"Currently, each of the five provincial planning districts in the Northern Region has an executive director and two deputy executive directors. There’s also a supervisor assigned directly from headquarters who reports to the General Director—that’s you. Among these five executive directors, with the exception of the East City director who took office in recent years, the others have been in their positions for over a decade. The leadership in Inner Mongolia came from an energy agency we absorbed, and their seniority predates even Chairman Jiang’s."
"That place is treacherous. Its roots run deep, and its power structures are a tangled mess. Countless supervisors have gone there only to request a transfer back within a few months. The most recent one sent from headquarters is Professor Liu. He used to be a private consultant for Chairman Jiang for a while, and he’s actually lasted a year without asking for a transfer."
"The most critical step in our five-year plan is to eliminate these redundant old-timers within headquarters—to purge the poison and clear out the sludge. Only then can we maintain our aggressive, upward momentum before the new era arrives. This will allow us to fully embrace government policies and ensure that every directive from headquarters is like an arrow from a bow, hitting precisely where it’s aimed!"
"Since your father took over Jiang Energy, he has poured immense effort into reforming it. Headquarters has brought in batch after batch of new blood. However, the enterprise left behind by the predecessor to Mrs. Jiang was too sprawling. In our time, being big meant being competitive. It’s different now. Policy requires us to strive for more advanced, cutting-edge fields... new energy, nuclear fusion, better smart controls and application management. Those old-timers have no international perspective, and even less of an innovative spirit. A new generation of competitive, specialized talent is constantly being suppressed, and the arm of headquarters can’t even reach the grassroots level."
"So, of our five major regions, the Northern Region is definitely not the best-developed, but it is the most treacherous. I don’t understand why your father would send you here. Really, the best place to go would be the Central Region, where the reforms are already starting to take shape."
The brightly lit living room fell silent.
Everyone listened intently to Gao Dengfeng’s account, their hearts heavy with emotion.
In fact, what he described was the true state of Jiang Energy. Ever since Jiang Zhengfeng took over this mess, he had launched countless policies and established a guiding principle of external expansion and internal reform. On a small scale, the results were quite good, and the momentum over the past decade or so had been fierce.
But with the five major planning regions—East, South, West, North, and Central—overseeing countless subdivisions for solar, wind, fossil fuels, hydro, and biomass energy, ranging from small village power stations to regional thermal power plants, and handling the vast majority of foundational work from energy supply to technological development... it was an absolutely massive operation.
The Northern Region alone was unimaginably complex.
Jiang Energy was like a giant lying on the ground. Forget adjusting its posture; even taking a proper breath required immense effort. If Jiang Zhengfeng hadn’t received the support of a powerful backer years ago and initiated iron-fisted reforms, Jiang Energy would have likely splintered into thousands of small companies, seeping like water into cities large and small across Huaxia. Reforming it then would have required ten times the effort it does now.
「At the dinner table.」
A thoughtful expression also appeared on Jiangg Ning’s face. She had discerned several layers of meaning in his words.
First, he was desperate for Chen Yuan’s arrival to change the current bloated and embarrassing situation. Second, as the former General Director, he was extremely dissatisfied with how things were being run, to the point that for years he’d been unable to properly lead the executive directors under him. Third, reform was imperative, and he felt that even the radical faction was being a bit too conservative.
His dissatisfaction was practically overflowing from his words.
"If the reforms in the Central Region are already starting to take shape, what’s the point of me going there?" Chen Yuan asked in confusion.
When he finished speaking, the others at the table froze for a moment, then burst into hearty laughter.
"HAHAHAHAHA, you and your father really are cut from the same cloth," Gao Dengfeng said, raising his glass with a sigh of emotion. "I went to your father’s office a few days ago and brought up the current situation. Do you know what he told me?"
"Please, tell me, Gao."
"He waved his hand to stop my rambling and told me, ’Don’t dwell on old friends and old lands; it’s time to light a new fire and try new tea... Seize the day with poetry and wine while you’re still young.’"
The gazes of all the middle-aged men turned to him.
"You are your father’s sword. In all of Jiang Energy, no one has a stronger background or a more powerful backer than you! So go and act boldly. We old-timers have too many concerns; our hands are tied. Come, let’s have a drink."
Still dazed, Chen Yuan raised his glass.
It was only then that he suddenly realized. ’My appointment as the General Director of the Northern Region wasn’t a stepping stone from Jiang Zhengfeng for a smooth career path. It was to make me the leader of the radical faction, to act as a counterweight to all the conservatives on the Jiang Energy board and in its subordinate agencies.’
As the wine went down, Chen Yuan suddenly felt a fire burning in his stomach.
’No wonder...’
’Now I get it. No wonder Pei Youwen and Ji Hai always looked at me with such a peculiar expression when they saw me.’
’No wonder the board members all looked at me differently when I attended the headquarters meeting as the chairman of Bauhinia Company.’
’So, from that moment on, some saw me as an enemy, and others saw me as a friend.’
With Gao Dengfeng, the former director, having been the first to state his position, the others also opened up. They began vying to tell Chen Yuan about their own situations. Some were old leaders from the administrative center, others were high-ranking ministers from within the region. The circumstances in each of their areas were different, but by coming together, they were at least sending a clear signal.
They were willing to cooperate with Chen Yuan’s reform efforts and hoped to change the current bloated state of affairs.