Although Chen Zhitao is only the deputy director of Institute 201, in fact, his family background is quite strong.

Although he himself is just an intellectual, relying on his own efforts and great talent in the field of chemical engineering, he gradually grew into a leading expert in the country. However, his wife has a strong background. Her father is one of the founding heroes of the country. Chen Zhitao has a son and two daughters. The eldest son and daughter have already started families and are currently working in BJ government departments. Only the youngest daughter has just been admitted to Peking University and is currently a freshman.

Therefore, whether in the academic circle or in other places, Chen Zhitao is a person whose words carry a lot of weight, but he himself lives a reclusive life and never likes too many social engagements.

"Children and grandchildren have their own blessings. Her mother will help her with her affairs. I don't need to worry about it." Chen Zhitao paused and continued, "By the way, what are the arrangements for Xu Qiang next? Their project team is indeed very strong. Do you want to assign them some new tasks?"

"I think they've been working very hard lately, let's give them a break." Zhang Zhen thought for a moment, then said, "It's a remarkable feat to have completed such a large project in just two months. They must have worked overtime a lot. Besides, for now, Xu Qiang and the others are just college students, and studying is their main job."

"That's true, but it would be a waste to leave such talents unused for a long time," said Meng Guangming.

"No." Zhang Zhen smiled slightly, and then said: "In a few days, the National Science and Technology Awards Conference will be held, and Xu Qiang and others will come to BJ to attend the meeting. I will have to talk to him in person at that time. If he is willing, I will let him take charge of the new project."

"That's good." Meng Guangming nodded when he heard it.

"By the way, Director Meng, please inform the members of Professor Xu's project team. I would like to hold a meeting for them tomorrow morning." Zhang Zhen said.

"what do you mean……"

"Although Professor Xu is seriously injured and can no longer lead the Project 8702 team, this project is related to the development of the country's armaments and must not be terminated. So I need to pick a new project leader from Professor Xu's original team to continue the Project 8702," said Zhang Zhen.

"But the problem is Professor Xu's students, do they have the ability to undertake this project?" Meng Guangming said with some concern.

This major accident at the BJ Mechanical College shocked the leaders of the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building and made them begin to re-examine the huge risks in chemical research.

In particular, the 8702 project is developing a new generation of domestic high explosives, which is 1.8 times more powerful than traditional TNT explosives. Therefore, the research and development of such a project is extremely risky. Once any mistake occurs, the consequences will be unimaginable.

Since even Professor Xu, a top expert in domestic military explosives, cannot avoid the safety of research and development, if it were someone else, the risk of an accident would only be greater. Now it is difficult for the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building to withstand such a major accident again. It is precisely because of this that Meng Guangming had previously suggested to Minister Zhang to terminate this project.

But now that the project cannot be terminated, we must be extremely cautious in reselecting the project leader.

Although Professor Xu is well-known in the academic circle, the several disciples he trained have basically not achieved any outstanding results in recent years. Most of the time, they are just helping their teacher. It is still unknown whether they have independent research and development capabilities.

"The current situation is that we can only pick the best from the worst. Besides, only his students know the progress of Professor Xu's project. If we select a new expert in the department, Professor Xu's previous progress will be completely wasted, and the project deadline will be greatly extended..." Zhang Zhen said.

"It seems that this is the only way." Meng Guangming nodded.

"However, in order to avoid similar tragedies from happening again, this project will not be carried out in the School of Mechanical Engineering. We need to build a new laboratory in another place and provide some safety measures."

Zhang Zhen considered the issue quite comprehensively. Since the project had to be restarted, some things had to be changed. First of all, the address of the laboratory should be as far away from the center of BJ as possible. In this way, even if an explosion occurred again, it would not cause as huge a reaction from public opinion as this time. Another thing was to strengthen safety measures. When conducting some dangerous experiments, relevant protective equipment must be available.

"Okay, I remember there is a small chemical factory in the FS area, and the Armed Police Fire Department is not far away. It should be a good place to conduct experiments." Meng Guangming thought for a while and then said, "If the 8702 project is restarted, we can renovate the laboratory there and let the project team members move there as a whole and connect with the local factory. In this way, the work and life problems of the project team members should be solved."

"That's the only way." Zhang Zhen nodded and said, "Then go and notify them to come to the meeting tomorrow morning, and we'll discuss the details then."

"Okay." Meng Guangming said, then stood up and left...

At the same time, Xu Qiang and Liu Siying have boarded the train to BJ to attend this year's National Science and Technology Awards Conference.

Worried that Liu Siying would be exhausted from the long journey, Xu Qiang directly bought two sleeper tickets.

If it were in the past, Liu Siying would not let Xu Qiang spend money to buy things for him, but as the two established a relationship and their feelings grew better and better, Liu Siying no longer refused Xu Qiang's kindness.

The green trains these days usually have only one sleeper car, and the rest are hard seats. Moreover, sleeper cars are very expensive and not easy to buy.

But Xu Qiang's net worth was over 100,000 yuan, and he didn't mind spending more money, so he bought the ticket directly from the ticket scalper at a high price, and chose the best lower berth so that Liu Siying could be more comfortable.

In addition, Xu Qiang also bought a lot of snacks. The two of them ate and chatted along the way, feeling quite relaxed and comfortable.

After arriving in BJ, Xu Qiang and Liu Siying went directly to the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building and stayed in a guesthouse with other award-winning personnel from the ministry.

At dinner time, this year's award winners from the department gathered together and sat around a table. The atmosphere was quite cheerful.

Most of the award winners this time are from research institutes in BJ, while those who came to the guesthouse are all from other provinces like Xu Qiang.

These people come from the Zhongshan Research Institute of Changchun Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics and the Institute of Applied Technology of Shenyang Institute of Technology. All of them are the leaders and core members of the institutes.

The table was filled with a group of middle-aged and elderly experts, so Xu Qiang and Liu Siying stood out among them. Many people were surprised that Xu Qiang could win such a prestigious scientific award at such a young age.

What Xu Qiang didn't know was that all project leaders who won the National Science and Technology Progress Award were very old. Since the award was established in the 645s, a total of 33 people have won the award, and the average age of the winner is years old. Before that, the youngest winner was years old. Xu Qiang's award this time obviously broke this record!
It is estimated that for a long time to come, it will be difficult for anyone to break Xu Qiang's age record for winning the award.

However, due to the different majors, basically no one talked about technical matters during the meal. Instead, the most discussed topic was the salary and benefits of each institute, as well as the bonus issue.

Through conversations with these people, Xu Qiang roughly understood the current salary situation of engineers in various research institutes.

What surprised Xu Qiang was that in this day and age, even the directors of these directly affiliated military technology research institutes had a basic salary of no more than 150 yuan per month, plus various subsidies, which was only about yuan. Moreover, many of the heads of these institutes were top elites who had undertaken key national projects.

As for other senior engineers, they only earn more than 100 yuan, or even a few dozen yuan, which is similar to the income level of the old workers in the factory.

However, through talking with these people, Xu Qiang learned a surprising piece of news, that is, the prize money for this year's National Science and Technology Progress First Prize is as high as 10,000 RMB!
New China's rewards for scientific and technological innovation can be traced back to 1955, when the State Council promulgated the "Interim Regulations on Scientific Prizes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences". The regulations stipulated that the first prize was 1 yuan.

This is almost equivalent to more than twenty times the annual income of a scientific researcher. For ordinary people, it is definitely a huge sum of money.

But it is normal. After all, it is the highest award in national science and technology, and the reward standard must be the highest. Otherwise, it would be impossible to mobilize the enthusiasm of domestic scientific researchers.

In fact, not to mention the bonus, just being able to receive this award is the highest honor and pursuit in the life of many scientific researchers. Moreover, after receiving this award, in addition to promotion and salary increase, you will also be highly respected in society, which can bring many invisible benefits.

For Xu Qiang, receiving this honor will be of great help to him in both his work within the system and his business outside the system... (End of this chapter)