Mid-February 1992, Shanghai, Pudong.
At 6:40 in the morning, the thick fog over the river had not yet cleared, and a black Santana bearing a municipal government pass drove all the way north along Yanggao Road, entering the Waigaoqiao area.
Shen Mingyuan, a 36-year-old official from the Project Coordination Division of the Pudong Development Office in Shanghai, sat in the front passenger seat, tightly clutching a canvas briefcase stuffed with engineering drawings and coordination letters in his arms.
Having rushed back and forth between the construction site and various bureau committees for several consecutive days, he had two obvious dark circles under his eyes, and the strong tea in the thermos in his hand was only half-drunk before it had been chilled by the early spring cold.
When the Santana turned onto the seven-meter-wide reinforced concrete avenue on the north side of the B-07 Plot, his vision suddenly widened.
Looking out through the foggy windshield, the 520-mu Saionji Waigaoqiao Industrial Park had already revealed its massive outline in the morning mist.
After more than a year of day-and-night construction, Berth 1 of the private deep-water dock on the east side of the park, adjacent to the Yangtze River Estuary, was basically completed, and two orange-yellow portal cranes already stood along the shoreline.
Inside the park, the four light-gray heavy steel-structure factory buildings of the Phase I project and the automated textile center on the north side had also successively entered the equipment joint commissioning and trial production stages, while the Phase II standard factory buildings, internal branch roads, and supporting warehousing areas further south were still shrouded in dense scaffolding and welding sparks.
Logically speaking, seeing the number one key foreign-funded project in his assigned area progressing so smoothly, Shen Mingyuan should have breathed a sigh of relief.
Yet at this moment, his brows were tightly locked together.
"Old Shen, the temporary boardhouse by the river stream ahead has arrived."
The driver stepped on the brakes and pointed to a municipal supporting construction area surrounded by red and white warning tape outside the red line of the park.
"The people from the Power Supply Bureau and the Port Authority don't seem to have all arrived yet."
Shen Mingyuan pushed open the car door and got out of the car. The river wind blowing against his face carried damp and cold water vapor, causing him to wrap his dark woolen coat tightly around himself.
He strode to the side of the tributary river stream of Takahashi Port, looked down at the river-crossing power pipe bridge that had only been half erected, and felt a burning anxiety in his heart.
In less than ten days, Saionji's private deep-water dock would welcome its first freight trial operation, and the first batch of precision mechanical parts and matching molds produced by the Phase I workshops of the industrial park had already been loaded into containers waiting to be loaded onto ships for export.
Inside the park's red line, the technical team of Saionji Construction and the Chinese construction team had long since built the underground water, electricity, and communication utility tunnels, the park substation, and the dock shore power interfaces in a proper and meticulous manner.
Yet the place where it got stuck happened to be a key municipal supporting project outside the park's red line—the 110-kilovolt dual-circuit dedicated line No. 2 cable interface leading from Takahashi Substation to the Waigaoqiao Port Area, as well as the Port Authority's supporting channel navigation aid beacons and dispatch communication optical cable engineering, which failed to catch up with the completion progress of the dock.
Although the park currently had a temporary construction power source and a self-provided diesel generator holding out, barely enough for the industrial machine tools in the workshop to be debugged and operated.
But once the dock started official loading and unloading, two high-power portal cranes lifted simultaneously at full load, coupled with the port channel beacons and customs regulatory communication system grid-connection required for night berthing, relying solely on a single temporary power supply could simply not meet safety specifications.
For this matter, Shen Mingyuan had already run to Puxi three times the day before yesterday.
According to the original work arrangement, this river-crossing connection project of less than 800 meters involved the municipal power supply bureau's cross-regional power grid switching and rescheduling at one end, and the port authority's channel management office's navigation closure construction permit at the other, and in the middle, it also had to wait for the municipal engineering company's pipe-jacking equipment to be transferred from other construction sites.
Several departments each had their own annual plans and approval rules. Just for a piece of "River-Crossing Pipe Bridge Construction and Channel Temporary Control Countersignature Form", following the step-by-step document circulation among the offices of the three units would take at least twenty days to a month at the fastest.
If it were two years ago, such cross-departmental supporting projects dragging on for a month or two would not be considered a rare thing at all.
But this year was different.
From late January to mid-February, the whole of Shanghai from top to bottom could clearly feel an unusual spring breeze surging.
Pudong development and opening-up was not only explicitly listed as the city's overriding key work, but also stood at the forefront of the country's opening up to the outside world.
And on this hot east bank land where construction had just begun, the Saionji Industrial Park was once again the wholly foreign-owned benchmark project closely watched by the entire city from top to bottom.
Just yesterday evening, Shen Mingyuan bit the bullet and reported the truth of the blocked supporting facilities to the Pudong Development Office.
After hearing the report, the deputy director of the development office in charge of engineering construction slammed the folder in his hand onto the desk on the spot, and overnight dialed the phone numbers of the leaders in charge of the Municipal Construction Commission, the Municipal Power Supply Bureau, and the Port Authority.
The instructions passed down from superiors were extremely severe:
"The hundreds of meters of supporting connections for the Waigaoqiao Saionji Dock are by no means a simple engineering and technical problem, but an attitude problem of whether to talk about politics and whether to care about the overall situation of the city's opening up!"
"Foreign investors have smashed 100 million US dollars in real gold and silver. How many eyes at home and abroad are staring at Pudong right now, seeing whether our slogans of 'being bolder and taking faster steps,' 'handling special matters with special methods, and handling urgent matters with urgent methods' are genuine actions or empty shouts!"
"If at the final moment, because certain departments still hold onto the past styles of 'officialdom' and 'departmentalism,' holding the old almanac and following rules step by step, delaying the dock's trial run and the first shipment of cargo export—that is not a minor matter of being a few days slow in construction schedule, that is smearing the face of Pudong's development and opening up, and personally smashing the signboard of our Shanghai Municipal Government!"
"The city has already spoken: If you don't change your mindset, change the person! Whoever drags their feet and holds back key projects will write their own report to give up their seat! Starting from 8:00 tomorrow morning, all heads of relevant departments must bring their official seals and conduct on-site office work at the Waigaoqiao construction site!"
"No more document travel is allowed, no more buck-passing and wrangling are allowed, and a military pledge must be made on the spot—within a time limit of five days, electricity must be transmitted and the beacons must be debugged. Absolutely no delay of a single second for the entire Saionji project is allowed due to supporting projects! Whichever link gets stuck again, the municipal party committee and municipal government will directly hold the top leader of that unit accountable!"
The roar of car engines came from far to near, interrupting Shen Mingyuan's thoughts.
He raised his wrist and glanced at his watch—7:50 in the morning, ten minutes away from the prescribed 8:00 sharp.
I saw that on the wide and flat concrete avenue, four Santana sedans and two engineering command vehicles drove one after another against the morning fog, stopping outside the temporary boardhouse beside the river stream.
The deputy director of the Municipal Power Supply Bureau, the director of the Engineering Department of the Port Authority, the manager of the No. 2 Municipal Engineering Company, and Kenichi Toda, the general representative of Saionji Construction stationed in Shanghai, pushed open their car doors and stepped down almost simultaneously.
At 8:00 sharp in the morning, an on-site coordination meeting without even having time to pour tea directly started in the drafty corrugated iron boardhouse.
"Leaders, I will not repeat the specific circumstances."
"The Development Office and the Municipal Construction Commission issued a strict order last night. This is a political task directly monitored by the city that must be completed on schedule!"
Shen Mingyuan spread the connection construction drawing marked with red nodes on two spliced wooden tables, and pressed his finger heavily on the location of the river-crossing section:
"Saionji's private dock is scheduled for its first actual-ship trial run next week. The laying of these 800-meter dual-circuit high-voltage cables, the closure of the cross-river pipe bridge, and the grid-connection of port navigation aid and communication must all be completed with acceptance and put into use within five days, that is, before 12:00 midnight this Saturday!"
"Today, inviting everyone here is not to study whether we can do it, but to make a spot decision on how to finish it in five days!"
Standing on the side, Kenichi Toda, the Japanese general representative, listened to the translator's low-voiced relay, his eyes behind his lenses widening slightly.
In the view of this old Japanese engineer who had worked on engineering projects in Tokyo Bay and Pudong for many years, even in Japan, once encountering such power and port joint commissioning projects crossing administrative jurisdiction boundaries, the document exchanges between the construction bureau, the port bureau, and the electric power companies would inevitably take several weeks of tossing about.
He came over today originally just intending to sound out the Chinese coordinators to see if he could first apply for a temporary load-reduction scheme to barely cope with the trial run, and never dared to expect that the official supporting facilities could be rushed out within five days.
However, the Chinese cadres in the boardhouse did not hesitate at all.
"The steel structure of the pipe bridge and the river-crossing pipe jacking belong to our No. 2 Municipal Engineering Company!"
The old manager of the No. 2 Municipal Engineering Company was the first to grab a red and blue pencil and heavily drew a circle on the drawing:
"Before I came, I had already given orders to the company's dispatch room. Two 50-ton truck cranes and three sets of large-diameter hydraulic pipe jacking machines originally on standby at Zhongshan Ring Road in Puxi are already on the river-crossing ferry right now and will enter the site on time before noon!"
"We have drawn three youth shock teams, with 90 people divided into three shifts. People stop while machines keep running 24 hours a day, ensuring that the river-crossing pipe bridge and underground casing are fully penetrated within 48 hours!"
"As long as the casing is cleared, power laying and substation grid-connection do not need to wait for all civil works to finish; we will enter with cross-operations directly!"
The deputy director of the Power Supply Bureau stepped forward and immediately pulled out a dispatch order from his briefcase that the bureau had stamped with its official seal overnight:
"The interval switch at the Takahashi Substation completed preliminary debugging late last night. The 800-meter 110-kilovolt cross-linked polyethylene insulated cable and accessories are now loaded on four special laying vehicles of the bureau's engineering department."
"We have changed all the original serial processes into synchronous operations—while the municipal company is welding the north bank pipe bridge, our people will directly thread cables from the south bank into the underground utility tunnel of the park, and do joints and withstand voltage tests on the night of the pipe bridge's closure!"
"The port channel side will issue a temporary navigation closure notice at 10:00 this morning!"
The director of the Engineering Department of the Port Authority did not mince words either, pulling out his pen and signing his name on the countersignature form, "The tributary river stream will be closed for navigation for 36 hours to fully support municipal lifting."
"At the same time, the port communication squad and navigation aid boats will move directly into Berth 1 of B-07 this afternoon. While waiting for the optical fiber fusion, they will first install and debug the navigation aid beacons and VHF communication base stations at the front of the dock!"
In just twenty minutes.
The tedious process that originally required multiple departments to exchange official documents and undergo layer-by-layer approval for nearly a month was smashed into a countdown table calculated in hours by a few pens and on-site instructions in this corrugated iron boardhouse of less than twenty square meters.
...
At 10:30 in the morning, before the fog over the river had completely cleared, both banks of the river stream on the north side of Waigaoqiao were already boiling with activity.
Over a dozen heavy trucks, cranes, and special cable vehicles painted with "Shanghai Municipal" and "Shanghai Electric Power" formed a long dragon, roaring into the construction site; more than a hundred workers and power technicians wearing safety helmets of various colors jumped out of the truck beds and rushed to their work faces without a word.
Over the next four days and nights, Shen Mingyuan hardly closed his eyes.
During the day, two 50-ton cranes extended their steel long arms, hoisting heavy cross-river steel trusses section by section into place. Electric welders tied with safety belts were suspended mid-air, and the splashing welding sparks merged into one in the river wind.
Late at night, a dozen high-power iodine-tungsten lamps illuminated the entire river stream as bright as day. The work chants of municipal workers, the roar of generators, and the winch sounds of power technicians pulling high-voltage cables intertwined, making the ripples on the river surface tremble slightly.
Carrying two cold and hard flatbreads, Shen Mingyuan shouted until his voice was as hoarse as a broken gong, leading two young officers from the Development Office to run back and forth between the riverbank work face and the park.
Whichever link lacked a lifting auxiliary equipment, or whichever team needed the park to cooperate in opening the maintenance manhole cover of the underground utility tunnel, he would pick up the walkie-talkie on the spot and coordinate a solution within ten minutes.
Kenichi Toda of Saionji Construction came to the red line boundary several times every day to take a look.
At first, this rigorous and rigid Japanese general representative still held a stopwatch and process chart, checking quietly by the side.
But by the night of the third day, when he walked out of the park gate against the biting cold wind, seeing hundreds of Chinese workers steaming with white heat all over their bodies, forcibly running a cross-river pipe bridge together with two high-voltage cable channels completely through in a mere 60 hours, and all insulation and grounding test data being completely flawless.
Kenichi Toda took off his safety helmet, bowed solemnly to Shen Mingyuan, and exclaimed in clumsy Chinese:
"Mr. Shen, incredible... This is simply miraculous speed!"
At 11:40 late at night on the fourth day, as the Takahashi Substation and the park's central substation simultaneously completed the closing impulse test, the green indicator lights representing the normal operation of the dual circuits on the power distribution panel lit up.
Then, on Berth 1 along the river bank, the searchlights of the two orange-yellow portal cranes and the channel navigation aid beacons simultaneously cut through the night sky, and clear communication call signs came from the VHF radio in the port dispatch room.
The project that originally required a month to complete was forcibly compressed within 96 hours.
Saionji's private dock was able to enter the actual-ship trial run stage exactly on schedule without a second's difference.
Early the next morning, Shen Mingyuan, who had finally finished submitting the acceptance signature sheet, walked out of the power distribution building and slowly walked to a high place along the dock's concrete approach bridge.
The rising morning sun leaped out of the river surface, dispelling the gloomy cold of the past few days.
Beneath his feet, deep and powerful operating sounds of heavy punch presses and CNC machine tools were already coming from the factory buildings of Phase I of the Saionji Industrial Park, and teams of young Chinese workers and technicians wearing dark blue work clothes were riding bicycles, chatting and laughing as they poured into the park gate.
And at the berths along the river, the on-site regulatory personnel of the Shanghai Customs and port tally clerks were all in place. The first 5,000-ton near-sea container cargo ship preparing to load trial-transport goods was sounding its whistle and slowly approaching the anti-collision fender.
Shen Mingyuan turned around and cast his gaze onto the entire Waigaoqiao land outside the Saionji Industrial Park.
He remembered that more than a year ago, when he first stepped onto this east-of-the-river shoreline with the survey team, except for withered and yellow reeds taller than a person, abandoned muddy fish ponds, and a few dilapidated farmhouses, this was almost a desolate tidal flat isolated from the world.
But in the span of just over a year, the scene before his eyes had completely changed into a different world.
As far as the eye could see, this 520-mu industrial park of Saionji was no longer a lonely "enclave"—
Looking south, the isolation fence and customs building of Phase I of the Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone were being constructed vigorously.
Looking west, dozens of towering tower cranes stood densely on the foundations of patches of newly built standard factory buildings, and their long jib arms were slowly rotating in the morning light.
And further away on the expansion construction site of Yanggao Road, hundreds of heavy dump trucks, bulldozers, and road rollers were advancing overwhelmingly forward, and the kicked-up dust and smoke resembled a rolling golden dragon under the morning sun.
This modern industrial park and deep-water port smashed out by Saionji with real gold and silver on the barren beach had now transformed into the most eye-catching navigational beacon in the entire tide of Pudong's construction.
Shen Mingyuan took a sip of hot tea, letting the spring breeze carrying the breath of river water blow across his burning cheeks, and a trace of gratified smile could not help appearing on his tired face.