Chapter 147
Qi Weidong wanted to say that he had been doing business for many years and was not afraid of making a profit or loss. However, it was a rare opportunity to sell badly to Xia Juhua, so he did not want to let it go: "I am also worried. But think about it, several people follow me for meals, what will those people eat if I don't stock up?"
"I'm just looking forward to having good things like dried shrimps and cashews so that I can stockpile as much as I can and still sell them. Otherwise, if I have one of these things stuck in my hands, all my years of hard work will have been in vain."
You won't work in vain, you will have to build a farmers' market in the future.
The dried shrimps that Xia Juhua brought back from Guangzhou last time were also given to Qi Weidong to sell. He actually asked for a high price of eight yuan per pound and sold them all. The profit was also divided equally between the two of them.
However, there were only a little over 100 kilograms of dried shrimps in total, which was far less than the money earned from cashews. Xia Juhua didn't even save the money in the bank and kept it at home.
Now Qi Weidong mentioned dried shrimps again, knowing that cashews would not be available for a second time. Xia Juhua was a little tempted: road construction requires a lot of money, and if she could make some money from selling dried shrimps, she would have more to contribute when raising funds.
"I brought that thing back from Guangzhou. I'm not going to Guangzhou now, so I have nowhere to get it." Xia Juhua said with some regret: "I wish I could go to Guangzhou again someday."
No, she still has a chance to go to Guangzhou. Xia Juhua suddenly remembered that the contract signed by Country A required her to receive the goods in person after they arrived in Guangzhou, so she could go to Guangzhou then.
It stands to reason that after three or four months, the rubber from Country A should have arrived. Because the goods were shipped directly to Yangcheng, it didn't really matter whether Xia Juhua went to Yangcheng or not. She wasn't sure whether the ministry still needed her to go to Yangcheng, so she didn't mention it to Qi Weidong. Seeing that he wasn't greatly affected, she felt relieved and went to the county government to find Uncle Qi.
Uncle Qi knew that Xia Juhua would not come to him for no reason, but he had never thought that her matter was so serious. Road construction is paved with money. Even if the road from the county town to Ping'an Village is only more than 30 miles, according to the standards Xia Juhua mentioned, it is a provincial highway of the first grade. How much money does it cost?
I'm afraid you can't get it without 100,000 yuan.
One hundred thousand yuan. The annual budget of Pingde County Committee is only a few hundred thousand yuan!
So even though Uncle Qi was tempted, he still shook his head with regret: "The county can't afford so much money. Even for materials for road construction, the county supply and marketing cooperative can't coordinate."
"What if the members of our Ping An Village raise funds?" Xia Juhua asked.
Uncle Qi's eyes changed when he looked at Xia Juhua: "Raising funds, how do you raise funds? Do you, the members of Ping'an Village, raise money to repair it?
Xia Juhua lowered her head a little in the face of the questioning, but she still had something to say: "Although I haven't calculated how much money it is, I know it will be a lot. I just thought that if we produce more and more hot and sour noodles in the future and can't ship them out, not only will the people in Ping'an Village be worried, but the comrades in the army will be even more worried. And we have to pay for the orders from the mat-making team if we are delayed, and they will not trust us in the future and will no longer place orders with us."
"With these two things combined, how can I not think about building roads?" Xia Juhua felt more and more that the road ahead was darker and darker. She slumped in her chair and couldn't muster up any energy. There's only so much land, and if more people work in the land, fewer work points will be recorded, and the members will have to go through the hard times again."
Perhaps because she looked so pitiful, Uncle Qi's tone became better: "I understand that you are anxious, but what is the situation now? Comrade, everything needs to be done. Apart from letting everyone have a full meal first, everything else has to wait."
"If we want to build a road, we can't just rely on our own team members. We can ask people from any commune or team to help build the road. Can't we provide meals?" Xia Juhua muttered. Her idea was simple. Since the county was worried that some people still had no food to eat, then let Ping'an Village Team provide meals.
After hearing this, Uncle Qi's eyes lit up: Building a road cannot be completed in one day. If the work of road construction in Ping'an Village is shared among the passing brigades, whether it is providing meals or exchanging labor, it is equivalent to increasing the income of those brigades in disguise.
Uncle Qi was shamelessly tempted: he was the head of a county, and the livelihoods of all the people in Pingde County were on his mind, so he was happy to see any brigade increase its income. He was happy that Pingan Village's income had increased significantly in the past two years, and he was even happier that other brigades could increase their incomes together with Pingan Village.
So he asked Xia Juhua: "They have their own food. If we build a house in front of their house, it will be closer to their home. What should we do if they don't want to eat your food?"
Xia Juhua thought this was not a problem: "If you don't want to eat, just give them the meal money. I just said that we can exchange work with them. But the work points of Ping'an Village are too high. We can't exchange with them according to the work points of Ping'an Village. We can only exchange according to the work points of their respective production teams, or the county average."
Now we have to clarify the issue of work points, because Xia Juhua also knows that road construction cannot be completed in a day or two, and it is also a money-burning activity. According to the work points of the Ping'anzhuang production team, the labor cost alone is an astronomical figure.
Uncle Qi was waiting for Xia Juhua to say this. He did not raise any objection to the work point calculation method. He simply picked up the phone on the table and made a call. When the call was connected, the ease on his face when facing Xia Juhua disappeared, and he told her in a very serious manner what Xia Juhua had just told him.
Several questions came from the other end of the phone, and Uncle Qi answered them one by one according to Xia Juhua's explanation. There was silence on the other end of the phone, and after a while, a word was heard, and Uncle Qi hung up the phone.
He stood up and said to Xia Juhua, "I understand what you said. Go back and write a report. I will go to the secretary to discuss it first. When your report is submitted, the county will report to the district." The county magistrate is not the highest leader of Pingde County, but the secretary is. Uncle Qi cannot make the decision on such a big matter alone. He must report to the secretary before making a decision.
"When I go back, can I talk to the members first and calculate roughly how much money we can raise?" When Xia Juhua heard that there was a way, she wanted to get the work done first.
Uncle Qi did not object to this: "You can give a general idea first, but you cannot collect money from the members yet. I will inform the secretary and then see the specific opinions of the district before we can discuss the next step."
Xia Juhua certainly understood, and she was already very satisfied with the result today. After returning to Ping'an Village, she asked someone to go to the elementary school to see what Liu Lizhu was doing, and if he was free, he would come to the brigade headquarters.
Hearing that it was Xia Juhua who was looking for him, Liu Lizhu did not delay and followed the others who were looking for him. Xia Juhua asked him to sit down and told him her purpose: "...you should hurry up and write the report, and try to hand it in to the county tomorrow or the day after tomorrow."
Liu Lizhu shook his head and asked, "Captain, do we have to repair this road?"
Xia Juhua nodded firmly: "Well, if we don't repair it, it might rain heavily one day and the cars won't be able to get in. In fact, the order is easy to say. Our seating group has made an advance quota and can supply the army's hot and sour noodles. Can't delay."
"Okay, I'll go back and write it." Liu Lizhu had understood Xia Juhua's intention, and stood up and said, "Captain, you know our family's situation in the past few years. I can't come up with extra money. If we need to raise funds, our family will contribute 200 yuan."
Hearing that he was actually asking for a fund-raiser of 200 yuan, Xia Juhua was somewhat moved: before the establishment of the weaving team, Liu Lizhu's family was in debt. It was only in the past two years, when Liu Lizhu taught and Ma Xiaoqin joined the weaving team, that the family's situation improved. However, compared with other families in the Ping'anzhuang production team, their life could only be considered lower-middle class.
Two hundred yuan was not all their family savings, but at least more than half. But Liu Lizhu did not even consider whether the road could be built, and directly participated in the fundraising, completely out of trust in Xia Juhua herself.
Xia Juhua was touched by this and advised him: "Go back and discuss it with Xiaoqin. It's not certain whether the fundraising can be successful. Don't get angry with each other over the fundraising."
Liu Lizhu felt a little inferior because he had been unable to take part in collective labor due to poor health for many years. Even though teaching was not as tiring as working in the fields and his health had improved, he was still not good at arguing with others, so he just nodded to Xia Juhua's words and left the brigade headquarters.
Xia Juhua's heart, however, could not calm down for a long time because of Liu Lizhu's initiative to raise funds. She believed that there must be many members of the Pinganzhuang production team who participated in the fund-raising simply because of their trust in her, just like Liu Lizhu. The heavy trust of everyone made Xia Juhua think that she should think of a way to prevent everyone from suffering losses because of their trust in her.
Without raising funds, the road would definitely not be built, so funds must be raised. Moreover, there was no concept of collecting tolls at that time, and Xia Juhua would not dare to bring up this concept no matter how brave she was - she had heard a lot of news about toll roads being scolded and sued in her previous life, and she was as disgusted as all ordinary people, so how could she let herself become someone she herself disliked.
But if we want to make a profit from everyone's fundraising, and we can't charge for repairing the road, the best way is for whoever benefits to pay - the vermicelli factory and the mat-weaving team are currently the biggest beneficiaries of the road construction. Xia Juhua thinks that a portion of the income from these two places can be taken out to give interest to the members who raised funds.
When the vermicelli factory and its profits increase in the future, the funds raised can be returned to the members. As for the road that breaks down after being used for a period of time and needs to be repaired, it is time for the state to propose that if you want to get rich, you must first repair the road, so Pingan Village does not need to worry about it anymore.
Although she had an idea in mind, the matter was too big for Xia Juhua to make the decision herself, so she invited Li Changshun, Liu Liqun and other brigade cadres and several production team leaders to a meeting to discuss the matter. She also called Liu Lizhu to sit in so that the method of paying interest could be included in the report when it was written, to avoid anyone jumping out to make irresponsible remarks when the interest was paid in the future.
Li Changshun thought it was unrealistic: "The group of staff is profitable, but now we have recruited more than 100 people from various production teams, and the monthly salary is not small. The vermicelli factory can barely pay the monthly salary and electricity bills, so where will we get the money to pay the interest to everyone?"
Chen Qiusheng was optimistic: "Now the vermicelli factory doesn't have much spare money, but when we don't need to supply the troops, will we have to worry about selling our hot and sour noodles? It will be no problem to take out some money when the time comes."
The editing team also had to pay, but Chen Qiu Sheng didn't even mention it because he was sure that as long as he told the women what Xia Juhua meant, they would not only not object, but would also be eager to raise funds.
The kind that requires collection even without interest.
Chen Qiusheng is the director of the vermicelli factory and the production team leader of Ping'an Village where the editorial team is located. He is in charge of both the places where the money is paid, and he has the most say. Since he, the one who pays the money, didn't say anything, the people at the meeting simply didn't ask, and the focus was on how much money each company had to raise and how to pay the interest.
Xia Juhua had also suffered from the pain of distributing funds in her previous life, so she clearly stated that fundraising should be based entirely on the voluntary participation of members, that is, each household should contribute as much as they are willing to and as much as they can.
Everyone has some doubts in their mind about this: if we don’t distribute the goods, it’s all voluntary. Is there anyone willing to pay for it?
Xia Juhua then looked at Liu Lizhu and told him again that he had expressed his willingness to raise 200 yuan to make her case more convincing: "I know that Lizhu wants to raise so much money because he trusts me. I asked everyone to raise money, and I can't fall behind. This time I plan to raise 5,000 yuan."
As soon as the words fell, the whole floor was shocked. Li Changshun asked with trembling lips: "How much are you going to pay?" I know you made some money from frying peanuts in the past two years, but I never thought you would make so much.
Xia Juhua knew that the number she said was a bit scary, but she still had to confirm it in order to increase the enthusiasm of members to raise funds in the future: "I plan to raise 5,000 yuan. The last time I returned to the provincial capital, I saved some foreign exchange for the country through negotiations with international friends. The country and the province rewarded me with money, and I plan to use it all to raise funds for road construction."
After receiving the reward in the provincial capital, Xia Juhua was very happy, but she was busy after returning to Ping'an Village and had no time to deposit the money in the bank. Now that she has proposed to raise funds, she will use it to build roads - even if the interest rate is a little lower than that of depositing in the bank, Xia Juhua still thinks that raising funds is much more valuable than putting it in the bank.
Besides, she not only had the 5,000 yuan she got from the last trip to the provincial capital, but also the 2,000 yuan bonus she got in Yangcheng to buy cashews, the 5,000 yuan she earned from Qi Weidong selling them, and the several hundred yuan she earned from selling shrimp. If she hadn't been unable to take out the money, she would have used it all to raise funds.
Even though the money earned from the trip to Guangzhou could not be taken out, the source of the 5,000 yuan raised was explained clearly to everyone. Everyone was still scared. Li Changshun finally straightened out his tongue: "That is your bonus. You have to keep some for yourself. You can't use it all on road construction." What if you don't have any money in your hands and you really encounter problems?
Xia Juhua smiled at him and said, "Captain, once you start building the road, you'll know that five thousand yuan won't do much."
Li Changshun was speechless for a moment. He thought for a while and said, "I'm not as rich as you, but I have saved some money for my coffin. I'll give you 500 yuan."
Xia Juhua was anxious: "Captain, your money cannot be touched." In Li Changshun's words, that money was really his last remaining money, and it must be all his savings over the years. How could he be allowed to take it all out?
Li Changshun was also anxious: "What? You can spend all your money to build the road. I am not as enlightened as you?"
Xia Juhua wanted to tell him that she was different from him. In addition to the 5,000 yuan she had promised, she still had more than 5,000 yuan in her hands and more than 4,000 yuan in the bank. However, the number sounded too scary and it was difficult to explain where it came from. She really couldn't tell Li Changshun.
Hearing the two men's argument, Liu Liqun spoke up: "Come on, everyone is just thinking about how to get the road built, so let's do our best. I'll do the same as Captain Li and give 500."
As soon as he made his statement, the other people participating in the meeting became restless. Accountant Chang also said that his family would contribute 300 yuan, and Captain Niu wanted to contribute 500 yuan, the same as Li Changshun and Liu Liqun.
Xia Juhua quickly stopped the sudden fundraising competition and said to everyone: "Today we are just discussing whether the fundraising is feasible and how to pay the interest after the fundraising. We are not asking everyone to say how much to raise now."
"Everyone has a family to support, so don't feel embarrassed to join others in the crowdfunding. Instead, go home and discuss with your family to determine how much you can contribute without affecting your family's life."
Li Daniu and his friends secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and looked at Xia Juhua and Chen Qiusheng from time to time. The two seemed to not feel that others were looking at them, and then discussed with Li Changshun and others when to pay the interest and how much interest to pay per year so that the members would not suffer losses.
They heard that the funds raised would definitely be returned and the interest would definitely be paid, which made Li Daniu and the other two feel that if they raised less money, they might suffer losses.
Fortunately, the result was discussed quickly, otherwise Li Daniu would have wanted to report the amount of money saved under the box at home: the interest payment was too tempting.
Because the vermicelli factory is not profitable for the time being, Xia Juhua and her colleagues have discussed that they will start paying interest to investors at 5% from the end of next year. That means if you raise 100 yuan, you can get 5 yuan in interest without worrying about it for a year.
If Xia Juhua really paid 5,000 yuan, she could earn 250 yuan in interest alone in a year, which was enough to cover a strong worker's annual dividend.
Liu Lizhu, who was recording, also quickly calculated in his mind. The difference between his idea and that of Li Daniu and others was that he calculated how much money the vermicelli factory and the weaving team had to earn in a year to pay the interest on the funds raised.
Because it involved the issue of interest, not long after the meeting, all the members of Ping'anzhuang Brigade knew that the brigade wanted to raise funds to build a road, and the funds raised would be returned without having to pay back the interest paid every year.
No one had ever heard of the term "fund-raising" and was unfamiliar with the concept of interest. In the past, each production team received little dividends and was far away from the county town, so few members would deposit their money in the bank. Everyone doubted whether it was really possible to get free money every year.
Compared with other production teams, the members of Ping'an Village had a very consistent attitude. They all believed in Xia Juhua. When they heard that Xia Juhua was going to use all her bonuses to build roads, there was a constant stream of people coming to persuade her to leave some for themselves.
Seeing that she would not listen, everyone indirectly learned the reality of burning money for road construction, and reported to Hongling the frightening amounts they had raised: Chen Qiu Sheng's family directly reported 1,500, Zhao Xianzhi and Chang Xiancao's families each reported 1,000, and even Seventh Grandma told Hongling that she would also contribute 50 when the money was collected.
After hearing this, Xia Juhua rushed home to persuade the old lady. The seventh grandmother said to her: "Compared with the money you gave, my money is nothing. You raised two children by yourself, and now you don't have to worry about the children. You can take out the money without worrying. I have no children in my life, but I don't have to worry about my life in the future. Why can't I take out the money?"
Although the old man did not express himself clearly, Xia Juhua still understood what he meant, that is, the old man believed that with the Ping'anzhuang production team, no one would take care of his future life and he would not be afraid of having no food to eat after raising funds.
So Xia Juhua stopped trying to persuade Seventh Grandma, and promised her that if the production team collected funds, she would let Hongling be the first to collect hers. Seventh Grandma was very satisfied with this, and took Xia Juhua to see her chicken shed, pointing to the half-grown chickens pecking at food inside and said:
"Look, whose chickens in the whole village are bigger than mine? These are all given to me by each family. Why didn't anyone give me any before? Isn't it because everyone's life has improved and they have the spare money to take care of lonely people like us? I know that only when Ping'an Village is better can my life be better. Besides, when these chickens grow up and can lay eggs, will you still worry that I will have no money to spend?"
Xia Juhua felt sad after hearing this, but the smile on her face did not change at all: "That's right. But Seventh Grandma, don't sell all the eggs when the time comes. You have to eat them yourself."
"Of course I have to eat." Seventh Grandma agreed very readily: "In the past, an old lonely woman like me could not eat a meal of white flour all year round, but now you see, I have enough food, and I don't have to pay for it. It's almost the same even if it's not white flour every meal. If I don't eat something good to keep my body in good shape and live a few more years of good life, wouldn't I be a fool?"
At this point, Grandma Seven looked at Xia Juhua with some concern: "As for you, you raised two children by yourself a few years ago, and your health was very poor. When you were too tired, you fell ill and had to be hospitalized. Now you have to be more careful."
Xia Juhua hurriedly reassured the old man: "Don't worry, the doctor who treated me last time prescribed me some medicine to regulate my body. I've been taking it for two months. I'm feeling fine now. If you feel uncomfortable, don't hide it and worry about causing trouble. Let's go to the hospital as soon as possible."
In her previous life, Seventh Grandma had never survived a drought, but in this life, she could talk to herself properly and was full of hope for the future life. Xia Juhua felt even more sad.
Why be afraid of being tired or having difficulties? No matter how tired or difficult it is, as long as your life is better than your previous life and the people around you live much better than their previous life, then it is worth it.
Grandma Qi noticed that Xia Juhua was a little sad, so she patted her on the back without saying anything else. After sending her out of the hospital gate, she wiped the corners of her eyes vigorously and went to feed the chickens.
Xia Juhua was thinking a lot as she walked home. She was a little dazed when An Baoling pulled her back. An Baoling was startled: "Sister-in-law, what's wrong with you? Who said something unpleasant?"
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