Binjiang Police Affairs

Chapter 1471: Chapter 258: Critical Life-and-Death Moment

The Changhang Bureau gave Han Yu a one-week leave, but Han Yu returned to work after only three days. Moreover, these past three days didn’t involve any real rest.

Having always worked on the ship before, sitting in the spacious and bright Deputy Director’s office truly felt a bit strange.

Since he wasn’t accustomed to it, he decided not to stay in the office. Seeing that both the Director and the Political Commissioner were not around, he headed straight to the Water Fire Rescue Team to find Fang Guoya to learn about the team’s work.

Fang Guoya still felt like dreaming at that moment, unable to believe he had become a Deputy Department-Level Officer.

"Director Han, if it weren’t for your recommendation, how could it have been my turn to become the Branch Captain? I won’t say thank you for such a great favor. As for work matters, just instruct me, I guarantee not to let you down!"

"Mostly, it’s your good luck. Who would have thought that several police stations and units could get promoted."

Han Yu smiled and started talking business: "Old Fang, you can say you were appointed at a critical moment. Under normal circumstances, after you take office, you just need to mind your own business and manage your people. But now is not a normal time. The brigade just had such a big mistake, you need to do a good job and turn the situation around."

Fang Guoya had been troubled these days about how to find a breakthrough and said with a bitter face: "Firefighting is different from other work, it’s really not easy to do outstandingly."

"We don’t aim for outstanding work, just no incidents, specifically, no fire accidents."

Han Yu pointed to the Yangtze River waterfront map on the wall, and seriously and sternly said: "When a new official takes office, there are three fires to light, the big inspection and renovation of fire safety must continue, and can’t be just a passing wind. The fire safety hazards discovered in key enterprises during the previous inspection must be supervised and rectified, and it must be thoroughly corrected.

As for the fire safety hazards existing on the water, we must closely cooperate with the Maritime Bureau, investigate and deal with each one discovered! I know that many ships have incomplete fire-fighting facilities, and the crew’s awareness of fire prevention is weak. Some haven’t even attended real fire-fighting training, yet obtained relevant documents and certificates through various means.

It’s nothing if there’s no incident, but once it happens, it’s a big deal. You’re an old hand at firefighting, you know this best, so we can’t fear offending leaders, nor should we fear offending peers. We have to know that what we do is the business of offending people!"

"Director Han, my main concern is the difficult work at Binjiang Port."

"Push it onto me."

"Isn’t that inappropriate?"

"What’s inappropriate?"

Han Yu asked rhetorically, frowning tightly: "The current bosses only know to focus on business, only think about how to create benefits, they don’t pay nearly as much attention to fire safety as the previous leaders. This is probably because of the stricter fire safety supervision and management in the bureau, and because your enterprise fire brigade construction is professional.

No major fire has happened over these years, so there’s no constant awareness of fire safety in their minds; they don’t have it, but we can’t afford not to. Otherwise, once a major fire occurs, by then we’ll have to go all out to fight it. If there happen to be casualties during the fire-fighting efforts, how will we explain it to the families involved?"

"Understood, I know what to do next."

"The fact has proven that being stricter is not harmful. Last night I asked Ningning, she said that this summer there were only four fires along the Binjiang Shoreline and Binjiang Waters. How many incidents happened last year, and how many the year before that? How many occurred in the jurisdiction of the East Sea Branch and the Guzhou Branch?"

Han Yu knocked on the table and said meaningfully: "That’s our achievement, whether the work has been done well or not, the superiors will know from comparing those sets of data. A good fighter does not require a reputation, there’s no need to deliberately create highlights."

Fang Guoya nodded, just as he was about to speak, a knock on the door came from outside.

"Please come in."

"Director Han, you really returned to work, really at Branch Chief Fang’s place!"

Jiang Youwei looked delighted, seeing Fang Guoya wanting to speak but stopping, he quickly said: "Director Han, you’re discussing work with Branch Chief Fang, I’ll go back first, will report to your office later."

"What are you going back for, sit down, let’s chat together."

"It won’t disturb, will it?"

"Disturb what?"

"Alright, I’ll report together with Branch Chief Fang."

Having learned everything needed about firefighting, Han Yu cheerfully asked: "Major General Jiang, have there been any major criminal cases in the jurisdiction these past two months?"

Jiang Youwei, like Fang Guoya, was energized by good news, and immediately said: "Six minor cases were transferred to us, and we solved four of them. The other two proved difficult with no leads and thus currently uninvestigable. A major case did occur, twelve days ago, an inland river cargo ship collided with another cargo ship while competing for the waterway.

Although the accident wasn’t very big and didn’t cause significant economic losses, the captains and crew of both ships were hot-tempered, started fighting on the river. One of the crew members from a ship accidentally fell overboard. The incident happened in the latter half of the night, visibility was poor, and the waves were high. Even though the Maritime Bureau received the distress call and organized a rescue promptly, they couldn’t save him after a day of searching."

"A life was lost!"

"Yes."

Jiang Youwei took a cigarette from Fang Guoya and reported: "The case isn’t complicated; it’s just when we received the report and arrived at the scene, one crew member involved in the brawl absconded due to fear of punishment. We detained the others, and through repeated interrogation, we confirmed that the missing crew who fell into the water was indeed attacked by the fleeing crew member."

Han Yu instinctively asked: "Is the fugitive the main perpetrator?"

"You could say that. From what we have gathered, he was the most aggressive, struck the hardest, not only knocking one crew member overboard who’s now missing, whether alive or dead but also injuring two other crew members."