Chapter 112 (1)

"Captain Liang, what brings you here?" Xia Juhua seemed to have forgotten the unpleasantness of a few days ago and greeted the visitor with a smile.

Captain Liang of the Advance Brigade was also very capable. He also said with a smile: "It was the smell of the powder leaked by your Ping'anzhuang Brigade that attracted me here. Captain Xia, why did you leave that day when we hadn't reached an agreement yet? I was very nervous these two days, but I couldn't wait to see you, so I came here on my own."

"Ah, you mean that thing?" Xia Juhua said in surprise, "Our Ping'an Village Brigade just wanted the members to have a taste of vermicelli after a whole winter of eating it. But the sweet potatoes in your brigade are too expensive, so we can't afford them."

Don't want it? Captain Liang was anxious: "Captain Xia, we can't do this. I have prepared all the sweet potatoes for you. How can you just say you don't want them?"

Xia Juhua smiled calmly, but she was unyielding in her words: "If I had agreed to the price you mentioned, it would have been understandable for you to go to the brigade to prepare sweet potatoes. But I clearly remember that I left without agreeing that day, so why are you still preparing sweet potatoes?"

Captain Liang was at a loss for words, but the smile on his face deepened: "Captain Xia, I know I was a little rude that day, but I was just kidding you. As for the price, I thought that the sweet potatoes would lose some moisture after being stored for such a long time, so I charged a little more. If you think it's not okay, we can still discuss it."

Xia Juhua was obviously embarrassed by what Captain Liang said: "Captain Liang, look at what happened. I thought about it after I came back, and discussed it with several production captains. They all said that the members are too busy collecting vermicelli from various grain stations to think about tasting vermicelli themselves."

"Forget it," Xia Juhua said with great regret, "I worried for nothing. Fortunately, we didn't make a decision that day, otherwise I would be in trouble."

"Captain Xia, do you think we can discuss this further?" Captain Liang wished he could go back to the day when Xia Juhua found the Qianjin Brigade so he could cover his mouth with his hand and let Xia Juhua take whatever price she offered and sell the brigade's sweet potatoes to the Ping'anzhuang Brigade.

While the two were arguing, Captain Wang of the Victory Brigade also arrived. When he saw Captain Liang was there, he immediately understood what he was here for. He stopped beating around the bush and stopped pretending that he had something and that if he wanted it, he would have to let me name the price. He smiled and said to Xia Juhua:

"Captain Xia, you see, Lao Liang and I have come to you to beg you for help. You have to give us this face. Otherwise, we won't be able to go back to the brigade, and we will have to eat and drink for free in your Ping'an Village Brigade."

Faced with such a threat, Xia Juhuasi did not take it seriously at all. After asking people to sit down and pour water, she talked to the two people casually about this year's performance, next year's prospects, and what crops to plant in the spring.

In short, they talked about all the topics that were normal between the captains, and they all had a very good chat. The two captains, Liang Wang, looked at each other and both felt that with Xia Juhua's attitude, it was time for her to go to their team to harvest sweet potatoes, and they unconsciously flattered her a little.

As they were talking excitedly, they heard hurried footsteps outside and a young man pushed the door open and came in: "Captain, please go to the educated youth camp and take a look. Deng Chunlin and his gang are about to start a fight."

"What?" Xia Juhua stood up suddenly: "We were just letting them study the great man's works, why did they start fighting?"

"It's all about arranging shifts to go home for the New Year. None of them want to stay on duty, but they all want to leave early, and they're getting angry as they talk." The man panted and urged Xia Juhua: "Captain, go and take a look. If a fight really breaks out, the Youth League Office of the commune will have to..."

Xia Juhua looked at the two captains sheepishly and said, "Captain Liang, Captain Wang, I'm so sorry. I wanted to have a good talk with you, but..."

The two captains had dealt with the educated youth in their respective brigades before, so they knew that when it came to the educated youth, they had to take it very seriously. They urged Xia Juhua to go quickly, "Why should we be polite? Go quickly. We can't let them really fight. But Captain Xia, why are the educated youth in your brigade going home for the New Year at this time?"

Xia Juhua said helplessly: "They wanted to ask for leave to go home a few days ago, but it was winter and we couldn't leave without anyone on duty at the educated youth site. I asked them to arrange their own shifts, but who knew it would turn out like this? I'm sorry to embarrass you."

Although Xia Juhua did not explain the reason why the educated youth from Qingping'anzhuang Brigade asked for leave early, as they were neighboring brigades, the two brigade leaders also figured out the twists and turns and followed Xia Juhua out of the brigade headquarters. Only when they got on their bicycles did they realize that the purpose of their visit had not yet been finalized.

Now everyone is on their way back to their own brigade, and they can't really go back. They have to stay in Ping'anzhuang Brigade to eat and drink for free, so they have to come to see Xia Juhua another day.

Xia Juhua had also arrived at the educated youth's place. When she heard the noisy arguments inside, she did not go in immediately, nor did she shout to stop them. Instead, she asked the educated youth who had called her, "Xiao Hu, do you and Li Youguang want to go home now?"

Hu Zhongshan and Li Youguang were the two educated youths that Li Changshun had favored and wanted to employ as primary school teachers in the brigade. They were also two youth educateds who could see things clearly. They usually did not get involved in the petty fights of the educated youths, but just kept their heads down and did their own things.

Deng Chunlin and his friends certainly looked down on their way of staying out of the matter, and often treated them in a sarcastic way. However, the conditions of their families were good among the educated youth, and they would send some things to them from time to time, which made Deng Chunlin and his friends cautious and dared not to be too excessive in public. Usually, the two of them worked in line with the crowd, had no worries about food, and did not fight or compete when encountering problems, so Deng Chunlin could do nothing about them.

When Xia Juhua asked them if they also wanted to go home for the New Year, Hu Zhongshan was startled. He smiled and said, "Who doesn't want to go home for the New Year? But you know our situation at the Youth League Center. I'm afraid it's not our turn to go back first."

Worried only about not being able to return first, but not about having to stay at the educated youth camp for the New Year, Xia Juhua had a deeper impression of Hu Zhongshan and Li Youguang's status among the educated youth: "It's okay if I don't return first. There are only ten days of vacation a year. If I go back first, I have to come back first."

Ten days of vacation a year, why haven't I heard of it before? Hu Zhongshan looked at Xia Juhua in confusion, and she smiled and said, "I've looked at the Youth Management Measures of the County Youth Office these days, and there are requirements for your vacation time. You should all know that, right?" Xia Juhua nodded at Hu Zhongshan.

Seeing Hu Zhongshan nod in agreement, Xia Juhua smiled calmly and said to him, "You are from the city, so you must know more than us rural people. If I were you, I would not waste time going home for the New Year, but read more books and study more. What do you think?"

"Captain, you want me and Li Youguang to..." Hu Zhongshan became more curious about Xia Juhua. He suppressed the shock he had just felt when he heard her talk about the management methods for educated youth, and understood what Xia Juhua meant.

The smile on Xia Juhua's face gradually disappeared, and she looked at Hu Zhongshan with a deep gaze: "I didn't think about anything. This should be decided by you and Li Youguang. I just made a suggestion. I personally think that instead of wasting time on quarrels and travel, it is better to do a few more questions and memorize more books."

Hu Zhongshan had a thoughtful expression on his face and said nothing more. When Xia Juhua pushed the door and entered the educated youth center, he followed her silently. As soon as he entered the room, he saw Li Youguang standing alone outside the crowd. The two of them quietly took a step back and whispered to each other.

"Deng Chunlin, what's the matter with you educated youth?" Xia Juhua was not polite to Deng Chunlin as she was to Hu Zhongshan. Her face was so stern that it looked like water was dripping from it when she spoke.

The educated youth who had just been arguing in a mess realized that Xia Juhua had arrived when they heard her voice. Deng Chunlin, who was called by name, was a little embarrassed: "Captain, we were discussing going home for the New Year..."

Xia Juhua snorted: "It's just a shift for going home. How many days have you, the leader of the educated youth group, been unable to arrange it?"

Deng Chunlin was secretly angry. If he hadn't thought about the fact that he would need Xia Juhua to approve his leave and write a letter of introduction, he would have started to yell. After holding back, Deng Chunlin chose to bow to reality: "Captain, we will discuss it right away. I will report the shift arrangement to you in a while."

"Well, when scheduling shifts, please pay attention to the distance. For teams that are too far away, you can consider adding a few days of travel on top of the ten-day holiday."

"What do you mean by ten days off? Don't we all have a month off?"

"That's right. We've been taking a month-long vacation these years. Why did you cut it to ten days?"

Xia Juhua ignored Zheng Hongbing and the others who were noisy and only spoke to Deng Chunlin: "Deng Chunlin, don't discuss how to arrange the shifts for now. Today you will organize the educated youth and relearn the management methods of the county educated youth office. When you have learned and memorized the contents, you can report to the brigade to arrange the shifts."

When they heard Xia Juhua say a few words about the management methods for educated youth, Zheng Hongbing and the others wilted. They looked at each other, and finally focused their attention on Deng Chunlin.

Deng Chunlin saw Xia Juhua had already turned around to leave, so he forced a smile and called out, "Captain, wait a moment. You see, when Captain Li was here, we educated youth all had a one-month vacation. Do we still have that now?"

Xia Juhua turned around and looked at him and said, "Deng Chunlin, I remember that you submitted an application to join the party to the brigade, and asked several times why they didn't recruit you."

Deng Chunlin was stunned, and he didn't come back to his senses until Xia Juhua walked out of the educated youth center. He couldn't figure out what Xia Juhua meant by the application form just now, whether it was a threat to him or a hint of something.

"Deng Chunlin, you submitted your application to join the party, how come I didn't know about it?" Zheng Hongbing would not give Deng Chunlin enough time. Considering Xia Juhua's intention, he asked angrily: "When I wanted to submit my application, didn't you say that the brigade didn't have two vacancies a year, so it wouldn't fall on the educated youth? Why did you submit it yourself?"

"I, I..." Deng Chunlin felt dizzy and didn't know how to answer Zheng Hongbing's question.

Xia Juhua dropped a bomb on the educated youth and let them solve the problem themselves - when Li Changshun was the team leader, he didn't like the educated youth and wanted to avoid seeing them, so he approved more and more leave.

After Xia Juhua became the team leader, she basically continued Li Changshun's management attitude towards the educated youth, and in the first two years she still approved them for one month's leave. As a result, these people took advantage of her and started asking for leave more than a month before the Chinese New Year. Don't blame her for following the rules.

Instead of spending time with them, why not go home and fry some more peanuts?

It's not that Xia Juhua suddenly became selfish again, but the Ping'anzhuang Brigade is now busy with the leakage of noodles, and Qi Weidong has quietly collected and delivered the sweet potatoes. There is nothing that requires her to keep an eye on the brigade. If there is really something, Accountant Chang will come to Ping'anzhuang to find her.

And there are still so many peanuts piled up at home. If we don't fry them quickly, Director Zheng of the county supply and marketing cooperative will have to live in Ping'an Village and wait. Besides, Xiaoman was pregnant, so she couldn't be too tired even after the first three months. If Xia Juhua didn't keep an eye on her at home, she would dare to stand in front of the stove all day long.

The work was exhausting, but the results were also gratifying. With the addition of Xia Juhua and Wang Caifeng's cooperation at night, they fried about 400 to 500 kilograms of peanuts every day. When Accountant Chang came to Xia Juhua and told her that the educated youth had arranged their shifts, the peanuts at the supply and marketing cooperative had already been fried and sent away.

"You two just need to wash out the peanut butter you used this afternoon. Don't fry them anymore, okay?" Xia Juhua warned Xiaoman and Hongcui before leaving.

Seeing the two nods, Xia Juhua felt relieved and went back to the brigade headquarters with Accountant Chang. Deng Chunlin was pacing in the yard anxiously.

After entering the house, Xia Juhua didn't talk to him about anything else. She just stretched out her hand and asked, "How are your classes arranged? Have you all signed? Who will go home first? Where is your home? How many days will it take to travel?"

After a series of questions, Deng Chunlin had to hand Xia Juhua the shift schedule so that he could sort out his thoughts and answer her questions one by one: "Chen Kaiwu and Dong Jinbu will go back first. They are both from the southern part of Province A. Three days on the road will be enough."

"Did you bring their leave application?"

"Captain, through learning, we educated youth have a deep understanding of the care the brigade has given us over the years, so the two of them proposed to leave a few days later and make more contributions to the brigade's construction."

Xia Juhua smiled. The young man was good at talking. If Li Changshun and she were not the kind of people who only cared about what others did and not how nicely they said, he would definitely be more successful than he is now.

What a pity, he was so good at talking, but he didn't put any of his words into practice: "Okay, you can arrange the specific time by yourselves, as long as you don't have any objections. Deng Chunlin, you are the leader of the educated youth group, you can't just be a figurehead without serving the educated youth."

Deng Chunlin's face turned red. "Yes, I humbly accept the criticism from the captain. Captain, in addition to learning the management methods for educated youth these days, we have also dug deep into our own souls..."

Xia Juhua quickly waved her hands at him, telling him not to talk about the soul or not. In her last life, she was terrified whenever she heard about a revolution erupting from the depths of her soul.

Seeing that her expression was not right, Deng Chunlin quickly said that he planned to stay at the educated youth site for the New Year this year, and asked the team members to rest assured that he would take good care of the site and would not let bad elements destroy any plants or trees in the site.

Xia Juhua was a little confused when she heard this: "There is a bad element among you educated youth. Who is it? Do we need to report it to the educated youth office of the commune?"

Deng Chunlin was convinced by Xia Juhua, who could never understand the main point of his words. Why was it so difficult to have a conversation with her? Every time he went to the Youth League Office of the commune to report his work, the comrades there always praised him.

It must be because Xia Juhua, a rural woman, was not so sophisticated that she could not understand the profound meaning of his words. Deng Chunlin decided not to argue with Xia Juhua and explained to her in a good-tempered manner:

"It's not that there are bad elements among us educated youth. But I'm worried that around the New Year, someone will want to get something for nothing and take action against the educated youth."

Xia Juhua was not happy with this: "Who told you that we should get something for nothing? The members of our Ping'an Village Brigade are all busy helping the grain stations to leak flour. Everyone is so busy that they have no time to rest. How can we get something for nothing?"

"No, captain, I'm not talking about the people from our Ping'anzhuang Brigade." Deng Chunlin felt that the more he talked to Xia Juhua, the less clear he became, and sweat broke out on his forehead.

Xia Juhua was not happy. Why? To show your selflessness, others became potential thieves? Don't forget how much effort Xia Juhua put in during the natural disaster to get the county to agree to use the reserve grain to give the patrol militia a bite to eat at night, just to protect their year's harvest from being missed.

Also in that year, the militia of Ping'anzhuang Brigade captured several brave and hungry people and sent them to the Red Team of the commune for education. This made a name for themselves, and now all the second-rate people and dishonest people in the entire Red Star Commune were avoiding the Ping'anzhuang Brigade.

Deng Chunlin actually suspected that someone was going to attack the educated youth site. Doesn't that mean you suspect that there are dishonest members of the Pinganzhuang Brigade? This is putting the blame on the Pinganzhuang Brigade!

"Comrade Deng Chunlin, in order to ease the internal conflicts among the educated youth, it is a good idea to leave the starting point for the New Year. But I think your worry about someone attacking the educated youth point is unnecessary." Xia Juhua's expression can be said to be very serious:

"As the captain of Ping'an Village Brigade, I can guarantee that none of our members are interested in the little food you have at the educated youth camp, and no one has the time to take action against you."

Xia Juhua's expression was so scary that Deng Chunlin couldn't help but shiver. In addition, he had just broken into a sweat, and his back was even colder. His expression was distorted: "Captain, I don't doubt the members of our team..."

"Okay, you don't need to explain. Since you are not in a hurry to go home for the New Year, then level the ground and apply fertilizer to the pigpen. What have you done to such a good land?" Xia Juhua impatiently asked Deng Chunlin to leave her sight quickly.

Deng Chunlin, who wanted to sell the crops but failed, could only return to the educated youth camp with a rage and vent all his anger on the educated youth. The next day, he gathered everyone early and led them to turn the soil.

Plowing the soil in the dead of winter is not a pleasant job, so the educated youth naturally complained. Even the members of the commune found it curious and asked each other why these educated youth had changed their personalities. Instead of leveling the land after the autumn harvest, they had to show their performance immediately. Was it because their superiors had given them places in the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers University or recruitment targets?

However, they didn't find out anything useful, and the amount of sweet potatoes used to make flour was increasing, so they soon stopped caring about it.

However, the two captains of the Qianjin Brigade and the Shengli Brigade were restless and used this incident as an excuse to praise Xia Juhua's ability to manage the educated youth. Their purpose was still to get the Ping'anzhuang Brigade to collect their sweet potatoes.

This was the third time the two of them had visited the Ping'an Village Brigade. Xia Juhua stopped trying to keep up with them. When they ran out of new words to exaggerate, she suddenly asked, "Captain Liang, Captain Wang, how many sweet potatoes can your brigade give us in exchange?"

Please note that it is an exchange. Ping An Zhuang Brigade is not a buyer for speculation.

The two captains finally felt relieved and reported the number of their own teams carefully: "... That's it. One point from the several production teams in your team is nothing."

It wasn't much, really. A brigade had about 10,000 catties. Xia Juhua knew clearly that they were talking about the little stored in the granaries of each production team.

But she still said with some embarrassment: "This is really a lot. A production team must have at least 4,000 kilograms. I don't know if they have it..."

Captain Wang suddenly became anxious: "Captain Xia, let's not beat around the bush. The lowest work point value of your Ping'anzhuang Brigade is 1.4 cents. The wealth of any production team is enough to exchange for the sweet potatoes of our two teams combined."

Xia Juhua smiled helplessly: "Captain Wang, the family funds of each production team are reserved for buying seeds and fertilizers next year. How can we exchange them all for sweet potatoes? By the way, how do you want to exchange them?"

The failures of the previous two times caused Captain Wang and Captain Liang to discuss for a long time. They concluded that the Ping'anzhuang team was trying to lower the price, so Captain Wang didn't dare to ask for a high price anymore: "Four cents per pound."

This was the same price Xia Juhua had originally wanted to pay, but Xia Juhua was in a dilemma: "This is twice as much as the grain station charges. I'm afraid the production teams won't agree."

Captain Liang was also anxious: "Captain Xia, our sweet potatoes have been stored for such a long time that all the moisture has been lost. Compared with the time when we handed them over to the government, they are much lighter. Even if we take them to the market, they will still cost four cents."

Xia Juhua looked at Team Leader Liang in surprise: "Can the sweet potatoes in the production team's granary be sold at the market?" That was something that could only be done by the members themselves.

The two team leaders were speechless again. After a long silence, Xia Juhua let out a long sigh: "Forget it, we are all team leaders. I also know your difficulties. I will replace all your sweet potatoes this year. But next year, our team will not plant many sweet potatoes. If we want to harvest your sweet potatoes again, you better not..."

Liang Wang and his two brothers had lost their temper after being harassed by Xia Juhua. They shook their heads and said, "No, no, as long as the Ping'an Village Brigade exchanges it, we will definitely offer the same price."

Xia Juhua smiled and said, "If the grain station raises the price, Ping An Village will not lose you money."

The two of them just listened to this and passed it over. It had been so many years, and when had the price of food ever risen? It wasn't during the drought.

They thought so, but they didn't dare to say it out loud. They also had to thank Xia Juhua for thinking of them. On the way back, they didn't separate in a hurry. After discussing it, they felt that they had to work hard to get Xia Juhua to agree to accept the sweet potatoes from the brigade. If she really only sent 10,000 kilograms, it would be too much of a loss.

They had to send more to justify their wasted saliva. So they agreed to go back and tell their close relatives that those who didn't want to eat sweet potatoes should put their own sweet potatoes together with the team and send them to Ping'an Village.

As for the agreement with Xia Juhua that each brigade would produce 10,000 kilograms, I just said that I remembered it wrong. Each production team had extra grain stored in their granaries, so why not collect them all together?

They didn't want to go back to the brigade and tell anyone about it, because everyone said that all the sweet potatoes from their homes had been sold at the market, which made Liang Wang and the other two very angry - although they were the brigade leaders and did not directly manage the production team's leave approval, but they lived in a production team, so how could they not know anything about who went to the market to visit relatives?

In autumn, every family gets several hundred kilograms of sweet potatoes. That's not just two or three kilograms of beans. No one can tell if they put them in a basket and cover them with a piece of cloth. Don't they know whether they have been transported to the market or not?!

Besides, those who gathered there were all farmers. Who could buy so many sweet potatoes at once?

I won't even tell a lie!

But the people they could talk to were all very close to them, and even though they knew there was something wrong with where those people's sweet potatoes went, the two captains could only get angry in secret - those people were very tight-lipped, and no matter how they tried to get them to explain, they wouldn't tell them where the sweet potatoes went.

They were so mad.

Xia Juhua had already agreed with them that no matter how angry the two team leaders were, they had to gather the sweet potatoes from the various production teams and send them to Ping'an Village. Xia Juhua had already said that if Ping'an Village didn't plan to grow sweet potatoes next year, they would definitely have to exchange with them. If they didn't send them this time, Xia Juhua would not give in even if she had to go to Ping'an Village eight more times next year.

That woman is very stubborn!

They really guessed it right. The reason why Xia Juhua allowed them to transport the sweet potatoes to Ping'anzhuang was to conceal the truth and spread the word: if they wanted to build a vermicelli factory, they naturally had to let others know that Ping'anzhuang Brigade needed sweet potatoes, and they also had to let people know that their sweet potatoes had a history.

As soon as the Advance Brigade and the Victory Brigade delivered the sweet potatoes, several other brigades that heard the news came to Ping'an Village to inquire about the news and expressed that they also wanted to send sweet potatoes over.

Li Changshun was terrified and asked, "Do you really want to collect all their sweet potatoes?"

Xia Juhua felt very at ease. She smiled and said, "We have already accepted people from the Qianjin and Shengli brigades. They are all from the same commune. It would be bad not to accept them."

"But we have so much trouble harvesting these sweet potatoes. I heard that we are still a long way from having enough vermicelli to supply to the grain stations." Li Changshun, who is dedicated to the public, feels that nothing is more important than completing the task of the grain station first.

They are not working for nothing. For every pound of vermicelli, they are paid the equivalent of two pounds of sweet potatoes.

Xia Juhua thought that the vermicelli from the grain station was definitely far behind, as Qi Weidong had taken away almost one-third of the vermicelli from the production teams. However, she didn't dare to say this in front of Li Changshun, so she could only perfunctorily say, "It will be soon, and the grain station said that the vermicelli can be delivered no later than the end of February."

As they were talking, Li Daniu found the team headquarters. When he saw Li Changshun and Xia Juhua were there, he thought he had finally found the organization. He grinned and said, "Captain, you are all here. I want to discuss something with you."

Seeing that both of them were looking at him, Li Daniu started to complain to them. In short, the members of their production team still made their own powder. Although the specifications were unified, the manpower of each household was insufficient. After he went to Pingan Village to see the powder room, he was so tempted that he wanted to build one too.

Before he finished speaking, Team Leader Niu of Team 3 also arrived, and his opinion was similar to Li Daniu's. Li Changshun looked at Xia Juhua, obviously wanting her to make a decision.

Xia Juhua naturally knew that she would not miss this opportunity, so she said directly: "Since all the production teams want to build one, why don't we build a large powder leakage room together and arrange for people to come and leak the powder together."

How big a place would it take to build if all the people in the brigade were to strain the flour together? Several elders looked at Xia Juhua and talked freely: "Let's build it next to the brigade headquarters. There is space and it is not far from several production teams. Then we can order a few more pulping machines from the agricultural machinery station, and then we can get a few large colanders like Ping'an Village, and build a few more drying rooms..."

"Captain, I think it's not appropriate to call it a vermicelli factory after hearing what you said!" Captain Niu's eyes lit up when Xia Juhua said that. As always, he followed her thinking: "If our brigade built a vermicelli factory, the members would go to get off work and leave on time every day, just like the people in the city."

Li Changshun and Li Daniu's eyes lit up. Yes, what Xia Juhua described was clearly a vermicelli factory. Although individuals were not allowed to engage in speculation, it was still allowed and even encouraged for the brigade to engage in collective sideline businesses.

Then why can’t the Ping’anzhuang Brigade build a vermicelli factory?

Li Changshun asked with some intention: "The land in our brigade is all irrigated, it's a pity to grow sweet potatoes."

For the older generation, land that can be used to grow wheat will not be used to grow corn, and land that can be used to grow corn will not be used to grow sweet potatoes. They always hope that the land can produce the greatest value.

Xia Juhua couldn't tell Li Changshun that there would be land dedicated to planting seedlings in the future, as that would make him sad. She only said, "Now all the teams want to exchange sweet potatoes with us. When we have a vermicelli factory in the future, we can directly collect their sweet potatoes. Even if we don't plant them, they will send them to us."

Li Changshun nodded and said nothing. Captain Niu asked: "If the brigade builds a vermicelli factory, can each household still make some vermicelli if they want?"

Xia Juhua glanced at Li Changshun and saw that he had no intention of answering, so she said, "Of course it can be leaked, but if we build a vermicelli factory, we will need a lot of pulping machines, and all the pulping machines of each production team must be put into the vermicelli factory."

"What can Ping'anzhuang do?" Li Daniu didn't think that Xia Juhua would watch the Ping'anzhuang production team suffer losses - Ping'anzhuang itself had six pulping machines, while other production teams had less than half of them.

Xia Juhua smiled and said, "Of course, the shares are calculated based on the investment of each production team."

All of a sudden, several big bosses were silent. Who let them know that their production team's financial resources were not as rich as Ping An Zhuang, and the money they would spend in the future would not be as much as Ping An Zhuang.

However, this matter is too big to be resolved by just a few of them. They also need to call Chen Qiu Sheng and the production team leaders of the fourth and fifth teams, as well as Liu Liqun and Sun Qinglin, the accountants, and other brigade cadres to hold a meeting to study the matter.

No one had any objection to building a vermicelli factory, but who should manage the factory after it was built, how many people in a production team should be involved in the vermicelli leak, whether they should be paid or given work points, etc., were issues that could not be discussed in one day.

While others were discussing the matter, Xia Juhua wrote a letter to Technician Xue. In addition to asking him about dehydration techniques, she also wanted to ask him if there was any good way to make vermicelli into powder without so much effort. Xia Juhua had inexplicable confidence in Technician Xue's ability and always felt that there was no problem he could not solve.

Of course, Xia Juhua was not the type to just order people around, so she sent Technician Xue ten packets of her own simple instant hot and sour rice noodle along with the letter. Technician Xue had left Ping An Village for several years, and he wrote to her saying that he wanted to eat her hot and sour rice noodle. It was fine if she hadn't thought of it before, but now that she had a way, she would let him try it.

After a few days of arguing, the production team leaders and the brigade cadres finally came up with a rough outline for the vermicelli factory: the Pinganzhuang production team contributed one pulping machine (leaving one for the members to use for their own pulping) plus 500 yuan, and the other four production teams contributed two pulping machines plus 200 yuan each, for a total of 13 pulping machines and 1,300 yuan. The brigade used its own savings to buy another seven pulping machines and contributed another 700 yuan, for a total of 20 pulping machines and 2,000 yuan, to set up a vermicelli factory for each team.

As for the future profit distribution, the brigade will take 30%, Ping'an Village will take 20%, and the other four production teams will each take 12%. The remaining 0.05% will be managed by the brigade and used uniformly for primary schools and the five-guarantee households.

Don't think that two thousand yuan is a small amount of money. In this era, there is no other brigade in Pingde County that dares to spend so much money and can spend so much money to engage in side businesses.

As for manpower, each production team will send 50 people to work in the vermicelli factory, and the monthly salary is tentatively set at 20 yuan. Xia Juhua has considered setting the salary at 20 yuan. Although Ping'an Village's work points reached 26 cents last year, other production teams only had work points of 14 or 15 cents.

Besides, this was a team-run factory, and if the wages were higher than those of people in the city, some people would have been interested. But when you calculate it, it is actually not much more than the work points earned by the members of the commune from farming, so this would have saved the trouble of everyone scrambling to get into the factory at the beginning.

But Xia Juhua was confident that when the spring breeze blew, the wages of the vermicelli factory workers would increase rapidly. Moreover, the profits of the vermicelli factory had to be divided among the production teams and brigades, and the profits of the production teams had to be distributed to the members as dividends. However, the members who entered the factory only had to pay half of the food rations and work points, but they could get the same amount of food rations as other members!

All in all, the factory members did not suffer any loss - except for Ping'anzhuang, the other four production teams still had ration points deducted according to 2,000 work points per person per year. How much money is that?

As for the Ping'an Village production team, after they received their share of the profits from the vermicelli factory, they would naturally not mistreat the new members who joined the factory. Xia Juhua had already discussed this with Master Wu and Chen Qiu Sheng.

Moreover, the production of sweet potatoes was limited, and storage was another limitation, which meant that the number of people who could enter the work site could only be from October of the autumn harvest to March of the following year at most. During the remaining six months, they could still join the production team and earn work points.

Since the discussion was done, Accountant Chang wrote a report in an orderly and formal manner, which was three pages long. Xia Juhua once again appeared outside Director Zhang's office with these three pages.

As soon as Director Zhang saw Xia Juhua, he warned her: "The whole county is trying to clear up the poison. Don't cause trouble for me."

Xia Juhua always thought that she was a good comrade who shared the commune's worries and cared about the commune. She really didn't know why Director Zhang had such a big prejudice against her: "Director Zhang, I came to report to you about our brigade's sideline development plan. How can I find trouble for you?"

"You haven't caused me any trouble yet. Let me ask you, you have harvested the sweet potatoes from those brigades, so shouldn't the vermicelli at the grain station have all leaked out? If they haven't leaked out yet, why are you harvesting such old sweet potatoes first?" Director Zhang gave Xia Juhua an unpleasant look. She didn't even cover up when she was harvesting the sweet potatoes from the fields, and someone even came to complain to him.

Xia Juhua did not argue with him, and directly placed the three pages of paper she had in her hand on Director Zhang's desk: "Why haven't we completed the task of the grain station? It's clearly written here. Director, take a look."

After saying that, she turned around and left the room without stopping, which really made Director Zhang very angry. But he still had to read the three pages of paper left by Xia Juhua. As he read them, he could not bear to be angry with Xia Juhua, so he called Director Qi's office.

That's right. With the deepening of the cleansing work, Uncle Qi is no longer the deputy director of the county revolutionary committee, but the director of the revolutionary committee. Director Zhang feels that it is necessary to report this bold idea of ​​​​the Ping'anzhuang Brigade to Director Qi.

When he heard Director Qi's decision to personally visit Ping'an Village for an inspection, he knew that what he had reported was correct, and he happily agreed to wait for Director Qi at the commune the next day to go to Ping'an Village together to catch Xia Juhua off guard.

Seeing the two leaders suddenly appeared, Xia Juhua felt a little embarrassed: Who asked her to fry peanuts in front of her stove at home when she should have been watching other people giving birth?

The two leaders in front of them all knew that Xia Juhua earned the money from frying peanuts herself and it had nothing to do with the Ping'anzhuang Brigade.

So even though Director Zhang had already nodded his approval for her to fry the peanuts, she still felt a little embarrassed.

Uncle Qi is rare