Chapter 37: The Grand Farm Machinery Factory

  After reading the official letter, Wei Baolin's face broke into a smile. He walked around his desk and shook hands with Zhu Chongwu, saying: "So it was Director Zhu, sorry for the delay, sorry for the delay. You want to transfer Comrade Qin to help out, we fully support it, supporting our comrades is our bounden duty."

  Zhu Chongwu smiled slightly and said, "Then I'll thank Director Wei. We'll invite Comrade Qin Hai over, and it won't take a few days to complete the task. Once we're done, we'll send him back right away."

  "It doesn't matter, take your time." Wei Baolin said generously. After that, he turned his head to Qin Hai again, patted his shoulder and said: "It's Little Qin, you've been in the factory for so many days, I haven't had a chance to visit you in the dormitory. Director Zhu and others have assigned you to do a very meaningful national defense key task, you must do it well and make the factory proud, got it?"

  He respectfully obeyed Wei Chang's teachings. Qin Hailiu responded with a smile, as the saying goes, don't hit someone who smiles at you, and Wei Baolin was being very affectionate towards him, so he didn't dare to embarrass Wei Baolin.

  Di Jian Guo covered his face with a piece of gauze, standing aside gritting his teeth, but unable to go forward and confront Qin Hai. The military personnel had come specifically to invite Qin Hai, saying it was an important task, what could he, a small agricultural machinery factory office director, do? Normally, Wei Bao Lin would have already gone forward to encourage Qin Hai, how could this Wei Bao Lin's lackey fall behind? But now, with his current appearance, where did he have the face to say anything passionate to Qin Hai?

  Qin Hai saw Jia Jian's expression, but in front of Zhu Chongwu and Ge Dongyan, he couldn't show the internal conflict either. After all, this was a family scandal, and it wasn't suitable for outsiders to see. He said a few words of determination to Wei Baolin, then followed Zhu Chongwu and Ge Dongyan out of Wei Baolin's office, went downstairs and got into a military-plated jeep. Ge Dongyan sat in the driver's seat, letting Zhu Chongwu sit in the back row, Qin Hai sat in the deputy seat, and then started the vehicle.

  The jeep drove out of the Qingfeng factory under the gaze of the former cadres and workers, and got on the provincial road to Hongze. After driving for a short distance, Qin Hai turned his head and asked Ge Dongyan: "Ge Pai Zhang, can you tell me what's going on now?"

  It turned out that not only did Wei Baolin not understand the ins and outs of the matter, but even Qin Hai himself was baffled by it. This morning, as soon as he arrived at work, Ge Dongyan brought Zhu Chongwu to the foundry workshop and called Qin Hai to rush to the factory office building. The official letter that Zhu Chongwu showed Wei Baolin, Qin Hai had not seen at all, he only knew that Wei Baolin had approved his leave, and from now on he would be under Zhu Chongwu's arrangement.

  When Qin Hai asked the question, Ge Dongyan smiled and pointed to the back row, saying: "This matter, please ask Director Zhu to explain it to you. In front of Director Zhu, I am just a driver."

  "Xiao Ge, what are you up to? Didn't you orchestrate this whole thing? I'm just here to help you put on a show, okay?" Zhu Chongwu dropped the serious face he had been putting on at Qingfeng Factory and smiled at Ge Dongyan.

  "Alright, I'll say it then." Ge Dongyan began explaining to Qin Hai.

  The cause of things is naturally from Qin Hai's dagger and that pioneering pickaxe.

  That day, Ge Dongyan obtained the two divine objects and returned to the provincial military district in Hongze overnight. The next morning, he excitedly brought the things to Commander Yue Guoyang's office. He had served as a guard for Yue Guoyang before, and his relationship with Yue Guoyang was not ordinary, so entering and exiting Yue Guoyang's office was also a common thing.

  "Xiao Ge, how did you come here? Is there something?" Yue Guoyang, who was reading the file, asked casually as he saw Ge Dongyan enter.

  Kedong Yan chuckled foolishly, his hands clasped behind his back, and said: "Commander, I just got a treasure, do you want to take a look?"

  "Oh, where did you get another good knife? Let me take a look." Yue Guoyang knew about Ge Dongyan's hobby. In fact, Ge Dongyan had learned this hobby from Yue Guoyang himself, who was notorious throughout the military district for his obsession with fine knives and guns, and also possessed exceptional appraisal skills.

  Kedong Yan took out the military dagger hidden behind his back and handed it to Yue Guoyang, saying: "Commander guessed half of it. This is a dagger I asked someone to make when I came home for a visit this time. Please Commander identify it."

  Yue Guoyang didn't pay attention to Ge Dongyan's words, his eyes were attracted by the dagger presented by Ge Dongyan. He took the dagger in his hand, carefully examined it, and then tapped the blade with his fingers, listening to the sound of the metal, and praised: "It is indeed a good dagger, but I don't know how hard it is."

  Kedong Yan was prepared for this, and he took out a length of thin iron wire from his military bag and handed it over, saying: "Commander, you can try with this."

  "Cut the wire?" Yue Guoyang was somewhat surprised, "You really dare to?"

  A good military dagger, of course, can cut through iron wire, but the owner of a general dagger is reluctant to do so. The blade of the dagger also has a fatigue limit, and repeated use to cut hard objects will damage the blade. Ge Dongyan just got a good dagger, but he was willing to let Yue Guoyang test it by cutting iron wire, which made Yue Guoyang feel strange.

  "Never mind, Commander," said Ge Dongyan with a snort. "You just cut it, and if you mess it up, I'll take the blame."

  Yue Guoyang heard this and didn't hold back. He left his desk, walked to the middle of the room, placed the thin iron wire Ge Dongyan handed him on the cement floor, raised his dagger and chopped it down.

  A dull "ka" sound, the iron wire was cut into two halves without any suspense. Yue Guoyang picked up the dagger and saw that the blade was intact, with no signs of damage. Looking at the broken end of the iron wire, it was flat and smooth, like tofu cut open with a kitchen knife.

  "Where did you get such good steel?" Yue Guoyang was a connoisseur, and with one look at the result, he knew that Ge Dongyan had obtained this dagger using extremely high-quality steel.

  "This is a military secret." Ge Dongyan chuckled and joked with the commander. When he was a guard for Yue Guoyang, he had just turned 18 years old, and Yue Guoyang treated him like his own child, making him feel somewhat unbridled.

  "Nothing, there's no more military secrets in front of me. You don't have to say anything, I've taken this dagger!" Yue Guoyang ignored Ge Dongyan's teasing and directly took the dagger for himself. He walked back to his own desk, opened a drawer, pulled out a wallet, and said: "How much did you spend? This money is on me."

  "Commander, isn't this not right? Is this the warlord style?" Ge Dongyan continued to protest with a smile. In fact, he had brought this dagger to see Yue Guoyang with the intention of presenting it as a treasure. People like him who had been security guards would always think of giving their best things to their superiors first.

  Yue Guoyang feigned anger and said, "What warlord style? I haven't even said you have a soldier's style. A current platoon leader, not using standard equipment, going to find someone to make a military dagger for himself, does this meet the requirements of the regulations?"

  "Alas... it's really true that the higher the official, the more suffocating it is for people. And you're a great commander, while I'm just a small platoon leader." Ge Dongyan sighed hypocritically and muttered to himself, "Fortunately, I didn't take out other things..."

  "What did you say?" Yue Guoyang caught the implication of Ge Dongyan's words and, recalling that Ge had said he was only half right earlier, suddenly became vigilant and stared at Ge, asking: "Be honest, is there something good in your bag too?"

  "Nothing! Nothing!" Ge Dongyan covered his bag with both hands, the expression on his face was extremely exaggerated, as if he would carve "No silver here" in big characters.

  "Obey orders and hand over everything in your bag!" Yue Guoyang commanded.

  "It's just an iron shovel, after all." Ge Dongyan reluctantly pulled out Qin Hai's engineer shovel from his bag and handed it to Yue Guoyang.

  "A shovel, you've made it sound so mysterious..." Yue Guoyang saw that Ge Dongyan had indeed taken out a shovel and couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. He used his hand to brush off the dirt on the shovel, and his eyebrows slightly furrowed, "What kind of shovel is this? Why does it have such an unusual shape?"

  "Hey, Commander, you haven't seen this before?" Ge Dongyan successfully teased him and couldn't help but feel proud of himself. He picked up the entrenching tool and skillfully demonstrated: "Let me show you... This is an entrenching tool, this is a pickaxe head, this is a wire cutter. I've tried it out, cutting 5mm iron wire is like cutting cotton thread. This is a wrench, this is a utility knife, this is a saw..."

  As Ge Dongyan demonstrated, Yue Guoyang's eyes became more and more focused. He was no longer playing with a new toy with a small soldier, but studying a new equipment that could greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the troops.

  "What's this from?" Yue Guoyang asked eagerly as Ge Dongyan finished his demonstration.

  Ge Dongyan was a man who could tell the weight of things clearly, and he brought this engineer's shovel to meet Yue Guoyang. He himself was here to report on the situation of this new equipment, so at this time, he couldn't play dumb anymore. He reported: "This is made by an agricultural machinery factory in my hometown."

  "Farm machinery factory?" Yue Guoyang only felt that he had been struck by lightning, he tapped the surface of the engineer's shovel, thought for a moment, and then tapped the dagger he had just received, asking Ge Dongyan: "These two things, are they from the same factory?"

  Ge Dongyan nodded: "Yes, it's made of the same steel material."

  "What a luxurious farm machinery factory." Yue Guoyang took a deep breath, "Using such good steel to make an iron hoe, this hoe must be worth several hundred dollars!"

  "This is what I want to report to you," said Ge Dongyan. "The worker who made this dagger and this iron shovel is a man named Qin Hai from the Qingfeng Agricultural Machinery Factory in Pingyuan County. The steel used was not originally from the factory, but rather a formula he researched himself and smelted by himself. He wants to ask if we are interested in cooperating with him."