In the Mayor's office, Zhuang Jiaxiong and ten other cadres sat in front of Wu Youping. Everyone's emotions were a bit mixed. Tianjin accents, accents from outside the pass, and Fujian accents mixed together, making Wu Youping's head spin a little.

"Money is hard to earn, shit is hard to eat. After all that effort, we only earned a thousand silver dollars," a cadre with an accent from the Henan-Shandong border area outside the pass lamented.

Someone immediately corrected him, "It's not a thousand. We gave grain to the villages, so we actually didn't make money."

"At most, we just didn't lose money," a cadre from Tianjin couldn't help sighing.

Wu Youping could understand everyone's feelings. If this single deal were viewed purely as business, buying grain with silver dollars would still yield a tiny profit. But counting the wages of the cadres and troops participating in this trade, not only would that bit of profit be used up, but they would also lose money.

But this view was wrong from the start.

Production capacity does not equal business, let alone a one-off deal. After the 100,000 collar badges were given to the British merchant Johnson, in his pleasant surprise, Johnson signed an intentional agreement with Siping for another 50,000 sets of military uniforms, shoes, hats, and underwear.

As for the French Merchant Club opposite the British Merchant Club, they also signed an order with Siping for 5,000 sets of colonial army uniforms. The best part was that the French merchants actually accepted the use of high-quality Chinese homespun cloth as fabric for the colonial uniforms.

Even 5,000 sets of uniforms was a considerable sum of money. The French merchants indicated that the oil pressing equipment they used as collateral for the advance payment was in transit. Now it was the Siping government's turn not to fully trust the French merchants. Wu Youping put Zhuang Jiaxiong in charge of this cooperation project. If the French merchants truly delivered, and the equipment was installed and debugged, the oil press and uniform production could start.

Seeing the comrades had finished venting their emotions, Wu Youping asked, "We gave grain to the villagers responsible for production. This grain wasn't bought by us, but collected through taxes. Did everyone consider this?"

The comrades were stunned, then immediately understood. The cadre from outside the pass who first lamented "only earned a thousand silver dollars" laughed. "I said we earned a thousand!"

The other cadres didn't like hearing this bragging and immediately replied, "You didn't remember the tax matter either."

Wu Youping disliked this nonsense very much and immediately called a stop to the meaningless dialogue. "According to the report, more than six thousand women in Siping have now joined the garment processing. I asked you here to conduct spot checks in the villages during your free time. Did the personnel participating in garment processing receive the full amount of grain according to regulations!"

The expressions of the ten cadres all turned gloomy. Wu Youping described the arrangement for this work. "Report whatever happens. You don't need to intervene in local personnel matters. If the facts are clear, work with the town cadres to make the village cadres make up for the deficiency. In addition, write a report."

"Exactly how many villages do we need to spot check?" Zhuang Jiaxiong felt this was hard work.

"In every town with cooperative production, at least two villages must be spot-checked. According to the report, there are now a total of 86 villages with more than three thousand people participating in production. We have two goals. The most important is to let the public understand what exactly we are doing. Our industrial policy is not only being promoted but also being implemented. As for the work of village cadres, just write the report truthfully. Don't worry about anything else."

After sending Zhuang Jiaxiong and the other cadres out, Wu Youping started the next task. A batch of Principal Zhao Tianlin's students and a batch of mechanical equipment arrived in Siping. The foundation for the establishment of the Siping Industrial Bureau was finally laid.

Tianjin was once the location of the Beiyang Manufacturing Bureau, and even now it had the most factories in North China. Wu Youping, who finished higher primary and middle school in Tianjin, had heard too many times about the grand occasion of the Beiyang Manufacturing Bureau and was heartbroken over its destruction.

Zhao Tianlin was a native of Tianjin and had seen the grand occasion of the Beiyang Manufacturing Bureau before it was destroyed with his own eyes. Hearing Wu Youping speak of this wish, he couldn't help but feel a surge of emotion and chatted for a while longer.

When Wu Youping returned to the office with joyful anticipation, he saw another stack of official documents piled up on the desk. Preparing candles, Wu Youping prepared to finish processing these documents before resting.

Near the end of work, Xu Jia invited Wu Youping over and gave him a plan titled *Regarding the Determination of Siping Cadre Training and Militia Organization Arrangements*.

After reading the plan, Wu Youping couldn't help frowning. "The population under the household registration system in Siping is only 400,000. You want to draw three out of a hundred?"

Xu Jia didn't answer but put another *Siping Farm Recruitment Plan* in front of Wu Youping. Wu Youping looked at the plan to recruit three thousand families and found that this had reached the level of drawing seven out of a hundred. He simply stopped talking and lowered his head to drink tea.

Xu Jia laughed. "Interesting, isn't it? We always felt the population was too large to feed. Now suddenly it has become insufficient population, and even more insufficient training."

Wu Youping raised his head. "Insufficient training is indeed a big issue. But training isn't that easy; it requires sufficient time."

After speaking, Wu Youping suddenly realized something. Seeing only he and Xu Jia were in the room, he still lowered his voice and asked, "Does the Governor want to fight a war?"

Xu Jia hadn't thought about fighting when he first received He Rui's request, but he understood halfway through the planning. According to the plan, the number of troops in Siping would reach 5,000, and the number of cadres would also reach 5,000.

It was easy to understand expanding the troops to this level. Even if the cadres were under a rotation training system now, only one-third were actually put into work. But training would end one day; how could a single Siping use 5,000 cadres?

Seeing Wu Youping's face full of desire for a clear statement, Xu Jia smiled. "Does Mayor Wu think there is any problem?"

Wu Youping wanted to ask if they were really going to fight, but felt it was inappropriate to ask this. The Party admission oath of the Civilization Party required members to "keep Party secrets." At least Xu Jia was an extremely qualified Party member and would absolutely not reveal these things. Wu Youping could only change the subject. "Shouldn't militia matters be managed by the army?"

"The militia is managed by the Armed Forces Department. Both the Armed Forces Department and the army are managed by the Governor. In the latest organizational structure chart, the army manages war. If the militia is not conscripted into the army, they only fight bandits and bad guy gangs locally."

Listening to Xu Jia calmly introducing the latest organizational structure, Wu Youping realized he really hadn't studied this aspect carefully. After thinking slightly, he laughed. "If bandits appear, do I command the suppression?"

Xu Jia shook his head. "No. You order the Armed Forces Department to move, and the Armed Forces Department is responsible for bandit suppression."

Wu Youping was very puzzled by this. "Then is this work ultimately responsible layer by layer? The Armed Forces Department answers to me, and I answer to the Governor?"

Xu Jia shook his head again. "We are a centralized system. The City Government answers to the City Committee, the City Committee answers to the higher-level Party Committee, and the Party Committee answers to the Chairman. The Chairman answers to all Party members and the people."

Wu Youping was very supportive of the centralized system, and his attitude became even firmer after learning about this in Party classes. The so-called "being responsible" meant giving a clear account. Just this one point made Wu Youping feel very grounded.

Making mistakes was common. Just like before Wu Youping followed He Rui, he knew something was wrong with China that led to the current situation. But relying on himself, Wu Youping really couldn't find where the mistake was. Compared to that kind of despair, the fear and pain of being punished for doing something wrong seemed insignificant.