Feng Yu had given Kirilenko a new price list, but Kirilenko was still not satisfied. His men had told him that Bing City did not purchase any Songjiang Motors vehicles. He was worried that there might be some problems with these vehicles.
Kirilenko trusted Feng Yu, as Feng Yu was his important partner in his mining enterprise. But he does not believe the Machinery Company. What if Feng Yu was also tricked by the Machinery Company’s people? He wants to wait until the City Government place their orders before he makes any purchases.
Feng Yu was also anxious. This Kirilenko had become smarter and was not easily hoodwink like before. But at this moment, Feng Yu received a phone call from Zhang Ruiqiang. Zhang Ruiqiang asked Feng Yu to make a trip to the City Government.
“All because of your suggestion, Bing City is in chaos. All my men are too much. They want to impose fines on everything. They are issuing fines for the sake of getting the fines!” Zhang Ruiqiang was furious.
Feng Yu spread his arms out with his palms facing up: “These enforcers are all the City’s staff. What has it got to do with me? Furthermore, this is also a good thing. At least the streets are cleaner now, and those places of ill-repute were all shut down. Are you worried about the tax revenues?”
“Rubbish!”
Tax revenues? Those places had never paid taxes. Zhang Ruiqiang had never expected there were so many problems in the City.
Zhang Ruiqiang had thought Bing City was in good shape under his leadership. The City’s revenue was increasing steadily, and the residents had a good life. But he did not know that there were so many problems under the surface!
The total amount of fines collected had shocked Zhang Ruiqiang!
Just the money confiscated from illegal gambling amounted to over 3 million RMB! This amount does not include the fines. If he were to include the fines, the Police department had collected almost 8 million RMB!
The average annual salary of Bing City residents after the increase in recent years was about 1,800 RMB. How come there were so many people involved in gambling?
There was still the issue of prost.i.tution. The police department had arrested over 300 patrons of prost.i.tutes and had confiscated a few hundred thousand of proceeds from prost.i.tution. Coupled with the fines, the total amount collected was a few million.
Those prost.i.tutes were mainly former female workers of textile mills and other failed state-owned factories. Zhang Ruiqiang was sad to know that some of the prost.i.tutes were even underaged.
He felt that he had failed in his duties. The reformation of the state-owned enterprises had failed, and this was the result. If there were jobs available for these women, they would not go into prost.i.tution.
If Feng Yu knew what Zhang Ruiqiang was thinking, he would surely tell Zhang Ruiqiang that these women had entered this trade because it was easy money!
There were no problems with the Police Department conducting raids at those places and making those arrests. But what made him furious was the way the Police handled fighting cases. The Police officers did not even try to pacify the situation and investigate the cause of the fights. The first thing the officers did was to slap both parties with fines. Pay 200 RMB fine and then get lost. In the end, those two men fought again outside the police station. The officers arrested them again, and the fines were increased to 400 RMB each.
How could the Police Officers handle this case like this?! Although these two men do not dare to fight again outside the station, who knows if they would fight again somewhere else?
Those Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau’s enforcers had arrested those illegal hawkers but did not confiscate the hawkers’ stalls and released them on the spot after they paid their fines. Some even negotiated with the hawkers on an amount to be paid for not catching them again in the next few days.
What’s the difference between those hooligans collecting protection fees and them?!
Also, since when did the Health Bureau was authorized to issue fines? Which law had permitted them to fine people?
In conclusion, all the government agencies used all sorts of ways and excuses to justify their actions of issuing fines. Yesterday, the whole City and even the counties were issuing fines.
The total amount collected by the City yesterday was more than 20 million RMB!
Even after the city had collected so much, many units were still not satisfied. How come other units had collected so many fines, and our unit had so little? Those units could even afford to a.s.sign vehicles to their deputy chiefs. The fines collected by our unit was not even enough for all the deputy heads to be a.s.signed with cars.
As such, many units continued their operation today. They were finding all sorts of excuses to fine offenders to raise funds for new vehicles. As for the Police Department, most of the officers were resting. Their operations were mostly conducted at night.
This morning, on the way to work, Zhang Ruiqiang saw many people enforcing the law along the streets.
Although it was reported in the newspapers that the City had a crackdown yesterday to cleanse the city, but Zhang Ruiqiang knew that if this carried on, there would be lots of problems arising.
All these happened because Zhang Ruiqiang had believed what Feng Yu said. He told the heads of the agencies that after they had raised enough funds, the City will consolidate all their orders and purchase the vehicles from the Machinery Company. But he had never expected the situation would be so dire.
In just one day, more than one unit had raised enough funds.
Even the City’s National Health and Family Planning Commission had incurred the wrath of many people. They wanted to issue fines for people with twins! Those people had almost complained to the City Government!
Zhang Ruiqiang felt it was Feng Yu that had caused all these problems for him. But deep in his heart, he knew that he could not blame Feng Yu for all these.
Feng Yu saw Zhang Ruiqiang deep in thoughts and continued to ask: “Leader, from the way you speak, it seems that the fundraising conducted by the agencies is a success?”
Zhang Ruiqiang almost choked on his own cigarette smoke. Fundraising? If the residents knew the government agencies were raising funds this way, they would throw eggs at the City Government!
Luckily all the agencies were on the same page and maintained that they were trying to increase the City’s image and eliminate all black sheep in the City. They want to welcome the new year with a better and cleaner city!
“Stop talking nonsense with me. Tell me the truth. Did you get someone to teach those units all these methods?” Zhang Ruiqiang stared at Feng Yu.
Feng Yu looked at Zhang Ruiqiang in his eyes: “No.”
Feng Yu had not taught those people all those tricks. Even Feng Yu also did not expect those agencies to stretch things so far. But overall, this was indeed a good thing for the City. But those units should not do this so frequently. The residents will not be happy with this.
Zhang Ruiqiang looked at Feng Yu for a long time. He believed his words.
“You had mentioned that if the City were to purchase your vehicles, you would sell your vehicles to us at cost price?”
Feng Yu nodded. What he wanted now was to make use of the City to advertise for him. The other cities will also follow Bing City and purchase Songjiang Motors vehicles. He might not make money from Bing City’s deal, but he will make profits from the sales with other cities.
Zhang Ruiqiang took out a piece of paper from a stack of doc.u.ments and pa.s.sed to Feng Yu: “Good. These are the models and quant.i.ty. I will let my men contact Li Mingde.”
Li Mingde does not dare to hide the cost of the vehicles from Zhang Ruiqiang.
Feng Yu took the piece of paper from zhang Ruiqiang, and his eyes nearly popped out. d.a.m.n, how come the City wants to order 316 vehicles?
Didn’t they agree on 100 vehicles? How come this order exceeded what they had agreed on previously? Did Old Zhang gone bonkers or my eyes are playing tricks? Those agencies’ leaders gone crazy?
Even if these orders were for the cheapest model, the total value of the orders was more than 26 million RMB. How many fines did the City collect yesterday? Old Zhang was not afraid the Provincial Governor will be unhappy with this?
Feng Yu was regretting. Cost price…… What a loss! If this was calculated based on the retail prices, the Machinery Company had lost over 10 million RMB from this deal! No way. He must speak to Old Zhang again.
Translator’s notes: China had a one-child policy until 2015. The National Health and Family Planning Commission was the government agency that oversaw this policy. If you are interested in knowing more about this policy, check out this link from Wiki.