The King of Soldiers Retires and Turns a County Town into a Top-Tier City

[Decorated soldier leaves the army + rebuilds his county + starts a business back home + refuses to get caught up in pointless conflict]

At twenty-four, veteran special forces soldier Lin Zheng turns down a promotion and returns to his hometown of Yiyang, where fifty thousand people have left in just three years.

His father is a laid-off fertilizer plant worker, his mother sells jianbing on the pedestrian street, and all their relatives and neighbors assume he came back because he couldn’t make it elsewhere.

In Yiyang, those who stay behind sponge off their parents in the workers’ housing compounds, while those who leave end up tightening screws in big-city factories. The entire county is like a broken machine running out of fuel.

But within his first week back, this decorated soldier goes to the Development and Reform Bureau and snaps up fifty-five mu of land, bringing laid-off fertilizer plant workers back to their jobs.

Just when things are at their bleakest, the Nation’s Pillar System activates. The chief logistics coordinator from the Pearl River Delta rushes to Yiyang overnight, and one by one, sixteen old army buddies scattered across the country return.

Starting with a single red-paper notice, Lin Zheng builds clothing and small-appliance production lines, then a branch of Yuehai Intelligent Manufacturing relocated to the county. Eventually, he reshapes the province’s industrial landscape, leading Yiyang from a declining little county to the ranks of the nation’s top hundred counties.

Everyone who left to find work has come back.

Everyone who stayed has gotten rich.