Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Preparations at Headquarters
At the same time, at the headquarters.
Qin Zhendong, who had not slept all night, rubbed his temples wearily, forced himself to perk up, and said to Chang Qixiang, "Comrade Qi Xiang, how are things outside?"
Chang Qixiang replied, "Boss Qin, it’s been a day since the portal first appeared, and the ’clearance’ plan is proceeding relatively smoothly. We have already started contacting the managers of each store, and the entire commercial street will be relocated to an even better area in the Huangjiang District.
Additionally, with the assistance of the tax and business departments, we will provide closure compensation to each store, and most store owners have agreed quite readily."
Qin Zhendong found it odd and frowned, "Most agreed? So there’s a small portion that didn’t agree? With such generous closure compensation, why wouldn’t the store owners accept it?"
According to the plan discussed by the bigwigs, the entire commercial street will be designated as a key strategic area in the future, and all shops will be relocated and settled uniformly.
Coincidentally,
Due to well-known historical reasons, the ownership of the nearby mansions and streets is entirely in the hands of the government, so there are no private landlords involved.
Therefore, the process of relocating the shops is quite simple, requiring only the store owners’ consent.
Of course, the relocation benefits offered by the government are quite generous:
The relocated Huangjiang District is the economic core of Shencheng, with a daily traffic volume more than three times that of the Huaihai Commercial District. There are plenty of people who make millions a year just selling soybean pudding.
Additionally, the government will cover the cost of refurbishing the shops and waive two years of rent for the location.
During the shop closure period, the government will issue closure compensation equivalent to twice the revenue recorded in last year’s tax declaration for each shop.
To be blunt, as long as there was no tax evasion last year,
each shop can make at least five years’ worth of net profit from this relocation arrangement.
So Qin Zhendong was quite puzzled.
With such generous terms and sincerity, and given that there are no privately-owned shops, why are some store owners still unwilling to relocate?
Facing Qin Zhendong’s question, Chang Qixiang’s expression suddenly turned a bit strange:
"Uh...
Several shop owners are elderly locals of Shencheng, with average assets in the eight figures—often with a pretty high starting number.
They open shops just to pass the time by selling buns, so they are not very interested in the closure compensation.....
But don’t worry, Boss Qin, these old folks have been reassured."
"..."
Qin Zhendong was silent for a moment, deciding not to delve into this unique group of relocated households, and continued to ask, "How about the public opinion side?"
When it came to public communication, Chang Qixiang appeared far more confident:
"The public opinion front has already been coordinated with major official media. In two hours, the Shencheng Power Grid will hold a press conference to announce that the core underground optical fiber (which is the GF fiber, writing out those two words easily leads to a 404) will undergo an early upgrade and renovation.
This was originally an upgrade task planned for October this year, and the bidding process was completed last year. The spokesperson for the conference is an experienced senior colleague who’s quite reliable."
Announcing an optical fiber upgrade is also the public opinion strategy set by the decision-makers.
Given the large number of participants involved in the otherworld project, utilizing a city infrastructure project that involves a substantial investment of manpower and resources to cover it up is currently the best approach.
Once the surrounding isolation walls are raised and the pointed tops that block aerial views are covered, an enclosed super-large venue is created, which can suffice for a whole year of traffic control and lockdown.
Though this might cause some inconvenience to the citizens’ commutes, it will be limited to just some inconvenience—partition walls are exceedingly common in this infrastructure-heavy country. Most citizens will consciously take detours at the sight of ’XX Construction’ signs without even voicing much complaint.
After all, everyone has personally experienced the benefits brought by completed civic facilities.
In short, it’s truly attractive!
Moreover, as a ’construction site’ for a city construction project,
it’s completely reasonable for trucks to come in, right?
If you ask what’s inside the trucks...
Don’t ask, just assume it’s deliveries and blasting materials.
As for whether the frequent comings and goings of the trucks might attract the attention of some ill-intentioned individuals...
Don’t forget, this is Shencheng.
A super metropolis that has been under construction since the early founding era and hasn’t stopped even by 2022.
It’s widely understood that the two things Shencheng lacks the least are:
People, and vehicles.
According to the 2020 Shencheng municipal report, large trucks entering and leaving Shencheng daily reached 44,000, with the total number of vehicle trips approaching 110,000.
Take the example of Phase II of Line 19 currently under construction in Shencheng.
This phase of the project, constructed by the China Railway Group, cost over 27 billion yuan, with a total width of 140 meters and a length of 6.6 kilometers.
As seen from the progress reports released by the China Railway Group, more than 1,000 large heavy-duty trucks enter and exit the construction site daily.
This number of vehicle trips isn’t randomly published.
For such ultra-large projects, the construction company must submit a public announcement in advance regarding the average daily vehicle trips after winning the bid. This involves coordination with transportation, municipal, and other departments, as many roads in Shencheng impose restrictions on truck traffic.
For instance, the ’true’ optical fiber upgrade project originally planned to start in October.
The municipal side announced an average daily plan of 400 vehicle trips, following the route via the S20 Outer Ring—Yangpu Bridge ground section—Hu Qingping Highway.
A daily traffic volume of 400 vehicle trips means around 200 material transport trips are planned each day. (All the above information is published on the official municipal website, not fabricated by the author)
A 13.5-meter truck has a carrying capacity of 34 tons, and in this transport of 200 trips of goods, even reserving one-third of the carrying capacity would allow for over 2,000 tons of materials to be transported to the otherworld daily—a tank only weighs thirty or forty tons.
In true emergency cases, the rabbits could grit their teeth,
and transporting ten thousand tons of materials in a day is not impossible, without any anomaly in entry and exit frequencies.
As for the shipping routes for these materials, it gets even simpler—In today’s post-Rotterdam era, the title of Shencheng Port as the world’s number one port isn’t just hot air.
Ranked first in global throughput for eleven consecutive years, the annual average throughput of the entire port reaches a staggering 776 million tons.
Such a throughput, even skimming off a tiny bit, could let the ’construction site’ digest materials for quite a while.
So, when some otherworldly conquest novels talk about the rabbits’ cover being blown due to abnormal transshipment of dozens of tons of materials, it’s just a joke.
If material transshipment were really that prone to disclosure, then all the groundwork laid by the rabbits in the third-line depth would have been for naught.
Decades ago, when the rabbits quietly conducted research in the northwest, they pushed through countless tens of thousands of tons of materials under the guise of building up the northwest infrastructure during that era. Yet, until that earth-shaking dragon roar on October 16, 1964, did the research project ever leak due to material transshipment issues?
If it was so decades ago, even more so today.
By simply winding through the third-line depth and following the river route down the Yangtze to the East Sea, any materials could be effectively ’cleansed’.
......
After reporting the preparation progress of the tasks in hand, Chang Qixiang courteously showed concern for Qin Zhendong’s health before taking his leave.
About a minute after Chang Qixiang left, Qin Zhendong’s secretary walked in from outside the door:
"Boss Qin, the comrades from the military have arrived."
```