Chapter 146
The words that Liu Zhishuang said just now while walking were still echoing in Liu Erzhuang's ears, making him want to go home and ask his mother if she regretted it now. Liu Erzhuang himself didn't understand why he asked this question, he thought he would know after asking.
Before he had time to think further, the voices of Liu Zhishuang and Xiao Zhao talking and laughing came from outside the courtyard gate. Li Daya sat up straighter and looked towards the door nervously.
Soon, Liu Zhishuang came in with a smile on his face, and Xiao Zhao, who also had a smile on his face, came in and apologized to Li Daya directly: "Auntie, it was because Hongling and I didn't explain the matter clearly to our family, and we made you and my uncle worry. It's my fault."
As soon as he entered the room, he apologized, which shocked everyone present. Hongling's mother, Li Daya, couldn't help but ask, "Have you discussed the marriage with Hongling?"
Xiao Zhao nodded and said, "Yes, I discussed marriage with Hongling. She thought it was good to be an accountant in the production team, and she didn't want to get married so early, and wanted to work for two more years. I also thought that we were not too old, she had her own things to do, and could take care of the family, so I agreed."
"This damn girl, how could she be so stubborn." Li Daya didn't expect that what she had been worrying about for so long would turn out to be such a result. She couldn't help but scold Hongling who was not present: "She is already 22 and still not married. What can people say about her?" Besides, Xiao Zhao is three years older than Hongling. She is already 25. Others of his age have children who can already make soy sauce.
Xia Juhua was concerned about whether Xiao Zhao's family had any opinions about this. Although Xiao Zhao worked at the Agricultural Machinery Station, his family was from the Red Flag Brigade near the commune, and the people's ideas and concepts were probably similar to those of the Ping'anzhuang Brigade. If they had any opinions about Hong Ling, it would not be good for her after marriage.
Xiao Zhao explained to Xia Juhua and others that he had convinced his parents, the reason being that the work points of the Pinganzhuang production team were higher than that of his own team, so Hongling wanted to save more money for the dowry. Although Xiao Zhao's parents were a little uncomfortable, they did not object too much.
Xia Juhua and the others didn't know what to say about this, especially An Baoling, who felt that it was because she talked too much that Li Daya was worrying about her. She said to her a little embarrassedly, "Second sister-in-law, don't be angry with Hongling. It's all because of my talking too much..."
"You are doing this for her own good. A grown-up girl who hasn't been out for two years after getting engaged should think about who to put her in. I think you should set the date earlier. Hongling doesn't have to pay for the dowry herself. Her father and I are there for her."
Xiao Zhao waved his hands and said, "Auntie, I don't really want Hongling to bring a lot of dowry. I just told my family so. The main thing is that Hongling..."
Needless to say, Hongling must be reluctant to give up her job as an accountant. This is also easy to understand. Now Hongling records the work points for the members every day, and then records the accounts of the production team, and she can get ten work points. If she marries into Xiao Zhao's family, the production team already has an accountant, and it is impossible for Hongling to replace him. If she works in the fields, she can't record ten work points a day.
Even if Hongling was as capable as Xia Juhua and could earn ten work points every day, the work points of the production team where Xiao Zhao's family worked could not be compared with those of Ping'an Village, so Hongling did not want to get married too early.
"Xiao Zhao, if Hongling stays in the Ping'anzhuang production team after she gets married, is that okay?" Xia Juhua also felt that Hongling had worked hard to learn accounting, and had worked for several years without making a single mistake, and had received unanimous praise from the entire production team. It would be a pity for her to give up just because she got married.
The main reason was that she wanted to find someone from the Ping'anzhuang production team who was no worse than Hong Ling. Xia Juhua couldn't find one for the time being, so she asked this question.
Xiao Zhao was a little embarrassed: "We are married, so she has to transfer her household registration to our production team and come to Ping'an Village to work. Is that okay?"
Chen Qiu Sheng's mind is now mostly on the vermicelli factory. Hong Ling, the accountant, has quite some weight in the production team, so Xia Juhua thinks it is no problem for her to stay and work in Ping'anzhuang.
But when it comes to getting married and changing her household registration, Xia Juhua is a little embarrassed: Xiao Zhao has such worries, and it is not certain whether Xiao Zhao's family is willing to marry their daughter-in-law and let her go back to her parents' production team to work. What if someone thinks that the Liu family looks down on the Zhao family, or thinks that Hongling's parents have an easy life and let her ask for unlimited subsidies from her parents' family to support her husband's family? What should we do?
"Auntie, I want to stay in Ping'an Village to work." Hong Ling's voice suddenly came from the gate. It turned out that she found Liu Zhishuang looking for Xiao Zhao and said something behind her back. She was a little worried, so she followed him and heard everything they said.
When Xiao Zhao saw her come in, he was a little confused and said, "I'm discussing it with Auntie and the others."
Hong Ling shook her head: "This is my own business. I don't need to discuss it with Auntie, or even my parents."
Li Daya stood up in anger, her hands shaking as she pointed at the lady. Xia Juhua was afraid that she would be too excited and do something radical, so she pulled her to sit down and said to Hongling, "Then tell me what you think."
Hong Ling always listened to Xia Juhua's words, so she said, "The work points of the Pinganzhuang production team are higher than those of Xiao Zhao and his team. If I stay in Pinganzhuang to work, I can earn more than twice as much as Xiao Zhao and his team. It will be good for our little family in the future, so I want to stay."
"But we're married now, and you can't always live in your parents' home." Xiao Zhao looked at Hong Ling with some embarrassment. He originally thought that his partner was confident and radiant, but now he felt that this confidence was a bit dazzling.
Hongling smiled: "It's not that far from the commune to Ping'an Village. It only takes an hour to walk there. If I buy a bicycle, it won't take me more than 20 minutes to ride there and back. I can have lunch at home and take a nap."
It turned out that this girl had already thought about it, and only then did she dare to say that she would stay in Ping'an Village. But Xia Juhua wanted to remind her: "If you marry Xiao Zhao, you will live with his family. You should share some of the housework for a large family, not to mention that you have to do it all by yourself. Can you bear running back and forth to work like this?"
"What's so unbearable?" Hongling didn't take it seriously. She remembered that when she was in her teens, her mother had to go to work every day, and she had to do all the housework at home - not only did she have to do the housework, but she also had to clean the whole yard and wash Sun's clothes. For her, getting up earlier and going to bed later and doing some housework was not a big deal.
Seeing Hong Ling becoming so opinionated, Xia Juhua didn't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. After all, marriage was a matter between Hong Ling and Xiao Zhao. As elders, they only had the right to make suggestions but not the right to make decisions, so they had to let Xiao Zhao and the others discuss it themselves.
Watching the two of them walk out of the yard together, Li Daya sighed: "Sister-in-law, why is this girl so troublesome?"
"You were worried that they wouldn't get married, but now it seems that they don't want to get married, so why are you still sighing?" Xia Juhua had no choice but to persuade her: "You really care about your daughter, so when you build the new house, leave a room for her so that she has a place to live when it rains or shines."
What else can we do? Now we have to wait for the Zhao family's opinion.
Xia Juhua was a little worried when she saw that Xiao Zhao was still running around with the harvester every day for the next few days. Seeing that the summer harvest was almost over and he had not returned home, she saw that Xiao Zhao was a little worried. Unexpectedly, the troops transported a part of the early sweet potatoes coordinated from the south, and also transported the third batch of hot and sour noodles when they left. could not spare the energy to think about the two of them.
Since tens of thousands of bags of hot and sour noodles were produced every day, it became impossible for one person to stir-fry the seasoning. After consulting with several people from Zhao Xianzhi, Xia Juhua called Li Zhaodi (wife of Liu Erxi), Ma Xiaoqin (wife of Liu Lizhu), and Li Wenjing (daughter of Zhao Xianzhi) to the vermicelli factory and taught them how to stir-fry the seasoning with her.
Nowadays, there are dedicated people in charge of seasoning packaging. Once the seasoning is fried here, they can just turn on the plastic sealing machine and the seasoning can be packaged. This makes Li Zhaodi and his friends very excited. They are very eager to learn how to fry the seasoning and are looking forward to the moment when they can pour the seasoning they have fried into the feed inlet.
Seeing the seasoning gradually decrease at the feed inlet and bags of seasoning packages of the same specifications appear at the outlet, they feel a sense of accomplishment every time.
Xia Juhua no longer has the same feeling as them. She only feels that the sweet potatoes in the cold storage are always getting more and more, and the seasonings are never finished. Sometimes she wants to take a break, but when she sees the truck waiting to transport the hot and sour noodles, she quickly gives up the idea:
The troops' feedback came again, and this time it was all good reviews. Along with the good reviews came truckloads of sweet potatoes. I really don't know how the troops got the information and where they coordinated so many sweet potatoes. Every time a truck transported sweet potatoes, it would take away a batch of hot and sour noodles, and at the same time pay the vermicelli factory a processing fee for the batch of hot and sour noodles that were taken away. factory. It also made Xia Juhua feel more and more clearly that something was getting closer and closer.
The processing fee was paid on time, and in order to motivate the workers, the vermicelli factory also issued wages two days in advance: a total of more than 4,000 yuan was paid. Even the most ordinary workers received 6 yuan in overtime pay in addition to the fixed salary of 24 yuan, which shocked everyone in the Ping'anzhuang Brigade.
Thirty yuan a month, this is all a formal worker in the city who has worked for two or three years earns.
The overtime pay for team leaders was ten yuan, that for deputy factory manager Chen Qiu Sheng was fifteen yuan, and that for factory manager Xia Juhua exceeded the ordinary workers' wage of twenty-four yuan by reaching twenty-five yuan.
No one said that Xia Juhua shouldn't get so much overtime pay, because everyone knows that without Xia Juhua, there would be no vermicelli factory. Even if the vermicelli factory could be built without Xia Juhua, the supply of sweet potatoes would definitely not be so smooth - in the middle of summer, there are not so many sweet potatoes locally for the vermicelli factory to process in two shifts.
Even though everyone has discovered that the work in vermicelli factories is no easier than working in the fields, they are still very envious of those workers who work in vermicelli factories - they get a month's pay for a month's work, which is enough to buy food for a year. Who doesn't want to work in a factory?!
Unfortunately, the positions at the vermicelli factory are full, so everyone has to continue working the land, hoping that the harvest will be higher and not too far behind the income of the vermicelli factory workers.
Now the summer grain harvest of each production team has been counted, and the average yield per mu of the whole brigade has reached 513 catties, which is undoubtedly a bumper year. If there is enough public grain left, the wheat distributed to everyone is also the highest in history, 280 catties. Even if the autumn harvest does not increase, as long as we can make up a little bit, we will not have to worry about food for the whole year.
Because they had no worries about food for the year, Xia Juhua and other brigade cadres adopted a joke suggested by Zhao Xianzhi and others at the time and arranged for the members to plant late sweet potatoes on the land that had just been cleared. Their own brigade had built a vermicelli factory and kept transporting sweet potatoes from outside, which made all the members of Ping'an Village feel a little unhappy.
It’s better to use sweet potatoes grown by yourself.
In order to pay the public grain during the spring plowing season, each production team planted early sweet potatoes. After planning to plant late sweet potatoes, they were reluctant to feed the vines to pigs, so they trimmed them to the appropriate length and planted them in the fields according to the forest technicians' method.
The pigs in the pig farm were now facing a food crisis, but fortunately, the sweet potato residue from the vermicelli factory provided a temporary solution. With the improved pulping machine by technician Xue, the sweet potato residue was not much, but still not enough for the five production teams in the pig farm.
Xia Juhua had no choice but to call Uncle Qi for help. Uncle Qi put down Xia Juhua's phone and made another call. Xia Juhua took Liu Zhifu and drove a tractor to the furfural factory to collect waste.
Uncle Qi called someone and said the contact person was Xia Juhua, the captain of Ping'an Village, so no matter how busy Xia Juhua was, she had to make this trip. As for Liu Zhifu driving the tractor, it was because Liu Zhishuang had already reported to the district a few days ago, and he would be back to pick up Xiaoman and his wife in a few days.
Although it took some effort to contact Uncle Qi, the purchase of the fermented rice went smoothly. Even though the smell was not pleasant, Xia Juhua found it tolerable after smelling it for a long time: the tractor was driving on the country road in the evening, and she sat in the passenger seat and enjoyed the cool breeze, which blew away the heat of the day, and even the smell of the fermented rice was blown away.
Just as she was enjoying the moment, Liu Zhifu's hand that was holding the handlebars suddenly tilted. The tractor shook twice and stopped helplessly. The tractor following behind suddenly braked, and Xia Juhua, who was sitting in the front tractor, heard the dissatisfied rumbling sound of the engine.
Xia Juhua was startled: "What's wrong? Is the tractor broken?" The tractor has been in Ping'an Village for three years. It has to plow the land or transport things almost every day. It has no free time at all. It's normal for it to have some problems.
Liu Zhifu was also startled and quickly jumped down to check what was going on. When he went around the front of the car, he found that the rural road had been softened by the rain in the previous two days. As more cars were running back and forth, large and small potholes were formed. It was getting dark, and Liu Zhifu didn't see clearly, and the front wheel got stuck in the big pothole.
"Auntie," Liu Zhifu ran into this kind of thing when he went out with his aunt for the first time, and his face became hot: "I need to put some dirt before I can drive the tractor out, you sit in the car and wait for a while." Then he ran to the car fight to get the shovel.
Xia Juhua knew that the tractor was not broken but was stuck in a pit, so she said nonchalantly: "Just take your time to fill it up. There's no rush." The child was blaming himself, so she naturally wouldn't add to his burden.
Niu Weiguo, who was behind, also came over with a shovel and helped to fill the soil while saying, "There weren't so many potholes on the road in previous years when it rained. It's just that there were too many trucks this year, so the road was damaged."
Niu Weiguo was not just talking empty words. This year, sweet potatoes have been shipped into Ping'an Village, and hot and sour noodles have been shipped out. Trucks are running on the village road every other day. The village road, which has been leveled and compacted with only loess, is indeed unable to handle the load.
But it was not realistic not to transport the sweet potatoes or the hot and sour noodles. Xia Juhua had to worry about whether the road would still be usable if it rained more heavily during the dog days of summer. The vermicelli factory was fine, as the sweet potatoes could be used for ten days or half a month, but if the hot and sour noodles for the troops could not be transported, it would delay things. The orders from the weaving team needed to be shipped on time, otherwise they might have to pay compensation.
No wonder the TV always advertised that if you want to get rich, you must first build roads. Without a good road, no matter how good the products of Ping An Village are, they will be useless if they cannot be transported. But how to build the road, Xia Juhua had no idea.
After finally laying the soil and getting the tractor moving again, Liu Zhifu became extra careful. Although the rest of the road was still quite bumpy, the tractor did not fall into any potholes.
Arriving at the brigade headquarters, he wiped his sweat off his face and smiled at Xia Juhua: "We are finally here. It's a pity that we had such bad luck today. If we were transporting eggs, they would have been broken."
Yes, nowadays the road transport is not afraid of bumps and collisions. At most it will be delayed a little on the road. But what if you have to transport something that is afraid of bumps and collisions?
Don't forget that every household in Ping'an Village now raises a lot of chickens, and the number of eggs will increase in the future. Even if the members eat some of them themselves, most of them will still be sent to the supply and marketing cooperative to exchange for money.
It is inevitable that eggs will get broken as we continue our current journey. Wouldn't the members who rely on eggs to increase their income be heartbroken?
The more Xia Juhua thought about it, the more she felt that repairing the road was an urgent matter. That night, she went to Fifth Master's house to discuss it: "After two heavy rains in the dog days, the current road will be even more unpassable. If we want to use trucks for a long time, we have to dig up the roadbed and pave it properly, and also harden the road surface."
Master Wu said, slurping his pipe, "Building roads is a good idea, but the weather is not right for it. Besides, building roads as you want is a very expensive endeavor. Can the brigade come up with that much money?"
Xia Juhua was also worried about this. Although the vermicelli factory paid out more than 4,000 yuan in wages a month, there was really not much left in the factory - the processing fee for a bag of hot and sour noodles was only one cent, which was barely enough to pay the workers' wages in a month, and the collective only earned enough money to pay for electricity.
The road Xia Juhua wanted to build was the hardened road surface she had seen in her previous life. It was not enough to just lay some new soil on the dirt road and make it smooth - a road built with compacted loess would have potholes if you rode a bicycle on it for a long time, not to mention a truck.
It just so happens that all transportation in and out of Ping An Zhuang is done by trucks.
Xia Juhua gritted her teeth and said, "I still think we should repair the road. If not, I will go to the commune and the county tomorrow to discuss it with Secretary Zhang and County Magistrate Qi and ask them to think of a solution for us."
Seeing that she had made up her mind, the Fifth Master helped her to fill in the gaps: "You can't just discuss it with me, you also have to talk to Li Changshun. Secretary Zhang, his words are more effective than yours."
"When you talk to Renqi County Chief, you can let the troops supply our vermicelli factory with hot and sour vermicelli. Don't talk about the time delay. You also have to tell them that we have plenty of people. As long as we have the materials, we can let our Ping'anzhuang Brigade provide people to build the road."
Xia Juhua nodded repeatedly after hearing this. Even though she had already thought of some things, she was still willing to listen to Fifth Master talking about the details that should be paid attention to.
The next day, when Li Changshun was told about this, Li Changshun suggested that he and Xia Juhua go to the commune together. Xia Juhua felt that it was a bit unbearable to ask him to go on such a journey, but she could not resist Li Changshun who wanted to help Xia Juhua get things done, so she had to let Niu Weiguo drive the tractor again - Liu Zhifu felt embarrassed that he had stuck the tractor into a pit yesterday, so he took the initiative to take the job of delivering the tractors to the production teams, and was busy until midnight before going home. Now Xia Juhua couldn't say to ask him to drive the car.
When I arrived at the commune and reported this to Secretary Zhang, Secretary Zhang choked his teeth and said, "Of course it's a good thing that you want to build a road, but the commune only has so much funding throughout the year, it's like sprinkling pepper on the ground and not enough for everything. I'm afraid I can't help you. The most I can do is to ask the brigades that pass by when the road is being built to work with you."
Although she had expected this result, Xia Juhua was still a little disappointed. She left Niu Weiguo to drive the tractor to take Li Changshun back, and she took her bicycle out of the car and rode it to the county town.
When she came to the county town again, Xia Juhua obviously noticed that there were more pedestrians on the road, and their faces were not as serious as before. There were even people carrying bags of medium size or baskets, and they would occasionally approach passers-by to talk.
Once the two of them have struck up a conversation, they will walk towards a nearby alley, one after the other.
Xia Juhua clearly saw that the basket in one person's hand was passed to another person's arm, and the person who got the basket handed some money to the original owner.
It seems that people in the county are still more courageous, and the trading venues are no longer limited to the black market. In this case, I wonder if Qi Weidong's black market transactions have been affected.
Thinking of this, Xia Juhua looked at the watch and found that it was not yet ten o'clock, so she thought of looking for Qi Weidong and asking him about the materials needed for road construction to see if there was any way to get them.
Xia Juhua had already made up her mind that if the county could not provide assistance, Ping'an Village would have to build the road itself. At worst, it could just raise funds from the members as it did in its previous life.
Unlike some places in the past where fundraising was never returned, Xia Juhua believed that as long as the vermicelli factory was there, there would be no fear of not being able to repay the members' fundraising money - the supply to the troops would not continue forever, and after one or two years, when the troops had adapted to the needs of the battlefield, the demand for Ping'anzhuang hot and sour vermicelli would decrease, and that would be the time for Ping'anzhuang to make money.
"Auntie, why are you here? Do you want to buy something?" When Qi Weidong saw Xia Juhua, his first thought was that Xia Juhua needed to buy something important, and she didn't want others to know, so she came to him in person.
Xia Juhua shook her head and said, "I don't have anything to buy right now. I just saw someone quietly selling things on the street, so I wanted to ask if your business is going well since there are so many people like this."
Qi Weidong was of course happy to hear that she cared so much about him: "It's okay, those people move from one place to another and dare not show up often. If people want to buy something they need urgently, they have to find us in the market - we have been selling for several years, and everything is still available at any time."
Xia Juhua had a lifetime of experience and knew that the market would only become more and more open and would soon transition to an era where everyone could do business. So she reminded Qi Weidong: "Then don't hoard too many things. Today I saw several people secretly trading, and I'm afraid there will be more and more in the future. If you hoard too many things, it will be difficult to deal with them if you get stuck."
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