Material Empire

After talking about this matter, it was already noon. Jiang Songling asked the county government guest house to prepare a banquet for Qin Hai and Deng Shiheng. Qin Hai was not shy, and happily attended. At the wine table, both the host and the guest talked happily over wine, and the chat was very speculative. In the name of blocking the wine for Qin Hai, Heizi successfully knocked down four or five officials from Xinshan County. It wasn't until Jiang Songling smiled and raised his hand to beg for mercy that the melee on the wine table ended.

Seeing Qin Hai's performance at the wine table, Jiang Songling was full of surprise, wondering which one was real, the approachable Qin Hai or the aggressive Qin Hai just now. However, Qin Hai was able to fight wine with the officials of Xinshan County, which at least proved that he did not want to embarrass the officials, and what he did was only aimed at rare earths. Thinking of this, Jiang Songling felt much more at ease.

After dinner, Qin Hai declined Jiang Songling's offer to stay, and together with Heizi and Deng Shiheng, left Xinshan County by car, and then went to another adjacent county with large rare earth resources. Over there, the same scene was played again, and in the end it still ended with Qin Hai winning. Jiang Songling only heard about these things after the fact.

After sending Qin Hai away, Jiang Songling came to the office of County Magistrate Jia Xiaodong and reported Qin Hai's trip in detail to him. After Jia Xiaodong listened carefully, he frowned and asked, "Old Jiang, what do you think this Qin Hai has in mind?"

"I can't see it." Jiang Songling said, "He just asked us to issue a notice to close the small mining site, but he didn't ask the county to send law enforcement personnel to implement it. I asked Deng Shiheng secretly at the wine table, and he said that this Qin Hai ran here from the capital by himself, and even his follower, Xiao Fu, arrived later. According to this, he has no law enforcement personnel at hand. Does he really think that sending a notice can solve the problem? Problems with small mining sites?"

"Could it be that he wants to use this matter to make things difficult for the county, and then force the county to send law enforcement personnel to enforce the law?" Jia Xiaodong guessed.

In fact, what Jia Xiaodong was thinking in his heart was not just about law enforcement, but whether Qin Hai had other ideas. The difficulty of rare earth management work is known from the central government to the local government. Qin Hai faced the difficulty. Could it be that Xiang Zhuang danced his sword with the intention of Peigong?

There have been such things in the past, a small official came down from the top, under the banner of a certain mission, and made things difficult for the county. When the county feels unbearable, the small officials will take the opportunity to make various demands to make the county bankrupt and avoid disaster. Maybe this Qin Hai is such a character, but I don't know what he is drawing.

Jiang Songling also thought about this. He thought for a while and said, "We have nothing to hold against him. How can he make things difficult for the county? He asked us to send a notice, and we did. It is a matter for small mine owners and has nothing to do with our county. He is just the deputy leader of a rare earth work leading group, so he doesn't have much say in the county's affairs, right?"

"What level is this deputy team leader?" Jia Xiaodong asked a question worthy of concern.

Jiang Songling was stunned for a moment, and said: "I don't know what level it is. During the meal, I asked Director Deng, and Director Deng said he didn't know, and said that this group was established under the leadership of the State Planning Commission. The director is the team leader, and there are seven or eight other ministries and commissions who serve as deputy team leaders.”

"So, isn't this Qin Hai a vice-ministerial cadre?" Jia Xiaodong asked in surprise.

"No way?" Jiang Songling was also a little surprised. He frowned and said, "How can there be such a young deputy ministerial cadre? I think he is in his early 20s. Even if he is promoted quickly in the ministry, he is at most a deputy minister." Right? For a deputy minister in his 20s, isn’t that going to launch a satellite?”

The "so-and-so office" or "so-and-so leading working group" in Chinese government agencies is a very strange organization. There is no fixed establishment of such an institution, nor does it correspond to a specific rank. The leaders of many leading working groups are often named by high-ranking officials such as ministers, governors, and mayors, and at the level of deputy team leaders, they are officials who handle specific affairs, and a department-level cadre or department-level cadre is appointed to act. can.

I'm afraid even the top leaders don't know how many such leading working groups there are at all levels of government across the country. The "Mantou Office" that is used as a joke on the Internet in later generations is a similar organization. The authority of such an institution can be large or small, depending entirely on the importance the superior leaders place on the matters involved.

The most frustrating thing is that these institutions are all temporarily formed to deal with a specific matter at the beginning, but once established, they exist for a long time. Sometimes when things are done, the impromptu staff is also disbanded, but the official seal is still locked in someone's drawer, and the next document may be suddenly taken out at any time, leaving the local at a loss.

Jia Xiaodong also understood the above things. He said in a deep voice, "No matter what level he is, in short, he represents the central government, so we should be respectful. When we do things, we should try to be as thoughtful as possible. Don't let him If he finds a flaw, otherwise, after he returns to the capital, he will hand over an internal reference to the higher authorities, and we will be in trouble."

"So, county magistrate, do you want to temporarily close those small mining sites for a period of time, and wait until the limelight passes?" Jiang Songling asked for instructions. Saying this kind of thing made him feel a little bit pained. After all, every mining site is a tax source for the county, and every day it is closed will lose one day of tax revenue.

"Isn't that necessary?" Jia Xiaodong said, "This year's rare earth export situation is very good, and the price has also risen. Isn't it difficult to make money by closing the mining sites at this time? It really doesn't work. Let a few points around the county temporarily stop For production, outlying villages and towns don’t have to worry about it, I don’t believe this young man would be willing to go to outlying villages and towns for inspection.”

"Okay, I understand." Jiang Songling said, "One more thing, the county magistrate, when Qin Hai came, he took out a detailed list, which clearly listed the situation of each mining site in our county. As a foreigner, he is able to grasp so much information, I suspect that someone from the relevant department in the county leaked the situation to him, should we investigate this matter?"

"Is there such a thing?" Jia Xiaodong stared. This is something that uncles can bear and aunts can't bear. Don't worry, wait until this Qin Hai leaves Yunjiang Province, it's not appropriate to check his inside information in front of him."

"Understood, I'll ask someone to investigate in private first to see who made the trick." Jiang Songling replied.

Coming out of Jia Xiaodong's office, Jiang Songling immediately called Qiu Weiguang and arranged for him to print out the notice of closing small mining sites as soon as possible and send them to various mining sites. Since Qin Hai explained this matter, Jiang Songling had to do it and not let Qin Hai find fault. As for if Qin Hai wanted to force the county to conduct a self-examination, Jiang Songling would not be so obedient, and would argue with Qin Hai no matter what.

Several versions of documents related to regulating rare earth production have been stored in the Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. Qiu Weiguang recruited the best writers in the bureau, and according to the original version, plus a few precautions explained by Qin Hai, he quickly drafted a manuscript, then asked the typing room to type it out, and sent it to the county government to be stamped The official seal is sent to all townships in the county.

The Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources is also familiar with doing this kind of thing. The office printed the notice, and immediately arranged for personnel from various departments in the whole world to go to various mining sites by car or bicycle to issue the notice. Qiu Weiguang told Qin Hai that the Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources did not know the situation of private mining sites, but it was just an excuse. In fact, they knew it very well.

When the staff of the Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources came to Xujiawan Township with the notice, Xin Jinlong, the largest mine owner in the township, was directing the work of extracting rare earths in front of the mine.

Xujiawan Township is the township with the richest reserves of rare earths in Xinshan County. According to experts, every hill here is full of rare earths, and as long as they are dug out, they can be sold for money. However, not all villagers are qualified to dig mountains and mines. Most of the rare earth mines here have been contracted by the village to Xin Jinlong, a native mine owner, a few years ago.

Xin Jinlong was originally a farmer in Xujiawan Township. His family had a large population and heavy burdens. A few acres of Susukida could not support the whole family. So he borrowed money to buy a tricycle, and went to the county town to work as a driver and solicit customers to earn money, barely making ends meet.

A few years ago, he accidentally attracted a Japanese businessman who came to Xinshan County for inspection. I don't know which one of his qualities won the favor of the merchant. The merchant secretly gave him an opportunity and gave him a large sum of money to sign an agreement with the township to take over the management of all the hills in the township. right.

At that time, rare earth mining in Johor Bahru had just started, and most people didn't know what rare earths were, nor where they could be dug out. The cadres of Xujiawan Township were shocked at first and then delighted when they saw Xin Jinlong bid hundreds of thousands of yuan for contracting the barren mountain. They didn't ask Xin Jinlong the origin of the huge sum of money, and directly assigned dozens of hills to Xin Jinlong's name.

Since then, Xin Jinlong has started his rare earth gold rush. He hired a group of villagers to first cut off the vegetation on the mountain, then dig out the soil, send it into the leaching pool, separate the rare earth solution from it, and then convert it into rare earth oxides. Every once in a while, the mysterious Japanese businessman would reappear, take the rare earth oxides away with a big truck, and leave Xin Jinlong with a lot of banknotes at the same time.

In less than a year, Xin Jinlong replaced his tricycle with a Bluebird sedan, and several adobe houses at home have been demolished and turned into a small three-story western-style building. It turns out that he wears a homemade jacket with patches all year round, but now he has replaced it with a full-body brand-name suit and a colorful "Yi La De" tie. He has no choice but to learn how to tie a tie, so he can only With this the most trouble-free solution.

In order to show that he was rich, he wore six or seven gold rings on his hands, and a large gold chain weighing half a catty was hung around his neck, which would blind the eyes of the audience when he walked out. Everyone who sees him will spontaneously say a compliment in their hearts: Zhen Temiao is an upstart!

Xin Jinlong doesn't care what others call him. In his opinion, being rich means having status. The more gold you have, the more respect you can get from others. It turned out that when he was riding a tricycle in the county town, anyone could yell at him, and when women rode his tricycle, they would hold their noses in disgust and dislike the smell of sweat on his body. But when he got in the blue bird car, all he got was envious looks. Those young women in the township government who still had charm would rub his car seat with excuses from time to time, and they pretended to be able to get a little Dip in the aroma of Xin Zong.

Columbus said that gold can make a person's soul go to heaven. Xin Jinlong didn't know who Columbus was, but he had the same feeling as Columbus, except that what made his soul go to heaven was not gold, but rare earth, which was not good in appearance.

"Changgen, Yaowa, turn on the blender and pour a bag of fertilizer into it, it will be out soon."

Standing by the leaching pool, Xin Jinlong loudly directed his workers. Although already a millionaire, Xin Jinlong is still accustomed to taking the lead and personally participating in the extraction of rare earths. He worries that other people won't be able to do as well as he does, which will mean less of his money.

In the rare earth mining area in the south, the methods of extracting rare earths in various private mining sites are similar, and these methods are surprisingly simple.

The mine owners built a cement pool the size of a basketball court on the mountainside of the rare earth mine, connected it to a water pipe, and bought a few tons of a specific chemical fertilizer to extract rare earths. The specific process is to put the original soil dug from the mountain into the cement pool, then sprinkle chemical fertilizers, and water the original soil with water pipes. The rare earth in the form of ions in the original soil will undergo a substitution reaction with the elements in the fertilizer, and the formed raw solution rich in rare earth compounds will flow out from the bottom of the cement pool. After some simple processing of these stock solutions, the rare earth oxides were separated.

Of course, there are also some mines that do not carry out such rare earth extraction work, but directly transport the mined rare earth raw materials to foreign countries for extraction. As the state controls the export of rare earths more and more strictly, large-scale raw material exports are easy to be discovered, so mine owners have adopted the method of on-site extraction.

This rare earth extraction process is called "pool leaching process". Its biggest feature is low investment and quick results. It can be called the golden finger for poverty alleviation in backward areas. Xin Jinlong first learned this craft from that Japanese businessman. In the past few years, he has used his ingenuity to continuously develop this craft, which has achieved his wealth myth.

Most of the rare earth mine owners in Xinshan County learned this technique from him and applied it to their own mines. In the entire Xinshan County, there are no less than a hundred such extraction ponds, all over the countryside.