Chapter 726: The First Share Reduction 1

Chapter 726: The First Share Reduction 1

Fang Dahu said loudly, "Old He is right. It is said that one should not meddle in other people's affairs if he is not in the position. Now that you three are the masters in charge, you should take charge of this important matter." You should know that He Daqing gave his family a temporary job in the canteen of the training base of the Security Department of the Red Star Steel Rolling Plant. How much do I owe Old He? Besides, Xu Fugui, this bastard, has bad intentions and wants to put He Daqing on the fire. How can I let this bad guy get what he wants?

Li Botao also echoed: "Yes, now is the time for you three stewards to perform well. We are all waiting for you three stewards to come up with a good solution."

At this moment Li Botao couldn't help but feel very fortunate. Thanks to the fact that when He Daqing proposed to resign as the manager of No. 95 Siheyuan a few days ago, he and Fang Dahu also resigned and refused to participate in the election of the next manager of Siheyuan. Otherwise, he, He Daqing and Fang Dahu would be in a state of panic now.

Although he had only lived in this courtyard for a few years, Li Botao had gained some understanding of the residents here. In particular, influenced by Yi Zhonghai's long-term advocacy of slogans such as "respect the elderly and love the young, unite neighbors, and help each other", the atmosphere in this courtyard was very abnormal, even to the point of being weird.

It's not that there is anything wrong with the propaganda of "respecting the elderly and loving the young, uniting neighbors, and helping each other". This is a good thing that is strongly supported by higher authorities. However, it is said that a good sutra can be misrepresented by a crooked monk. While Yi Zhonghai was promoting the instructions from his superiors, he mixed in too many selfish thoughts.

Li Botao was able to become a small leader in the meat processing plant because his experience and vision were certainly not comparable to those of ordinary residents who could not read or write. He clearly discovered that Yi Zhonghai was harboring evil intentions and had bad intentions. The reason why he advocated "respecting the elderly and loving the young" was to create a special atmosphere in Courtyard No. 95, so that young people would deeply instill the concept of listening to the elderly. Otherwise, he would not have said such absurd words as "there is no fault of the elderly, only the inconsideration of children". He, Yi Zhonghai, had no offspring, which is what the saying goes "the family will be wiped out". He was worried that when he was old and frail, he would be bullied by the young people in Courtyard No. 95, or even killed.

As for "uniting neighbors and helping each other", to put it bluntly, he just wants to get the people in the No. 95 courtyard to help him, Yi Zhonghai, support his apprentice Jia Dongxu's family.

This is not so much about the deep affection between master and apprentice, but that Yi Zhonghai chose his apprentice Jia Dongxu to be his elderly care provider. Under normal circumstances, it is "I raise you when you are young and you raise me when I am old". If Yi Zhonghai can treat Jia Dongxu wholeheartedly, with his income as a senior fitter, he can give Jia Dongxu's family ten or twenty yuan a month, which can make Jia Dongxu's family live a good life; and he, Yi Zhonghai, is the master that Jia Dongxu has kowtowed to, and it is said that an apprentice is half a master. As long as Yi Zhonghai sincerely teaches Jia Dongxu the fitter skills at work and cares about and protects the life of his apprentice's family in life, if Jia Dongxu does not take good care of Yi Zhonghai and his wife in the future, the spit of the neighbors and the workers in the steel mill alone will be enough to drown him.

Unfortunately, Yi Zhonghai is a guy with evil intentions and a strong desire for control. He wants Jia Dongxu to take care of him in his old age, but he also wants to have a firm control over everything about him.

Although Li Botao did not work at the Red Star Steel Mill, he was able to hear some clues from the private discussions of the residents who worked at the mill. Jia Dongxu had already become Yi Zhonghai's apprentice before the liberation of the city of 1949, but after so many years, Jia Dongxu was still only a second-level fitter.

Out of curiosity, Li Botao once asked some people who were engaged in fitter work. He learned that fitters below the intermediate level could only achieve the level with the guidance of the master and diligent practice. Only intermediate fitters above level four needed to be able to understand the drawings. Moreover, the more advanced the fitter, the more complex the parts drawings he needed to come into contact with.

Jia Dongxu has not been promoted to a third or fourth level fitter for so many years. Obviously there is something fishy here. It is definitely Yi Zhonghai, the master, who deliberately suppresses and artificially slows down Jia Dongxu's fitter level improvement. In this way, Jia Dongxu's fitter level cannot be improved, and his salary income cannot increase, so the Jia family will need Yi Zhonghai's frequent support even more.

In addition, Yi Zhonghai often donated money and grain to his apprentice Jia Dongxu's family in the No. 95 courtyard under the banner of "uniting neighbors and helping each other". In fact, there were several families in this courtyard whose living standards were not as good as the Jia family, but because everyone was concerned about Yi Zhonghai's identity as a senior fitter at the Red Star Steel Rolling Mill, they could only hold their noses and spend a little money to buy safety.

As for why Yi Zhonghai asked his wife to take care of the deaf old lady in the backyard all year round, his purpose was nothing more than two points. One was to establish a good image of respecting the elderly for himself, and the other was to set an example for other residents in the courtyard, hoping that when the couple grew old, others would also take care of them in this way.

Although Li Botao had completely seen through Yi Zhonghai's true face, he was alone and powerless after all. Nearly half of the residents in this courtyard had family members working in the Red Star Steel Mill. Most of them were worried that Yi Zhonghai would make trouble for them in the steel mill, so they could only swallow their anger and endure it silently.

The second uncle in charge, Liu Haizhong, was a big idiot who was obsessed with becoming an official. Apart from putting on airs in the courtyard of No. 95, he would beat his youngest son with a belt whenever he was unhappy. As long as Yi Zhonghai said three nice words to him, this idiot would happily let Yi Zhonghai use him as a gun.

The third uncle in charge, Yan Bugui, is a guy who will not do anything without profit. He always says, "You will be poor if you have enough food and clothes, but you will be poor if you don't plan well." He returns to the courtyard from school early every day and stands at the gate, staring at the residents of the courtyard who are coming back from get off work. He tries every way to take advantage of these people, either by snatching an onion from the east or a garlic from the west. If it weren't for his identity as a teacher at Red Star Primary School, this guy would have been beaten up in other courtyards long ago.

Li Botao had seen everything in the No. 95 courtyard house clearly. If it wasn't difficult to change houses, he would have wanted to move out of this courtyard house long ago. In order to make his family live happily and reduce some troubles, Li Botao would intentionally or unintentionally take out some of the pork offal he got from the meat processing factory and distribute it to several residents in the front yard who had a good relationship with him. This also made him a small circle of friends. With Yi Zhonghai's brain, how could he not see Li Botao's intentions? Obviously, they were just keeping each other warm, but since Li Botao lived in the front yard and basically didn't participate in the miscellaneous things in the courtyard, even when he called for donations to the Jia family, Li Botao just followed the crowd and donated thirty or twenty cents each time, just like the other residents in the front yard. Obviously, they were paying for peace, so Yi Zhonghai maintained a non-interference attitude. Even Jia Zhang, who always made trouble in the courtyard No. 95, was solemnly warned by Yi Zhonghai that she was not allowed to take the initiative to provoke Li Botao's family.

At the beginning, Jia Zhang was not convinced, and deliberately came to Li Botao's house to "borrow meat" while stewing pork at his house, sitting in her ancestral large bowl, but was rejected by Li Botao's wife on the spot.

Jia Zhang was used to acting like a scoundrel in the courtyard of No. 95. She started calling out to Old Jia and cursing Li Botao's wife and children on the spot. Unexpectedly, she was slapped hard by Li Botao's wife. Jia Zhang, who bullied the weak and feared the strong, went home in shame on the spot.

However, how could Jia Zhang, who had suffered such a huge loss, let it go? After her son Jia Dongxu came home from get off work, she exaggerated the matter and made a complaint. The result can be imagined. Jia Dongxu went to Li Botao's house angrily to demand an explanation, but was kicked out of the house by Li Botao.

When Yi Zhonghai saw his elderly caregiver being beaten, he was about to act like the manager of the courtyard and try to take sides, but was blocked by Li Botao, who said he would go to the street office to ask the leaders for justice. In addition, most of the front yard residents present also began to accuse Jia Zhang and Jia Dongxu.

How could Yi Zhonghai dare to let him go to the street office? If he did that, not only would he lose face, but he would also lose everything.

Normally at this time Yi Zhonghai would convene a courtyard meeting and suppress the other party by relying on his status as the manager. However, Li Botao did not give him this opportunity at all. He just said something in Yi Zhonghai's ear, and Yi Zhonghai took Jia Dongxu back home on the spot. Since then, Jia Zhang never dared to cause trouble at the Li family again.

In fact, Li Botao was just reminding Yi Zhonghai that he worked in a meat processing plant and was the head of the supply department.

How could Yi Zhonghai not hear the threat in Li Botao's words? Because the meat supply in Beijing has always been tight, even ordinary workers working in the meat processing factory are often asked by acquaintances to find ways to get some pork.

It is said that if you live by the mountain, you eat from the mountain; if you live by the water, you eat from the water. Even ordinary workers working in a meat processing factory can get some extra unplanned indicators every month, not to mention things like offal and pig's trotters.

Therefore, ordinary workers in the meat processing plant can make a lot of connections, including all kinds of people, not to mention the cadres of all ranks. Li Botao is just a small leader in the meat processing plant. If someone really makes a mortal enemy with Li Botao, not to mention Jia Dongxu, an ordinary second-level fitter in the Red Star Steel Rolling Mill, even Yi Zhonghai, a seventh-level fitter, will probably not have an easy time.

If Li Botao really wanted to target Master Yi Zhonghai and his apprentice, he could not only let his "friends" deal with them privately, but he could even use the people in the purchasing department of the Red Star Steel Rolling Mill to deal with them.

After all, Yi Zhonghai was not yet the highly respected eighth-level fitter he later became. In order to ensure the meat supply for the cadres and workers of the steel rolling mill, some leaders would definitely give face to the meat processing plant and take the opportunity to deal with Yi Zhonghai and his apprentice.

Although Yi Zhonghai was the manager of Courtyard No. 95, he knew very well that their duties were only to convey instructions from the superiors of the street office and the neighborhood committee, organize the residents of the courtyard to guard against enemy spies, and mediate trivial conflicts between neighbors. In order to be able to control the entire courtyard, Yi Zhonghai hit it off with Liu Haizhong and Yan Bugui and proposed "matters in the courtyard should be resolved in the courtyard", and resolutely put an end to the courtyard residents directly contacting the street office and the neighborhood committee.

But Li Botao is different from those ordinary residents. He is a small leader of a meat processing plant and of course he is very clear about the duties of the three managers of the courtyard. As long as he doesn't offend them, he will give them some face. If he really angers them, he will probably report the problem to the leaders of the street office, and by then, Yi Zhonghai and the other three managers may be in trouble.

Ever since he dealt with the Jia Zhang family, Li Botao basically did not participate in the affairs of the courtyard. The last time Yi Zhonghai was dismissed, the street office organized a re-election of the manager, and the residents of the front yard nominated Li Botao. He saw that He Daqing was elected in the middle yard and Fang Dahu in the back yard. These two were considered to be the few relatively upright people in the entire No. 95 courtyard, so he agreed.

However, when He Daqing proposed to resign as the first steward, Fang Dahu also said that he did not want to continue to be the second steward. Li Botao immediately proposed to resign as the third steward. He did not want to continue to waste time and energy on this weird resident in the courtyard.

It is said that "the smaller the temple, the more evil spirits there are; the shallower the pond, the more turtles there are". Li Botao has seen through it. There are indeed too many "immortal" figures gathered in the courtyard No. 95.

The love-hate relationship between Yi Zhonghai, the former steward, and the Jia family can be written into a novel; the former steward, Liu Haizhong, a guy who was obsessed with becoming an official, was a fool and didn't know how to live or die. Just because the new resident who had just moved into the West Kuayue next door did not visit him, the steward, he took advantage of his drunkenness and brought people to make trouble, and ended up kicking the steel plate. The new resident who had just moved into the West Kuayue next door turned out to be Lin Yu, the deputy secretary and deputy director of the Dongcheng District Public Security Bureau and director of the Security Department of the Red Star Steel Rolling Mill, a deputy-department-level leading cadre.

So this second uncle, the manager who was pregnant all day and pretended to be a leader, was completely finished. Not only did he go to the Northwest to serve his sentence, but his wife and children also moved out of the No. 95 courtyard. There was no other way. The house where their Liu family lived was rented from the Red Star Steel Mill. Now that Liu Haizhong has been sentenced and expelled, the steel mill will definitely take back the house.

The former manager, Uncle Yan Bugui, was a guy known as an "abacus expert". He would either grab an onion from the east house or a garlic from the west house all day long. If it weren't for his identity as a teacher at Red Star Primary School, he would have been severely beaten up long ago.