PDLP Chapter 34 Is it cold?
Chapter 34 Is it cold?
"Master, do you think it's cold in Beijing in winter?"
Huang Deqing didn't open his eyes: "Cold. Colder than Shenyang."
"Is your master's wife home alone?"
"It's okay, she can take care of herself. I told her to go chat with Xiao Zheng whenever she has free time."
Jiang Cheng smiled and closed his eyes.
By the time they arrived in Beijing, it was already dark. Chen Siyuan was waiting for them at the platform. Upon seeing Huang Deqing, he bowed respectfully and said, "Hello, Master Huang! Old Zhou sent me to pick you up."
Huang Deqing felt a little uncomfortable with this scene and waved his hand, saying, "Don't be so polite, don't be so polite."
The jeep took them to the guesthouse. The rooms had already been arranged, two people to a room, and the conditions were much better than in the factory. After Huang Deqing entered, he first looked at the bed, then touched the table, and then walked to the window to look at the night view of Beijing.
"Chengzi, do you think we can do this?"
Jiang Cheng was making the bed when he heard this. He looked up and asked, "Master, why are you asking this again?"
Huang Deqing didn't answer, he just looked out the window. Jiang Cheng walked over, stood beside him, and also looked outside. The night in Beijing was much brighter than in Shenyang, and neon lights were flashing in the distance.
"Master, to be honest with you," Jiang Cheng said, "I'm not sure either. But I've figured out one thing—we're not here to beg anyone, we're here to do the work. If we do the work well, everything else is negotiable. If we don't do it well, nothing we say will help."
Huang Deqing turned to look at him, his gaze holding something indescribable. After a long while, he nodded: "You're right."
The next morning, they went to the Ministry of Machinery Industry.
Director Zhang personally received him. He shook Huang Deqing's hand and looked him up and down: "Master Huang, I've long admired your name. Comrade Jiang Cheng often mentions you, saying that without you, he wouldn't be where he is today."
Huang Deqing was a little embarrassed by the compliment: "Director Zhang, you flatter me. I'm just an old fitter."
"So what if I'm a fitter?" Director Zhang laughed. "I started as a fitter too."
He led them into the conference room. The room was already quite full—experts from research institutes, professors from universities, and chief engineers from large factories. Jiang Cheng glanced at them and recognized at least a third of them—faces he'd seen at the provincial capital's technology exchange conference.
"Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you," Director Zhang said. "This is Comrade Jiang Cheng, a fitter at Shencheng Hongxing Machinery Factory and the main designer of the Shanghai 10,000-ton hydraulic press renovation project. This is Comrade Huang Deqing, Comrade Jiang Cheng's mentor, a level six fitter with thirty years of practical experience."
A round of applause erupted in the conference room. Jiang Cheng noticed that a few people looked a little uneasy—a middle-aged man in his fifties, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, with a slightly downturned mouth, only clapped twice before stopping.
Director Zhang continued, "This compilation of the 'Technical Upgrading Manual for Old Equipment' is a key project of the Ministry. It will be distributed to factories and mines across the country as technical training materials. Therefore, the quality must be high, the content must be substantial, and there can be no exaggeration whatsoever."
He glanced at Jiang Cheng: "Comrade Jiang Cheng will serve as the deputy head of the writing team, responsible for the technical aspects. Comrade Huang Deqing will serve as the technical advisor."
The middle-aged man with gold-rimmed glasses raised his hand: "Director Zhang, I have a question."
"Please speak, Mr. Zhao."
Engineer Zhao glanced at Jiang Cheng and said slowly, "We all admire Comrade Jiang Cheng's experience at the grassroots level. But compiling teaching materials requires not only practical experience but also theoretical depth. I'm worried—"
He didn't finish his sentence, but his meaning was clear: What decent things can a fitter write?
The meeting room fell silent. Everyone looked at Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng stood up and said calmly, "Engineer Zhao is right. Teaching materials require a high level of theoretical knowledge, and I am indeed not as good as the experts here. But there is one thing I may not be able to match—every machine I have repaired, I have personally disassembled, assembled, and adjusted. I know what the workers are thinking, what they need, and what they can understand."
He looked at Engineer Zhao and smiled, "So my idea is that the experts will oversee the theoretical part, while my mentor and I will write the practical part. We'll divide the work and cooperate, each contributing our strengths."
Engineer Zhao was stunned for a moment, not expecting Jiang Cheng to say that. He opened his mouth, wanting to refute, but couldn't find the words.
Director Zhang tapped the table: "It's settled then. We'll divide the work and cooperate, each giving full play to our strengths."
After the meeting, Jiang Cheng and Huang Deqing were assigned to an office at the research institute. The table was piled high with documents—blueprints, manuals, and maintenance records for various equipment, stacked higher than a person.
Huang Deqing looked at the pile of documents and gasped, "So much? When will we finish writing this?"
Jiang Cheng sat down and opened the first book: "Write slowly, you'll eventually finish it."
In the days that followed, Jiang Cheng and Huang Deqing began working day and night.
During the day, they reviewed documents, drew blueprints, and wrote drafts. At night, Jiang Cheng would go to Old Zhou's place to report on the progress and discuss technical issues. Huang Deqing was responsible for overseeing every technical detail—he knew exactly which plans the workers could understand, which terms needed explanation, and which steps were prone to errors.
"This won't do." Huang Deqing pushed a section of the manuscript written by Jiang Cheng back to him. "The workers won't understand what you've written. What's this 'stress concentration coefficient' and 'fatigue life assessment'? Who understands this?"
Jiang Cheng glanced at it and smiled wryly, "Master, these are technical terms, there's nothing I can do about it."
"What can't be done?" Huang Deqing picked up his pen and quickly made a few changes to the manuscript. "Just write, 'This part is prone to breaking and needs to be checked regularly.' The workers will understand immediately."
Jiang Cheng took it and looked at it, and had to admit he was right. His master was right—textbooks are written for workers, not experts. No matter how sophisticated the writing is, if the workers can't understand it, it's just waste paper.
He implemented this principle in every section of the manuscript. Where technical terms were necessary, he would first explain them and then provide a practical example. When writing about key steps, he would accompany them with detailed diagrams, explaining each step one by one.
A week later, they produced the first draft. After reading it, Director Zhang slammed his hand on the table and exclaimed, "Excellent! This is teaching material that workers can understand!"
But Zhao's side encountered a problem.
Engineer Zhao was responsible for the theoretical part, which was a full 20,000 words, full of quotations and formula derivations. After reading it, Director Zhang frowned: "Engineer Zhao, your writing is quite good, but will the workers be able to understand it?"
Engineer Zhao disagreed: "If the workers can't understand it, they can ask the technicians. The teaching materials need to have theoretical depth; they can't be too superficial."
Director Zhang didn't say anything, but handed the draft to Jiang Cheng: "Take a look."
Jiang Cheng took it, flipped through a few pages, and got a sense of it. Engineer Zhao's writing was indeed professional, but too professional—it was full of formulas and derivations, which even gave him a headache, let alone an ordinary worker.