Xujia Village lacked livestock capable of cultivating the fields, making sowing a difficult task.
In fact, most of the people here are migrants, and there are very few normal households.
People always love their hometown, provided they can survive there.
One reason for choosing to live away from home is the abundance of the local area, which can change their future prospects, such as those villagers who stayed in Yuzhou Prefecture.
Another possibility is that they escaped, fleeing their original difficulties, which is why they are now settled in Xujia Village.
Or perhaps there are many brothers in the family, and they do not own land or houses in their ancestral home.
That's how Tian Gui's family is.
There were seven or eight brothers in his hometown. The couple shared the work, but when the family divided the property, they didn't even have a room left. His eldest daughter was almost stolen and sold by his other uncles, so he had to find another way out.
There's also Wu Yang, whose parents are both in poor health and can't travel for long periods of time, and then there's Xia Xiucai, a madman.
Now these families are facing difficulties in farming, and the important role of Jiang Zhi, the village head, in taking the lead has become apparent.
After getting to know them over this period of time, she gathered several quick-witted and capable villagers to form a mutual aid group.
This word, of course, cannot be spoken aloud; one should only say "discuss matters."
However, in the minds of Tian Guiwu and others, it was Village Chief Jiang who respected them as outsiders.
Xu Genyou, Xu Gensheng, and others believed that they had to support their aunt and prevent outsiders from taking advantage of her.
A mutual aid group, by its very nature, is a group.
Sitting in her open-air office under her big tree and beside a broken wall, Jiang Zhi convened her first meeting of the eight-person group.
At this meeting, Jiang Zhi first announced the personnel arrangements.
The meeting recorder was naturally Xia Xiucai.
Aside from Errui and Xiaoman, who are both right-hand men with multiple roles, the rest of the group consists of Xu Genyou and Tian Gui, who are "agricultural technicians," Xu Gensheng, who is a "nitpicker," Li Laoshi, who is a "propagandist," and Wu Yang, who is a "jack-of-all-trades."
In the village, Tian Gui and Xu Genyou decide who does the farm work first and who does it later, preparing and arranging in advance so as not to waste time.
The two men nodded. They were in their prime and had been farming for decades. They knew exactly what to prepare for the crops in each season.
Xu Gensheng, a self-proclaimed "nitpicker," assisted Tian Gui and his companion. If any villagers disagreed with the arrangements, he would use his rest time to explain the situation clearly. For example, he would go to the household at night and ask them why they were disobedient.
There was supervision while they worked, and anyone who tried to slack off was kicked out of the mutual aid group. This process was carried out by Li Laoshi.
Upon hearing his job title, Old Man Li grinned from ear to ear: "Village Chief Jiang, these eyes of mine aren't just for show; I'll definitely do my job properly."
Under Jiang Zhi's plan, the land in the village still belongs to each family, but they help each other when working, and the villagers participate voluntarily.
This production model is not new.
During the busy farming season, several families in the village would pair up and help each other with their work.
Some would exchange labor with others during normal times, and then the labor would be returned during the busy farming season.
In any case, no matter how it's done, it's a mode of labor that humans developed for survival when productivity was lacking.
Therefore, when Jiang Zhi proposed it, it was not unfamiliar to Tian Gui and Xu Genyou, as they often did the same thing. It was just that Jiang Zhi proposed it for a larger number of people and with more rules.
"Arrange everyone's manpower in a unified manner, cultivate seedlings, raise rice seedlings, level the mother field..." Jiang Zhi listed the tasks to be done for spring planting one by one, while Xia Xiucai silently wrote them down beside her.
"You guys won't have worked for nothing. I'll give you some subsidies later." Even oxen need to be fed grass, so Jiang Zhi will give these people some benefits.
Tian Gui rubbed his hands together and chuckled, "Village Chief Jiang, you're too kind. We're just doing this for ourselves. If one family doesn't have a good harvest, the other neighbors won't have a good life either."
Xu Genyou also said, "Auntie, don't say that. It's a great kindness that you lent me money to buy grain. In the past... we also had to buy grain on credit from the grain store and pay it back with interest during the autumn harvest."
He was already a man of few words, but after returning from town, he became even more listless.
Although Xu Genbao, the younger brother, was unaware that he needed to borrow money, the things the Wang family said and did to him revealed his status within the family.
They showed no consideration for relatives whatsoever; they're even worse than a live-in son-in-law.
When Liu, the mother, found out, she cried bitterly and said she was sorry to her deceased husband.
She even said that her son brought this trouble upon himself and that she would never bother him again!
Beside him, Xu Gensheng started asking again: "Auntie is going to give us a reward."
How much is the reward? Are the rewards the same for all of us, or are they different?
If we're the same, but our work is different, then can we choose?
Jiang Zhi already knew this man's personality, so she wasn't annoyed. She just glanced at him and said, "Xu Gensheng, you're overthinking it. It's still uncertain whether you'll get the reward."
"If the other villagers aren't willing to work together, our mutual help is a joke."
Xu Gensheng slammed his hand on the wooden board: "Why wouldn't you want something this good? Are you out of your mind?!"
His words immediately drew angry glares from several people. How could he say such things? Wasn't he just pointing at a monk and calling him a bald donkey?
Beside him, the mentally unstable scholar Xia had already memorized these words and slowly remarked, "He's sick...he needs treatment!"
Xu Gensheng was dumbfounded: "Hehe, scholar, you don't need to memorize this sentence!"
That's how it happened. That day, people came and went outside the shacks of each household in the village, asking each other questions.
Each household felt that this mutual assistance was very interesting.
As Xia's mother carried the rice and grain that Xia Xiucai had brought back, she felt a mix of emotions, but also a sense of relief: her son had been ill for over a year, and this was the first time he had brought anything home since the instructor had confiscated his rations.
Moreover, neither he nor his daughter-in-law had ever farmed before, and they were worried about how to dig the land. Now that the mutual aid program has come, they can make a living from now on.
When Wu Yang shared the news with his parents, the family immediately felt relieved: "Wu Yang, you'd better be more diligent in the future, and do whatever the village chief tells you to do."
Families with fewer able-bodied members are happy, but other families are not.
When Xu Gensheng returned home, his uncle Xu Changming was already waiting in the shack: "Gensheng, what are you doing messing around with a woman, even calling it mutual assistance?"
Xu Gensheng chuckled: "Grandpa, I'm an official in charge now, not just messing around. Grandpa, tell me why I can't do it?"
"Hmph, what does Granny Jiang know about being an official? She's just treating my Xu family like cattle and horses, siding with outsiders, and giving away so much grain to outsiders for nothing."
Xu Changming kept rambling on, explaining that he had harbored resentment since being ignored by everyone and scolded by Xiaomanye during the village chief election.
Now that this mutual assistance is being discussed, he is even more dissatisfied. The Xu family's land and affairs are now being taken over by outsiders, and they have to contribute their own manpower and effort to help them.
However, he doesn't have any authority at home, and he's even more resentful that his second son's grandson, Xu Gensheng, has already become an official.
"Come on, sir, we have some time today, let's have a chat!"
Xu Yousheng was in high spirits. The two nitpickers had found a worthy opponent and began to argue!
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