Binjiang Police Affairs-Chapter 849 - 577: Senior Engineer!
The investment is so large, and building Linggang Tuo 001 wasn’t easy.
Now that it’s built, we need to buy insurance, pay tonnage taxes, perform maintenance, and pay salaries for the Captain, Chief Officer, and other crew members. The upkeep costs will be significant, and Linggang Tuo 001 is also responsible for training tasks, meaning it needs to train crews for the two other high-power tugboats being constructed.
Before Linghai Port is completed and operational, Linggang Tuo 001 will only burn money and will not generate economic benefits for Linghai Port Co., Ltd.
Linghai Port Co., Ltd. is currently facing a tight financial situation. Just like in the previous two years, money needs to be continuously invested in infrastructure projects, and personnel for port management and operations also need to be recruited.
Once recruited, people are either sent to Binjiang Shipping College or trained at local schools like Linghai Middle School and Linghai Vocational School. Linghai Port covers all the training costs and provides a basic salary during training, otherwise, where will they find staff once the port is ready for operation?
Since the Port Supervision Department is set in Linghai, all its cadres and staff must consider themselves Linghai people.
As Linghai people, they must contribute as much as they can to Linghai’s economic construction.
Han Xiangning believed they should alleviate some of the pressure on the ongoing construction of Linghai Port. Zhang Asheng, entrusted by Linghai Port Tug Company, had just registered Linggang Tuo 001 properly, and she designated Linggang Tuo 001 as the emergency rescue force for Linghai Port Supervision Department.
This morning, Linggang Tuo 001 finally opened for business.
A convoy of four barges and a tugboat, with six cargoes in tow, traversed the Sanhe section of the Yangtze River, with an upstream speed of only 0.4 kilometers per hour!
Many slow-moving convoys have been seen, but even this convoy could not be considered "slow"; the radar showed it hardly moving. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶
Under normal circumstances, the Binjiang district requires that all vessels and convoys maintain a minimum speed of 5 kilometers per hour. During flood seasons when the current is especially swift, the upstream speed must not be less than 3 kilometers per hour.
To prevent unexpected accidents, she immediately sent the Sanhe Port Patrol Team to inspect.
Sister Ling and Hu Genhua went on the river to check, finding that the six barges carried nearly 8,000 tons of cargo, while the towing power of the tugboat pulling the barges was only 400 horsepower, averaging a load of 20 tons per horsepower.
According to the relevant regulations, when going upstream on the Yangtze River, the load per horsepower must not exceed 6 tons, and this convoy exceeded the regulation by more than double.
It had come up from Liuhe Port with the tide just before dawn, meeting the ebb tide at the Sanhe River stretch where the waterway is quite narrow and the current swift, making it "stubbornly stuck."
The Captain had no other solution at that moment and prepared to anchor and wait for the tide.
However, considering today’s tidal conditions, the high tide would require a wait of four hours.
Every day, thousands of vessels traverse the Sanhe Waters, with traffic being very complex; the already narrow waterway occupied by this convoy further limited navigation space, greatly affecting the passage of other ships.
More importantly, there were underwater trans-river cables at the convoy’s location, and anchoring could snag the cables, causing a power outage accident with unimaginable consequences.
Han Xiangning got a handle on the situation and immediately provided the Captain, with Sister Ling and Hu Genhua’s help, with two options: either split the convoy into two, find a small tugboat to move quickly, or find a large tugboat to assist in towing. This was the only way to avoid continuing to violate navigation regulations.
But where would they find a small tugboat so quickly?
They did have one large-power tugboat available.
The waterway couldn’t be occupied for too long, and the Port Supervision kept urging them to move quickly. Considering the journey wasn’t very far, just needing to reach Yangzhou to unload, the Captain had no choice but to ask Linggang Tuo 001 for help.
Penalties were inevitable for the violation.
After Sister Ling finished writing the tickets and returned to the Police Barge on Supervision 48, traveling along the concrete road Xiao Yu supervised to return to Linghai Port Supervision Office, she was about to report the inspection results to the director when she saw Han Xiangning on the phone in the office.
"My dad isn’t some leader, why should he retire to a secondary position?"
"Though the Deputy Chief Engineer may not be an official position, it’s still a role within their bureau. He’s already fifty-six, not professionally trained. When technical personnel were scarce, the unit made him Deputy Chief Engineer; now there are plenty of technical staff, he can’t continue to hold the position."
"Do you know who’s replacing him?"
"Yes, it’s someone newly transferred from Jiangcheng, though I forget their name. I only know they graduated from Jiangcheng Meteorological College, are quite young, and already hold a professor title in their early thirties."
"If they don’t let my dad be Deputy Chief Engineer, then what role will he have?"
"I told you, he’ll retire to a secondary position."
As age comes into play, one has to make way for the younger generation. Xiang Fan couldn’t help but recall the scene when she stepped down as head nurse, tightly gripping the phone and saying helplessly, "The unit leader said starting tomorrow, they won’t mark attendance anymore, and although the unit’s radar has been replaced, several district and county meteorological bureaus are still using the 711 model. If those radars break, they’re to call your dad for repairs."
Han Xiangning softly asked, "Does this mean my dad no longer needs to go to work from tomorrow?"
"It’s actually from today."
Xiang Fan let out a soft sigh and continued, "Your dad does want to work, but if he really returns to the unit, he won’t control what he says. If he sees anything, especially business-related, he won’t help but speak out. Since he’s retired, if he continues to meddle, others definitely won’t be happy."
Previously, a deputy director at the Port Supervision Bureau retired to a secondary position, initially finding it hard to adjust, still showing up for work every day, and couldn’t help but ask questions upon reaching the office.
In the beginning, people would chat with him; later, it became perfunctory, and then others would avoid him, eventually leaving him with just a cup of tea and no one to talk to.
