Who wouldn't want to make money?
However, Lijiapo is now facing a problem that is neither too big nor too small: Lijiapo has too little land.
They had previously calculated that, including the Chinese herbal medicine planting base, shrimp ponds, and fish ponds, the Lijiapo Brigade only had a little over 1,400 mu of land.
We also need to expand the planting area of Chinese medicinal herbs, increase fish and shrimp ponds, and build a Chinese medicinal herb drying plant, a winery, and a pickle factory, all of which require real land!
Another issue is that the production brigade now needs to approve homestead land for its members.
With a group of young men about to get married and start families, and now that the people of Lijiapo have money, they all need new homesteads to build houses.
But if these lands are occupied, there will be less land left to grow crops!
Li Jin and the rest of the team were so worried that they were practically losing clumps of hair.
It's March now, not yet wheat harvest season, the weather is warm, and people aren't busy.
Like many other families, Li Xiangdong planned to build a house now.
Although he was not yet eighteen years old, given his prestige and status in Lijiapo, no one would bring up his age.
When Li Jin heard his son say this, he scratched his head in worry.
This is his own son, and he has made such a great contribution to Lijiapo. He should not be treated poorly, no matter who he is!
Which piece of land have you taken a fancy to?
Li Jin should first ask Li Xiangdong for his opinion.
Li Xiangdong naturally knew what his father was worried about; he had thought of this matter long ago.
"Isn't there a piece of saline-alkali land in the northwest of our village? Just give me a piece of it there."
Li Jin was shocked. "How can that be? Building a house on saline-alkali land won't make it last!"
When ordinary people build houses, they're doing it for a lifetime.
Saline-alkali soil corrodes red bricks and wood, and before long, these materials will all rot, which is what farmers often call "alkali turning".
In addition, the saline-alkali land in Lijiapo is covered with white soil all year round, making it impossible to grow any grains or vegetables.
Even sorghum, which is resistant to salinity, couldn't survive there; it only grew a lot of saltwort, which the villagers would take home and burn as firewood after it dried up.
In the past few months, Li Xiangdong has been wandering around the saline-alkali land whenever he has free time. He even picked some tender shoots of Suaeda salsa that had just sprouted, and brought them back to make dumplings.
"Dad, there must be quite a lot of saline-alkali land in our village, I estimate it must be at least two hundred acres!"
How big is more than 200 acres?
Li Xiangdong measured it and found that this saline-alkali land was a regular rectangle, 100 meters wide and more than 1,400 meters long!
Li Jin had a clear understanding of the situation and stated the exact number of acreages of the saline-alkali land: "This saline-alkali land totals 430 mu, of which 230 mu belong to our village and the remaining 200 mu belong to Guanyutai Brigade!"
To be honest, this is a mess. This land was fertile farmland decades ago.
Later, some people used the water from the Baiyang River, which was already slightly salty, to irrigate their land.
The irrigation method of only irrigating and not draining caused the groundwater level to rise, and the salt content also rose. As the water evaporated, the salt remained on the ground, forming saline-alkali land.
The commune and the county knew that this land was not suitable for growing grain crops, so they paid grain tax at the rate of one-quarter of the normal arable land.
But even if we hand over a quarter, that's still a lot of grain, especially considering this saline-alkali land covers several hundred acres!
Neither the Guanyutai Brigade nor the Lijiapo Brigade wanted this land, and they made a lot of noise about it.
It wasn't until Li Jin came to be the brigade secretary that an unwritten agreement was reached: Lijiapo and Guanyutai would each have half of their property!
Li Xiangdong was unaware of this inside story, but after hearing Li Jin's explanation, he immediately became excited!
"Since Guanyutai doesn't want it, let's just take all 400-plus acres of saline-alkali land!"
Li Jin took a puff of his cigarette. Given their current economic situation, delivering an extra 200 mu of grain to the state wouldn't be a problem.
But how can this saline-alkali land be used?
Since the son wants it so much, he must have found a way to utilize the saline-alkali land.
"Tell me your plans after you've taken them all!"
"For saline-alkali land, if you want to grow crops, just flood it with water, then use some cow dung and hay ash to neutralize the salinity. After a few years of treatment, you'll definitely be able to grow grain!"
"If you want to build a house, then use concrete for the foundation, and you'll be guaranteed not to experience efflorescence!"
"In addition, seafood can be raised on saline-alkali land! Although our place is near the sea, we don't have our own beach, so we can only do freshwater aquaculture."
"With this saline-alkali land, things are different. With some modifications, we can still raise seafood!"
"The key now is that we need to get ownership of the saline-alkali land and put it on paper!"
Li Xiangdong spoke eloquently, and Li Jin couldn't sit still any longer, so he hurriedly ran to the brigade headquarters to hold a meeting to discuss the matter.
Lijiapo is currently thriving in all aspects of its development, but they have discovered a potential problem: the limited land area directly restricts their progress.
Upon hearing Li Jin's suggestion, everyone immediately agreed, "Whether we plant it or not, it's right to put the saline-alkali land on our brigade's books first!"
Wang Zhenbo even went so far as to say, "The county brick kiln also occupied our village's land. Although they paid us money at the time, it wasn't much. I'm thinking, could we get back the two big pits the brick kiln dug? We'd even be willing to pay the brick kiln some more money!"
Large pits used to be useless, but now, with fish and shrimp farming, you can't do without them!
Once the guidelines and policies are formulated, the next step is to implement them.
For this to be done, the higher-ups need to agree, and the lower-ups also need to have no objections.
Therefore, they adopted a two-pronged approach.
Li Jin led a group to negotiate with the Guanyutai Brigade, while Li Xiangdong went to follow Liu Donglai's route.
However, the two large pits, which were useless to the brick kiln, were given Liu Donglai's influence, and the fact that they could bring in several hundred yuan, made the county brick kiln readily agree.
As for the saline-alkali land, the commune and the county have no objection, as long as you can deliver the grain on time and in good quality!
Li Jin did not expect that the problem originated from the Guanyutai Brigade.
He originally thought that the two brigades had been fighting for so many years just to get rid of this hot potato of several hundred acres that needed to be handed over to the public grain.
Now he's offering to take over the saline-alkali land, and the Guanyutai Brigade is overjoyed, giving him the land with great fanfare!
Who knew that when he shared his idea, Captain Ma of the Guanyutai Brigade looked at him with a profound and inscrutable expression.
"Brother, although nothing grows on this saline-alkali land, it's still land! What's that old saying we common folk have?"
"Fertile or barren land, good or bad, it's all the same!"
"What do we old farmers rely on? We just make a living by digging in the soil!"
Li Jin was initially excited, but Ma Jinfu poured cold water on his enthusiasm.
He calmed down, carefully considered the meaning behind Ma Jinfu's words, and then laughed. It wasn't that he didn't want to get rid of the saline-alkali land; he just wanted some benefits.
“Brother Jinfu, we’ve been brothers for so many years, I’ve always treated you like my own brother. We don’t need to beat around the bush.”
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