sbdcsierra Chapter 102 The Beginning of the Year
Chapter 102 The Beginning of the Year
The service station opened on the sixteenth day of the first lunar month.
Lao Fang arrived half an hour earlier than usual.
The three wooden signs were polished to a shine, and the yard was swept clean.
The firecracker debris stuck to the broken seashells was blown to the corner by the wind, and he used a broom to sweep it into the dustpan little by little.
The diesel engine in the workshop hadn't been started all winter. Ah Hai squatted down next to it, using a wrench to check the oil line joints. His hands were a little stiff from the cold, so he breathed on them to warm them up and continued to tighten them.
Ah-Guang moved the registration book out of the old parts warehouse.
Before the Lunar New Year, he rebound all the registers, and the cover of the sixth register was covered with a layer of kraft paper with glue.
He spread the notebook out on the worktable and started flipping through it from the first page, silently counting the number of old documents.
Jiang Haiping returned from the reef and placed the account book on the worktable.
I had a two-week holiday for the Lunar New Year, but the page for the debt was still the same as before, with dense lines drawn in red pen.
He turned to a new page and wrote at the top, "Work resumes on the sixth day of the first lunar month."
The exhaust sound of a Jialing 70 could be heard outside the gate.
Wang Cunzhi's motorcycle was parked at the door. When he got off, he didn't greet people with a smile as usual. He had a canvas bag hanging on his shoulder and a brown paper document bag in his hand.
"Hai Ping." He stopped under the loquat tree, placed the file bag on the stone slab, and said, "Director Sun asked me to give this to you."
Jiang Haiping took the document bag and opened it.
Inside was a notice issued by the county, mimeographed, and the paper still smelled of ink.
After reading the first page, he handed the notice to Lao Fang.
Old Fang took it and looked at it twice before taking the cigarette out of his mouth.
The notice stated that the kelp farming area in three villages surrounding Moon Island has expanded by 200 mu this year, and the county requires the service station to complete the centralized maintenance of fishing boats ahead of schedule during the first month of the lunar calendar.
In previous years, the centralized maintenance would take place after mid-March, but this year it was brought forward by more than a month.
Two hundred acres of kelp seedlings have been put into the water and will be harvested in mid-March. Before harvesting, all operating vessels must complete a round of mandatory maintenance.
A total of more than forty boats were involved: sixteen on Hongjia Island, twelve on Moon Island, and more than ten on the opposite bank in Hekou Village.
"There's not enough time." Old Fang placed the notice on the stone slab. "There are over forty boats, and it's less than two months until mid-March."
The service station only has a few people: one welder, two caulking workers, and Ah Hai can disassemble and assemble the diesel engine independently, but someone still needs to watch over it.
Centralized maintenance cannot wait for fishing boats to schedule themselves; the service station must arrange it uniformly. From the time each boat is towed onto the boat until it is fully repaired and launched, the fastest time is two days.
"There are no boat rafts in Hekou Village on the other side. The boats there need to be towed to Moon Island for repairs, and it takes half a day to tow them back and forth."
Wang Cunzhi placed the canvas bag on the roots of the loquat tree.
He rode his bike from the county in the morning, his face roughened by the sea breeze, but sweat beaded on his forehead. "Director Sun said he knew time was tight."
However, kelp harvesting is a key task for the county this year, and the harvesting of 200 acres of kelp will be delayed due to a fishing boat malfunction.
The losses weren't limited to fishermen; the county's aquatic product quotas were also affected.
"Are there enough spare parts for centralized maintenance?" Ah-Guang ran over from the workbench, clutching the register to his chest.
"Ah Guang, find out the old parts inventory list." Jiang Haiping sat down under the loquat tree and spread the notice on the stone slab.
"Bearing housings, gaskets, couplings, impellers, and fasteners—these five items are the most frequently used during centralized maintenance. See if your inventory can support more than forty ships."
Ah-Guang squatted down by the worktable, flipped the register to the page for old parts inventory, and pointed down line by line with his finger.
"We have 32 bearing housings in stock, enough gaskets, and 7 couplings. We just received 5 more impellers before the Lunar New Year, for a total of 16. We also have enough fasteners."
He turned to another page, "But there are only four copper gaskets left for the diesel engine. The two that Ahai bought before the competition were not used, making a total of six."
"Six isn't enough. With over forty ships, conservatively speaking, each diesel engine needs at least one copper gasket replacement, so we'll need forty or fifty." Old Fang put the cigarette back in his mouth.
"The hardware store in town sells them for 30 cents each. I'll go buy twenty first." Ah Hai stood up from the workshop door.
"No need. The copper gaskets will be supplied by the county agricultural machinery company. Director Sun can use the equipment subsidy channel, and the price will be half the price of the hardware store." Wang Cunzhi took out a small notebook from his canvas bag and made a note. "I'll help you get diesel engine parts supplied through the agricultural machinery channel. But I can't approve the refurbishment of old parts; the service station will have to handle that itself."
Jiang Haiping read the notice again from beginning to end, then stood up and walked to the workshop door.
Ding Haisheng was squatting in front of the thick steel plate, the welding rod was clamped into the welding clamp, the arc light hadn't ignited yet, he was walking around in the air to feel the welding.
After a two-week holiday, the row of burn scars on my wrists has gone down in swelling, and the new burns have slowly turned into old ones.
He heard Jiang Haiping's footsteps and stopped walking with his empty hand.
"Haisheng, the centralized maintenance will be moved up to January. There are over forty ships, and it will take at most two months. You'll be handling all the welding work by yourself. A-Guang can help you out, but you'll have to do the overhead welding."
"Okay." Ding Haisheng took the welding rod off and placed it on the welding rod box.
He thought for a moment, "Let him help me load the welding rods and clean the welding slag. I'll train him in welding gradually, and he'll take the beginner's exam in three months."
Ah-Kuang looked up from the worktable.
He flipped through the register a few pages and came to the first flat weld that Ding Haisheng had taught him to weld last November. Back then, the weld was crooked, and it was still crooked, but not as badly.
"Starting tomorrow, I'll weld for two hours every day. One hour inside the workshop, and one hour outside."
Ding Haifeng stood up from under the window of the old parts warehouse.
He had been flipping through the stack of old blueprints that Ding Fugui had brought, and there was a row of proofread data written on the draft paper.
He put the micrometer back in its box and walked to the loquat tree. "When Haisheng was doing overhead welding, I helped him check the temperature of the molten pool. I memorized the parameters of the old water pumps at the service station, and I did separate testing for the water pumps that needed to be refurbished during centralized maintenance."
"Okay." Jiang Haiping leaned against the loquat tree trunk. "The newly added area in Hekou Village wasn't covered by the service station's boats before. We need to reduce the time it takes for the boats to be towed over for repairs."
There weren't enough men to tug the boat, so Hong Xiaobing and Ashun took turns tugging it, while Xiao Zhou followed Master Song to specifically oversee the suturing of the boat hulls in Hekou Village.
Ah Guang raised his hand, "I haven't registered the old items in Hekou Village yet. Starting tomorrow, I'll go to Hekou Village to do a thorough investigation and add the maintenance records for each boat to the seventh register."
Lin Xiu'e came out of the kitchen, her apron stained with freshly mixed tung oil putty. "I've discussed with Master Song about the grouting. Everyone should have an extra grouting tool kit during the centralized maintenance period."
"Just as I thought." Wang Cunzhi stood up from the loquat tree roots, patted the sand off his trousers, and said, "There's one more thing you need to be prepared for."
The supply and marketing cooperative hasn't issued any official documents since the Chinese New Year. However, they conducted an internal crackdown, dismissing the person surnamed Liang, and then they re-examined the entire fertilizer supply chain.
During this process, some documents were unearthed, including a document detailing your service station's application for additional diesel quotas at the end of last year. That document had previously been in Ma Desheng's drawer.
He zipped up the canvas bag and looked at Jiang Haiping. "The extra diesel quota that the service station applied for last year was held back by Ma Desheng for half a year."
He is no longer here, but when this document was brought up in the process, someone from the supply and marketing cooperative rejected the approval.
The reason given was that the service station was not an agricultural production unit, and the extra quota did not comply with regulations. The person who rejected the application was the former director of the supply and marketing cooperative's warehouse, surnamed Zheng.
"What's the relationship between the people with the surname Zheng and the people with the surname Ma?"
"Uncle." Wang Cunzhi took the motorcycle keys out of his pocket.
Jiang Haiping nodded.
He knew this was just the beginning.
The man surnamed Zheng manages the warehouse at the supply and marketing cooperative. Although the approval of diesel fuel is not directly under his jurisdiction, he has the right to make recommendations and reviews.
Every time the service station needed to get diesel fuel, it would have to go through the supply and marketing cooperative. An old director would block people at every step of the process, and even if each time it was just a "reasonable rejection" in accordance with the rules, the accumulated delays were enough to cause a lot of internal friction at the service station.
This isn't something that can be resolved with just one case; it's a series of trivial conflicts that will require dealing with the same cold-faced person every month from now on.
"From now on, we'll submit the materials for diesel quota matters in advance each month. Before each submission, we'll check the document format, making sure there isn't a single typo," he said.