Chapter 188
Previously, Jiang Ning was admitted to Peking University in advance. Various interviews were broadcasted in turn, letting the girls in Wujiang City know one thing, that is, girls do not lack stamina when they reach high school. Girls can also work faster and harder than boys. This incident is like a shot of adrenaline for the girls who have been brainwashed that "girls' grades will not be good when they reach high school". It gave them a direction to work hard. Whenever they are tired and think that they may not be able to do it, they look at Jiang Ning's photo in the newspaper. Looking at Jiang Ning, they seem to have the strength and confidence to continue.
Even though Jiang Ning's admission to Peking University had made the Linhe Brigade, or rather, the people of Jiangjia Village, pay more attention to girls' education and schooling, the impact on the entire Wucheng was still small. However, at this moment, what she influenced was the change in the views of everyone in Wucheng on girls' education and the importance they attached to it.
Because those who came here today to register and count the number of disaster victims are all township heads, town mayors, brigade secretaries and village heads. They are the ones who can truly decide the fate of the girls in a town, a township, a brigade and a village. If the village head attaches importance to girls' education, the brigade secretary attaches importance to girls' education, the township heads and town heads attach importance to girls' education, then it will be truly implemented in thousands of households and change the fate of girls' education in a village, instead of a unified policy that after finishing primary school or middle school, they go out to work in factories and the greatest vision of their life is to work in a factory.
Although with the popularization of nine-year compulsory education, more and more families let their daughters go to school, there are still only a few who can actually go to high school or even high school, and these are all families who love their daughters very much.
If we want them to pay attention to girls' education and let them go to high school and college, in addition to changes in concepts, there must be enough benefits to make them see the benefits. The appearance of Jiang Ning has dispelled the idea that "girls' education is useless" and "girls study for other people's families". They have seen that it is not useless for girls to study, and girls can also bring honor to the family.
Look at Jiang Ning from Linhe Brigade. Who knew about Linhe Brigade in the past? Who doesn’t know Linhe Brigade now? Who doesn’t know that there was a person named Jiang Ning in Linhe Brigade? As a result, the prestige of the entire Jiangjia Village in the surrounding area skyrocketed.
Jiang Hongjun and his two brothers had followed their father since they were young, building houses for people in the surrounding villages. They had traveled all over Wucheng, even those who lived far away. This month they built a house in this town, and next month they went to another town to build a house. So when it comes to understanding the towns and villages around Wucheng, there are really not many people who know it better than these three brothers.
The three brothers are smart and active, and they are aware of the statistical data submitted by various villages and towns. Especially since this is their sister's money, they will never let anyone take advantage of her. They are all very serious and responsible. With the participation of the three of them, Mayor Jiang will be able to free up his hands to do other things.
Seeing that Mayor Jiang finally had some time to spare, Village Chief Jiang also came forward to ask him, "Guoding, were those supplies really donated by Ningning?"
He was referring to the large cargo ships.
Mayor Jiang nodded and said, "It was donated by Ningning. Half of it was donated by Ningning personally, and the other half was donated by the society."
Even though he had heard about it before, Village Chief Jiang still took a breath and said, "How much does this cost? Where did Ningning get the money?"
Mayor Jiang rubbed his face vigorously, then put his hand on his hair and rubbed it vigorously and said, "Where else can the money come from? Her scholarship..."
Before he finished speaking, Village Chief Jiang sighed and said, "She has so much scholarship?"
Mayor Jiang had never seen a student who had studied to Jiang Ning's level in all these years. Hearing this, he said, "I heard that she is..." Thinking of the stock market, Mayor Jiang was afraid that if this matter was spread out, it would give others the impression that making money in the stock market was as easy as picking up something, and they would all invest their money in the stock market, so he did not continue to say, "In short, it is legitimate money. You won't understand even if I tell you, so don't worry about it. Count it, take the supplies back, and make sure to distribute them to every disaster-stricken person. After our team has distributed them, we will count some people who are idle at home and can still work, and distribute the disaster relief supplies to other places. Tell them to keep an eye on it and don't let anyone embezzle the supplies."
Village Chief Jiang nodded repeatedly.
Regarding the fact that Jiang Ning made money in the stock market while other stock investors lost everything and jumped off buildings, Mayor Jiang’s personal opinion was that smart people could make money anywhere, but most people in their village were ordinary people and could not enter the stock market to trade stocks.
After registering the names of the disaster victims from each brigade, the county government arranged people to transport supplies according to the number of people.
By the time all this was done, it was already night, and it was very dangerous as boats could not sail on the river at night.
Jiang Ning brought more than fifty volunteers this time. Linhe Brigade sent three boats with a total of twenty-five people, including the three brothers of the Jiang family from Jiangjia Village, the village chief, the accountant, ten capable people from other villages, and ten people from Xujia Village. Mayor Jiang called these people and asked them if they were willing to go with other boats to other places for disaster relief, mainly to supervise the supplies to prevent them from being embezzled.
When the people in Xujia Village heard that they were going to be supervisors, they rubbed their hands excitedly.
They have always been bandits who rob others and have never done anything to supervise others. Of course they want to do something so conspicuous.
Mayor Jiang also knew the character of the people in Xujia Village. He knew that people from Jiangjia Village should be paired with those from Xujia Village. They should not be sent out individually. Otherwise, the people from Xujia Village would embezzle the money and that would be a joke.
The more than 50 volunteers brought back by Jiang Ning, as well as the cadres and police sent by the county government, were divided into small teams. They followed the ships transporting supplies early the next morning. Jiang Ning did not follow the ship to the Linhe Brigade, but went to the next brigade.
The next brigade is located in the middle of Shahe River. Half of the brigade village is built on the mountain, just like Jiangjia Village, and the other half is on the other side of the river bank, built along the river. Generations have made a living from the river. Grandma Jiang’s maiden home is in this brigade, which is also one of the worst-hit areas nearby.
In Jiangjia Village, only the fields were flooded, resulting in a total crop failure this year. However, in this brigade, all the houses were flooded. When Jiang Ning went there, many villagers were standing on the roofs of their houses crying. Some of the rice and grain in their homes had also been moved to the roofs, waiting for rescue.
When they heard that the relief team was coming to distribute food, clothing and other supplies, the victims, who were standing on the roofs of their homes in the midst of the vast ocean, burst into tears and shouted, "Avalokitesvara, the living Bodhisattva, saves the suffering!"
The villages of this brigade are all built along the water. Although the houses were flooded, fortunately, there were no casualties, because everyone in the village, from the old men and women in their seventies and eighties to the children of four or five years old, can swim. People here have been following their parents and elders to catch fish and shrimps since they were born, and they are very familiar with various water skills. Moreover, every household has either a small boat or a water chestnut basin. The food and other items in the house have long been pulled to the mountain built on the hillside with water chestnut basins or small boats. However, the heavy rain was continuous. Those who had relatives in the village above could stay at their own homes. Those who had no relatives could only find caves in the mountains or temporarily build a small shack with rain cloth. Several people in a family would stay in this shack of several square meters. It was raining heavily outside and it was also damp inside.
It would be fine if you weren't sick, but if you are sick, it would be like adding insult to injury.
Fortunately, it is almost June and the weather is getting warmer and not so cold. As long as there is food, it is not so hard to endure.
What made them worried was that all their harvest this year was gone, and they also lost their houses. Compared with Linhe Brigade, this brigade was poorer. Unlike many families in Linhe Brigade who had built buildings, many families here still had brick-and-mud structures like Jiang Ning's old house, with bricks and stones underneath and mud bricks on top. Such mud bricks would basically be destroyed once they were soaked in the flood.
What made them even more desperate was that the lotus roots, from which they made money every year, were all flooded.
It is said that if you live by the mountain, you can eat from the mountain; if you live by the water, you can eat from the water. They are typical examples of people who live by the water. Almost all their ways of making money come from the water. Shahe River is contracted out to someone else, so they can't go fishing, so they can only grow lotus roots and make money by selling lotus roots and lotus pods every year.
After planting lotus roots, there is no need to replant them every year. If you dig them this year, they will continue to grow next year.
But the lotus roots that have been flooded are different. Once the lotus roots are drowned, all the seeds below will be drowned as well. They either have to replant the lotus roots next year, or wait for four or five years for the lotus seeds below to slowly sprout and grow. It will take about five to six to seven years before a large lotus root beach can be formed again.
As for the latter, they certainly cannot wait, but replanting will cost a lot of money.
The entire brigade makes money by selling lotus roots, which is not a small amount of money. The entire river beach is planted with lotus roots.
In addition to lotus roots, there are also water chestnuts.
Now, whether it is the rice in the fields that provide them with food, or the lotus roots and water chestnuts, they are all flooded. Even the houses are gone. One can imagine the desperation of these people.
Even though the Shahe River burst its banks, all the fish originally raised in the river swam into the rice fields of ordinary people. Even though there were speedboats patrolling everywhere every day and prohibiting farmers from fishing with nets, they still fished in their own rice fields and did not go to the Shahe River to fish.
Nowadays, every household has enough fish to eat, but because there is no shortage of fish, they cannot sell the fish they catch, so they can only eat it themselves or pickle it.
Then I stood in the wind and rain every day, watching the water level of the Shahe River rise day by day. The river water gradually submerged the beams of my house, and then submerged the roof of my house. Finally, even the eaves of the roof could not be seen. All I could see was a vast expanse of white.
These people had numb expressions and dull eyes. The brigade headquarters was flooded, and the loudspeaker used for notifications could not be used. The brigade secretary used a manual loudspeaker to repeatedly shout in the village: "My dear friends! Elders! Cheer up! The motherland has not forgotten us! The government has not given up on us! Jiang Ning from the Linhe Brigade next door! She saw that we were hit by the flood! Together with her classmates, she organized social donations, as well as her own donations, to send us disaster relief supplies! Every household, bring rice baskets and line up at Zhangjiaba to receive supplies! Don't make a fuss! Don't rush! Line up! Everyone gets something!"
When these disaster victims heard that there were relief supplies, their first reaction was to rush to grab them, for fear that if they were too slow, the supplies would have been snatched away by others. But when they arrived at Zhangjiaba, they found that the ship loaded with supplies had not yet docked and was still about a hundred meters away from the shore.
For those river dwellers who can swim, a hundred meters can be reached very quickly. But what next? Where to put the looted supplies? Even if they have water chestnut basins and small boats, no matter how fast the boats are, they are rowed with wooden oars. That one is obviously a diesel boat. If you go to rob it and they drive away the boat, what will you do if they don't send you relief supplies?
When Jiang Ning's uncle heard that it was Jiang Ning from the Linhe Brigade next door, he excitedly ran around and shouted everywhere: "It's my eldest sister's granddaughter! It's my eldest sister's granddaughter who saw our hometown was hit by the disaster and donated supplies to us! It's my eldest sister's granddaughter!"
"Don't push or fight, that's my eldest sister's granddaughter!"
"Ningning! Ningning!" Standing on the bank of the Zhangjiaba Dam, which was about to be completely submerged, my uncle, who was a dozen years younger than Grandma Jiang, waved his hands vigorously and said excitedly to the victims lined up behind him: "See? That's my Ningning, my eldest sister's granddaughter Jiang Ning, the one who was on TV last year. Did you see her?"
The tone was full of pride and pride.
Even Song Peifeng, who was standing next to Jiang Ning, could feel the envy, pride, care, and even curiosity in the eyes of these villagers when they looked at Jiang Ning.
The originally restless crowd calmed down. No one wanted to grab supplies anymore. They all lined up obediently, waiting to receive supplies. Then, they looked at Jiang Ning with curious eyes.
Jiang Ning was not shy at all, and greeted her uncle in the local dialect, "Uncle!"
A woman in her fifties next to my uncle called out with a kind face, "Is that Ningning? The last time I saw you, you were only as tall as my legs, and in the blink of an eye you've grown up! I'm your aunt, do you still remember me?"
Jiang Ning called out affectionately in the local dialect: "Auntie!" Then he greeted everyone one by one: "Uncle, aunt, brother, sister-in-law!"
Many people have seen Jiang Ning during the Jiang family's New Year's Eve party this year. They were all very friendly and stood up to maintain order, saying, "This is Jiang Ning, she is the granddaughter of our great-grandmother. She is our own granddaughter, a member of our team who left the family. Now she is a student at Beijing University and a literary star in the sky!"
People who didn't know Jiang Ning but had seen her on TV also greeted her.
The lively and active children, who did not feel the disaster too deeply, dived into the water like nimble fish, then poked their heads out of the water, lying on their own wooden tubs, and curiously tilted their heads to look at the little girl standing on the bow, who was shaking hands with everyone with an expression that showed she felt the same way as them.
Many little girls around twelve or thirteen years old who came with their parents carrying bamboo baskets also looked at her curiously.
Jiang Ning did not exchange too many pleasantries. After greeting many people warmly, he asked the brigade secretary to arrange people to move the supplies and distribute rice, clothes, school bags, and stationery according to the number of people and the situation of the children at home.
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