Chapter 40: The New Official's First Move

  Zhang Qingyun raised his head and saw Huang Songshan smiling and accepting everyone's respect. Finally, he raised his hand to press down a few times, and the applause below gradually became sparse.

  "Now, we invite the county magistrate of Yongping County, Comrade Li Gang to give an important instruction on the government's work for the new year." After everyone quieted down, Liu Qing picked up the microphone and said with a smile.

  Zhang Qingyun's spirit was shocked, and he hurriedly shifted his body, straightened his waist, and looked at the expressions of the leaders on the stage. Many of them were obviously gloating. In the current situation, what could Lijiang instruct? Were his instructions useful? When the time came, if none of these instructions were implemented, how could Lijiang step down?

  "Just now, Secretary Huang's speech must have been listened to by everyone seriously, it was very inspiring! Now the government has assigned me to take charge of this work, so I'll say a few words to you today."

  Lijiang paused for a long time after saying this, picked up his teacup and took a sip, then slowly began to speak again, his eagle-like eyes scanning the entire room before continuing:

  "Everyone knows that I haven't been in Yongping for long, and in terms of work, I'm still in the stage of getting familiar. Chairman Mao said it well, 'No investigation, no right to speak!' This instruction I won't follow, speaking blindly without understanding the situation is just reckless command."

  "As for the government work, I will ask Comrade Wu De to talk about it later. He is an old cadre of Yongping and has been acting as the county magistrate before my arrival. He has the most say in the government work of Yongping County."

  As soon as Lijiang's words fell, the faces of everyone in the audience changed. Many people below were looking at each other in dismay. Huang Songshan and some other committee members also looked abnormal. Many people had been waiting to see Lijiang make a fool of himself, but now they were all stunned, unable to respond.

  "But... " Lei Gang drew out a long tone, and the people below immediately fell silent. "But today I was scheduled to speak, so this is what I have to say. I've been in Yongping for several months, and everyone asks me what I've done. Today, I'm telling you all that I played the role of a doctor once, and took the pulse of our Yongping. Comrades, the situation isn't optimistic."

  Last year, I went to the Letters and Visits Bureau and took a look around. The complaints letters piled up like mountains in Director Tang's office. I casually flipped through some of them, and the contents of the people's petitions involved all walks of life, some were even shocking!

  Lijiang's voice was stern and severe, causing the crowd below to fall silent, their eyes fixed on him as they waited for his next words. Lijiang cleared his throat, gave a dry cough, and continued in an even higher tone:

  Here I'll give a few examples. The first one is the finance bureau, last year our financial deficit was as high as tens of millions, where did all this money go? How did you manage to waste it all? How much money was buried in the middle of this? But what's even more serious is that the ordinary people didn't get the money they were supposed to get.

  Comrades, we all know that Yongping is a county where ethnic minorities and Han people live together. There are many brothers of the Tujia and Bai ethnic groups in our county. In accordance with the Party's consistent national policy, we should give preferential treatment to our brothers from ethnic minorities.

  But what is the actual situation? Last year, the state finance subsidies for Yanshan, Lizi Ping and other ethnic minority towns did not reach the hands of peasant brothers at all. According to the spirit of the above instructions, this fund should be directly issued by the finance department to the people, have you done so?"

  Secondly, there is a more serious case of tea leaves. Director Ma Long did not come today, and after the meeting, you can report the situation to him. Comrades, tens of millions of fake fertilizers and pesticides have caused direct economic losses of hundreds of millions of yuan. What is the Tea Office doing? They are harming people! Is this a public servant or an enemy of the people?! We must seriously investigate such derelict and corrupt officials, and for those with serious offenses, we will urge the procuratorial organs to prosecute them according to law. In this regard, we absolutely cannot tolerate or indulge them!

  ……”

  Li Gang scolded loudly, the meeting room was quiet to the extreme, everyone didn't dare move. This is the first time they saw someone as angry as Li Gang. The county head publicly scolding by name in the first meeting of the new year, Li Gang might be the first one too.

  The director of the finance bureau, Wu Xueshu, had a bright red face at this time, and his heart was full of grievances.

  Can this financial deficit be blamed on him? It was all caused by the previous leadership's extravagance, but Lei Gang's criticism of him was unrefutable, especially when it involved ethnic issues. Lei Gang was absolutely right, at that time he could only blame himself for succumbing to the county's pressure and failing to uphold his principles. If this matter gets out of hand, everyone will be finished.

  Huang Songshan and Wu De's faces turned iron blue, Huang Songshan tried to open his mouth several times, but ultimately couldn't speak. Lei Gang's words were conclusive evidence, what could he say? Wu De also faced the same dilemma, the Financial Bureau and Tea Office mentioned by Lei Gang were under his control, Lei Gang undoubtedly declared his right to speak in the government to the whole county, which was more harmful than any work instructions.

  Huang Songshan and Wu De thought a thousand times, but they didn't expect Li Gang to suddenly throw a flurry of punches. They said that County Magistrate Li was refined and courteous, and he came from a family of officials, so how could he be so unscrupulous? These few punches were enough to poke a hole in the sky of Yongping. Huang Songshan now has the heart to die, if he had known earlier, he wouldn't have rushed so much. Now it's clear that County Magistrate Li is actually a desperate man, and with Li Gang causing such chaos, if there's an earthquake on the political scene of Yongping, this secretary can't escape responsibility.

  "It seems that after the meeting, I'll have to find him and have a good talk with him. If necessary, give him some support. This dog is so anxious that he's about to jump over the wall!" Huang Songshan thought to himself, "Fortunately, the units he mentioned are all trusted by Wu Dezheng, Wu Dezheng should be even more anxious than me?"

  Just thinking about this, Huang Songshan felt a lot more relieved in his heart. Now he is hoping that this fierce battle will stop at the right time, after all, maintaining stability is the top priority!

  "Alright, I may have spoken a bit too harshly just now and lost control of my emotions. Actually, there are many more issues, today is the first meeting convened by the county committee and government, so let's just give each other some face!" Lei Gang said with a slightly softer tone.

  The atmosphere in the conference room relaxed, Zhang Qingyun secretly smiled to himself as he sat at the back, having taken note of the expressions of all the standing committee members on stage earlier. The rotten idea he had given to Li Gang should be taking effect now.

  Lei Gang is indeed an acting master, and this outburst just now was truly intimidating, making one tremble with fear. The officials with guilty consciences all lowered their heads, afraid of being seen by him and sparking unnecessary associations.

  "Of course, last year's work is also to be reviewed. The organization originally assigned me to take office in October, but I delayed it until the end of November. This caused great difficulties for the handover of the leadership team. Therefore, things that should have been handled were not handled, and cadres who should have been investigated were not investigated."

  Before I took office, Vice County Magistrate Wu acted on my behalf. His approach was a bit softer and he also wanted to give some thought to the minority of officials who were not doing their jobs. Unfortunately, his efforts were in vain. To this day, there are still individual officials who have not made any statements or written self-criticisms to the county party committee and government. This is something worth our deep reflection...

  Ligang went on to say a lot more, his tone was not as sharp as before, but this kind of subtle knife made people's hearts skip a beat. Anyone could tell that Ligang's words were hinting at the fact that he had been in Yongping for several months, and none of the big shots had ever asked him to report on their work, the underlying meaning was self-evident.