Chapter 181

Like the people of Ping'an Village, who hoped that their lives would get better year by year under the household contract responsibility system, as Xia Juhua remembered, before the autumn harvest of 1980, the famous document on the liberation of the peasants was issued. After being passed down through layers of government, it soon reached the Red Star Commune.

On this day, the Red Star Commune held a meeting of all brigade cadres to specifically convey the policy of contract responsibility system to everyone. The brigade cadres then went back to convey the policy to their respective members and implemented it.

Xia Hongmin sat with Xia Juhua, and while listening, Xia Hongmin asked Xia Juhua in a low voice: "Are you going to divide up the several factories in your brigade or not?" Didn't they say that it was based on the principle of farmers' voluntariness? If the brigade leader was unwilling, could they resist?

Several team leaders who were sitting close to each other all looked at Xia Juhua. In their hearts, the team that they least wanted to split up must be the Ping'anzhuang team. After all, there were three factories there, and the team leader would have to get some benefits no matter what he did. If everyone was contracted to individual households, and everyone did their own thing, then the factory leaders would have the final say. Who would listen to you, the team leader?

Xia Juhua ignored everyone's gazes: "The superior's policy is there, we have to share even if we don't want to. We are just brigade cadres, how can we go against the national policy? It is better to listen to the superiors, the superiors will not harm us."

This is true, but the people's communes have been established for more than 20 years, and suddenly the combined land has been divided up again, allowing individuals to work on their own. The production team and brigade cadres are no longer needed. Isn't that a step backwards? Do we still need collective leadership?

Not only the team leaders were worried. Secretary Zhang, after studying for a few days, was still obsessed with painting. After the meeting of all cadres, he kept Xia Juhua and asked the same questions as Xia Hongmin.

Xia Juhua said one more thing than Xia Hongmin: "If the members want to withdraw the funds, then they can do so. But the instant noodle factory and the hot and sour noodle factory not only sell to the outside world, but also supply the troops. They must not fail."

Secretary Zhang also knew that these three factories could not fail, otherwise the income of Ping An Zhuang members would be greatly reduced: "What if the members insist on withdrawing their investment?"

Xia Juhua had made a plan for the past six months: "The money in the brigade's account should be enough to return the money to everyone who withdraws their investment, plus this year's interest, so it's a bit tight. If it's not enough, I'll ask Xiao Qi if he can invest a little more. We have to keep the two factories going."

Secretary Zhang was moved: "The weaving factory is owned by the Pinganzhuang production team."

Xia Juhua is more confident about this: "Now all the women in Pingan Village who can weave work in the factory. Almost every family makes money from the weaving factory. No one will watch it fall apart."

She not only said this to Secretary Zhang, but also to several key members of Zhao Xianzhi after returning to Ping'an Village: "It can be said that the weaving factory was built by us, and we must not disband it. Go and ask for the opinions of each family. If there are those who do not want to work in the weaving factory, return the money to them when we divide it up in the future."

Xia Juhua dared to say this because she had the confidence from Qi Weidong. She believed that if she agreed to let Qi Weidong invest in the company, the guy would be happy to pay to join.

Zhao Xianzhi slapped the edge of the kang and said, "We must not disband. Not only the weaving factory, but also the entire Pingan Village. Anyway, I have to follow you all the way. If you don't want me, I will stay here today and not leave."

Looking at An Baoling, Zhang Cuiping and others who nodded along with Zhao Xianzhi's words, Xia Juhua felt a little overwhelmed: "The superiors have a policy to contract output to households. How can it be called contract output to households if the land of the production team is not divided? The land has been divided, and you can plant whatever you want and whenever you want. How can you still follow me? Besides, I am almost fifty years old. How many more years can I follow you?"

Chang Xiancao said angrily: "I don't care how many years you can work. Anyway, you sent my daughter to the district. You have to take me forward as long as you are alive."

You are being unreasonable, aren't you? Xia Juhua asked Chang Xiancao helplessly, "Wenlan wants to go to the regional TV station. Do you agree? Besides, you have to call me sister-in-law in terms of age. Why are you comparing me with Wenlan?"

Seeing the excitement, Zhao Xianzhi and the others thought that Chang Xiancao's words were indeed easy to make people think wrongly, and they all laughed. After laughing enough, they said, "That's what we think. If you take us with you, we have to do it. If you don't take us with you, we will rely on you, and you can't just walk away."

Xia Juhua ran to Fifth Master to complain about her grievances, "Look at these people, aren't they just trying to take advantage of me?"

The fifth master was still on the kang, fiddling with his cock leisurely: "It doesn't matter if they are lazy or not, but look at the dozen people in the nursing home. If the production team and the brigade are all disbanded, will there be anyone to take care of them?"

Xia Juhua took a deep breath and wanted to tell Master Wu that although the production team level would be abolished, the brigade would still exist, but it would soon be renamed a village.

But what Fifth Master was worried about was not without reason. Although Pinganzhuang Brigade had two factories to support it, with the arrival of the economic boom, people's attention would be more focused on money. Even his own parents might become empty-nesters, and the elderly in the nursing homes...

Seeing that she had taken his words to heart, the Fifth Master gave her another strong warning: "You said you would celebrate my birthday every year. If the production team is disbanded, will you be able to gather everyone for my birthday? I don't want to just see you. I want everyone to be there for the fun."

That was definitely not possible. Xia Juhua left Wuye's house absentmindedly. When she was walking home, she found a person squatting in front of her yard. When she got closer, she saw that it was Xia Long. She couldn't help asking, "Why are you here? What happened at home?"

When Xia Long saw his elder sister, he stood up and said, "Sister, I want to ask you something."

Although his action scared Xia Juhua, she was still very satisfied with Xia Long's legs and feet at this time - at this time in his previous life, Xia Long's rheumatoid arthritis had become quite serious, and although his legs had not been deformed, he was not as agile as he is now.

I have been very grateful to Technician Lin for helping Xia Juhua plant her private plot with castor seeds every year. Two years ago, when Xia Long started to have joint pain, Xia Juhua dug up castor roots for him to boil in water, and it seemed to be of some use (1).

The two sisters entered the house, and Xia Long directly explained his purpose, which was that Xia Hongmin had already held a meeting with the production team leaders and talked about the household contract responsibility system. He had a good relationship with the production team leaders in recent years, and the production team leaders had specifically told him about it in advance.

Xia Long was unsure when he heard the news, so he wanted to hear his elder sister's opinion: In the past two years, his family has lived a better life than other families. Xia Long and his brothers think that it has a lot to do with Ping'an Village always making bricks in Xiawo Brigade. Mancang and Manwu became masters of brick making because of Xia Juhua.

"You're just asking me, but what do you think in your heart?" Xia Juhua asked back.

Xia Long rubbed his hands and whispered, "I think it's a good thing to have points. Otherwise, whether you do a good job or not, you get the same work points. Who would be willing to work hard? Only the production teams in Ping'an Village like yours can work in the factory if they do a good job in the fields. No one dares to be lazy. The production of our production team is getting worse every year."

"Besides, Mancang and Manwu have already mastered their skills in the past two years. If they were separated, Xia Hu and I would like to build a kiln for them, and we would make bricks and sell them ourselves. The price would be much better than the two dead money those two boys take every day."

"That's why I still have to trouble sister. If the brick kiln is short of coal, sister, you have to help me find a solution." At the end of Xia Long's words, he glanced at the eldest sister with some embarrassment, feeling that his son had already married his daughter-in-law, so he still had to The eldest sister was a little embarrassed to help.

After hearing what he said, Xia Juhua was not angry at all, but felt unusually happy. It turned out that what Xia Long was unsure about was not whether the land could be divided, but whether he could open his own brick kiln.

She immediately gave her brother some advice: "It would be good to build a brick kiln by yourself, but the brigade already has one, so you might as well step forward and contract it when the land is divided. In any case, apart from the three of you, Uncle San, no one else in the brigade knows how to make a kiln, so we shouldn't compete with you. If you build a new one by yourself, and the brigade lets someone else take over, and then they hire someone from outside to make bricks, they will have to compete with you, which is not a good deal."

Xia Long smiled when he heard this: "It would be great if we could contract the current brick kiln, but I don't know how much the brigade would charge for it."

It depends on whether Xia Hongmin has a long-term vision. If he only looks at the present, he can contract it for one or two hundred yuan a year. If he looks a little further, Xiakuo Brigade will have to export thousands of yuan.

However, Xia Juhua habitually put herself in the shoes of the Ping'anzhuang Brigade. She felt that she would rather Xia Hongmin had a longer-term vision and did not want her brother to suffer too much, so she told Xia Long that if he could get the contract, he should sign a contract for as long as possible, the longer the better.

Since the Xiawo Brigade had already held a production team cadre meeting, the Ping'anzhuang Brigade could not lag too far behind. The next morning, Xia Juhua called the five production team leaders, Liu Liqun, and Li Changshun to the brigade headquarters through a loud speaker to convey the spirit of the commune meeting yesterday.

The person who reacted most strongly was Li Changshun: "Did the superiors make a mistake? The elders led the people in the revolution to achieve common production and common prosperity. How can they be separated now? Has everyone worked in vain over the past few decades?"

Of course, it is impossible to dry the white wine in white. As far as Xia Juhua knows, some large-scale water conservancy facilities were built on the basis of these years. Industrial bases, the Third Front construction, and large-scale mineral deposits also played a role in collective construction.

But these are far from enough. The experience of the previous life has proved that the household contract responsibility system, which is being carried out throughout the country, is the only way for to fully solve the problem of food and clothing. There is no common prosperity, and the gap between the rich and the poor may even widen everyone, but it is an indisputable fact that the number of people who are hungry has become a very small number.

But she couldn't tell Li Changshun about this, lest he think his perception was correct. So she had to say, "Captain, we have been producing together since the establishment of the people's commune, but have we really achieved common prosperity?"

Li Changshun was extremely unconvinced: "Isn't our Pingan Village considered to be a place of common prosperity?"

Xia Juhua told him the truth directly: "But what about other brigades in Red Star Commune? Not only in Red Star Commune, but in the entire Pingde County and even Chengping District, how many brigades can be the same as ours? So we have to support the policies of our superiors, and the cadres have to take the lead."

Chen Qiu Sheng knew the attitude of the women of the Ping'anzhuang production team yesterday. He understood that once those women's troops took action, Xia Juhua would have no chance of getting rid of the Ping'anzhuang production team, so he was not as anxious as others.

The other production teams couldn't sit still. Li Daniu asked: "If we all go it alone in the future, how will we divide the land and the partnership? And how will we divide the tractors and two factories of the team?"

He first mentioned the two factories, and the eyes of several production team leaders lit up. However, Li Changshun was so angry that he slammed the table and said, "I have burned you hard, and you still want to divide the two factories. Can the factories be divided? How much money can you get from the crops you are counting on in the fields? You haven't earned enough food from the land, right?"

After being yelled at and scolded by him, several people looked embarrassed. Li Changshun turned around and asked Xia Juhua: "What are your plans?"

Without thinking, Xia Juhua said, "I agree with the team leader. Our two factories must not be divided. I think we can do this. When we built the vermicelli factory, each production team and the team contributed money to calculate the shares. Each production team will calculate how many shares they have and how many people they have in their production team. At the end of each year, they will receive dividends based on their shares. This will also give members more protection."

"What about the brigade's shares?" Sun Qinglin was very concerned about the brigade's shares. Even though Li Changshun had a gloomy face, he still asked.

Xia Juhua looked at him seriously and said, "The brigade will definitely not be abolished. If it does not have some funds, it will not be able to provide relief to needy households, five-guarantee households, and military families. So my opinion is that the brigade's stock dividends should still be controlled by the brigade."

Sun Qinglin could not raise any objections if the argument was well-reasoned. Chen Qiusheng and Captain Niu would definitely stand on Xia Juhua's side. Li Changshun and Liu Liqun were both retired veterans, so they naturally hoped that military families could be taken care of. They would not object either. Even the captain of the fourth team felt that if the brigade paid for the care of the five-guarantee households in his production team, it would not be too embarrassing for him as a production team leader, so he also expressed his support.

Li Changshun snorted heavily, and looked at the people in the room with the same eyes as a wolf cub: "The brigade cannot be without any money, so this matter is settled."

Once the vermicelli factory was decided, how the instant noodle factory would distribute its profits was also decided: initially, members of the instant noodle factory raised 18 percent of the funds, Qi Weidong (including Xia Juhua) invested 10 percent, and the remaining 72 percent was contributed by the brigade.

Xia Juhua suggested that the brigade continue to hold 12% of the shares, and the remaining 60% would be held by each production team. How to calculate it among the members was up to each production team.

"We will explain this share distribution plan clearly to the members at the general membership meeting in the future. After returning, each production team must fairly calculate the share for each member and divide it equally on a headcount basis." Xia Juhua simply said the ugly words up front: "If you find that someone secretly gives you more shares, don't blame the team for not speaking up for you when the members block your door and curse you."

Li Changshun looked at the production team leaders like a vicious wolf, with his focus on Sun Qinglin and Li Daniu. Li Daniu was so angry that he muttered, "It's not like the members of each production team don't move around. Everyone has the same shares. If you ask around, you can find out everything, right?"

Li Changshun said directly: "Each company raises different amounts of money, so how can the shares be the same? I am afraid that someone will think they are smart and take advantage of the opportunity to mix the raised shares with the distributed shares to gain benefits for themselves."

Xia Juhua let Li Changshun show off his power, and in her heart she was grateful to him for saying what she hadn't had time to say yet, blocking some people's thoughts. Sun Qinglin probably thought that everyone would work alone in the future, so he didn't need to be polite and directly questioned Xia Juhua: "Then the team leader is now running the vermicelli factory and the instant noodle factory, and they are both paid. Will they continue to operate in the future?"

Xia Juhua glanced at him again, with a hint of sneer on her lips: "Open, why not?"

Sun Qinglin stood up and said, "Whether it's the vermicelli factory or the instant noodle factory, there are factory managers. You, the team leader, don't participate in management much, so why are you still paying salaries to both factories? If the team leaders are paid by both factories, then won't our year-end dividends be less?"

Xia Juhua didn't even raise her eyelids and asked him directly: "What brand is the hot and sour rice noodle? What brand is the instant noodle? Do you need me to tell you? Anyway, everyone wants to go it alone now. You say it's not difficult for me to build two more factories? When I say the brands of the two factories are fake, do you think people will believe me or those two factories?"

The hot and sour rice noodle is called Xia Xiaohuo brand, and the instant noodles are also called Xia Xiaohuo brand. After Xia Juhua said this, Sun Qinglin's face turned pale.

Chen Qiusheng smiled and said, "Captain, I am the director of the vermicelli factory. Even after the share division, I still have the final say in the vermicelli factory. I know that if it weren't for your external connections over the years, the raw materials of the vermicelli factory would not be so sufficient, the cold storage could not be built, and the production line could not be put into operation immediately."

He looked at Sun Qinglin with disdain and said, "I think it's unfair to offer you the same salary as me now. After the shares are settled, our vermicelli factory will have to re-set the salary and include the share of your name as a brand."

Sun Qinglin sat down without saying a word. The fourth team leader sighed as he looked at him. He did not come forward to smooth things over for him as he did in the past. Without Xia Juhua, there would be no two factories. What's the point of dividing the profits now? He thinks it's his duty to get benefits from others, and he even complains that they get too much. No matter how close the fourth and fifth teams are, they can't lie with their eyes open.

Although Sun Qinglin's two questions took some time to solve, the brigade and production team cadres followed the principle of the minority obeying the majority and finally reached a consensus: the accounting of each production team should calculate the distribution shares first, and the regular accountant should review it. After the land was re-measured, it was classified into good, medium and poor, and distributed to each member in proportion.

However, Li Changshun suddenly thought, does the unborn child in his mother's belly count as a family member? Should he participate in the distribution? Xia Juhua herself was not sure, so she called Secretary Zhang's office in front of everyone.

Secretary Zhang's answer was very affirmative, that is, from the day the policy was issued, that is, before the day when the commune held a meeting, all those born would participate in the distribution. Sorry, those born after that day could not participate.

Fortunately, there were no newborns in the production teams these days, which reduced the workload a little. The production team leaders all returned to the production teams to prepare.

The Pingan Village production team only measured the total area, and re-determined the dividing point with the third team and the small village head, and there was no further action. Chen Qiu Sheng took Hong Ling and the other two with him every day to calculate how many shares the members should get from the two factories.

Although Hong Cui worked with Chen Qiu Sheng and Hong Ling every day, she only counted the shares of the weaving group. Chen Qiu Sheng made it very clear: Xia Juhua herself would own 10%, and the remaining 90% would be divided among all the members of the production team.

Hong Cui asked: "Do the people in the nursing home count?"

"Just count it as Seventh Grandma and Uncle Dong's." Chen Qiu Sheng felt that Ping An Zhuang could take care of the remaining eight elderly people, but he would not agree if they were really allowed to own shares in the Ping An Zhuang production team.

Xia Juhua didn't say anything. Anyway, the brigade still had income every year, so she didn't worry about the lack of support for the elderly. "Let Sister Hongling do the calculations on the distribution of shares. You still have to worry about the land distribution."

Chen Qiusheng smiled harmlessly: "There is no rush to divide the land. It is almost time to harvest the sweet potatoes. The members all want to do it together again."

This feeling was similar to everyone suddenly digging a ditch together, so Xia Juhua stopped urging him and instead worked with Li Changshun every day to deal with endless lawsuits for each production team:

When it comes to land distribution, the method of distribution will probably not change for fifteen years. There are always some small disputes among the members of the originally harmonious production teams, and between the members and the production team cadres: why did you get an extra ridge when you were allocated the land, why do I have an extra piece of medium-sized land than others, why is the team cadre's land close to the village, but my land is far away and I have to ride a bicycle?

Even the usually quiet Team 3 called Xia Juhua over to discuss how to divide the tractor. Xia Juhua was amused by Captain Niu: "Captain Niu, the tractor driven by Niu Weiguo belongs to the brigade. You can't think that it has become the property of Team 3 just because he drives the tractor back to Team 3 every day. If it's not Team 3's property, what are you dividing?"

Captain Niu's face flushed. "I've told them this, but they just won't listen. What can I do? You have great prestige, and they believe everything you say. Tell them again, again, or there will be more quarrels."

What can Xia Juhua do? Tell me. Indeed, as Captain Niu said, once Xia Juhua told the members, everyone understood. They no longer divided the tractors, but surrounded Xia Juhua and refused to let her leave. They asked the people who used to work in the factory whether they could continue to work in the future.

Hearing that they could still go to work, everyone asked whether the factory was still hiring. If it wasn’t hiring, wouldn’t those families who didn’t have anyone working in the factory be at a loss?

The problem does exist, but Xia Juhua cannot give in now and directly recruit people from those families to work in the factory. She can only promise that when the factory recruits people in the future, it will give priority to families that don't have a single person working in the factory: "But I have to say this in advance, priority is not set in stone, whoever fails the selection will definitely not be able to enter the factory!"

The selection process at both factories was not very strict, and most people could still pass, so everyone made a waiver and let Xia Juhua leave. Captain Niu, who was waiting outside, smiled at Xia Juhua and said, "Just wait until the land is divided. I won't bother you anymore."

Although the words were spoken openly, Xia Juhua could still hear the disappointment in his tone. After thinking for a moment, she said to Captain Niu, "If you want to work in the factory, there will always be a place for you."

Captain Niu shook his head and said, "My two sons and one daughter are all in the factory now. If I go in, the factory will no longer belong to us."

Xia Juhua laughed and said, "Old Cow, this is not the time to show off."