Reborn in 1977

Chapter 533 Where are the Tigers?

On train 159 from Beijing to Changchun, Chen Fan was sound asleep wrapped in his blanket when he suddenly felt a chill and pulled the blanket tighter.

A few seconds later, he felt something was off. He abruptly opened his eyes, peeked out the window, and saw a field of white that even the night couldn't hide. Snowflakes danced in the lamplight, telling him they had arrived in the Northeast.

Beijing was already welcoming the spring breeze, but here it was still snowing.

He raised his hand and pushed up his sleeve. The watch showed it was 5:00 AM, two hours before the train's arrival.

That is, if it wasn't delayed!

Since he was already awake, he simply threw back the blanket and got out of bed. The other passengers in the compartment were still fast asleep.

The Ministry of Machinery Industry provided good accommodations. All the dozen or so experts, plus Factory Director Yang and the others, had soft sleeper tickets. Including a few administrative staff, they occupied half the carriage.

Traveling by train, like traveling by ship, meant that hard seats, hard sleepers, and soft sleepers were allocated according to rank. Ordinary people could usually only buy hard seats. Junior cadres or elderly individuals with serious illnesses could buy hard sleeper tickets with a letter of introduction, or they could ask acquaintances in large organizations to pull some strings.

Soft sleeper tickets were not something ordinary people could buy. Like airplane tickets or first-class ship cabins, they required not only a letter of introduction from one's work unit but also meeting the rank requirement. Chen Fan, as a deputy section chief, barely met the soft sleeper level, and he could only travel himself, not bring anyone else.

But there was one exception: foreigners.

(1970s train soft sleeper carriage)

Train soft sleeper carriages, like foreign-related hotels, were places where you were most likely to encounter foreigners.

It wasn't for any particular reason. It was similar to the situation with Little Fatty's family now. The main idea was to encourage foreign guests to spend more, thus retaining more foreign exchange.

At this time, the other half of the carriage was occupied by a group of foreign tourists.

However, a cadre from the travel agency was accompanying them, and to avoid trouble, almost no one interacted with them.

Everyone was still asleep at this hour, and the carriage was pitch black, with only the clatter of the train wheels to be heard.

Chen Fan took his toothbrush and towel to the ornately decorated soft sleeper restroom to take care of his personal hygiene. Then, with his hands in his pockets, he walked forward.

The dining car was usually located where the hard seat and hard sleeper carriages connected, typically carriage number 9. Railway workers guarded the connection point, preventing people from the front from entering, while sleeper passengers from the rear could pass with their tickets.

Chen Fan walked through several hard sleeper carriages, reached the dining car connection, flashed his berth card, offered the guard a cigarette, lit it, took a puff, and said, "It's already February 11th, and it's still so cold."

The railway police officer leaned against the wall, smoking and smiling. "That's the Northeast for you. It snows until April, and then starts again in September or October. It snows for almost half the year."

Chen Fan sniffed, smelling the coal smoke, and tilted his head to look at a small room in the other carriage. "Is that the boiler room? It doesn't seem to have a fire going."

The railway police officer glanced in the direction he was looking. "There's definitely a fire, just a small one. There's no way around it. The train has a limited carrying capacity, and there's a fixed amount of coal that can be burned. It can only be replenished at major stations. Each carriage has a small boiler, and heating in the winter depends entirely on it.

Seeing that your berth card is for the soft sleeper carriage, you guys have it a little better. The allocation is slightly higher than in the other carriages. You can still manage without a cotton-padded coat. It's not the same further ahead. You need a cotton-padded coat to keep warm; if you take it off, you'll feel the cold."

He looked at Chen Fan. "You're up so early. Are you going to the dining car for breakfast?"

Chen Fan grunted in agreement and asked, "Is it open at this hour?"

The railway police officer chuckled. "What 'hour' is there on a train? From the departure to the final stop, the dining car has to be ready whenever passengers want to eat. But most of the time, the food is prepared in advance, served in lunchboxes, and kept warm in hot water cabinets. That's all passengers can buy, unless a senior cadre or a foreign guest comes along. Then they'll prepare something fresh."

He looked at his watch. "It's almost 5:30 AM now. They should be making breakfast. If you go now, you can have something freshly cooked."

Chen Fan took a deep drag of his cigarette, put the butt in the ashtray hanging on the wall, and waved his hand. "Thanks, see you later."

A short walk ahead, he saw the train kitchen, separated by a wall. Through the windows, he could see the chefs busy at work.

He glanced at them, then went to the service counter to order. Afterward, he took his tray and found a seat.

A large bowl of zha jiang mian (noodles with savory soybean paste), two fried dough sticks, two jianbing (savory crepes), two large meat buns, five eggs, and a bowl of soy milk.

He'd just eat this casually for now, and later, he'd get off the train with Factory Director Yang and the others for a good meal.

Just as he was about to start eating, he saw several train attendants walking over, looking exhausted. They sat down at the seat next to Chen Fan, and one of them turned and called out, "Old Wang, is there any food left?"

A voice came from the kitchen, "You ask every day. I know when you change shifts. I've timed it to heat up the food. Come and get it."

Two young men immediately got up and returned with several plates of food.

(Interior of a 1970s dining car, dining with foreigners)

Chen Fan glanced over. Hey, the food wasn't bad. There was fish, meat, and vegetables. There was a large basin of mantou (steamed buns) next to them, and everyone took a cup from their pocket. You could tell it was liquor without even smelling it.

He looked at them, and they looked at him.

An old railway worker in his fifties chuckled. "You're up early. Are your companions still washing up?"

"No, they're still sleeping. I'm eating by myself."

Chen Fan looked calm and smiled casually. "I'm still growing, so I have a big appetite."

The men were all surprised and exchanged glances, but they didn't say anything.

Only a young man in his twenties looked at him curiously. "May I ask, how old are you this year?"

Chen Fan picked up his chopsticks and mixed the noodles, smiling. "Eighteen."

Then, with one chopstick swoop, he lifted up half a bowl of noodles and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing a few times before swallowing.

A strange look flashed in the old railway worker's eyes. "Young brother has a good appetite."

Then, he winked at the young man, nonchalantly inviting everyone to eat.

The young man was restless and asked in a low voice, "Master, is there a problem?"

The old railway worker glared at him fiercely, then glanced outside. He saw Chen Fan looking at him with a smile, and he quickly chuckled dryly. "The young man hasn't seen the world. Please forgive him, brother."

The young man's eyes widened. He looked at his master, then at the passenger next to him, feeling strange. Who's the young man? I'm 20, he's 18!

Just as he was about to speak, his colleague subtly tugged at him. When he turned his head, good heavens, everyone was looking at him, with eyes that seemed ready to eat him alive.

Chen Fan laughed heartily twice and said to the old railway worker, "Uncle, you're experienced and knowledgeable. You must have worked on the train for many years, right?"

Hearing this, the old railway worker immediately breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. "That's right. And most of the time, I'm on this train. I spend more time on this train than at home."

Once the topic was opened, he began to talk non-stop. "This train first ran on June 1, 1955. At that time, it was train 33/34, a direct express passenger train from Beijing to Changchun. It stopped for a year after running for a year, and then resumed after a year. On June 1, 1959, the train number changed to 60/59. Then it stopped again and resumed again. Anyway, it's been tossed back and forth. In 1975, it changed again to 160/159. I don't know when it will change again."

Chen Fan continued eating, saying, "That shows that our railways are changing quickly. There will be more and more trains in the future, and the speed will be faster and faster. Maybe it will change every two years. That's how we develop."

The old railway worker laughed loudly. "Yes, yes, yes, that's how it should be."

After chatting for a while, Chen Fan devoured his breakfast and waved to them. "Enjoy your meal, everyone."

The old railway worker also quickly waved. "Take care."

After Chen Fan's figure disappeared, he turned his head and glared fiercely at his apprentice. "Don't talk nonsense in the future. Luckily, we met someone with a good temper. If it were someone with a bad temper, they could slap you and you wouldn't even know how you died."

The young apprentice didn't believe it. "That's an exaggeration. Would he dare to commit violence in public? Besides, I didn't offend him."

A middle-aged man beside him glared at him unhappily, "You better keep your master's words in mind. Didn't you see that he's not physically strong, yet he can eat so much? Let me tell you, this kind of person is very likely a martial artist. And seeing that his hands don't have calluses, it means he has cultivated his skills to the bone.

You think you're fine just because you didn't offend him? Martial artists have all kinds of unpredictable tempers. If you encounter someone with a bad temper, you could make an enemy just by saying a few extra words.

He could casually slap you, and you wouldn't see anything on the surface, but after a while, you would suddenly vomit blood and die. As for how long that time is, it depends on how powerful his skills are. It could be as short as half a day or a day, or as long as three or four days. Since so much time has passed, where would you go to find him? And why would anyone say he was the one who hit you?!"

The young man was immediately dumbfounded, "Really?"

His colleague next to him picked up a steamed bun and chuckled, "For those of us in this line of work, other things are hard to say, but being knowledgeable must be number one. Life is unpredictable, and you can encounter all kinds of people and things, so the most important thing is to be cautious in your words and actions.

It's okay if you don't believe it now, but remember your master's words, know what kind of people you can offend and what kind you can't, and avoid bringing trouble upon yourself. When you encounter it in the future, you'll know if this is true or not."

… …

Clang, clang, clang, another 3 hours passed. At 8:30 in the morning, only a little over an hour late, the train finally pulled into Changchun Station.

FAW (First Automobile Works) naturally didn't lack cars, and as a local company, they didn't lack connections either. They even sent 6 cars directly onto the platform to pick up all the "expert team" sent by the First Ministry of Machinery Industry.

Half an hour later, the motorcade drove into the FAW factory.

The factory leaders personally came out to greet them, arranged for them to stay at the unit's guest house, and accompanied them for breakfast. Afterwards, urged by the expert team, they went to see the prototype car.

In a factory building, Chen Fan finally saw the car he designed.

How should I put it, his mood was a little complicated.

Firstly, being able to see his design transformed from blueprints into a real object was definitely something to be happy about.

But the texture of this real object gave him a kind of indescribable feeling.

It was like buying something on Pinduoduo, looking at the pictures, and then seeing the comparison after receiving the goods.

Chen Fan covered half of his face and walked back and forth in front of the car, wondering… If this was a product made by Yunhu Machinery Factory, he could still accept it.

But this was FAW!

Looking at those cars, besides having the appearance of the Hongqi (Red Flag) limousine, everything else – the paint, tires, shell, headlights, glass… was filled with a strong sense of "the times."

It would have been fine if this was a mass-produced car, but this was a "hand-crafted" prototype!

Is this it?

At this time, a leader from the FAW factory walked over and smiled at him, "Comrade Chen, Factory Director Yang said you can drive. This car is your design, why don't you try it out yourself?"

Chen Fan raised his head and smiled, "Thank you, Director Jia, then I won't be polite."

Then he got into a car, picked up the key on the center console, inserted it, started the engine, and stepped on the clutch.

It snowed heavily today, and the road wasn't easy to drive on. Fortunately, the snow on the open space outside the workshop had been cleared, so he didn't drive far, just drove around the entrance twice and then drove the car back to its original position.

Afterwards, he got into the van next to it and drove the same route again.

After returning and parking the car, he pushed the door open and asked, "Have you done any testing yourselves?"

Director Jia immediately said, "We have, but the test car isn't here. We referred to the standard procedures of advanced countries and did half a month of rigorous testing, including low-temperature testing, high-temperature testing, fuel, engine, brakes… and so on. So far, all tests meet the design standards, and can even be said to be excellent."

Chen Fan couldn't help but gently bite his teeth. Half a month of rigorous testing?

In later generations, a car had to undergo at least half a year of extreme testing from design to mass production, including high temperature, low temperature, high pressure, low pressure, wind resistance, safety, power, collision, exhaust, climbing, top speed, low speed, acceleration, sun exposure, ice…

Okay, it's still 1978, can't ask for too much.

He turned to look at the leader of the expert team, an old professor in his 70s, "Professor Zhu, I just felt it, and the handling is not bad, better than any car I've driven before."

Professor Zhu took two steps forward and said sternly, "I've read their report, and the content is similar to your experience. Not only is this sedan, but even the driving experience of that microvan is better than ordinary sedans and jeeps.

But for safety's sake, we still have to conduct a rigorous inspection of the entire car again. If everything is fine, then we will have to trouble you to discuss the production process with us and the FAW team."

Chen Fan frowned slightly, "I'm afraid I can't help with the production process, can I?"

Professor Zhu looked at Factory Director Yang, then at Director Jia, "Old Jia, should you speak or should I?"

Director Jia smiled bitterly on his face, sighed a long sigh, and said with disappointment, "There are no outsiders here, so I'm not afraid of being laughed at."

He turned to look at Chen Fan and said, "Everyone knows that the Hongqi sedan produced by our FAW is the pride of the national automobile industry, but what is unknown to outsiders is the hardship and fatigue of our FAW people."

Chen Fan raised his eyebrows slightly, "What do you mean?"

Director Jia gestured, "Come, I'll take you to visit the workshop and tell you about the real situation of our factory."

A group of people followed him forward, Chen Fan and Professor Zhu walked in the front, listening to him tell the story.

"From 1958 to now, 20 years, Comrade Chen, guess how many Hongqi sedans of various models have been produced in total?"

Chen Fan shook his head blankly, "I don't know."

Director Jia hummed twice, and laughed self-deprecatingly, "I'm not afraid of everyone laughing at me, in these 20 years, a total of 1400 vehicles have been produced, an average of 70 vehicles per year."

As soon as Chen Fan heard this, his eyeballs almost popped out. 70 vehicles a year? A limited edition?

In this era, there was basically no possibility of cars not being sold. Units from top to bottom had car needs, so the low output could only be a problem with FAW itself.

Seeing his expression, the bitter smile on Director Jia's face couldn't help but become even stronger, "To build a car, our lowest estimated cost is 60,000 yuan, and the highest cost is 220,000 yuan, but the selling price is only one price: 40,000 yuan. Just one Hongqi sedan causes the unit to lose millions every year!"

Chen Fan opened his mouth slightly, already speechless.

In an era when the average wage was 35 yuan, what was the concept of losing millions a year?

And this was just one Hongqi sedan, what about other products?

No wonder Hongqi later directly stopped production, only producing a small number of cars for senior leaders to use.

High fuel consumption, with limited gasoline supply, various units were naturally unwilling to use them; quality was difficult to guarantee, and maintenance costs naturally increased; and it lost so much money every year, where did such a car get its competitiveness?

Rather than losing millions a year to produce dozens of cars, it would be better to directly buy imported luxury cars.

The price is even cheaper!

The various car-using units below are also more willing.

So the cessation of production of Hongqi was not simply a matter of a simple production suspension order, but the result of multiple factors from changes in the social environment to FAW's own problems.

With Director Jia's narration, and after taking a tour of the car production workshop, Chen Fan finally understood where the problem lay.

The main problems were design defects and poor quality.

Just now, Director Jia gave two examples. One was when Director Chen test-rode the Hongqi CA72, the car door couldn't be opened. In the end, the front windshield was removed before he could climb out of the car.

Another was in 1970, the car was carrying foreign guests and chiefs back from Badaling, and there was a long downhill section, but unexpectedly, the brakes failed.

If there hadn't been a pile of lime for road repairs by the roadside, and the driver drove the car into the lime pile, finally ensuring the safety of the foreign guests and chiefs, otherwise no one could bear the consequences!

With such frequent problems, there were both design reasons and problems in the manufacturing process.

Even if FAW had a large number of senior technicians, how could they produce a problem-free car if the design was flawed?

Of course, we can't blame the engineers at FAW for this. Cars aren't something that can be made well overnight; they require long-term technical accumulation and even advanced industrial design.

And our country doesn't have these things.

It was only in 1956, with the help of the Soviets, that we had our first automobile production line. As a result, it was interrupted after a few years, and then we could only rely on our own exploration.

It is commendable that the older generation of automobile workers were able to design and produce advanced cars like the Hongqi and Shanghai under such difficult conditions. There's no need to nitpick.

Since the environment is already like this, there's naturally no way to talk about the industrial design of the automobile production line.

So, to this day, FAW is still using the traditional handmade workshop model to produce Hongqis.

And it's normal that the quality of Hongqi cars produced under such production conditions cannot be guaranteed.

Director Jia took them around for a while, and finally returned to the workshop where the prototype cars were parked. He said to Chen Fan with a serious face, "So far, we haven't found any design flaws in your two cars. This is the primary reason why we insisted on inviting you to participate in the evaluation together.

The second reason is the automobile production line you designed for Yunhu Machinery Factory."

He turned to look at Factory Director Yang, "Yunhu Machinery Factory itself does not have the capacity for mass production of automobiles. Although it can manually build cars relying on factory machinery and senior technicians, the efficiency is very low.

So your suggestion to them is to organize elite forces and use manual methods to produce cars, and then make an automobile production line yourself to produce vans."

He looked directly at Chen Fan, his eyes full of curiosity and hope, "Although the way of producing cars is said to be manual, it is very different from the way we produce Hongqis. Every link you design has very high requirements for quality control.

On the other hand, the concept of the van production line is also very unique. It is different from the domestic and foreign automobile production lines I knew before, but is tailored according to the existing resources of Yunhu Machinery Factory.

An automobile design and a production line design, it is these two reasons that I strongly demanded from the ministry that you must be invited to participate in the review and production design of these two cars.

I hope you can use your wisdom to give our country's automobile industry a push!"

Chen Fan quickly waved his hand, "No, no, in fact, many of these are my father's ideas. I'm just restating the information he recorded. I don't deserve your praise."

He secretly rejoiced in his heart that he hadn't let anyone go home to get those notebooks, so that when he went back, he could add a little more content to them.

In fact, he only had a smattering of knowledge about automobile production lines. He wasn't in this line of work, so how could he know so much?!

He could only provide some ideas in the form of "conjecture" based on a little bit of fragmented information he knew.

Even so, it was enough for the current domestic automobile units to take a big step forward.

China's first automobile production line was the Jiefang truck production line completed by FAW Factory in 1956, but the first "modernized" production line was the "Santana" automobile production line jointly built by SAIC and Volkswagen more than 30 years later.

So even a little bit of improvement is a valuable step forward for automobile production.

At this time, Director Jia was a little surprised when he heard Chen Fan's words, and immediately turned to look at Professor Zhu.

Professor Zhu nodded, confirming Chen Fan's statement, and then said with a smile, "Although it is Comrade Chen's father's idea, Comrade Chen himself is also an automobile expert. He is definitely qualified to participate in our discussions."

He looked at Chen Fan, with some regret in his eyes, "It's a pity that Comrade Chen is a polymath. He not only has profound attainments in medicine, but also is a nationally renowned writer. Otherwise, I would definitely invite you to our First Ministry of Machinery Industry to work together for the development of the automobile industry."

Hearing this, Director Jia was even more surprised. He pointed at Chen Fan in disbelief, "A nationally renowned writer? You wouldn't be Lu Wan Chen Fan, Jiang Tiantian's literary teacher who has published many articles in 'Jiangnan Literature', would you?"

Chen Fan shrugged and was about to speak.

Factory Director Yang frowned slightly next to him, "Huh? Didn't I say that?"

Director Jia looked at Factory Director Yang, and then saw that almost everyone in the expert group had a bitter expression on their faces. He finally gave up the idea of poaching people and sighed, "I understand."

Then he raised his head and looked at Chen Fan, and said with a serious face, "Comrade Chen, although this prototype car evaluation and production discussion meeting is held in FAW, I still hope that you can participate wholeheartedly and make a contribution to the development of my country's automobiles."

He looked at Factory Director Yang again, "Yunhu Machinery Factory is the initiating and handling unit of these two cars. According to practice, the First Ministry of Machinery Industry will definitely agree to your application to establish an automobile factory. At that time, as FAW, we will also provide assistance as much as possible and do our best for the construction of Yunhu Automobile Factory."

This is an exchange of benefits.

Factory Director Yang's face was immediately flushed. He first glanced at Chen Fan and saw him smiling and nodding slightly. Then he grabbed Director Jia's hand, "Thank you, thank you."

He had worked so hard from Yunhu to the provincial capital, then from the provincial capital to the capital, and then from the capital to Chuncheng, wasn't it for this day?

Now that the First Ministry of Machinery Industry has policy support and FAW's technical assistance, Yunhu Automobile Factory is stable!

...

In the next few days, Chen Fan and the people from the expert group conducted multiple strict tests on the two cars.

At the same time, he also entered the Hongqi production workshop to gain an in-depth understanding of their production conditions, and then put forward a lot of opinions.

Frankly speaking, there are many problems, not only in production management, but even the most basic quality control of spare parts is difficult to guarantee.

The production of Hongqi cars is not entirely completed by FAW. In addition to them, there are many cooperative factories producing spare parts, and most of the problems are on them.

After understanding the situation, Chen Fan wrote tens of thousands of words of advice, including three main aspects. One is to move over the "five basic principles of factory management" that Yunhu Machinery Factory is trying out to transform the production workshop.

The second is to establish a strict quality control system to ensure that unqualified spare parts do not enter the production process.

But Chen Fan couldn't guarantee that they could do this.

The cooperative factories are also state-owned enterprises, and everyone is a brother unit. It depends on how the FAW leaders handle the relationship here.

The last part of the advice was the "production line transformation" that Director Jia valued most.

Based on the FAW production line he had learned about in the past few days, combined with some things from later generations, Chen Fan wrote a design idea that was slightly different from that of the machinery factory.

At this point, his task in FAW was basically completed.

In the conference room, Director Jia led several technical backbones of the unit and several old professors from the expert group to conduct a preliminary assessment of the advice submitted by Chen Fan, and unanimously believed that it had extremely high practical value.

After reaching the result, Director Jia raised his head, his face full of smiles, "Comrade Chen, are you really not planning to come to FAW?"

Chen Fan quickly waved his hand, "Thank you for your kindness, but my ambition is not here, I'm really sorry."

Director Jia sighed with regret on his face, and then raised his head and said, "Okay, since that's the case, I won't force it anymore. How about this, I'll arrange a guide to accompany you to play in Changchun for a few days, and when the cooperation details between our unit and Yunhu Machinery Factory are negotiated, we'll arrange to send you back."

Chen Fan nodded with a smile, "Then thank you very much."

After a pause, he said a little embarrassedly, "Director Jia, I want to ask you something."

Director Jia's expression moved slightly, "You can say it."

Chen Fan rubbed his hands and his eyes lit up, "That is, where are there tigers?"

Tigers?

Director Jia and several old professors looked at each other and looked at him together.

What is this kid looking for tigers for?

Does he still want to be Wu Song?