Chapter 110
When the recruits gathered, the recruiting comrades discovered that in addition to the bedding distributed in advance by the troops, each of the recruits of the Ping'anzhuang Battalion was carrying a cloth bag. The bags did not look very heavy, but were bulging. No one knew what was in them.
Xia Juhua gently pushed An Baoling and warned her in a low voice: "Don't cry, the children will see you and cry too. It will be embarrassing in front of our comrades. If the leaders of the other troops see you, they will think you are a wimp in the army who can't live without your mother."
The farewell drums had already sounded, and the recruits were lining up to board the train. Although their movements were not yet unified, their new uniforms and caps without badges had already distinguished them from ordinary people.
An Baoling wiped away her tears while searching for her son among the uniformed troops. "My son is not a wimp." Then she shouted to her son who had already boarded the car, "Volunteer, do your best in the army. I am waiting for your meritorious service."
Xia Juhua silently took a step back, not wanting to admit that she came here with An Baoling: You've watched too many movies, and are still waiting for news of your son's meritorious service. If you want your son to make a contribution, please don't make a fuss about it in front of others.
"Auntie, I will work hard in the army. I will mail you the allowance when it is issued." Liu Zhiliang, who was only sixteen years old after the Chinese New Year, was almost invisible among the new soldiers who were eighteen years old, but his voice still came out, causing Xia Juhua to step forward again, smiling and waving her hand at the car covered with banners and said:
"Don't worry about home. Keep the allowance for yourself and don't be reluctant to spend it."
Liu Zhiliang was still waving at her when the car started. He finally shouted to Xia Juhua, "Auntie, I will come back with merit."
Okay, I know you have always lived in the same courtyard with your third aunt. Xia Juhua continued to wave at the car, with a smile on her face, until the car was out of sight, then she pushed An Baoling, who was crying, to where the bicycles were parked: "Stop crying, are you deliberately making your child feel easy in the army?"
An Baoling wiped away her tears and sobbed, "I started crying after the car went far away. I was holding back when the volunteers could see me." Then she looked around and said unhappily, "That useless Niu Erniu's wife cried in front of the child. She really made the child feel uneasy."
Xia Juhua had experienced today what it meant to laugh at someone who is only fifty steps away from you. She called out to the families of the Ping'an Village Brigade who had come to send their children to join the army, and told them to stop looking and go back to the production team to do what they were supposed to do.
It's a good thing that the children can go to the army. Instead of standing here crying and missing the children, it is better to go back and boost production so that the children don't have to worry about home and hold them back.
Xia Juhua's voice was very loud, and she couldn't stop crying because she couldn't stop the family members.
Because her voice was so loud, not only the family members from Pingan Village who came to see her off could hear her, but also the leaders of the county revolutionary committee and the armed forces. The district director smiled and said to Uncle Qi: "Captain Xia is making more and more sense."
Uncle Qi thought to himself, you haven't seen how she asked questions in my office. Not only did her words make sense, but she was even more powerful than she is now.
But if you think about it, you can understand that a female comrade can manage a team of more than 2,000 people and manage it in an orderly manner with progress in all indicators. If she couldn't explain the reason and had no momentum, she would have given up long ago.
In fact, Xia Juhua is a little overwhelmed now. She looks at the dozen or so educated youth standing in front of her and feels a headache: "It's only been a few months and you want to ask for leave to go home for the New Year?" There are still one and a half months, nearly two months, left. Isn't it too early to end the New Year?
The leading educated youth was called Deng Chunlin, who was considered a leader among the educated youth. When Li Changshun was the team leader, he appointed him as the leader of the educated youth group. He looked like a pure scholar, but his words were not polite at all: "The educated youth in other teams have already asked for leave, why can't we go?"
"That's right. We have paid our public grain and leveled the land. There is no work left. What are we doing here?"
"I've had enough of living without electricity or running water."
The last person's words caught Xia Juhua's attention. She glanced at the girl who was speaking. It seemed that her name was Zheng Hongbing. Zheng Hongbing saw that Xia Juhua didn't look at others but only at him, and he couldn't help but feel proud: Country people are country people. Even if he became a team leader, he has never seen electricity, so he doesn't know how to use tap water, right?
Unexpectedly, Xia Juhua asked: "Do you pay for electricity and tap water in your home?"
Zheng Hongbing and the educated youth were stunned for a moment before they said, "What's wrong with spending money? You have to spend it somewhere."
"Yes, if you have money, you have to spend it somewhere." Xia Juhua agreed with her point of view: "But when you have a place to spend it, wouldn't it be more uncomfortable to have no money in your hands? Seeing others spend a lot of money, you feel bad, right?"
Why did people become so impetuous in their last life? If Xia Juhua were to explain, it was because there were more ways for information to spread, and knew which places offered better enjoyment if they had money, so they squeezed in desperately, only to find out when they got there that they had no everyone money.
So you are in a hurry to make money, the faster and more money the better, can you feel at ease? It would be strange if you are not restless.
Deng Chunlin and Zheng Hongbing were both stunned. No one had expected that Xia Juhua could explain so thoroughly the thing that they least wanted others to know.
They wanted to return to the city because they wanted to live a convenient life. But Xia Juhua was right. All the conveniences were based on having money in hand. The educated youth who came here had experienced the feeling of watching others spend money while they had to carefully count the few pitiful bills in their pockets.
"Why do we have no money? It's because the brigade didn't assign us to production teams." Zheng Hongbing felt that the reason why the educated youth had no money was not their own fault.
Xia Juhua smiled: "At the beginning of the brigade, didn't you get assigned to various production teams? It was you who felt that the work assigned to you by the production teams was too much and too heavy, so you wanted to set up a separate assault team. Captain Li took your enthusiasm into consideration, agreed to your request, and also allocated a separate place for you, but how have you been producing in the past few years? Do you need me to tell you?"
When these educated youth first came to Ping'anzhuang Brigade, Li Changshun, in accordance with the requirements of his superiors, dispersed them to various production teams, and asked each production team to specially select experienced farmers to lead them in farming.
But after working for less than a year, the educated youth began to complain that they were not taught seriously and were always made to do the hardest and most tiring work. They said that the production teams were persecuting the educated youth. They gathered together to strike and refused to go to the fields. They blocked the brigade headquarters every day and demanded that they form their own assault team.
Li Changshun tried to reason with them every day, but after a while, his temper got worse. Okay, I'll let you form a commando team and divide out the land for you to work on, but you must pay no less than the public grain according to the number of acres you divide out.
The educated youths who thought they had won signed a letter of guarantee with Li Changshun in all seriousness, pressing their fingerprints so heavily that Li Changshun became so angry that he refused to even look at the educated youths again.
It was not until the spring plowing season of the following year that the educated youth realized the price they had to pay for their naivety. In the first year, they only focused on picking out the faults of the old hands and did not learn how to farm properly. How could they know what to plant and when, or how deep or shallow to plant?
The harvest of the commandos that year can be imagined. After paying the public grain, the remaining grain they had was not even enough for the summer harvest, and they had to use the money they earned from paying the public grain to buy food. But they all went home for the New Year. Some showed off their annual dividends to their families to show their generosity, while others were filial and thought about their parents' hard work and left the money for their families. The money was spent and given away, so is there any need to ask how much food can it buy back?
So the educated youth went to the brigade headquarters again, wanting to be reassigned to various production teams. But Li Changshun was not used to their problems - in the eyes of the rural people, there was only so much land, and the people in their own production teams had no choice but to feed them. The educated youth from the city were clearly here to steal their food.
In the first year, they were unwilling to be divided into food and dividends according to work points, so they just had to be tough and fight against their commandos.
Are they saying that the Ping'an Village Brigade persecuted the educated youth? That letter of guarantee with more than a dozen fingerprints on it made Li Changshun invincible no matter which level of the educated youth office he faced - it was not that he persecuted the educated youth, but that he had always taken care of them according to their wishes.
In the following years, some educated youth came and some left for work, but Li Changshun excluded them from Pinganzhuang Brigade based on the guarantee letter. Therefore, the educated youth in Pinganzhuang Brigade were different from those in other brigades, and their presence was very low.
There were some smart people among the educated youth. They tried to guide other educated youth to integrate into the Ping'anzhuang Brigade through their own labor, but they all failed without exception. Those smart people stopped trying to stand out and after doing their own jobs well, they developed their personal hobbies or read books.
So even though Deng Chunlin had always been the leader of the educated youth group, he was not among those who left. Li Changshun would rather the brigade primary school could not operate without a teacher than let him be a private teacher.
Xia Juhua secretly agreed with Li Changshun's decision to exclude the educated youth from the Ping'anzhuang Brigade, because she knew that to the Ping'anzhuang Brigade, these educated youth were like migratory birds flying from the north to spend the winter: when the spring breeze blew, they would immediately pat their shoulders and fly away without even looking back at the land where they once lived.
Also, because the educated youth were excluded from Ping'an Village, they did not enjoy any new planting techniques or the convenience of tractors. The output of the land allocated to them was far from comparable to that of other production teams.
As for the sideline businesses like leaking flour, the educated youth didn't even hear about them. With low food production and no sideline businesses, it was hard for the educated youth to have any money.
Now he feels that he has no money, so he blames Ping An Zhuang again. Are you kidding me? Xia Juhua naturally retorted to Zheng Hongbing without any hesitation: If you are polite to a migratory bird that doesn't look back, you will think that others are afraid of him.
Zheng Hongbing glanced at the leader, Deng Chunlin, and saw that he had no intention of speaking. He secretly hated him, but said firmly, "The land they allocated to us is not good. No matter how we plant, the crops won't grow well. What can we do?"
Xia Juhua looked at her and smiled: "Xiao Zheng, just believe what you say. When the land was divided, you had not yet arrived at Pingan Village. Xiao Deng was there, right? Then Xiao Deng, tell Xiao Zheng, is that the land in Pingan Village the best land in the team?"
Deng Chunlin could not deny what Xia Juhua said, so he could only continue to play dead. Xia Juhua had a smile on her face from then on, and her words became more and more gentle: "I know that you city people always feel wronged to live in a poor place like Pingan Village, and I also feel sorry for you leaving your families at such a young age."
"Let me put it this way. If you want to go home for the New Year, you can. But you have to discuss it among yourselves. The educated youth camp cannot be empty. There must be someone on duty at all times. Otherwise, if the house freezes and collapses, and the brigade has no money to build a new one for you, you will have to raise funds to repair the educated youth camp - after all, it is collective property. You don't want to add a record of destroying collective property in your files, do you?"
The educated youth looked at each other in bewilderment. Who would dare to take the charge of destroying collective property? So Deng Chunlin had to take them back to the educated youth camp to discuss how to arrange their shifts to go home for the New Year.
Xia Juhua wanted to let them deal with it themselves. Don't they all think they are capable? Then let's see if they can't arrange the order and whether they can still come together in harmony to find trouble with her.
"Why are you being so polite to them?" Li Changshun waited until all the educated youth had left before coming over from Accountant Chang's room - he didn't want to even look at those half-baked people.
"Then why are you angry with them?" Xia Juhua didn't take the educated youth's trouble to heart. If you care, you will cause chaos. If you don't care, you will cause chaos.
As Xia Juhua expected, after four or five days no educated youth came to her for leave approval. It was obvious that they had not agreed on the order. Xia Juhua would not wait any longer, as she was also very busy every day, okay?
The four production teams had a large pile of brooms and cooking brushes waiting for her to take to the county supply and marketing cooperative. When she arrived at the county supply and marketing cooperative, Director Zheng would not let Xia Juhua off easily: "You are the team leader, but you only make ten yuan a month. Why don't you roast peanuts for our supply and marketing cooperative? You don't need to pay more. Roasting three thousand kilograms will be enough for you to earn in a year."
Xia Juhua had a good reputation with Director Zhang because of the fried peanuts from the Agricultural Machinery Station. Now she dared to agree to Director Zheng's request, instead of saying she didn't have time as before: "Director Zheng, if you trust me, I'm willing to take the money. But my schedule is really tight, so you have to be more flexible with the delivery time."
"Okay, as long as you're willing to fry them, you can wait a few more days and still sell them at a good price at the end of the year." When Director Zheng heard Xia Juhua agreed to fry the peanuts, he happily lowered the standard for collecting brooms and cooking brushes. He collected them all without throwing any away - except for government agencies, no one would use two brooms at the same time, so no matter how big or small they were, they would not affect sweeping the floor.
The four production team leaders who came with Xia Juhua to deliver the goods finally understood why Xia Juhua had the confidence to let them tie these two things: not only did the supply and marketing cooperative accept all of them, but they also paid them in cash directly and said that next time they only need to gather the brooms and cooking brooms at the team headquarters, and the supply and marketing cooperative will be responsible for sending people to bring them back.
"Captain, if you are too busy, can I ask my wife to help you?" Captain Niu kept his hands in his pockets because Team Three handed in the most things today.
Li Daniu and a few others also echoed that their wives could also go and help, and that Xia Juhua could feel free to ask for help if there was any chores to do at home. They would also manage the people in their respective production teams and try not to bother Xia Juhua who was frying peanuts.
Since everyone cared so much about frying peanuts for the supply and marketing cooperative, Xia Juhua really kept the raw peanuts delivered by the supply and marketing cooperative and fried them at home for two days. She did not return to the team headquarters until she taught Xiaoman to be able to frost the peanuts evenly on his own like Wang Caifeng.
Now, the Liu family yard is filled with the aroma of fried peanuts every day. Xiaoman fries them by herself during the day, and she and her sister-in-law Wang Caifeng fry them together at night. Each of them takes care of a pot, and after a pot is done, they taste each other's peanuts and give each other some suggestions, which makes Sun Zhaodi jealous.
"You are really good at teaching your daughter-in-law." She and Xia Juhua looked at Baoguo and Lele playing on the kang and said with emotion: "Look around the production team to see if there are any sisters-in-law as harmonious as them?"
Xia Juhua was sewing clothes for the New Year. She looked up at Sun Zhaodi and continued sewing: "It's because you taught her well when she was at home that Xiaoman is so sensible."
But Sun Zhaodi was embarrassed. God is my conscience, she really heard the laughter coming from the kitchen and sighed from the bottom of her heart, without any intention of praising her own daughter.
The two have been friends for two lifetimes, so how could Xia Juhua not know what kind of person Sun Zhaodi is? What she said was sincere: "Don't think about it every day. Your family has a good reputation, so the daughter-in-law you marry into will not be bad." In her previous life, Sun Zhaodi lived a much better life than her.
Sun Zhaodi sighed again: "It would be great if it was just like you said."
Xia Juhua said to her, "Don't sigh all the time. You've already sighed away all the good days. After the New Year, Liu Zhu should look for a wife. Are you worried that you and your daughter-in-law won't get along and you'll have to separate the family?"
Hearing her bring up the matter of dividing the family, Sun Zhaodi was also dissatisfied: "Xiaoman has told me many times that she and Zhishuang want to support you when you are old. Don't always want them to move out. My own daughter knows it herself. If she doesn't want to support you when you are old, she can't keep saying this to me."
"I will be supported by my grandma in her old age, and I can earn a lot of money by going to college." Liu Baoguo, who was having a great time, heard these words and immediately denied Sun Zhaodi's statement.
Sun Zhaodi was amused by his childish words: "It costs money to take care of the elderly, and the elderly are always nagging and meddling, which is so annoying. When you are going to get married, what will people do if they hear that you have to take care of your grandmother in her old age and don't marry her?"
"I won't marry, and I will give all the money I earn to grandma." Liu Baoguo stared with his dark eyes, patted his chest and said it sincerely.
Lele, who is already two years old, can understand a lot of words. Because she plays with her brother every day, the two siblings have always been united in dealing with external things. Now she is standing next to her brother, with a chubby face, explaining to her younger brother: "Give money to grandma, and she won't nag or bother you."
Xia Juhua had unconsciously put down the needle and thread in her hand. The scene before her could not help but remind her of her own experience in the past. Even if there was only one sentence like this, she would not have...
Bah, what else do you want to do in your previous life? Her life now is so much better than in her previous life, and it will get better and better. Xia Juhua bowed her head and sewed a few stitches without saying anything else.
Sun Zhaodi sensed Xia Juhua's emotional change, but she thought she was touched by the protection given to her by her grandchildren, and she didn't know how to express it, so she didn't take it seriously.
Xia Juhua was determined to make things better, and she paid more attention to the brigade's affairs: in three or four years, the contract responsibility system would be implemented, and she thought that she had to set up one or two factories to give the members another way out besides farming.
You can't make much money just by farming, the best you can do is keep yourself from going hungry.
What kind of factory could Xia Juhua open other than a weaving factory? She could only keep watching the men leaking vermicelli, wondering if she could open a vermicelli factory in the future.
The land of Ping'anzhuang Brigade has all become waterlogged land, and it would be a pity not to grow wheat. Xia Juhua does not plan to switch to growing sweet potatoes, but other brigades have planted a lot of sweet potatoes - they have all learned how to transplant rice seedlings from Ping'anzhuang, and feel that growing sweet potatoes saves seeds and is easier to manage.
So Director Zhang met Xia Juhua in the office again and asked curiously, "Captain Xia, how come you have time to come to the commune to inspect the work?" He emphasized the word "inspect" very seriously.
"Director, please stop joking with me. I just want to hear your opinion on something." Xia Juhua didn't dare to accept the title of inspection. Inspection is when superiors come to subordinates. She came here to ask for instructions and report on her work.
Director Zhang didn't believe her. If it wasn't for something, Comrade Xia Juhua would have avoided even the commune meetings whenever possible and would have insisted that Li Changshun, who was no longer the team leader, attend the meetings.
It just so happened that Ping'anzhuang Brigade completed the tasks assigned by the commune very well and was ahead of the Red Star Commune in every aspect, so Director Zhang could not criticize her for this.
Not criticizing does not mean a good attitude. After asking a question, he did not speak actively, waiting for Xia Juhua to tell her purpose.
Xia Juhua discussed with Director Zhang: "Director, I heard that several brigades complained that sweet potatoes were difficult to store?"
"You know, last time you came to thank me for helping you and the team avoid the trouble of leaking fans."
Xia Juhua chuckled and said, "Our brigade didn't want to use the land to grow anything except the sweet potatoes it had to pay for the public rations this year. But the members are used to eating hot and sour rice noodles, and they can't help but feel uncomfortable if they don't have sweet potatoes at home, so they all have complaints."
"Weaver, please continue weaving," Director Zhang looked at Xia Juhua quietly. Don't think he doesn't know that except for the weaving team of Ping'anzhuang, everyone else in Ping'anzhuang Brigade is leaking flour every day. One pound of flour is leaked for five pounds of sweet potatoes, but the grain stations require Ping'anzhuang to exchange seven pounds for one pound!
Isn’t the profit from those two kilograms of sweet potatoes enough for the Ping An Village members to eat hot and sour noodles?
Xia Juhua didn't care about Director Zhang's attitude and continued to talk to herself: "If this person is used to eating something, it will be very uncomfortable if he can't eat it. Everyone is so tired of the food station leaking powder."
"Just tell me what you want to do." Director Zhang couldn't bear to listen any longer. On one hand, you said that Ping An Zhuang was leaking vermicelli, and on the other hand, you said that we couldn't eat vermicelli. How dare you make up a more outrageous story?
Xia Juhua finally waited for him to speak, and said with a smile: "On behalf of all the members of Ping'an Village, I would like to ask for some sweet potatoes from other brigades so that everyone can make some noodles for their families."
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