"Don't worry, Brother Jianguo, with me here, the wild boars won't even touch our vegetables!"
He straightened his thin chest, his eyes filled with unwavering determination.
Su Jianguo rode very fast on the mountain road.
In the fields, the villagers bent over harvesting, their figures forming a continuous line. Occasionally, someone would look up and wave at him, and he would only nod hastily in response.
The village office was a single-story building made of gray bricks. Su Jianguo parked his bicycle there.
They went straight into the village office.
The old Party Secretary was sitting in his office, wearing reading glasses and checking the accounts, when he heard footsteps and looked up.
"Jianguo, why the rush? Did something happen to the greenhouse?"
The old Party Secretary took off his glasses, revealing concern on his wrinkled face.
This old Party Secretary was very concerned about Su Jianguo's vegetable greenhouse project. He was waiting for Su Jianguo to succeed so he could brag to the Party Secretaries of neighboring villages and higher-level leaders.
Su Jianguo grabbed the enamel mug on the table, took a sip of water, and then spoke.
"Old Party Secretary, a herd of wild boars has come down the mountain! They almost destroyed my greenhouse last night!"
"Huh? The wild boar ran up to your mountain?"
The old Party Secretary frowned slightly.
He walked quickly to the window and looked out at the bustling fields.
"I received the news a few days ago, which is why I organized the whole village to rush the harvest. I never expected that these beasts would actually run off to your place..."
"Old Party Secretary, how come there are suddenly so many wild boars?"
Su Jianguo was very puzzled.
Over the years, due to extensive hunting, the number of wild boars has decreased significantly. It is now difficult to find them even when going up the mountain, let alone when they come down to damage crops.
The old Party Secretary sighed, took out his pipe from the drawer, and slowly began to pack tobacco into it.
"In the past two years, the county has said it wants to protect the ecology and has banned hunting. Wild boars here don't have many natural predators to begin with, and a litter can have seven or eight piglets. Over the past two years, naturally, there have been..."
He struck a match, and the tobacco in the pipe crackled softly.
"We can't just leave it like this, can we? If it damages someone's crops, they'll suffer the consequences!"
Su Jianguo said with great dissatisfaction.
These days, every family in the countryside is struggling to make ends meet. If someone's farmland is damaged, it's a huge loss.
The old Party Secretary took a deep drag of his cigarette and slowly exhaled.
"Several nearby villages are rushing to harvest and can't spare any manpower. The township has agreed to send someone, but it won't be until next week..."
"next week?"
Su Jianguo's eyes widened.
"By then, the crops will have been completely ruined! Old Party Secretary, we have to find a solution ourselves!"
What's your idea?
The old Party Secretary had obviously thought about it, but didn't have any good solutions.
Su Jianguo thought for a moment, then said.
"If you ask me, we should just organize the able-bodied men in the village into a militia, armed them with guns. We don't even need to fight; we can just drive the wild boars back into the mountains..."
The old Party Secretary squinted and tapped his pipe lightly on the corner of the table.
"I've thought about that too, but wild boars these days are incredibly ferocious, especially sows with piglets. They can be deadly when they go berserk. If something goes wrong..."
The old Party Secretary did not repeat himself.
Su Jianguo understood that the old Party Secretary was too old to take responsibility, and even less did he want any casualties in the village.
In his mind, the worst that could happen was that some food would be lost.
Acceptable.
However, Su Jianguo could not accept it.
He's invested so much in the vegetable greenhouses; if they get destroyed by wild boars, he'll have no one to turn to for help.
"Old Party Secretary, we can't just sit idly by and wait for things to go wrong! Watching wild boars ruin the villagers' food is wasteful and inactive..."
Seeing that the old Party Secretary was trying to shirk responsibility, Su Jianguo immediately started to escalate the issue and make it sound like a matter of principle.
"If this continues, what will the whole village eat this winter? I invested over ten thousand yuan in my greenhouse; if it's destroyed..."
The old Party Secretary was lifted up, and his face looked rather unpleasant.
However, Su Jianguo's words made sense, and he had no way to refute them.
After much deliberation, the old Party Secretary slowly spoke.
"you're right."
He walked to the wall, pulled open the wooden box next to the light switch, revealing the loudspeaker switch inside.
"I'll call a meeting right away."
As the old Party Secretary pressed the button, the loudspeaker on the roof of the village office emitted a piercing electrical sound.
Then came the old Party Secretary's voice.
"Attention all members! Attention all members! Everyone must attend a meeting at the village office at noon today. There is an important task to be assigned! I'll repeat that..."
The broadcast echoed over the village, and the busy figures in the fields straightened up, asking each other what had happened.
"Jianguo, go and inform the production team leaders first. I'll go to the warehouse to inventory the tools. Remember to call Hunter Zhao; although he's old, he still has plenty of experience hunting wild boars."
Upon hearing this, Su Jianguo didn't hesitate and immediately left the village office to find several production team leaders from Sujiatun.
We waited until noon.
The open space in front of the village office.
Villagers gradually gathered around. The men squatted under the shade of the trees smoking, the women huddled together in twos and threes whispering amongst themselves, and the children ran and played among the crowd.
Su Jianguo stood next to an old man, Zhao the hunter. Although he was over seventy years old, he was in good health. Apart from being a little hunchbacked, he had no other problems. He carried an old-fashioned hunting rifle on his shoulder.
"Quiet! Quiet!"
The old Party Secretary tapped on the enamel mug, and the crowd gradually quieted down.
"I called everyone here today because of the wild boar incident."
A buzzing sound immediately arose from the crowd.
Widow Li squeezed to the front and said with red eyes.
"Old Party Secretary, my sweet potato field is completely ruined! That was our winter food supply! Will the village offer any compensation?"
"Compensation? Secretary, a lot of my corn has been damaged too!"
Upon hearing that there was compensation, Old Zhao immediately raised his pipe and shouted.
The old Party Secretary raised his hand to signal everyone to be quiet.
"I know the situation. As for compensation, let's not rush it; we need to wait for the policy from above. I called everyone here today because Comrade Su Jianguo made a suggestion to organize a militia team to drive away the wild boars. What do you all think?"
"It should have been done a long time ago!"
Zhang Dazhu was the first to respond.
"These beasts are ruining our crops. Let's just kill them all and sell them for meat; that'll be compensation for our losses."
"Yes, yes, wild boar meat may be a bit gamey, but it's still meat."
"If we can't eat it all, we can take it to the city to sell. I agree."
The villagers began to discuss it amongst themselves.
They were almost all warmongers; they got incredibly excited at the mere mention of organizing a militia to hunt wild boars.
Upon seeing this, Hunter Zhao coughed, and instantly everyone's attention turned to him.
Seeing this, Hunter Zhao explained.
"Wild boars are tough to deal with. When I was young, I hunted a few. They have thick skin and tough flesh; if you miss a shot, it's even more dangerous."
"We don't need to really fight."
Su Jianguo stepped forward to explain.
"Wild boars are actually very timid. We just need to scare them back into the mountains; there's no need to kill any of them."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
