letter. He quickly asked his wife to prepare food and drinks, and he wanted to have a few drinks with Secretary Xia. Recently, a nephew from his hometown went to the city to visit Pan Zhengzhao, and brought him a case of Xie Shen wine. After drinking it, he felt refreshed. It turned out that his blood pressure was high, but after drinking this wine, his blood pressure actually dropped.Pan Zhengzhao knew that Xia Wentian's blood pressure was also a little high, so he took the opportunity to give him two bottles of Xie Shen wine.In fact, the nephew came to the city to see him in name, but in fact he wanted him to help sell Scorpion God Wine.Little did they know that tea was cold when people left, since Pan Zhengzhao stepped down from the position of chairman of Dongqi Group, the people who had been cheering and cheering all of a sudden dispersed, and his heart was lost for a long time.

However, Pan Zhengzhao is a restless person. He decided to write a book called "Fifty Years of Dongzhou Automobile". With the feelings of an old Communist Party member, he wrote that letter to Xia Wentian with the attitude of being responsible for the revitalization of Dongzhou Automobile. After the food and drink were prepared, Pan Zhengzhao stood in front of the courtyard and waited for more than half an hour before Xia Wentian's Audi car arrived.As soon as Xia Wentian got out of the car, Pan Zhengzhao moved to meet him. "Secretary Xia, there are magpies singing on the plane tree in my yard early in the morning. It turns out that there are distinguished guests coming to the door!"

Xia Wentian hurriedly took a few steps, held Pan Zhengzhao's hand and said, "Mr. Pan, I can't sit still after reading your 'report', and I just want to talk to you!" Pan Zhengzhao walked into the yard while holding Xia Wentian's hand. "Secretary Xia, I, Pan Zhengzhao, have worked in cars all my life, but finally handed in a failing test. I am so unwilling!" "Mr. Pan, after reading your letter, I thought of Cao Cao's "Gui Shi Shou": "Old man, his ambition is a thousand miles away; a martyr's old age, his ambition is endless"!" After Xia Wentian said, the two of them laughed.

The two walked into the small foreign building. Pan Zhengzhao's wife had just finished cooking the last dish and was about to serve it on the table when she heard Pan Zhengzhao shout, "My wife, Secretary Xia is here!" Pan Zhengzhao's wife came up to him with a plate. After exchanging greetings with Pan Zhengzhao's wife, Xia Wentian lowered his head and said in surprise, "Old sister-in-law, this dish is prepared for me? How do I look like a plate of scorpions?!" "Secretary Xia, you read that right, this dish is fried scorpion! It's specially fried for you!" Pan Zhengzhao's wife said with a smile.

"Old Pan, can this food be eaten with its teeth and claws?" Xia Wentian asked with an embarrassed face. "Secretary Xia, don't worry, the whole body of the scorpion is full of treasures, you will know after eating it. Wife, hurry up and bring the Scorpion God Wine, let Secretary Xia taste it." As Pan Zhengzhao spoke, he took Xia Wentian's hand and walked into the dining room. Xia Wentian looked at the table full of dishes, but looked at the fried scorpions that Pan Zhengzhao's wife had just put on the table. Sitting at the dinner table, Pan Zhengzhao took the Scorpion God wine handed over by his wife and poured it on Xia Wentian, and then poured it on himself. Then, he picked up the wine glass and said, "Secretary Xia, there is a saying in "The Art of War": If you know how to change, you will win. If you follow the rules, you will lose. Just like this Scorpion God wine, which was originally an ordinary high-purity rice wine, but with the addition of scorpions, goji berries, salvia miltiorrhiza and other precious Chinese medicines, it has been processed into a treasure. It also has significant effects on stroke paralysis, cerebral thrombosis, three highs, frozen shoulder, rheumatism, etc. From this, I think that if Dongzhou Automobile wants to really take off, the key is to work hard on the word "change"! , let's drink this cup first!"

"Mr. Pan, that's a good point. As the saying goes, if you can't break it, you can't build it. Do it!" After Xia Wentian finished speaking, he bowed his neck and drank it, and Pan Zhengzhao also drank it down in satisfaction! "Secretary Xia, when I reflect on the road I have taken in Dongqi Group, I have always been in the circle of advancing and retreating, retracting and letting go. This is all caused by my conservative thinking at the time. , I had no choice but to step on the watermelon rind and slip away wherever I went, so that the problems of Dongqi Group accumulated and protracted." Pan Zhengzhao said inwardly, criticizing himself. "Mr. Pan, I have also reflected on the institutional issues. I feel that the issue of the separation of government and enterprise has not been completely resolved. If this issue is not resolved, institutional innovation is empty talk." Xia Wentian said with emotion. "Mr. Lu Xun once said that the first person to eat a crab must be a warrior. Someone would eat a spider, but they didn't eat it because they thought it tasted bad. From this point of view, the first person to eat a scorpion must also be a warrior. It should be a warrior. Secretary Xia, the first person to eat a scorpion is a warrior, and the first person to eat a fried scorpion must show some courage. Try my wife's fried scorpion first." After Pan Zhengzhao finished speaking, Xia Wentian stared at the plate of fried scorpions placed in the middle of the dish. His hair seemed to stand on end. All the fried scorpions were light yellow and brownish black. With his tail hook raised, his lifelike posture, which seemed to be about to fight, could not help but make Xia Wentian feel awe-inspiring. Just when Xia Wentian was hesitating, the fried scorpion exuded an enticing aroma, which came in bursts, and couldn't help arousing Xia Wentian's salivating appetite, and this appetite kept arousing him to feel eager to try, thinking, anyway, it won't eat me , and I was going to eat it.In the end, Xia Wentian's heart fluttered, he took one of the chopsticks, put it in his mouth, and chewed it cautiously and tentatively. He felt that the tongue was fragrant and crispy, and finally he laughed dumbfounded and said, "I made old Pan laugh!" He raised the chopsticks, put one in his mouth, and started chewing! "How about it? Secretary Xia, eating scorpions can increase courage, courage, and will. My nephew said, 'Be brave enough to eat scorpions', which is somewhat intriguing." Pan Zhengzhao said meaningfully. "Old Pan, so your nephew sent the Scorpion God Wine and the scorpion?" Xia Wentian asked with interest while chewing on the fried scorpion. "That's right! In the past two years, Wanshou County has produced a rich man named Qiu Xingben. I heard that he is the brother-in-law of Ding Nengtong, the director of the Municipal Office in Beijing. Pan Fugui followed Qiu Xingben, and really made some money." Pan Zhengzhao said happily. "Mr. Pan, 'company plus farmers' is innovation in itself. I proposed that Dongzhou Automobile should take the path of technological innovation plus institutional innovation. Comrade Dongming disagreed. He proposed the combination of industry and finance. Whose viewpoint do you agree with?" Xia Wentian Quite inclined to ask. "Secretary Xia, your views inevitably have Achilles' heels." Pan Zhengzhao said while chewing on a scorpion. "What do you mean?" Xia Wentian asked puzzled. "Achilles is a great hero in ancient Greek mythology. He is the son of the sea god Thetis. When he was a baby, Thetis put him in the water of the River Styx to soak him, which made his whole body None of them can be harmed, except for the heel held by Thetis's hand. In the Trojan War, Achilles was shot in the back of the heel by the Trojan prince Paris and died.'Achilles The heel' represents a person's most fatal weakness." Pan Zhengzhao explained. "Old Pan, how can we overcome the 'Achilles' heel'?" Xia Wentian asked melancholy. "Combining your views with Mayor Wu's, Secretary Xia, the era of just working hard has long passed, and now is the era of opening our eyes to see the world. Economic globalization is forcing us to go global. When I was in office, I repeatedly When I visited large foreign companies, I found that those big car companies did not rely on their own accumulation, but suddenly expanded in a certain year. After asking, I found out that it was the result of a joint-stock economy. For example, Toyota was only 2 million yen at the beginning. At that time, I often thought, since shares are common in foreign countries, why can’t they be introduced into our enterprises? In order to understand the shareholding system, I visited Wall Street five times. The shareholding reform was carried out, but the mayor at that time, the current Governor Zhao Changzheng, was too conservative and did not dare to overstep the threshold. As a result, other provincial and municipal automobile companies took the lead, and all the stock issuance work went to Zhongnanhai. My The suggestion is that Dongqi Group must take the road of joint-stock system and must be listed. It would be good if it can be listed in the United States. The United States has the most abundant funds. Why not collect their money and return it for our enterprises? Enterprises are beneficial!" Pan Zhengzhao spoke eloquently. It stands to reason that in terms of economics theory, there are very few in the official circles of Qingjiang Province who can compete with Xia Wentian, a Ph.D. in economics. It is obviously because of a heartfelt heart to care for the common people.However, his purport and realm are intellectual and scholar-official.Therefore, he hated the "vain arrogance" in the officialdom the most, and especially disliked the pretentiousness of "Dongzhou so-and-so is number one in China".So he liked the conversation with Pan Zhengzhao very much today, it was so frank and down-to-earth, it was as refreshing as this scorpion wine. "Mr. Pan, it's not easy to go public in the United States! There is no system preparation, talent preparation, and knowledge preparation. Besides, the burden of divesting non-performing assets and making up for tax loopholes is a big problem." Xia Wentian said helplessly. "Secretary Xia, the most important thing at the moment is to boldly introduce the non-public economy, adjust the industrial structure, and realize the diversification of investment subjects. As long as the problem of automobile engines is solved technically, and the problem of institutional engines is solved institutionally, Dongzhou Automobile will take off just around the corner!" Pan Zhengzhao said with confidence. Xia Wentian looked at the white-haired Pan Zhengzhao and couldn't calm down for a long time. "Old Pan, can you tell me why you like making cars?" "Secretary Xia, how should I put it? It's like a boy falling in love with a girl. He does it for love. He doesn't know what this kind of love is. Some people say that making cars is the industry of lunatics, and I have been so wet with cars all my life that I can't even get rid of them!" Pan Zhengzhao said humorously. Xia Wentian laughed out loud. "Mr. Pan, for your love of cars, you have to give full play to your enthusiasm. Starting today, the municipal party committee will officially hire you as an economic consultant. I will ask the municipal party committee office to send you a letter of appointment. You can see me at any time." I!" Pan Zhengzhao was a little excited after hearing Xia Wentian's words, so he poured another glass of Scorpion God wine for Xia Wentian. "Secretary Xia, today's drink is the happiest I've ever had in my life. Come, let me toast you again!" The two raised their glasses, touched each other crisply, and then drank it all in one gulp. When he left the courtyard of Pan Zhengzhao's house, it was already mid-moon. Xia Wentian felt that the air was extraordinarily refreshing. Sitting in the Audi car, he relished the smell of fried scorpions, feeling refreshed as if he had been stung by a scorpion.He deeply felt Pan Zhengzhao's hard work. The only regret of an old entrepreneur who has devoted his whole life to the automobile business is that he did not dare to cross the threshold. The words "Don't dare to cross the threshold" deeply shocked Xia Wentian. He thought seriously: If a person does not Dare to go one step beyond the threshold, you can only be a mediocre person; enterprises dare not go beyond the threshold, the result is like Dongqi Group, the accumulation is hard to return; if the society dare not go beyond the threshold, there will be no socialist market economy today; if the country If you dare not go one step further, how can you stand among the nations of the world.Reform means daring to cross the barriers, not one or two steps, but strides across, and always face history, face reality, and face new problems raised by the future. Of course, doing so may break your bones, but it is impossible to do otherwise. Make political achievements that are worthy of time, history, and the people.Reform requires the courage to stand on a cliff and sail against the current.It combines the fearless spirit of the brave, the compassion of the benevolent, and the vision of the wise to penetrate the darkness of history. Thinking of this, Xia Wentian's mood became disturbed, a sense of responsibility that was worthy of the sky and humble, filled his chest, smoldering, pervading, lingering, lingering...