Chapter 243
These proposals were all made by Jiang Ning. Otherwise, with Jiang Guoding and Jiang Guotai's masculine thinking, how could they think of fighting for the interests of the girls in the village? After all, for dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of years, men have dominated this land, and they have formed an inertial mindset that it is right to allocate housing plots to boys, but there is no tradition of allocating housing plots to girls.
However, after Jiang Ning made such an suggestion, Jiang Guoding and Jiang Guotai agreed and strongly supported Jiang Ning's decision without any hesitation, just for one thing, to keep Jiang Ning for Jiangjia Village.
When they were seventeen or eighteen years old, they were also full of ambitions and dared to think, act and fight. From their humble backgrounds, one of them became the powerful mayor of one of the three most important towns in Wucheng County, and the other was the future richest man in a neighboring city. It can be seen that when they were young, they were all extremely outstanding young people.
But they asked themselves, none of them could achieve what Jiang Ning had done when they were only sixteen or seventeen years old. She was no longer simply trying to make herself rich, but was leading a town or a county. She even had a higher ability to lead the people in a certain area out of poverty and into prosperity.
What kind of ability is this?
Not to mention that she was admitted to Peking University, one of the top universities in China. While in school, she was able to cooperate with CCTV, a well-connected ministerial department, and persuaded CCTV to come and film and promote their Jiangjia Village and even the entire Wucheng.
In ancient times, if a villager passed the imperial examination, he would directly become an official in Beijing and would have unlimited achievements in the future. If Jiang Guotai and Jiang Guoding did not hold on to such a strong partner, they would not deserve their future achievements.
As for girls, so what? What era is it now? Family planning has been implemented for nearly 20 years. It is an era of gender equality and it makes no difference whether you have a boy or a girl. Jiang Guoding has only one precious daughter, Jiang Yanyan. Jiang Ning's approach of fighting for the rights of the girls in the village is also in line with Jiang Guoding's interests.
Jiang Guoding, Jiang Guotai and Jiang's father Jiang Guoping were all high school students who took the college entrance examination in 1977. Jiang Guoding barely made it into a junior college, while Jiang Guotai and Jiang Guoping failed. From then on, their destinies were divided.
But also because they were people of that era, they had witnessed great social changes, and both men and women worked to earn work points. Their era produced countless brilliant female ancestors, and their thinking was much more open-minded than that of their uneducated contemporaries.
Therefore, in their minds, there is no gender, only Jiang Ning, this extremely outstanding younger generation.
There was a heated discussion in the audience. Many girls, who were eighteen or nineteen years old, had little education, did the same job over and over again in the factory all day long and did not have much experience. Some of them had reacted and had begun to discuss loudly with people around them about the truth of the matter. Some were still confused and some had not reacted at all.
What does it mean that if you don’t want to get married, you can stay in the village and find a son-in-law? What does it mean that if a married daughter lives a miserable life and divorces and returns to the village, the village will give her a residential plot? What does it mean that after the age of 18, the income from the tea fields in the mountains will be managed by them themselves instead of being handed over to their parents for management? What does it mean that the land they were allocated in the village belongs to them instead of being given to their parents and brothers by default?
Some smart and clever girls were so excited that they started crying.
A burst of intense crying suddenly broke out in the crowd, the sound instantly drowning out everyone else's voice, making everyone's eyes turn to the crying woman.
In the right corner, the crying woman suddenly cried out, "Mom! I have a homestead too! I have a homestead!"
She suddenly rushed forward, ran to the stage where the movie was being shown, and kowtowed three times to Jiang Guoding, Jiang Guotai and others.
The table was made of wood, and she knocked very loudly, so loud that everyone below who was looking in her direction could hear the "dong dong dong" sound.
After that, an elderly woman came up to the stage and kowtowed to Jiang Guoding, Jiang Guotai, and Jiang Ning. Jiang Guoding and Jiang Guotai were so scared that they quickly pulled away the table in front of them, half hugged and helped the elderly woman up, shouting, "Auntie, auntie, you can't do this, aren't you going to shorten our life span?" They also shouted to the people below, "National flag! Guohui! Why don't you come up and pull your aunt down? And Jiang Guoge, what are you doing? Why don't you get down!"
Jiang Guoge wiped away her tears, and couldn't help but hugged her mother and cried and laughed loudly: "Mom! Mom! I have a homestead now!"
She has been divorced for three years. During these three years, she only lived in her parents' home for half a year in the first year of her divorce. During that half year, she was looked down upon by her sisters-in-law.
Even though she later worked outside and paid money to her family regularly and did not live in her parents' home for a long time, every time she came back to see her children, she would rush to do all the work at home and outside. However, her parents are old and now live with her eldest brother's family, but her parents help her take care of the two children. Every time she comes back, she seems as if she can't hold her head up, and even her two children can't hold their heads up, because she is living under someone else's roof, and her two children are also living under someone else's roof.
If she had a piece of residential land and could live openly in the village, why would she need to be separated from her parents and children? Her parents are so old now, and she has been spoiled by her parents and brothers since she was a child, like a jewel in the palm of their hands!
But if she can't even wait for her to get married, she will be homeless!
She has been homeless for so many years!
Jiang Guoge and her mother cried so miserably that many girls present felt their noses sore and couldn't help but shed tears.
Many of them did not know Jiang Guoge. When they could remember, Jiang Guoge had already married. When they grew up and could remember people, they followed their parents to work outside. They were only at home during the New Year holidays. Even when they were at home, they would reunite with their family and would not run around the village. It seemed as if there was a wall between each room. They would play more with people in their own room and would not visit each other. Therefore, when they saw Jiang Guoge, they might not recognize him.
Even if you have seen that girl who was full of energy as a teenager when you were a child, she is very different from the woman now who is in her early thirties, has short hair, looks capable but also has a weathered face. No one who sees her would associate her with the sunny girl in their memory.
But what Jiang Guoge is experiencing today may not be what they will experience tomorrow?
They suddenly thought that they could get a share of the housing land, which was not given to their parents and brothers, but belonged to themselves. In addition, the land allocated by the village in their name could be returned to them after they came of age if they were willing to live in the village.
After the crowd calmed down, Jiang Guoding continued, "Regarding the distribution of homesteads, there are some supplementary agreements. You can take a look at them yourself. For married girls, the homesteads will automatically return to the village committee and will not be transferred to your parents. But if one day you want to return to Jiangjia Village with your children and family members, you can get two more acres of homesteads!"
This rule made many men dissatisfied, but when they thought about the fact that they were being allocated a piece of gloomy land in a deserted mountain that no one wanted, they became silent. Those who died unjustly in the early years were buried in that broken place. If you have relatives or friends, they will build a grave for you and find a place for you. In the future, you can have a sacrifice on Qingming Festival and New Year's Eve. But most of the corpses don't even have a grave mound, and the weeds on the graves have grown so many times that no one knows how many times.
Even grown men are unwilling to go to that place in broad daylight, let alone girls who, according to traditional concepts, have a yin constitution.
Many girls turned pale when they thought that the residential land they were going to get was a barren mountain where no one dared to go.
Regarding that barren mountain, they have heard too many true and false ghost stories since they were young. Almost all the ghost stories made up by adults take place in two places, one is the barren mountain, and the other is a thousand-year-old tree on the way from Xujia Village to Wujia Village.
This ancient tree is so thick that it takes three people to hug it. The tree is hung with red cloth strips. Near the root of the tree, there is a shallow tree hole with a stone statue of Bodhisattva placed in the hole. There are incense burners burning in the hole all year round. Opposite it, there are also graves one after another. There is no one living within a radius of five miles around it. The eerie and strange atmosphere is also a common gathering place for ghost stories.
Now, hearing that their homesteads are actually in the barren mountains, one of the two main ghost story gathering spots, many girls don’t want homesteads, they just want to get married. They are still young and full of beautiful yearnings for getting married.
Naturally, the men also disdained the land.
Jiang Ning and Jiang Guotai had thought about this a long time ago. Jiang Guotai took the microphone and said, "I know that the land on the barren mountain is a bit desolate, but apart from that land, there is no other suitable land in the village to be allocated to the girls as a homestead. But you don't have to worry about it being too gloomy and cold. Since this land is reserved for the girls in the village as a homestead, I will naturally find a master to perform a ritual, collect the bones in the graves, and then erect a monument for them. In the future, if people who live in the barren mountain are interested, they can go over to burn incense and paper money for them."
"In addition," he said, "Regarding the distribution of residential land to you, you all know Jiang Ning from the third house. She is the Wenqu Star that fell from the sky and landed in our Jiangjia Village. With her here, what are you afraid of? Just because she is the Wenqu Star that has descended to the earth, no demon or ghost can be suppressed, don't you think?"
Jiang Guotai is extremely superstitious, otherwise he would not have named his son Jiang Xin and his daughter Jiang Miao just because a fortune teller said that his five elements lacked gold, and his five elements lacked water.
His words sounded absurd, but he said them sincerely and with great conviction. This conviction was also transmitted to all the girls in the audience through his serious attitude. They all looked at Jiang Ning involuntarily, as if they wanted to hear her say it herself before they would believe it.
Jiang Ning took the microphone with a smile and said in the Shuibu Town dialect: "Our uncle was just joking about the Wenquxing thing, but I will indeed find a piece of land in the barren mountains as my homestead. In the future, many sisters and sisters in the village may become neighbors. I hope that the sisters and sisters will take care of us in the future!" She stood up, bowed and said: "Thank you sisters and sisters first!"
In the dialect system of Shuibu Town, brothers and sisters are called brothers and sisters, and elder sister is called elder sister.
Her expression was so calm, and her aura made people believe that she was someone who could suppress all demons and monsters by herself so that they dared not move.
This made many anxious girls feel a little more secure.
It is true that it is very dangerous for women living alone in this era. They will really encounter very bad things. After encountering such things, others will not scold the men, but only scold the women, and humiliate them in various ways as sluts, and strangle them from all aspects of society. Innocent girls and women will also be forced by public opinion to become "prostitutes" in the eyes of others, so that they have more reasons to oppress them and force them to become "prostitutes" in the eyes of others, so that they can oppress them openly.
This is also the case in many rural families. Even though they love their daughters very much, they will force them to get married. That certificate is not a marriage certificate, but a certificate of good conduct for rural women.
With this "good citizen certificate", they can avoid public opinion and oppression from all sides.
It is precisely because Jiang Ning also came from the bottom of society, from such a remote mountain village, that she understands more clearly the difficult situation of these rural women. She also understands why Jiang Guoge suddenly burst into such intense emotions after hearing that she had a homestead, and her mother also hugged her daughter and cried bitterly.
Jiang Guoge is a rural woman who grew up being loved by her brothers and was even called "uncle" by her nephews and nieces. She has a strong enough character to have the courage to divorce in this era. However, she is still forced into a difficult situation by the general environment, not to mention many girls who have been disciplined and brainwashed since childhood and have really weak personalities.
The social environment forces them to get married and rely on men because they have no housing land. Without housing land and without relying on men, they don’t even have a place to live or a place to stay.
But now, Jiang Ning said he wanted to build a house on the barren mountain.
Jiang Guoding and Jiang Guotai soon said that they would build houses for their children in the barren mountains as well.
Now the girls felt more at ease.
The guarantee from Jiang Guoding and Jiang Guotai is the guarantee that the girls feel completely safe. Jiang Ning may be thousands of miles away because of work or study, but Jiang Guotai and Jiang Guoding are the real decision-makers in the village. It can be said that within a radius of dozens of miles, as long as these two people say a word, no one dares to go to the barren mountains to attack them, so their safety is guaranteed.
Many people were looking curiously at Jiang Ning who was sitting next to Jiang Guotai.
Including Jiang Ma in the audience.
She watched Jiang Guoge and her daughter rush over to kowtow to Jiang Ning, and that scene had a very strong impact on her.
She sat in the audience, as if she didn't know Jiang Ning, looking at her daughter on the stage who was completely different from the one she remembered. Suddenly, she had an extremely strange feeling, that was not her daughter.
That was the same person as her on TV. No, this was someone who shone even brighter than the one on TV, just like the dazzling woman she had seen in some movies and TV shows.
She was so far away from her, so far away that it seemed as if they were not from the same world, as if they were separated by a starry sky.
How could that be her daughter? Is it the daughter she could give birth to?
She thought that the person she gave birth to would be like her and many other girls in the village, born, grown up, worked, and got married, and that when she got old and sick, she would come back to take care of her.
Many girls grow up like this, without any difference, just like the rising and setting of the sun every day, such an ordinary and natural life.
She was a little dazed, holding the girl on the stage. Her face was similar, some small movements and expressions were the same, but the expression between her eyebrows was completely unfamiliar. A doubt flashed through her mind: were the three years that she and her father spent in Shenzhen Stock Exchange really so long? When my daughter grew up, she seemed like a completely different person.
Until Jiang Guoding gave a stack of contracts to several people in the village committee and asked them to distribute them to the people below. Those who agreed to the terms would sign their names and wait for the drawing of lots. Those who disagreed could choose not to sign.
This contract was actually a land contract, because this piece of mountain, to be frank, still belonged to the country. They said it was a tea land, but actually it was a ten-year contract. The various clauses in the contract were written in great detail and clearly. Among them were clauses that no one could forcibly seize or transfer other people's tea land, and that no one could seize the profits from the tea land. It could be said that all ways to seize the daughters and sisters in the family were blocked.
There is another rule: if a son-in-law from outside is willing to marry into the family and his child takes the Jiang family's surname, then the son-in-law and the child can also be allocated one acre of tea land. Of course, if they divorce in the future and leave Jiangjia Village, the acre of tea land will be taken back and managed by the village committee.
After seeing this contract, the girls of course signed it without hesitation, but the men, although they were envious of the income from the tea fields of the second and third wives this year, were hesitant and did not want to sign the contract.
Jiang Guoding smiled and said to the audience, "What's going on? Are there really any men who want to take away their sisters' tea land?"
He smiled as if he was kind, so Jiang Guotai didn't care about that. He took the microphone and said, "I asked the lawyer to draft this contract. It is a legally binding contract. If you don't want to sign it, you can get out now! I, Jiang Guotai, spent a lot of effort and money to hire experts and find sales channels. It is for the benefit of the villagers and for everyone with the same surname as me, regardless of gender, not just for you old men!" He knocked on the table with a cold face: "Do some people have any shame? A grown man doesn't want to go out to make money and compete with his sisters for food? If such a person goes out, don't say he is a man of Jiangjia Village. I, Jiang Guotai, can't afford to lose him!"
This made many parents and brothers of the girls who were interested in the idea feel embarrassed, and they pushed and shoved their way over to sign the contract.
There were also some people who did not want to sign the contract but also wanted to divide the tea land. Jiang Guotai, Jiang Guoding and the people from the village committee simply ignored these greedy people.
Even the village committee cadres have signed the contract, why shouldn’t they sign it?
After they signed, Jiang Guotai smiled a little and said to the girls in the audience, "Don't worry about not having enough money to build a house after you get the homestead. I've said that after you turn 18, the income will belong to you. The money from the tea land every year is enough for you to build a small bungalow. You can earn a big house for your brothers. It doesn't make sense that you won't earn any money when it's your turn to build a house, right?"
These words made the girls' eyes light up, and also caused an uproar among the men who took the sisters' money as their own for granted. Those who had hesitated and did not sign the contract just now became even more reluctant to sign it.
Now the entire Jiangjia Village is centered around Jiang Guotai, Jiang Guoding, Jiang Ning and others. Basically, no one will object to what they say, especially after this year's tea has brought them huge profits. This is the first year, and the tea trees have not yet reached the golden growth period. This year has brought more than 10,000 yuan of income to their families. This is simply a matter of sitting at home and losing money. There will be a steady stream of income every year in the future. Only a fool would not sign.
But there are such fools.
Some people in the eldest wife's family relied on their status as the eldest wife and were used to bullying the people in the village, always fighting and causing trouble.
They thought that this time, too, they could gather together and make a scene, and force the village committee to distribute the tea land to them without signing the contract. The village committee simply said, "The land belongs to the state. If you don't sign the contract, why should we give you the tea land?"
No matter where this matter goes, the village committee is always right.
Until the land lottery was over, Jiang's father and mother didn't wait for Jiang Song to come back. Jiang's father sat on the table in front of the main hall, propped up his forehead and sighed heavily: "Such a good thing as the tea land was missed by this big coward. You could have just called and come back!"
Mother Jiang just sat there crying without saying a word.
Ever since Jiang Ning really led the whole village to make money, she spoke less and less and became more and more silent when it came to Jiang Ning's affairs.
Especially this year, her family and Grandpa Jiang have been allocated a total of five acres of tea land. Among them, Jiang Ning, Grandpa Jiang, and Jiang Bai all received tea land in excellent locations. Jiang's father and mother's land was a little worse, but it was also a tea land that received more sunlight.
Not to mention the income from the tea gardens of Jiang Ning, Jiang Bai, and Grandpa Jiang this year, just the income from Jiang's father and mother, they just sit at home and do nothing and earn more than 6,000 yuan a year. In addition, there is the income from their house as a hotel, they and Uncle Jiang's family each get half, so they also get 3,500 yuan. All together, it's almost 10,000 yuan.
This is because they have done nothing, it's like money falling from the sky, and the amount of money falling will only increase every year in the future.
Last year, Jiang's father earned 100,000 yuan, but he did not use it to build a house for Jiang Bo. Instead, he invested it in Jiang Guotai's sand factory. This year, Jiang Guotai's share of the sand factory alone was 50,000 yuan.
Fifty thousand yuan is just a drop in the bucket compared to the income of Jiang Guotai’s three large sand factories, but we also have to look at how much money Jiang Guotai has spent this year.
It cost two million just to build the cement road from the neighboring city to Wugong Mountain. In addition, experts and tea farmers were hired to plant tea on the two shortest hills of Wugong Mountain. A holiday villa was built on the hill above the stream in Shijian Township, a pier was built on the embankment of Jiangjia Village, and a holiday island combining leisure and entertainment was built on the riverside island.
This does not include the money he spent on bribery in neighboring cities and Wujiang City.
Jiang Guotai seems to have made a lot of money, but he spent even more.
The 50,000 yuan was a share of the profits he determined based on the current average income level and Jiang's father's current annual income.
In the future, when he has built everything in his hometown, and Wugong Mountain and his hometown's tourism projects and tea mountains have started to make money, he will of course give more to Jiang Dad at that time. Now he has given Jiang Dad so much, and no one knows where the money will be used.
Jiang's father is indeed a good brother who grew up with Jiang Guotai. When Jiang Guotai gave him money, his first reaction was not how much money Jiang Guotai's sand factory made, but he only gave him such a small share. Instead, he pushed it back and said: "You don't know how much money you have spent this year. Now the funds are so tight, and you still give me money? Wait until you have money in the future. You should take care of everything you need to do first. I'm not in a hurry!"
Jiang Guotai stuffed a pile of money into Jiang's father's arms and said, "Just take it. I don't mind your little money!"
When Jiang's father saw Jiang Guotai's serious and strong expression, he knew that he really didn't need it, so he took it with a smile.
The couple earned more than 100,000 yuan in Shenzhen this year. Together with the share Jiang Guotai gave him and the money they made from the tea plantation and house in their hometown and the hotel they ran, their income for that year alone was nearly 200,000 yuan.
Before, Jiang's mother didn't say a word to Jiang's father, but gave all the money they had earned the year before to Jiang Guotai. At that time, Jiang's mother felt like the sky was falling. She was so angry that she felt dizzy and lay in bed for several days. She couldn't get up and couldn't do anything. It was as if all her energy had been drained away.
She worked hard from dawn to dusk selling lunch boxes, earning only a few cents for each box of lunch. She saved up little by little and after a year's worth of money, it was all taken away by Jiang's father without even a receipt, as he gave it all to Jiang Guotai.
At that time, she only felt a throbbing pain in her head.
The stainless steel basins used for lunch boxes and cooking have several dents on them.
She knew that she had not been educated and had little experience, but she did not want to make a fortune. She just wanted to earn solid money, which would make her feel secure.
She knew that Jiang's father was ambitious and always wanted to make a lot of money, but she was afraid, she was really afraid.
Even now, Jiang's father proudly showed off 60,000 yuan in cash and a savings book of more than 100,000 yuan in front of her and said to her, "You were so anxious last year, I told you that investing in Guotai's sand factory would not be a loss, right? You are in Shenzhen yourself. The amount of river sand needed in Shenzhen every year is an astronomical figure. Those sand factories are absolutely gold mines! If it weren't for my good relationship with Guotai, he wouldn't have accepted the 100,000 yuan! You are still worried that he will embezzle your 100,000 yuan, but you don't even look at the cement road he built for his hometown, which cost millions!"
Jiang Ma took the money with a cold face and said, "I don't want to get rich!"
Father Jiang actually knew Mother Jiang’s fear, so he smiled and comforted her, saying, “Don’t think that it’s only 50,000 this year. Even if it remains 50,000 in the future, this 50,000 yuan is all our free money. And we have this tea mountain. The tea leaves will grow every year. With these two acres of tea land alone, we won’t have to ask our sons for money for our retirement in the future.”
This sentence is the key to completely smoothing out all the sharp thorns on Jiang Ma's body.
It seemed that the income from the two acres of tea fields had brought her restlessness and wandering for so many years to a more solid state. But she still didn't dare to believe it and said coldly, "Who can predict the future? I just want to earn my own money and don't want to spend it!"
She also heard about how profitable Jiang Guotai's three large sand fields were. She knew that these three sand fields were proposed to him by Jiang Ning. Last year, Jiang's father wanted to contract them, but was stopped by her.
Because she doesn't understand, and she doesn't want to take risks if she doesn't understand.
But she saw the earth-shaking changes in the village.
She really couldn't have imagined that her daughter, whom she had always thought was a money-loser who only knew how to spend money but not make money, and whose education was for other people's families, would actually work with Jiang Guotai and develop Jiangjia Village to its current level in just two years.
Just tonight, she also secured homesteads that belonged to all the girls in the village and women who had married poorly or were divorced. From now on, they would no longer be seen as money-losing goods or belonging to other people's families by others.
They have their own home.
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