After speaking with Sima Yanan on the phone, Zhou Yi immediately began gathering information about Shaohua City.
Since the situation was already all but settled, there was no point dwelling on it. What did it matter who he worked with or where he worked? Not only would he get straight to work, he would go all out and make everyone see him in a new light!
That was how Zhou Yi had always been. Once he made a decision, he acted decisively, without hesitation or delay.
Then he started looking into it-and got a nasty shock.
Of Shaohua's population of over three million, nearly a million lived in poverty. Five of its eight counties, county-level cities, and districts were classified as severely impoverished counties, surviving largely on funding allocated by central and local government finance departments.
In recent years especially, plenty of poverty alleviation work had been done in Shaohua's impoverished counties and cities, and substantial funds had been allocated, yet there had still been little improvement.
If he planned to coast along here for two or three years, polish his résumé, and leave, that would probably be easy. But if he really wanted to achieve something noteworthy, it would be a hell of an uphill battle!
So, was it too late for him to change his mind?
Time flew, and before anyone knew it, July had arrived.
Recently, something major had happened in Shaohua that struck everyone across the city as unusual and surprising.
Former Municipal Party Secretary Luo Qiufa had become vice chairman of the Jingchu Provincial Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, while former mayor Sun Linghui had been transferred to serve as director of the provincial Audit Department. Both of the new Party and government leaders had been parachuted in!
And not only had they been