Chapter 42: Fighting Heaven and Earth to Repair the Riverbank 1
Don't go out on the 19th and 29th days; go out on the 39th and 49th days; the crops will be scattered in the 59th and 60th days; the poplars will bloom on the 79th day; the swallows will arrive on the 89th day; and the 99th plus the 19th day will see oxen walking everywhere. Plant melons and beans around the time of Grain Rain—this is a proverb that has been passed down in the Pingxi Production Brigade for many years.
A year's plan starts with spring. Spring plowing has begun and everyone is busy. You reap what you sow.
As the leader of the production brigade, Chen Youfu must lead his subordinates to plan the production plan and tasks for the next year, assign work to each member, communicate well with each member, and ensure that the members actively come to work on time.
Just then, the commune received another task. The National Meteorological Bureau had issued a forecast for this year's floods and recalculated the river flow in Dagu Commune's area. They predicted heavy rainfall this summer, creating significant pressure to drain the river. Consequently, the district government issued instructions to rebuild the riverbanks. The district then assigned this task to the commune, which in turn distributed it to the various production brigades.
The task of the Pingxi Production Brigade was naturally to build the section of the river embankment outside the production brigade, which was close to the mountain. This was not a small workload, because the members had to do spring plowing and also devote themselves to the construction of the river embankment. For a while, everyone was very busy.
Then various slogans were heard loudly, such as fighting against heaven and earth to transform the rivers and mountains. The adobe houses on the streets, which were eroded by time and became mottled, were painted with a long strip of white lime, and on the lime were painted big red eye-catching characters: "Fight against heaven and earth to repair the river embankment, work hard and make contributions to the country."
The Gu family is now very busy. They have to spare some people to do spring plowing to complete the tasks assigned by the production team and earn work points. They also have to respond to the call of repairing the river embankment. Each family must provide a few strong laborers and take care of their own private plots. After all, what is produced in their own private plots belongs to them.
In this hustle and bustle, Fubao and Gu Shengtian and other children could only try their best to help with more housework, such as sweeping the floor and washing clothes. In addition, they also cut more grass for the pigs, chopped the grass into pieces, and fed it to the pigs with rice bran and rice washing water.
On this day, Fubao and Gu Shengtian carried the pig basin to the pigpen behind the house to feed the pigs. Unexpectedly, as soon as they reached the backyard, they saw a figure flash past the pigpen and disappeared in a blink of an eye.
Fubao wondered, "Brother Shengtian, did someone just run over there?"
Gu Shengtian scratched his head: "It seems so, I didn't see it clearly!"
He doesn't look tall, like a child.
Fubao: "Strange, who comes here to play?"
This area is full of backyards of each family, and there is a large area of private plots connected to each other. However, because it is working time, everyone is busy working in the production team. Only after work can they take care of their own private plots, so there are not many people here.
If there were people, it would be the children coming here to play. But since they had a pig at home, even if Fubao and Gu Shengtian cleaned the pigpen diligently, it was still a pigpen and it smelled bad. Which child would come here to play?
She frowned and looked at it in confusion: "Could it be that they stole our pigs?"
Gu Shengtian thought for a moment and said, "That's not the case. No one here has ever stolen anything. Besides, it's such a big pig. Where could they hide it if they stole it?"
Fubao thought about it and felt that what Gu Shengtian said made sense. Every pig in the production team's pigpen had a mark, except for the pigs in the production team and the nine piglets caught by the members.
Everyone knows who has pigs and who doesn't. If someone suddenly steals a pig to raise, they will definitely be discovered. If someone from another village comes to steal it, they will definitely be discovered if they hear a pig squealing. Thieves will not be so bold.
Fubao felt relieved immediately, and he and Gu Shengtian poured the pig food to the pigs. They both laughed as they watched the pigs wag their tails, grunt, and stick their noses up to eat the pig food.
After feeding the pigs and returning home, Miao Xiuju called out to them, "You two go take food to the people working in the fields. They're so busy with spring plowing right now, they probably won't have time to come back."
Fubao and Gu Shengtian hurried over and saw that Miao Xiujiu had prepared two copies, one for Gu Weidong and others who were repairing the river embankment, and one for Shen Hongying and others who were working in the fields.
Fubao was carrying the food that was to be delivered to Gu Weidong. It consisted of six steamed buns wrapped in a basket of cloth, plus three pickled vegetables.
There were three Gu family members working on the embankment this time: Gu Weimin, Gu Weijun, and Gu Weidong. When Fubao went over, he saw a group of them busy. This wasn't the best time to build a embankment. It was just the beginning of spring, and the soil, frozen all winter, was still quite hard. In some places, the ground was so hard they had to use pickaxes to dig at the frozen ground. Conditions in the countryside weren't good either. Without enough carts, oxcarts, or livestock, the work had to rely on manpower, with everyone carrying heavy baskets of dirt back and forth.
This kind of work is very physically demanding and much more tiring than ordinary farm work, so Miao Xiujiu specially prepared two steamed buns for each person.
When Fubao walked over, he happened to meet Chen Yougen. The old bachelor Chen Yougen was shirtless, with sweat running down his shoulders. He saw Fubao, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the towel on his shoulders, and said with a smile: "Fubao, take some food to your father. Your father is working over there!"
As he spoke, he pointed.
Fubao looked over and saw his father. He quickly smiled and thanked Chen Yougen and ran over.
As she was running, she saw a young man next to her swinging a heavy pickaxe high in the air. The pickaxe hit the frozen soil hard, loosening it. He raised his arm and hit it hard again.
Fubao saw him and called out softly, "Brother Dingkun."
The young man was Xiao Dingkun.
When he heard the shout, he dropped the pickaxe steadily on the ground and turned around.
"Fubao, why are you here?" He asked with raised eyebrows while wiping the sweat off his face.
"I'm bringing food to my father and my second and third uncles." Fubao showed him the cloth bag in his hand and couldn't help asking, "Brother Dingkun, have you eaten yet?"
When Xiao Dingkun saw her ask this, he picked up the backpack next to him and said, "I'm about to eat. Fubao, come here."
Fubao walked over.
Xiao Dingkun took out a biscuit from his backpack: "This is for you."
Fubao looked at the biscuit. It was a round biscuit, shaped like the moon, bright yellow, with black sesame seeds scattered on it, and it smelled sweet.
Fubao shook his head: "I don't want to eat."
Xiao Dingkun: "Here, this is delicious."
Fubao still shook his head and backed away.
Xiao Dingkun saw Fubao secretly swallowing his saliva: "Why don't you eat it? Don't you like it? This is delicious."
Recently he had been keeping an eye on the peaches, which had ripened one after another. He picked them all and gave them to Fubao, who ate them all with relish.
Fubao waved his hand: "You are working and too tired. You eat, I won't."
After saying that, he turned and ran away.
Xiao Dingkun wanted to call her, but at that moment someone happened to pass by carrying soil, so he had to give up.
Of course Fubao felt embarrassed to eat Xiao Dingkun's biscuits. He consumed a lot of physical energy at work and should eat something good.
But as she ran frantically to find her father, she couldn't help but think of the cookie. She didn't know what it tasted like, but it must be delicious.
After finding Gu Weidong and his friends, they quickly gave them the food. Gu Weidong and his friends were extremely hungry and did not even have time to wash their hands. They ate the steamed buns with pickles in big mouthfuls.
Fubao was still waiting to take the cage cloth back to wash, so she found a piece of ground next to her father and sat down to wait for them to finish eating.
Who knew that while we were eating, we heard a commotion and a fierce quarrel coming from the other side of the embankment, and it looked like a fight was about to break out.
Gu Weidong and his companions had just finished swallowing their steamed bread when they heard the sound and suddenly jumped up. "Are they coming again?!"
Fubao was immediately puzzled.
Who is coming?
Gu Weimin and Gu Weijun had already grabbed the iron shovel, hammer and other tools. Gu Weidong frowned and shouted at Fubao in a deep voice: "Fubao, go home first, come back quickly!"
After saying that, he carried his belongings and followed Gu Weimin and the others.
Gu Weidong rarely yelled at Fubao like that. When she first heard that, Fubao was also frightened. However, when she saw that except for her uncle and father, all the other men in the production team also ran over, she knew in her heart that something might happen.
I wanted to run away, but I was really worried about my father. There was a fight on the dike. If my mother and grandmother at home heard the news, wouldn’t they be worried to death if they didn’t know what happened?
Fubao thought about it and decided not to run away. He hid behind a small hill and looked over there.
I saw that they were pushing and shoving and were about to fight. Both sides were arguing loudly, with veins exposed on both sides, and their necks were stiff and they were yelling. They were arguing very fiercely and staring at each other.
After listening for a while, Fubao finally understood what was going on.
It turned out that the task of repairing the dam was very arduous, and each production team was under great pressure. What was most needed in this work of repairing the dam was manpower and soil.
We need strong laborers to work, and we also need to dig soil from other places to build the dam. There is nothing wrong with the strong laborers using their own resources, but the soil is a problem, and we need to find a way to solve it.
Normally, people may not think of soil as a good thing, but when it comes to building houses or repairing dams, every cubic meter of soil can be of great use.
The Taitou Production Brigade was next to the Pingxi Production Brigade. There was a large earthen slope at the border of the two production brigades. Both sides believed that it belonged to their own production brigade and wanted to dig the soil there.
So everyone was unhappy. You say it's yours, I say it's mine. We had a lot of arguments about this and almost got into a fight a few days ago.
But today, there was a sudden quarrel again. Two members went over to dig soil, and one's iron shovel happened to hit the other's soil basket and broke it. Now all the new and old grudges were aroused, and the two sides started fighting.
Members from all sides naturally did not want to suffer any loss, and were even more angry at the other side's excessive bullying, so they started arguing with each other.
When Gu Weidong and his companions rushed over, both sides had already started pushing and shoving each other, and one of them pushed a member of the Pingxi Production Brigade to the ground.
Gu Weidong took a look and found that this member happened to be a relative of the Gu family, named Gu Decai. In terms of seniority, he was Gu Weidong's uncle, and Gu Weidong had a very good relationship with him.
Gu Weidong was furious, holding a shovel and shouting, "You are going too far!"
The others were also furious: "Beat him, fucking beat him! Beat him to death!"
Both sides were hard-working men who came to work. They were both exhausted by the work, and the scorching sun made them irritable. They started fighting as soon as they disagreed.
When Fubao saw the situation, he knew it was not good. There were so many people, and they were holding weapons that could take lives. If a fight really broke out, what would happen?
But she was small, and she was stamping her feet anxiously, not knowing what to do, and her eyes turned red with anxiety.
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