Chapter 242
The news that Jiangjia Village was going to allocate tea fields and residential land to girls caused a huge uproar.
In fact, after countless female ancestors fought for their rights with their blood, many places have already allocated land to girls.
The same is true for Jiangjia Village.
But speaking of allocating land to girls, in fact, this acre of land is tacitly allocated to the girl's family. Over the years, no one has ever taken this acre of land away after a girl got married. This piece of land allocated in their name actually belongs to their parents and brothers.
But it is different with homesteads. Once a girl is allocated a homestead, it means that she does not have to get married. In other words, even if she gets married, she can return to live in the village, and even live in the village with her husband and children.
This will greatly avoid the possibility of girls suffering from domestic violence outside.
Because they live in their own village, and the whole village is made up of her relatives and clansmen. If a man comes to live in Jiangjia Village, he will be weak and alone. If he really dares to beat a woman, the girl can just shout. Even if her family is not strong enough and is a coward, there are still the whole Jiangjia Village and the elders of the village committee. Can they let the girl be bullied in her own village?
Once it is opened, divorced women will also be given a share of the homestead. Then, if married daughters can no longer live in their husband's family, they can return to Jiangjia Village. Not to mention getting an acre of homestead, even if it's only one or two mu of homestead, they will have a place to stay. They won't have to go back to their parents' home to be looked down upon by their parents, brothers and sisters-in-law. They will have their own little nest, and their parents, brothers and sisters-in-law can help take care of the children. Their own resilience and vitality, like weeds, are enough for them to grow freely on this land.
Just give them a place to stay.
Once this area of barren mountains became a gathering place for many girls who did not want to marry outside their hometowns, it also fundamentally solved the problem of rumors.
When something is an isolated case, everyone will discuss and point fingers at it behind its back. But when something becomes the norm, everyone will only say that the people in Jiangjia Village are famous for being good to their daughters. If they don't want to get married, they can stay in the village and find a son-in-law. If they get divorced and come back, they will be given a residential plot.
At this time, the people in the village committee did not think so much. They just did not care about the barren mountain where many corpses were buried and the graves looked gloomy even in the daytime. So when Jiang Guoqi from the second house tried to get a homestead for his younger sister Jiang Guoge, which was the homestead facing the direction of Xujia Village, no one objected because it did not affect their interests.
Many people who have returned from working outside have heard from their elders at home that this year many families have earned nearly 10,000 yuan from tea alone.
Now the notice from the brigade said that they should also go to divide the tea land and housing land at night. From now on, they will also have a share of the tea land. As long as they are not married, they will be given the tea land.
One acre of tea field, even if it is in a poor location, can generate at least two thousand yuan in income per year!
"Is this true? Are you really going to give us tea land and homesteads?"
"We girls also have residential plots, so can I live in the village and have my own house in the future?"
But many girls are worried that even if they work hard to build a house, it will be snatched away by their parents and brothers after it is built and not given to them.
Isn’t this what they called the land they were allocated?
Even many girls don't have the concept of owning their own land, because the education they received from childhood has instilled in them a deep-rooted concept of what is yours and mine? The land at home belongs to our family, to our parents, and to our brothers in the future.
They themselves also acquiesce to this rule.
With all kinds of uneasy feelings, at seven o'clock in the evening on the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, many families in the village who did not get tea land last year, and many unmarried girls, twisted their fingers and stepped into the cinema in the center of the village in a daze.
The village chief was afraid that some people had not arrived yet, so he went to the loud speaker at the brigade headquarters and shouted, "Hey~~~! Hey~~~! Hey~~~!"
"Are there any unmarried girls over 18 who haven't come to the cinema yet? Come quickly to the meeting to divide up the housing plots! If you don't come, you won't get a share this year! Hey~~!"
The loudspeaker echoed continuously and the village chief shouted three times.
This time, everyone in the Linhe Brigade heard the loudspeaker sound. Even people in the nearby Xiaojiangjia Village heard the loudspeaker sound and called out to the head of the family: "Shuigen, Shuigen, did you hear that? Dajiangjia Village is allocating residential land to the girls!"
"Don't worry, I'll go find out what's going on!"
Many people from Xiaojiangjia Village walked out of their homes and ran towards Jiangjia Village.
Because the road was built with cement, they could still walk smoothly even in the rain and snow outside.
When they arrived at Jiangjia Village, the closest place to them was the Dafang settlement. They followed the wide cement road of the Dafang settlement and ran towards the village center.
Although they were separated from Dajiangjia Village and had an independent village committee, everything in the village had nothing to do with Dajiangjia Village and was not under the control of the village committee and village heads of Dajiangjia Village, but they still belonged to the Linhe Brigade.
This year, Dajiangjia Village has become incredibly popular because of its tea sales and tourism, and Xiaojiangjia Village, which is closer to the mountain stream in Shijian Township, has also witnessed the incredible popularity of Dajiangjia Village.
Because carloads of people are heading to the mountain stream in Shijian Township to go rafting.
Not only were the tourists having a blast, even the children from the nearby villages were envious.
They grew up beside a mountain stream. The happiest thing to do in the mountain stream is to jump into the stream to swim in the summer. The deepest water in the mountain stream is no more than up to an adult's chest, and some water depths are up to an adult's thighs. It is most suitable for children to play. The mountain spring water is clean and clear, and it is full of round and smooth pebbles that have been washed by mountain streams all year round. Children can play in the water without worrying about drowning or getting their feet pricked by glass shards.
Because the nearest village to the mountain stream is about seven or eight hundred meters away, even if people from the surrounding villages throw some broken bowls and glass, they will not run so far and throw them into the mountain stream. Even if someone throws glass bottles into the mountain stream, they will be washed away by the perpetual flow of water.
In addition, people from the surrounding villages would come to the mountain stream to wash clothes, quilts and vegetables. In the summer, children like to play in the mountain stream. People from the surrounding villages would not even throw glass shards into it. If they occasionally saw glass in the mountain stream, they would pick it up and throw it away, and beat and scold those who were so immoral as to throw glass bottles into the mountain stream. What if the children’s feet were pierced by glass?
Not to mention children, many adults go to mountain streams to take a bath in summer.
So this mountain stream is very safe.
So this summer, adults and children in the neighborhood saw tricycles carrying people to the small hill above.
The small hill has now been contracted out to someone, who has built a yard with barbed wire and forbids people from entering, as if a villa is being built on it.
Then they watched people rushing down the hill in kayaks wearing orange life jackets every day. The naughty little boys were drooling at the sight. It was so much fun!
Because Xiaojiangjia Village is not far away, there are little boys going to the mountain stream naked to play in the water all day long and watch tourists rafting and surfing. People with business acumen even make snacks such as glutinous rice cakes, dumplings, spring rolls, etc. at home and wait by the mountain stream downstream. At the end of a summer vacation, some people can earn two to three thousand yuan at most, and at least nearly one thousand yuan.
This amount of money may not seem like much, but almost all the people who come here to sell snacks are elderly people and women. For them, this money gives them a lot of confidence.
Now that they have heard that Jiangjia Village is going to distribute land and private plots to the girls, those who married into Xiaojiangjia Village only regret that they are not from Jiangjia Village. Some women even have the idea of merging their clan with that of Dajiangjia Village. However, this idea is not something they can decide. Now they can only anxiously want to know the specific details of Jiangjia Village’s distribution of tea fields and homesteads.
Because since ancient times, it has been the default to allocate housing plots to boys. If a boy is to be allocated housing plots, there is no need to specifically announce it through the loudspeaker.
They anxiously stayed at home, waiting for their men to go out and find out the news.
Xiaojiangjia Village is not far from Dajiangjia Village. Since they had been going to Dajiangjia Village since childhood to watch opera performances and movies in the countryside, they were very familiar with Dajiangjia Village and went straight to the cinema.
It was just a quarter past seven, and the door of the cinema was wide open. Many people had already gathered inside. Many people who had heard the news were standing outside the cinema looking inside.
When the people from Xiaojiangjia Village arrived outside the cinema, many people from Dajiangjia Village who were not aware of the situation were standing outside. Some of them knew each other and were related to each other. They went straight to the people they knew and asked them: "What's going on? I heard on the loudspeaker that you in Dajiang Village are going to divide up the tea land and give the girls housing land?"
There are still many people in Dajiang Village who are not clear about the situation. Holding a large black umbrella, they said, "I don't know either. It seems that Guotai and the fourth brother came back to hold a meeting a few days ago. When they came back, the team leader said that they would allocate housing plots to unmarried girls over 18 years old in the village. I don't know what the situation is."
"That's right. There are only so many residential plots in the village. There's not enough for boys, so how can we give some to girls?"
There are also some families who have already assumed that this housing land belongs to them, just like the land allocated to girls. They say that the housing land will be allocated to girls, but when it is really allocated, won’t it belong to the boys in the family? By then, the boys will have two residential plots and can build bigger houses.
Haven’t you heard about it? This year, the big guy’s house was turned into a hotel and he reportedly made five or six thousand yuan!
If their son had two residential plots, wouldn’t the house be able to be built bigger?
The cinema in Jiangjia Village was originally a converted granary of the Linhe Brigade. It is very large. There is only a small room built next to the main entrance with a window facing the outside, which is used as a screening room and ticket window. The benches inside are all long wooden boards simply nailed to the legs of the wooden benches. They are arranged in order from top to bottom, forming a terrain with low front and high back. At the front end, there is a one-meter-high platform, and behind the platform is a huge white curtain.
There is now a row of tables on the platform, and behind the tables, there is a row of chairs.
Whether it was a meeting, a movie screening, or a rural opera performance or someone coming to their brigade to perform, the performance venue was always in this cinema.
Many people were wandering outside looking in.
As the only female college student in the village, and one who has brought earth-shaking changes to the development of her hometown, Jiang Ning had already entered the cinema early, but she just didn't take a seat on the stage.
Mayor Jiang has gone upstairs and found a seat to sit down.
As the person with the highest status in the village, he did not choose to sit in the middle seat. Instead, he let the village chief, who was in his fifties or sixties, sit in the middle. The two of them politely gave way to each other, and finally the village chief sat down. Mayor Jiang sat next to him, Jiang Guotai sat on the other side of the village chief, and some village cadres also took their seats one by one.
Jiang Guotai and Mayor Jiang called out to Jiang Ning: "Ning Ning, come, sit next to uncle."
Jiang Guotai patted the seat next to him, and Mayor Jiang also said: "Yes, as the first great contributor to the development of our Jiangjia Village and our hometown, you should sit next to your uncle."
Many young people and people from the first and fourth branches who came to share the tea land have already found a seat and sat down.
The microphones in front of Jiang Guotai and Mayor Jiang were on, and there were two large speakers on both sides of the stage. The sound resounded throughout the cinema and was clearly heard by everyone.
Before, when Jiang Ning gave advice to Jiang Guotai and Mayor Jiang, it was all in private. Even though Jiang Guotai and Mayor Jiang repeatedly stated outside that their ideas came from Jiang Ning, many people were still willing to believe that it was Mayor Jiang and Jiang Guotai's own abilities. No matter how capable Jiang Ning was, she was just a little girl. Some people in the second and third rooms who knew the situation were okay, but the most intuitive understanding of Jiang Ning by the first room and the fourth room, who were marginal people, was that they knew that the CCTV crew was invited by her. In addition, it was Jiang Ning who proposed to open up tea mountains, plant tea trees, and divide tea land. No one knew what else Jiang Ning did specifically.
Mayor Jiang's words at this time put the hat of the first major contributor to the development and revitalization of the entire Jiangjia Village, and even Linhe Brigade and Yaoba Town, on Jiang Ning's head. Only then did they have a clearer understanding of how important Jiang Ning is now.
The chief contributor to the construction and revitalization of my hometown was not Mayor Jiang or Jiang Guotai, but a girl of eighteen or nineteen years old.
Jiang Ning did not hesitate and walked onto the stage and sat next to Jiang Guotai, which was the most central position besides Jiang Guotai and Town Mayor Jiang. She looked calm and had a strong aura. She sat there as if she was the center. Everyone's eyes unconsciously shifted from the village chief, Town Mayor Jiang and Jiang Guotai to her.
No matter who looked at her, she always had a faint smile on her face, nodded to everyone, and then sat there calmly, as if it was natural for her, a girl, to sit among the most capable, prestigious and elder people in the village.
The village cadres around her were very polite to her and didn't think there was anything wrong with a little girl like her sitting there.
The village chief picked up the microphone and said "Hello! Hello!" twice, then patted the microphone with his hand, making a bang echo. After confirming that the microphone was in good condition, he straightened his expression and said, "I called everyone here today to talk about two things! Now, let's invite Comrade Jiang Guoding, the mayor of Yaoba Town, to report to everyone the great achievements made in the development of Jiangjia Village this year!"
The people below were a little confused, but they still raised their hands unconsciously and clapped sparsely.
Jiang Guoding was already used to such occasions and speeches. He said "Hello!" twice before saying, "I haven't been back to the village many times in recent years because of work, but I believe everyone knows me."
People in the village like Jiang's father's generation certainly know Jiang Guoding, but people of Jiang Ning's generation, or even younger generations, don't really know Jiang Guoding. Many young people don't even know that their village has produced a mayor of Yaoba Town.
You know, Yaoba Town, one of the "Three Hegemons of Wucheng", is very famous in their Wucheng area. They never expected that the town of Yaoba Town actually belongs to their village.
For a moment, many young people opened their eyes wide and listened to the speech of the middle-aged man on the stage.
Jiang Guoding's voice was a little hoarse. He coughed and said, "The first thing I want to talk about today is that last year Jiang Ning from our third house proposed to plant tea trees on the hill in front of our house. After obtaining the consent and support of the village committee, most of the families from the second and third houses paid to buy tea varieties, plant tea trees, and divide tea land last year. This year, through the tea processing factory opened by Jiang Guotai from our third house and the filming crew of CCTV invited by Jiang Ning, we filmed and promoted our Wucheng, Yaoba Town, Wugong Mountain, and our entire Linhe Brigade and Jiangjia Village, focusing on promoting our village's 'Wugong Tea' and wolfberries, which has played a huge role in promoting the development of our Wucheng, Linhe Brigade, and especially our Jiangjia Village's tourism economy, and has achieved initial results!"
When he paused, the audience burst into thunderous applause unconsciously.
He stretched out his hand and pressed down, indicating that they should be quiet, and continued: "This year, under the leadership and support of Jiang Guotai and the village chief, as well as our village committee, and under the planning of the village's development by Jiang Ning, the average annual income of the families in the village who were allocated tea land this year has basically exceeded the 10,000 yuan mark, taking the first step towards poverty alleviation and prosperity!"
Everyone was surprised.
There was another round of scattered applause. Many people were clapping and whispering to each other: "Every household in the second and third rooms has earned more than 10,000 yuan this year?"
"Haven't you heard that most of them have broken the 10,000 yuan mark? I guess there are even more!"
"Is selling tea so profitable?"
"If we can't make money from selling tea leaves, how else can we make money? Didn't you see that in the past few years, our village had to go to Jiangnan to pick tea leaves for people every year for many years?"
"I can earn 10,000 yuan a year, and build a small house in two years!"
Many of them work in factories outside. They are very handy and often work more than ten hours a day, but they only get 700 to 800 yuan a day at most. Most people can only get 400 to 500 yuan a month. Even if they eat and live in the factory, they don't buy anything for themselves. At most they can save 4,000 to 5,000 yuan a year and take it home. This is already very frugal and good at making money for these girls and sisters-in-law.
They can bring back five or six thousand yuan a year. During the New Year, their family members treat them like flowers. The girls are so proud of themselves at home.
Although they only have a few days during the Chinese New Year throughout the year, as if they can enjoy a few days of happiness at home, they actually still have a lot of housework to do.
But they could never have imagined that this poor village of theirs could earn 10,000 yuan a year by growing tea trees and selling tea!
Their family also has tea trees, several of them. Every year they pick and fry the tea for their own drinking. At most, they send a few pounds to relatives on the other side of the river, or they bring a few pounds out to work. I have never heard of anyone selling their tea!
Thinking this way, they admired Jiang Guotai and Jiang Ning even more in their hearts, but they didn't know how much this matter had to do with them. Even if they were allocated tea land, could they take it away with them after they got married?
Many people listened with both anticipation and indifference.
However, many adults from the first and fourth rooms, as well as those from the second and fourth rooms who did not participate last year, were very excited. Obviously, their ideas were the same as those of the young girls. They thought that the tea land allocated to girls, wasn't it allocated to them?
Jiang Guoding continued, "Regarding the one-acre tea garden that was allocated to the girls in our village, before the girls reach adulthood, the income from the one-acre tea garden that they were allocated must be used to support their education and daily living needs. If this cannot support the education and basic living needs of the girls in the village, then the income from the one-acre tea garden can be temporarily handed over to their families for management after obtaining the girls' consent, and the monthly living expenses and tuition fees for the girls' education and living must not be less than 300 yuan."
"Secondly, after the girls come of age, they can freely manage the income from the tea fields they receive. They can decide whether they want to share the village's residential land, build a house in the village to recruit a son-in-law, or simply want to live in the village, or continue their studies. The income from the tea fields is up to them!"
This passage really caused a huge uproar.
Not only were the girls surprised to hear such a rule, but even many men who regarded the girls' tea land as their own tea land were also shocked and indignant and wanted to object.
Jiang Guoding looked at the commotion below and the many people standing at the entrance of the cinema who were discussing loudly. He picked up the teacup beside him and took a sip of tea. He said with a smile, "Of course, before dividing the tea land, we have an agreement and contract to sign. If you don't want to sign, don't agree with these regulations and want to seize other people's tea land, you can temporarily not divide the tea land! Our division of tea land is based on the principle of voluntariness. If you are willing to sign, we will divide it. If you don't want to sign, you can wait and see for two years before making a decision."
For people like them who live in the same village as a clan, the clan elders and the village committee have enormous power. Don't even think about suing them or going through the law. That won't work in this era.
The bad villages where ethnic groups live together are extremely feudal and backward. The good ones, like Jiangjia Village, have people like Jiang Guoding and Jiang Guotai who set a good example and make things very convenient for them to get things done, because they have great power in the village.
Many people felt as if a bucket of cold water was poured over their heads by Jiang Guoding's smiling words. They immediately became quiet and only dared to murmur in low voices, not daring to object loudly.
Jiang Guoding said: "The second thing I want to talk about is that we have decided through joint discussion of the village committee to allocate homesteads to the girls in our village. The location of the homestead is the barren mountain between Jiangjia Village and Xujia Village. There are villagers who do not want to marry out and marry a son-in-law, or want to continue living in the village, or are bullied outside and want to divorce and return to live in the village. The village committee has decided that after the girls turn 18, they will be allocated a two-mu homestead on the barren mountain for the girls to build houses and live in. The fields they have been allocated in the past and the tea fields they will be allocated in the future will all belong to them personally, and no one else can forcibly occupy them!"
He glanced at the excited crowd and said, "The village committee will implement this matter later. As I said, it is all voluntary. I have a printed agreement here. You can take a look first. If you agree, stay. We will draw lots to divide the tea land later. If you disagree, you can go back and discuss it with your family. Maybe we will divide the tea land again next year." He said in a relaxed tone with a smile on his face, "It will be the same if we divide it next year!"
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