Chapter 356: A robbery sparked heated discussions
Zheng Jianming is a Guangzhou native and retired from the army half a year ago.

Having served as a car soldier for two years, he successfully joined the Guangzhou Baiyun Car Rental Company as a full-time taxi driver after demobilization with his good driving skills.

Baiyun Taxi Company is quite famous. It was established in September 1979 and is the first joint venture taxi company in China, jointly operated by Guangzhou Transportation Bureau and Hong Kong businessman Liu Yaozhu.

Over the past three years, Baiyun Company has not only seen increasing business, but also gained increasing fame, and has even been reported by many national media outlets.

Because it implements a new service of "picking up passengers along the way, stopping when hailed, metered charges, day and night service, and telephone reservations", which is completely based on the operating model of Hong Kong taxis, Guangzhou has become the first city in the mainland to implement the "hail-and-stop" taxi service.

In order to make it easier for customers to recognize taxis at a glance, General Manager Liu Yaozhu broke through the barriers of conservative thinking and painted the entire body of the taxi red. Therefore, Baiyun taxis are also called "red taxis" by Guangzhou citizens, which is similar to the "red chickens" in Hong Kong.

Zheng Jianming received an order made by phone that afternoon, requesting that the customer be sent to Dubu Town, Yangshan County.

The driving time from Guangzhou to Dubu Town is about 180 kilometers. The road conditions are not good at that time. Most drivers are unwilling to leave the city, let alone a round trip of nearly 400 kilometers. It will definitely be midnight when returning home. Not to mention delaying meals and rest, driving in the mountainous area is not guaranteed to be safe.

The dispatch director asked many people, but no one agreed. When he asked Zheng Jianming, he learned that the passenger was not only a deputy section-level cadre of the Guangzhou Municipal Government, but also a veteran who was in a hurry to go home to visit his sick mother.

Zheng Jianming had just been discharged from the army, and after knowing the reason why the passenger was in a hurry, he finally agreed to send the passenger home.

The two set off from Yuexiu District, Guangzhou at 3 pm. With his excellent driving skills and the outstanding performance of EVO, Zheng Jianming sent the passengers to their doorstep in less than two and a half hours.

On the return trip, Zheng Jianming slowed down the car, not because he was not in a hurry to return to Guangzhou, but because he felt a little sorry for the car.

At this time, the mountain roads are basically paved with gravel and loess, and asphalt roads are out of the question.

When he came, the car was speeding along at about 80 kilometers per hour, which not only raised a lot of dust, but also caused gravel on the road to fly everywhere under the pressure of the tires, and a clanging sound could be heard when it hit the front and rear side skirts.

After serving as a car soldier for two years, Zheng Jianming not only learned good driving skills, but also developed a good habit of caring for the vehicle.

The car he is driving now is not only a tool to make money, but also his most loyal and reliable friend.

When the Guangdong provincial government purchased EVO sedans from BYD, the Guangzhou Transportation Bureau also received 10 vehicles, 8 of which were handed over to Baiyun Taxi Company.

Because of his good reputation in the company for his skills and work attitude, Zheng Jianming was honored to become one of the EVO taxi drivers.

From the first day he drove the EVO, he fell in love with the car.

According to him, EVO has several particularly outstanding highlights, such as fast starting, fast acceleration, fast gear shifting, a large top speed, flexible steering, sensitive brakes, and good chassis stability.

For someone who understands cars, the above-mentioned advantages are enough for Zheng Jianming to regard EVO as a treasure.

Every day before starting the car to go to work, he would take a rag and wipe the car carefully inside and out. If he saw some small scratches, he would feel distressed for a long time.

For Zheng Jianming, the job of a taxi driver is not tiring at all. On the contrary, it is so exciting to drive a red tornado on the road every day.

The EVO taxi was winding along the mountain road at a speed of more than 60 kilometers. Zheng Jianming held the steering wheel with both hands and looked ahead. It was already six o'clock in the afternoon. The light of the setting sun was blocked by the mountains, and the brightness in the valley had slowly dimmed.

After a long-distance trip today, Zheng Jianming was thinking about buying something to take home for a snack when he suddenly saw a grey Daihatsu van and a motorcycle lying across the middle of the road about a mile ahead.

The roads in the mountains are not wide, only about four or five meters wide. The vans and motorcycles almost blocked the road.

Zheng Jianming is not stupid. When he was in the army, he was a squad leader and had traveled across the Qinghai-Tibet line. He often boasted to the new recruits that he had encountered all kinds of situations, not to mention encountering car bandits and highway robbers.

It was obvious that this group of people were planning to rob people. At the very least, they would steal money and cars, and at the worst, they would kill people to silence them.

After Zheng Jianming discovered the situation, he slammed on the brakes immediately. The EVO's tires slid forward for less than 20 meters on the loess road before stopping steadily.

He breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that as long as there was no problem with the car, he would be sure to escape this disaster.

This is not a strange order, so he certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to get out of the car to argue with the other party. Who knows if this group of people have an ambush behind them?
He closed all four windows and locked all the doors, fastened his seat belt, and tried starting the ignition with the car key.

After everything was normal, Zheng Jianming started the engine, shifted to 1st gear, released the clutch, and slowly stepped on the accelerator.

When the car speed reached 40 kilometers, EVO had only traveled less than a hundred meters, but he was not in a hurry to step on the accelerator.

When the car was less than 200 meters away from the other car, the speed had reached 60 kilometers. At this time, he stepped on the accelerator harder.

In fact, when Zheng Jianming did not get out of the car and drove straight towards them, the robbers had already panicked.

The four of them were holding machetes and iron bars, swearing in the direction of Zheng Jianming, obviously trying to threaten him to stop the car.

But no matter how much I planned, I didn't expect that I would meet a "young and reckless person" today. He drove straight towards me and seemed to want to ram my car into another's.

This group of people had done a few scams before, but without exception they only encountered timid cowards.

How is it like now?

However, before they could react and move their car, Zheng Jianming drove the EVO at a speed of 120 kilometers per hour and crashed into a motorcycle nearby, lifting it into the air and sending it rolling down the mountain stream.

Needless to say, the front and headlights of the EVO were definitely badly damaged, but he didn't dare to slow down at all, and disappeared without a trace at a speed of nearly 100 kilometers per hour.

The next day, Southern Daily reported a piece of news that immediately attracted widespread attention in the province.

"According to our newspaper, the police station under the Shitan Town of Qingyuan County Public Security Bureau received a report from a Guangzhou taxi driver that a group of criminals who were blocking the road and robbing people appeared on the county road connecting Qigong Town of Yangshan County and Shitan Town of Qingyuan County. After receiving the report, the public security organs immediately sent personnel to pursue them and finally successfully captured all the private robbers."

(End of this chapter)