Xia Qingqing took two buckets of perfectly warm water from the yard and took a bath. After returning to her room, she comfortably lay on the bed and watched a variety show, with a cup of ice-cold fruit tea next to her.
Zhang Hongyan and the others didn't return until it was getting dark.
Xia Qingqing quickly put the tablet into the system warehouse, opened the door and came out of the room: "Mom, what did the captain say in the meeting? Why did you take so long?"
Gou Dan raised his hand enthusiastically: "I know, I know, the brigade leader said that we're going to implement that family... oh right, the household contract responsibility system."
"The household contract responsibility system?" Xia Qingqing repeated in surprise, and after thinking about it carefully, it seemed that this policy was indeed implemented at that time.
"Yes, it means dividing the land among each family, according to the number of people. Every newborn child can get a share, but those still in the womb can't," Gou Dan pretended to know a lot and tried his best to convey the contents of the meeting to Xia Qingqing.
Then Gou Dan sighed again: "I heard Da Niu's mother say that our family can't get a share of the land because our household registration has been moved to Beijing."
He had just seen everyone's great joy at the prospect of receiving land, and he thought that receiving land must be a good thing, but unfortunately they wouldn't get any.
Xia Qingqing smiled and comforted him, "It's okay, we're going back to Beijing soon, so even if we're given land, we won't be able to farm it."
"Oh right, I almost forgot we have to go back to Beijing," Gou Dan said awkwardly, scratching his head.
Xia Heping remarked with emotion, "We didn't have the good times before. I think this household contract responsibility system is quite good; it's better than everyone having to work together before."
In the past, although work was calculated in work points, it was sometimes difficult to accurately measure the quality and quantity of work. Sometimes, work points were assigned based on the type of work.
Moreover, the distribution of grain was not entirely based on work points, but rather on a 50/50 split between population and work points.
This greatly benefits lazy people. Since they won't starve no matter how much or how little they work, why should they work so hard?
Some particularly capable people think that since the highest work points are only 10, they can just finish the work for those 10 work points and that doing more would be a waste of time.
This egalitarianism greatly reduces everyone's enthusiasm for production, while using the family as the economic unit can overcome the egalitarianism where everyone gets the same regardless of how much they work.
Hearing this, Zhang Hongyan smiled and shook her head: "Whether they are strong or not is none of our business. There will be more trouble about dividing the land tomorrow, so let's not go and join in the fun."
“Okay, I won’t go tomorrow,” Xia Heping nodded in agreement.
Although the distribution of land and the distribution of meat during the New Year are somewhat similar, they are ultimately different.
Meat is important to farmers, but it's just a matter of eating one more bite or one less bite.
But farmland is the lifeblood of farmers. The whole family depends on the farmland for their livelihood. How could those families who were allocated land with poor soil and in remote locations be content with that?
The next day, several village officials worked from morning till night, leading people to measure and divide the fields one by one, and even put up boundary markers.
There were many more people at the threshing ground in the evening than yesterday. Yesterday, people didn't know what was going on, and many families only sent a representative.
When we found out today that the land was going to be divided, of course the whole family came out to help.
The threshing ground was suddenly packed with people; as far as the eye could see, it was a sea of black heads.
The team leader first explained the rules, and then each household sent a representative to the stage to draw lots.
The lucky draw lasted for more than an hour, and ended up turning into a fight.
Several families were unlucky and drew some of the worst plots of land. One of these families had a wife who was known as a shrew in the village, and she immediately became unhappy.
With his hands on his hips, he shouted in the threshing ground, "Why do you village officials always get the good fields, while my family got the worst ones? You must have cheated us! I don't agree to this, the fields must be redistributed!"
She started rolling around on the ground, crying and wailing, acting like a spoiled brat.
I have to cry. We both work hard to farm, but a mu of good soil can yield 500 jin of grain, while a mu of bad soil might only yield 300 jin. Why is that?
The village officials certainly couldn't be wronged for nothing. The brigade leader said with a dark face, "Everyone agreed to the lottery. Who are you trying to fool? You can't blame anyone else for your bad luck."
"You guys must have done this! It's not fair! I don't agree! It has to be redistributed! Otherwise, I'll go to the county and report you!" The man showed no respect to the brigade leader and scratched three cuts on his face.
When the captain's wife saw her husband being beaten, her face changed instantly, and she rolled up her sleeves and started fighting back.
The other unfortunate families also started to have their own agendas. They began to protest and demand a redistribution, threatening to report the village officials to the county authorities for abusing their power for personal gain if things didn't go smoothly.
Things have escalated to this point, so we certainly can't just let it go like this.
Finally, the brigade leader convened another meeting with the village cadres and redivided the land into first-class, second-class, and third-class plots, with each household drawing lots to determine which plots were good and which were bad.
In this way, each household can draw a good plot of land as well as a bad one.
Of course, this method is not without its drawbacks. The initial allocation method was to make it easier for large families to work together, but now that the land has been divided into different levels, it is no longer possible to keep the land connected, which makes the work much more complicated.
But even if it's a bit more troublesome, at least it seems fairer.
This land survey and boundary marker installation took another two or three days.
After finally getting the second round of good land allocation, those families who had drawn good land the first time started making trouble again.
Originally, everyone was allocated good land, but now it's split evenly between good and bad. No one would be happy about that.
This time, the brigade leader was no longer going to tolerate them. He declared that if anyone dared to cause trouble, he would directly apply to the higher-ups to allow the Shihe Brigade to stop distributing land and continue with the original collective model.
After those words were spoken, no one dared to cause any more trouble.
Lan Meili frowned as she applied medicine to the wound on the man's face: "I think you're really doing a thankless job as the brigade leader. You haven't gotten any benefits and you've even been wronged. You might as well resign."
Anyway, my husband is over fifty years old, it's time for him to take a good rest.
Being a brigade leader sounds impressive, but how many people know the hardships involved?
"Ouch, honey, go easy on me!" Zhang Yougen cried out in pain and stumbled backward.
“The people in our brigade are pretty good, only a few are unreasonable. As long as I can still do this job, I will continue to do it,” Zhang Yougen said firmly.
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