142: Chapter 142 People from the Organization Department Arrive

Minister Cai specifically came to support Zhao Yang, not just out of appreciation. Zhao Yang's abilities were trusted by those above, but they were even more aware of the conduct of those working below.

The Great Firewall project was of vital importance to the country. Zhao Yang had sufficient ability, but his age was a major drawback—even with the protection of the Third Institute's Director Ma Wenkui and Deputy Director Gao Wenbo, the higher-ups were worried that those below might have their own little schemes, slowing down the project's progress. After all, in a place like the Third Institute, there were many people with powerful backgrounds, and not a few who wouldn't give Ma Wenkui or Gao Wenbo any face.

That was why Minister Cai personally stepped in; this move to "beat the mountain to shake the tiger" had an immediate effect. Everyone, including the former deputy division chief Old Xue, looked at Zhao Yang with clear eyes.

Zhao Yang was thus spared the tricks of winning over people's hearts upon taking office. The day after the inspection ended, he took action. He first temporarily disrupted the organizational structure of the Science and Technology Department and the Information Security Center, reorganizing them into a core task force centered around the project, and then decomposed the tasks layer by layer, assigning them one by one.

The Great Firewall was by no means a simple software project; it also required deep cooperation from hardware manufacturers, and even customized products. Since the higher-ups were already wary of foreign companies, domestic manufacturers were naturally prioritized for the hardware.

Zhao Yang chose three: Datang, Juhua, and Zhongxing.

These days, Datang could be said to be the company with the highest strategic value—it was the leader of the Dragon Kingdom's 3G standards.

In another timeline, Datang had fought desperately for TD-SCDMA, the Dragon Kingdom's 3G standard, suffering losses for years. But in this timeline, Datang was living quite comfortably. Thanks to Zhao Yang's intervention and the key technology provided by Hongdou Technology, the TD-SCDMA standard was implemented earlier, and its performance was much stronger than in the original timeline. Coupled with the full support of the hongdou phone for the standard, Datang's profits had now even surpassed those of Zhongxing.

Although the Juhua plant had achieved brilliant results in 2004, it was also fraught with crises. A wrong bet on GSM led to failure in the domestic market competition, the debt-to-asset ratio was too high, price wars and customer arrears brought continuous cash flow pressure, and combined with the impact of lawsuits from international giants, the founder once considered retreating under internal and external troubles, even offering a ten-billion-dollar sale price to Motorola.

Li Yi, an investigator from the Third Institute, discovered this situation while gathering information on the Juhua plant and ran to Zhao Yang with a report: "Chief, there's a problem with the Juhua plant—they want to package and sell the company to Motorola for ten billion. If this deal goes through, I'm afraid it won't be easy for us to cooperate with them."

Zhao Yang smiled: "Motorola can't possibly come up with ten billion. Juhua setting this price is itself a sign that they don't want to sell."

"Is that so? What if?"

Zhao Yang took out a set of Materials and handed them to him: "This is the official document from the Juhua plant applying to participate in the Great Firewall project. They know perfectly well that the project absolutely does not allow foreign investment, yet they still dare to sign up; this attitude itself says everything."

Li Yi chuckled: "I see, I was overthinking it."

"You did well. Keep up this vigilance," Zhao Yang encouraged.

Regarding the telecommunications industry, Zhao Yang did not intend to interfere too much. Another timeline had already proven that Dragon Kingdom enterprises performed exceptionally well in this area. Helping Datang launch TD-SCDMA early was already his heaviest intervention in this Domain.

However, he remembered that the small RF chips had once tormented the Juhua plant quite a bit, so he took out the relevant technology and gave it to Gao Qisheng to support a small manufacturer, which happened to meet the demand for RF chips for the hongdou phone as well.

Busy days always passed quickly. Zhao Yang knew the mission he was sent for and threw himself into his work, living a life of moving between two points. But the people related to him were living lives full of excitement.

Gao Qilan had basically been crowned the "Queen of Finance" and even appeared on the cover of America's Time Magazine.

Huang Yimei could finally make a living through her acting skills. Zhao Yang adapted a TV series from a later generation into a movie script, which was invested in and filmed by Tomorrow Culture. With the character "Xu Hongdou" in this film "Meet Yourself," Huang Yimei won the Best Actress award in 2005.

Bai Xiaohe's pharmaceutical company released another heavyweight anti-cancer drug. Although it currently only had significant effects on lung and stomach cancer, it had already saved countless patients' lives. In an interview with national figures, a patient actually shouted on the spot that she was a "savior."

Hongdou Technology's phones continued to sell well, and the range-extended vehicle was also released. Just as Zhao Yang expected, this car was directly positioned as a "high-tech toy." The sporty SUV hongdou m5, which was launched at the end of 2004, quickly became a toy car for a group of rich second-generation heirs thanks to its stunning appearance and rich options.

As more and more things became available on the Hongdou official website, Zhao Yang took the opportunity to introduce a product similar to Taobao's—shanfutong. Technically speaking, this was a product from twenty years later; whether in terms of security or ease of use, it crushed Taobao, which was still in its infancy.

Subsequently, Gao Qiqiang used his influence once again, bringing in the Ministry of Public Security and the banking System to establish an independent company with Hongdou Technology as a joint venture with state-owned capital as the main body, officially opening the era of "transaction guarantees" for e-commerce.

Naturally, the Hongdou official website was the first to support shanfutong. In addition to Hongdou Technology's own products, a large number of industrial products such as home appliances were also listed. These items were not cheap, and only with transaction guarantees did consumers dare to pay with peace of mind.

At the same time, Hongdou also benchmarked against Jingdong's model, working with Qilan Investment to pour in large amounts of capital to establish a self-operated logistics System based on the sales channels of the hongdou phone. It couldn't achieve next-day delivery yet, but in the beginning, achieving three-day delivery in major cities was absolutely no problem.

Taobao finally realized something was wrong and quickly accelerated its pace of independence, starting independent promotion in the middle of 2004. But when the hongdou m5 car debuted at the end of 2004, all one hundred cars were paid for through shanfutong—from that moment on, Taobao in this timeline was destined to be unable to take the top spot in the payment field.

Among the top ten events in the Dragon Kingdom in 2004, this was solemnly listed as a landmark event of the "First Year of Dragon Kingdom E-commerce."

Zhao Yang looked at this report and laughed secretly for five minutes.

There was no special reason; he just personally didn't like a certain person very much. Being able to trip him up and stay ahead of him in this timeline felt quite good.

After two years of hard work, the Great Firewall finally went online successfully, starting to replace the earliest first version of the firewall. After another year or so of debugging and maintenance, it completely took over from the first-generation System.

Due to the addition of an intelligent recognition module, this version of the firewall no longer applied a one-size-fits-all approach to foreign websites; ordinary users could also normally access academic websites and news websites certified by the national authorities.

Time flew by to 2007. After years of development, Hongdou Logistics had become one of the three logistics giants in this timeline.

In early March, the new headquarters of Hongdou Logistics was completed in Magic City, and a grand ribbon-cutting ceremony was held.

Zhao Yang attended the cocktail party after the ceremony in a private capacity, not stealing Gao Qiqiang's thunder. He stood to the side holding a glass of juice, occasionally nodding and exchanging pleasantries with those who recognized him.

Suddenly, the phone rang.

It was a personal call from Director Ma Wenkui.

"Hello, Xiao Zhao, drop everything you're doing and come to my office immediately."

Zhao Yang's mouth twitched slightly. A summons from the boss on a Sunday morning meant a shrinking vacation.

He glanced at Gao Qiqiang, who was currently surrounded by several flamboyantly dressed women, and shook his head; Brother Qiang had completely let himself go. He didn't go over to spoil the fun, sent a message, and headed straight for Ma Wenkui's office.

Sitting in the office was also a serious middle-aged man in his fifties, wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Seeing Zhao Yang enter, he stood up directly.

"Comrade Zhao Yang, hello. I am here on behalf of the Municipal Party Committee Organization Department to talk with you and learn about your work and life situation."

Zhao Yang's heart skipped a beat.

The Municipal Party Committee Organization Department? Where are they planning to send me?