Chapter 138: There Is Seriously Artillery Here

Indeed, while state-owned military factories wouldn't go so far as to assign female attendants specifically for domestic chores, by early the next morning, a continuous stream of young women arrived, bringing their own breakfasts!

Just last night, the two brothers had thought their eldest brother was truly immune to the siren calls of seductress foxes, but now they felt there were simply far too many fairies roaming these mountains. It seemed that all the eligible young women in the factory—no, wait, across several neighboring factories—whose parents deemed them reasonably attractive were being chased over by their folks to be paraded in front of the deputy factory director.

This left Rang Weidong amused yet exasperated; damn it all, wasn't this a sure-fire way to unite the local young men against him as a common enemy? How was he supposed to get any work done under these conditions?

So, he sent his two younger brothers out to deal with and stall the elder sisters, while he slipped out the back courtyard, which had no walls to speak of.

Retrieving a basketball from his vehicle, he casually invited a few passing lads, shouting that anyone interested could come play a game of hoops.

That did the trick. Whether driven by jealousy, resentment, or the stinging sense of being cuckolded, a huge crowd of young men swarmed in, determined to thrash the deputy factory director soundly on the basketball court. Naturally, there was also no shortage of ambitious youths eager to butter up the deputy director so they could follow him into battle.

Without any effort, the basketball court split cleanly into two opposing factions, remarkably even in numbers! Moreover, people kept arriving in an endless stream, calling upon their friends to join in. Within no time, three to four hundred people packed the basketball court so tightly not even water could leak through.

It was precisely from this moment that Rang Weidong truly began to feel a sense of emotional attachment to the Xishan Factory. Growing up, he had watched educated youths play ball at the edge of his village, fumbled around blindly when he entered elementary school, and played with the kids in the county during middle school. Then, from the very moment he learned of his father's debilitating fall, he could only sporadically carry a basketball around, squeezing in a few half-court games during his various business trips. Most of the time, he had to shoot hoops entirely by sendiri or play one-on-one bull with Gou Dan and the others. On university campuses, it was equally difficult to gather enough players, let alone find any sense of belonging or community categorization. In his previous life, spanning forty years, he could only sit by the security office guard shack, watching the middle-aged and young tax bureau workers burst with youthful vigor or take leisurely, health-conscious strolls. He had never truly built a basketball circle of his own, and had rarely even played full-court five-on-five games.

Now, he was finally going to indulge himself to his heart's content.

He was undeniably the absolute cornerstone of his team; no one dared to substitute him out, while players on both sides rotated in frantically. Anyone who lagged slightly behind or failed to keep pace with the rhythm faced a barrage of requests to be replaced.

And that was the beauty of competitive sports: once the atmosphere reached a fever pitch, it was essentially war in a time of peace.

The onlookers gnashed their teeth, clenched their fists to cheer and boost morale, roared like thunder with every basket scored, and shouted with genuine, surging excitement.

The leaders of the five allied factories, who had gathered upstairs in the factory office building to hold an early preparatory meeting on expanding production capacity, grew so astonished that they all squeezed together at the windows to watch. These factory leaders, all of them middle-aged or older, felt a sudden misting in their eyes: "We haven't seen a sight like this in years!"

"Right, remember how lively it was ten years ago? Back then, people's hearts were almost scattering to the winds."

"Weidong is wonderful. Not only is he exceptionally diligent in his work, but this vitality and drive to unite all the young people together is more than enough!"

"Come on, my hands are itching too. Let's form a veteran team and show these little punks what we're made of!"

"Wait, wait, wait, let me go back and change my shoes. My legendary lucky shoes from back in the day—driver, find me a driver to send me back to change my shoes, wait for me!"

In the factory and mining enterprises of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, the basketball court served as the social hub of the entire district. Especially in these isolated Third Front factories, the basketball court was essentially the equivalent of the specialty sports, dances, and recreation centers seen in foreign towns in the movies. Football pitches were too vast and required too many people; table tennis tables were too small for a crowd to gather around; tennis was too bourgeois; and badminton equipment was too much of a hassle.

Basketball was just right.

On the court, it was a ferocious battle of dragons and tigers; around the perimeter, young women cracked melon seeds and sipped bottled sodas, uncles and aunts danced, and grandfathers and grandmothers watched over their grandchildren to enjoy their golden years. In foreign parlance, it was that community atmosphere.

Back then, domestic terminology called it mass life, and later on, grassroots ambiance.

And just like that, it took off.

When the factory leaders joined in with a swaggering, slick-skilled middle-aged and elderly team that frequently pulled rank and played dirty, the middle-aged workers also figured, why shouldn't they get in on the action?

In the state-owned factories and mines of the 1980s, the culture of flattery wasn't actually all that prevalent; licking boots wouldn't bring about any massive changes anyway, since everyone drew a steady wage of forty or fifty yuan and sucking up only brought more trouble. Consequently, the working class truly didn't give a damn about saving face for the leadership.

Four teams rotated in, and the matches were fierce and exhilarating beyond measure.

Yet Rang Weidong's team was clearly the perennial undefeated champion. He himself was a stamina monster capable of operating at a high aerobic capacity from start to finish. Meanwhile, his opponents were either nursing grievances because their girlfriends or crushes had gone to deliver breakfast to him, or at the very least, they were the friends and brothers of such fellows; their numbers fell far short of those willing to stay on the good side of the deputy factory director. Consequently, his pool of helpers and selection options was vast.

This allowed Rang Weidong to emulate Stockton's style as a playmaker, effortlessly orchestrating his players. Besides, since substitutions were unlimited, it became all the more entertaining.

Factory Director Cheng and the others gradually observed that a bunch of young lads were beginning to cluster naturally around Rang Weidong, following his lead with absolute obedience.

The old-timers were even more deeply moved and supportive, constantly signaling individuals to try and get in on the game. Director Cheng even took the initiative to volunteer as the referee, which not only demonstrated his support but also quietly reminded Rang Weidong: wasn't this the perfect opportunity to build his own core faction and select his own men?

Rang Weidong experienced a sudden flash of enlightenment.

As a max-level character encountering so many eager youths yearning to follow him, naturally, not even a blade of grass would be missed.

Today's university graduates seemed a bit too aloof, still unable to cast aside the privileged identity they had earned through a decade of hard study by lamplight. They didn't dare to rashly plunge into the sea of commerce and gamble with their lives because their assignments were basically guaranteed, accompanied by seemingly rosy prospects.

On the other hand, country boys like Gou Dan and his crew were far too timid; standard rural lads who didn't dare to speak up or make moves in a big city. The urban-rural divide, which had been isolated for decades, centuries, or even millennia, wasn't something that could be bridged easily.

Rang Weidong doubted that without his forty years of old security guard experience, he would have ever integrated into urban society so effortlessly.

Therefore, the children of Third Front factories seemed like a rather decent intermediary filling for the gap?

By now, he had attracted practically everyone from the various factories—every single worker and family member not tied down to the production lines—to gather around the basketball court. The three-tiered concrete bleachers were packed to absolute capacity. Later on, they discovered that even young workers from the production lines had their parents step in to cover their shifts just so they could hurry over and play ball with the deputy factory director.

Right under the gaze of everyone present, Rang Weidong maintained his fierce, vibrant energy for three or four hours straight!

This sheer stamina and boundless physical vitality alone made everyone realize that this, too, was a form of talent. Even though he played a point guard role to conserve a bit of energy, everyone could still frequently witness his driving layups and high-speed sprinting back and forth.

One had only to ask: when ordinary people chose a leader, would they rather follow a sickly weakling or a strapping, robust man like this?

Furthermore, for the massive cohort of young second-generation factory workers, aged and declining senior factory leaders could never compare to a peer who felt so much closer and more relatable. Instinctively, they gravitated toward following him.

The young women also crowded all around the perimeter. Even if they didn't know how that female typist was faring now, just the fact that she had spent all those days stationed at the provincial capital office, combined with the delivery men's descriptions of her free and easy lifestyle, was enough to stir intense longing among them. Men could bury their heads here working, playing ball, and fishing, but the women truly yearned to go and see the big cities and couldn't bear to stay behind—especially the prettier ones.

It was only close to noon, by which time Rang Weidong had become quite adept at recognizing and calling out the names of twenty or thirty individuals, agreeing to continue playing that evening.

Only then did he, sweating profusely, accompany Director Cheng and the others to the cafeteria for lunch to discuss their work impressions.

He even had time to go home for a quick nap at noon before holding discussions in afternoon meetings.

The workflow was drawn out with absolute clarity: twenty trucks could currently be pooled together to form a transport company operating in tandem with the Hongguang Factory.

The previous predicament—where Rang Weidong had to cobble together five vehicles into a fleet that could only run a single route to Yuezhou, making just one round trip a month—was instantly shattered.

Now, they would organize the vehicles into groups of three, dividing them into four groups per team, with two teams running separate routes to Pingjing and Yuezhou respectively, since the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region could be handled via Yangtze River shipping transport.

In this manner, these three main routes basically covered the entire country's northern, central, and southern regions along with their respective transit corridors.

Only the Northeast, Northwest, and Yunnan-Guangzhou regions were somewhat neglected, but they truly weren't the sales priorities at the moment.

A rolling convoy of vehicles could guarantee that at least one group returned to Jiangzhou every week, swapping drivers without resting the trucks, keeping the transport wheels in perpetual motion.

Cargo-wise, the operations would be anchored by the existing cameras and sanitary napkins, supplemented by taking on external business contracts and developing transport for local goods. If all else failed, trucks returning from the north could haul fuel oil, while those heading south could carry bamboo and rattan wares.

This transport company would operate with independent accounting and independent expenditures, registered independently in Jiangzhou under Rang Weidong's leadership. The five factories would hold shares and split dividends alongside him, with the ultimate objective of keeping their respective idle motor fleets alive while generating new revenue and economic benefits.

As for whether the three-truck convoys would encounter safety issues?

All five factories chuckled: our firepower is by no means inferior to that of the Hongguang Factory.

Furthermore, as a deputy factory director and a cadre at the section chief level or above, you are already legally permitted to carry military firearms. Later on, I'll have the militia platoon leader issue you one, and you can take some time to practice.

Rang Weidong knew that prior to the 1990s, domestic firearm management was relatively loose, and major state-owned factories indeed possessed firearms.

Yet he never imagined they could be issued as casually as cabbages!

With the establishment of this transport company, the sales channels and cargo reserve issues that had previously caused him considerable headaches and internal conflict were suddenly resolved without a hitch.

Without a modern logistics and transportation system or expressways, was distributing all kinds of goods really that difficult?

Then we'll deliver them ourselves!

This had originally been standard practice for all factories and mines prior to the 1970s and 80s. It was just that the previously self-sufficient landscape was now being scaled up into a full-fledged transport company through Rang Weidong leveraging the "cooperative" opportunity among several factories.

Even the small red van Rang Weidong had driven in himself—didn't it lack license plates earlier?

No problem at all: just unbolt a set of military plates from one of the factory trucks and slap them on. Vehicle registration certificates back then had zero photographs and no vehicle classification categories; with an official stamp, a license number, and a newly handwritten engine serial number, that officially became the vehicle in question.

The remaining task was to develop sales outlets along the transport routes.

Although Rang Weidong still hadn't fully laid bare his specific sales model, he had already explained that in the major metropolises of Central and South China, they could try bypassing department stores altogether and adopt a promotional model targeting universities and public marketplaces.

It carried a distinct flavor of direct selling.

With the foundational success of their previous university promotional campaigns, they might as well give it a shot.

Moreover, possessing such a large contingent of basketball regulars prompted Rang Weidong to mention during the meeting how he had gone to university basketball courts everywhere to make connections, leaving the factory leaders enlightened, laughing heartily, and bursting into applause.

Thus, this line of thinking could be widely propagated. However, Rang Weidong specifically requested that this sales team still include several young women; whether it was taking photographs, drawing crowds for photos, or interacting with university students, they possessed miraculous effectiveness—just look at how well little Zhang had performed previously.

Everyone applauded happily once more.

The atmosphere was exceptionally buoyant, save for the excessive cigarette smoking that left the windows resembling factory chimneys.

Sure enough, when the afternoon meeting adjourned, the brisk yet slightly shy militia platoon leader accompanied the deputy factory director to select his firearm.

As a Third Front military factory built to nuclear-war preparedness standards, its actual operational mandate stipulated that once war broke out, it would instantly transform locally into a company- or battalion-level combat unit to protect production!

Moreover, Jiangzhou served as the nation's largest producer of small arms. During the factional armed struggles of previous years, it was a legendary battleground where people actually dared to deploy tanks and anti-aircraft machine guns against one another; the equipment stockpiles of the surrounding Third Front factories were consequently armed to absolute perfection.

At the very least, they needed to be capable of repelling armed raids attempting to seize armories, which was why their configurations had been driven to an insane degree over the preceding years.

Inside an armory sealed by nothing more than a single iron door, weaponry ranged from mortars to recoilless rifles. "Factory Director, would you like a mortar? You can haul one back to your dormitory to familiarize yourself with it—though of course, this one can't be casually carried out of the factory grounds."

As she recounted this, the female platoon leader's eyes shone with pride and boundless self-assurance.

Rang Weidong could only stare in dumbfounded shock, patting the 1.4-meter-long cannon barrel before muttering, "Forget it, forget it."

As for heavy machine guns and shield-mounted machine guns, those were definitely out of the question.

Then came the neat rows of Type 56 assault rifles, Type 56 semi-automatic rifles, and stacks of Type 54 and Type 77 handguns. "Factory Director, you can carry this one. It's the newest model, capable of being loaded single-handedly. If you're carrying something or happen to get injured, you can press down to chamber a round with just one hand!"

The female platoon leader's tone mirrored precisely the joyous excitement of modern girls acquiring a brand-new smartphone, eagerly sharing and introducing its features.

Rang Weidong had originally intended merely to take a curious look, but the fact that he had once broken nine fingers and truly understood the desperate mindset of wanting to use a hand when one had none ultimately prompted him to claim a Type 77 pistol.

Upon heading outside, the female platoon leader filled out a firearms license booklet for him, and he retrieved a box of ammunition from the adjacent munitions depot.

He was now legally armed!

"You should take a rifle as well; you can practice right here on factory grounds, it's so convenient."

"Alright, I'll take two."