Chapter 261 Uncle Nine Becomes Clan Leader [6100 words]

At the same time.

Naye Village.

Deng Shirong handed the heavy sack in his hand to his nephew-in-law and said, "Ah Hu, this sack contains pork, braised pork, squid, sandworms, vermicelli, fungus, brown sugar, red dates, melon seeds, and candy cakes. They are all packed separately. You can take them back for the New Year."

Jiang Dehu took the sack and thanked him with a smile on his face: "Thank you, uncle!"

Deng Shirong then took out a big red envelope that he had prepared long ago from his pocket. Inside it were thirty big unity notes. He handed it to his niece beside him and said, "Dafang, you and Ah Hu have worked hard this year. This is the New Year's red envelope your uncle gives you two."

This year, his niece and her husband worked diligently to help him take care of the orchard, resulting in a bumper harvest of lychees and watermelons, which they sold for more than 6,000 yuan.

Originally, Deng Shirong wanted to show the way for the couple so that they could earn more money and live a better life, but they had no ambition and thought that it was good enough to help their uncle manage the orchard and earn a few dozen yuan a month.

In this case, Deng Shirong would not force them, but of course he would not treat them unfairly.

Bu Dafang did not refuse, took the red envelope, and said happily: "Thank you, uncle!"

Deng Yuntai replied, "Cousin, brother-in-law, it's a bit far for you to walk back. Ah Zhen and I will take you back!"

"Okay, uncle, let's go back first!"

"Um!"

…

More than forty minutes later, Bu Dafang and Jiang Dehu returned home.

As soon as he got off the car, Bu Dafang called out, "Cousin, cousin, come in and sit for a while."

Deng Yuntai smiled and said, "No need, cousin, we will go back now."

Jiang Dehu also said, "It's a rare opportunity for you to come here, so stay and have dinner before you go back."

Deng Yunzhen also smiled and said, "Brother-in-law, you really don't need to bother me. You haven't been home for a long time, and there are still a lot of things to do at home. We will just take a look at the children and leave."

As they were talking, the people in the room heard the noise and came out.

Jiang's father, Jiang's mother, Jiang's elder brother, Jiang's elder sister-in-law, Jiang's younger sister-in-law and Bu Dafang's two children all came out.

Jiang Dehu quickly introduced: "Dad, Mom, big brother and sister-in-law, little sister, this is Afang's uncle's eldest cousin, they rode their bikes to send us back."

After the two sides greeted each other, Jiang's mother greeted them warmly: "Cousin, come in and sit down, warm yourself by the fire."

She used to think little of Bu Dafang, her second daughter-in-law. But ever since Bu Dafang took her second son to help her uncle look at the orchard, and then gave her youngest daughter ten yuan a month to help take care of the child, her opinion gradually changed.

After all, whether now or in the future, people who can make money naturally have a say in the family.

As for her cousins, she knew more or less about their family conditions. Since it was a rare opportunity for them to come, she naturally had to treat them well.

Deng Yuntai and Deng Yunzhen naturally refused with a smile. After some polite exchanges, the brother and sister rode away on their bicycles.

After the guests left, Jiang Dasao asked curiously, "Dafang, what are those big bags of things you're carrying?"

Bu Dafang's face was full of smiles as he said, "These are some New Year's goods that my uncle prepared for me. I'll bring some over to you later."

"How can this be so embarrassing!"

Mrs. Jiang said polite words, but her eyes never left the sack. She wanted to go over and open the sack to see what kind of New Year goods her rich uncle had prepared for her that filled the entire sack to the brim.

After Bu Dafang replied, he carried the sack and walked into his room, saying to his sister-in-law, "Ah Feng, come in with me. I have something to tell you."

Jiang Defeng responded and followed his second sister-in-law into the house.

As for the two children, they had already been taken out to play by their father.

After entering the house, Bu Dafang put the sack aside, then took out twenty yuan from his pocket, handed it to his sister-in-law and said, "Ah Feng, take this money. Ten yuan is for your childcare expenses, and the other ten yuan is for you to celebrate the New Year."

Jiang Defeng said a little embarrassedly: "Second sister-in-law, just give me ten yuan."

Bu Dafang stuffed the money into her sister-in-law's hand and said, "Take it. Don't think I don't know that not much of the ten yuan I give you every month ends up in your hands. Don't tell your parents about the extra ten yuan I give you. Keep it secretly. You're a grown-up girl now. How can you live without some money?"

In this family, only the sister-in-law is a nice person. I don’t want to say much about the rest. It’s enough as long as everyone gets along well on the surface.

Seeing that the second sister-in-law had said so much, Jiang Defeng put away the money and said, "Thank you, second sister-in-law."

Next, Bu Dafang asked about the two children.

The two sisters-in-law chatted for more than ten minutes before Bu Dafang opened the sack, took out some New Year's goods and asked her sister-in-law to take them back to her mother-in-law, and took some more to give to her sister-in-law.

Of course, she only took a piece of pork and some vermicelli, black fungus, red dates, melon seeds, candy cakes and the like. She would not be foolish enough to give away such delicious items as sandworms and squids. She even kept the braised pork and brown sugar.

Even so, these things are very impressive. Didn’t you see that when Mrs. Jiang received these things, the corners of her mouth kept curling up, and she couldn’t suppress it no matter how hard she tried?

…

In the blink of an eye, it was New Year's Eve.

In the morning, every household in Naye Village began to kill chickens for the New Year.

In the past few years, even on New Year’s Eve, not every family had the means to kill a chicken for the New Year.

Because if you kill a chicken for the New Year, then when your relatives come over on the second day of the New Year, would you kill a chicken to entertain them?

Originally, people raised few chickens, and they were all hens for laying eggs. Killing one was heartbreaking enough, so how many families would be willing to kill two? Therefore, in the past few years, many families were reluctant to kill chickens during the Chinese New Year, and would wait until the second day of the Chinese New Year for relatives to come before killing them, so that they could gain some face in front of their relatives.

However, due to the relaxation of policies in the past two years, the number of chickens and ducks raised by each household has increased at least several times compared to before. Killing a chicken on New Year's Eve for the New Year is no longer a burden for most families in the village.

Deng Shirong's family originally did not raise chickens and ducks, but this time he issued an early warning to the villagers, so that the oxen of the entire Bangjie Brigade were safe and sound, and many families did not plant sweet potatoes, thus avoiding huge economic losses.

Therefore, the villagers, who were grateful to Deng Shirong from the bottom of their hearts, sent him a lot of local specialties, and many of them came with a chicken or a duck.

Therefore, even if Deng Shirong's family does not raise chickens and ducks, he will have more chickens and ducks than he can eat this year.

After paying tribute to Grandpa An, Deng Shirong cooked, Deng Yunzhen helped out, Deng Yuntai and Deng Yunzhu pasted Spring Festival couplets, Zhang Xiuping gave the little girl Xiaodong'er a bath, and Deng Yunsong, Deng Yunhua, Deng Yunheng and others were also busy taking a bath and changing into new clothes.

At around 1 p.m., Deng Shirong's family's New Year's Eve dinner began.

Before the meal started, Deng Shirong, as the head of the family, naturally had to say a few words: "This year, everything went well for our family. The big restaurant in the county town has also opened. The business is pretty good at the moment, and it should get better and better in the future.

In terms of study, Xiaosong has always been ranked first in the grade. As long as he performs consistently in the high school entrance examination next year, he can get into either a technical secondary school or the best high school in the city.

Xiaoheng is also good and his grades have always been among the top in the class.

This year has already been decided, I hope you will continue to work hard next year and make our family more prosperous."

Xiao Dong'er, who was held by her mother, heard this and said, "Honghuo!"

Everyone burst into laughter upon hearing this, and the New Year's Eve dinner officially began amid everyone's laughter and joy.

In later generations, every family has enough food and drink during the New Year, but what they lack is drinking buddies with whom they can drink happily.

Therefore, in later generations of Naye Village, when people eat New Year’s Eve dinner, there will often be people who come to drink a few cups at home, at one neighbor’s house, or at that neighbor’s house. Anyway, whoever has a good atmosphere and enjoys drinking will sit down and drink until they are satisfied.

But in this era, it is impossible for someone to attend the New Year's Eve dinner. Although everyone's life has been better in the past two years, most families are still poor. Who would dare to attend other people's homes to drink? During this meal, Deng Yuntai, Zhang Xiuping, and Deng Yunzhen all drank a lot of wine with their father.

As for Deng Yunzhu and others, although they also wanted to drink, they were not yet adults, so Deng Shirong naturally would not let them drink, and they could only give them beverages instead.

After the New Year’s Eve dinner, it was already around three in the afternoon.

The family gathered around the fire again. Deng Shirong gave red envelopes to everyone and said, "You all need to get ready today. CCTV will have the Spring Festival Gala tonight. This is the first program this year to accompany the people across the country to celebrate the New Year. It should be very interesting."

Deng Yunzhen asked, "Dad, what is this Spring Festival Gala?"

The other sons, daughters and daughters-in-law also looked confused. In later times, when people mentioned the Spring Festival Gala, everyone knew what it was, but in this day and age, no one knew the concept of the Spring Festival Gala, so naturally they couldn't imagine what this gala was about.

Deng Shirong explained with a smile: "It should be related to singing, dancing, skits, crosstalk, drama and other programs. I don't know the details. I will know after watching it tonight."

Upon hearing this, all the sons, daughters and daughters-in-law were looking forward to it. If nothing else, the singing and dancing alone were enough to attract people.

…

At around five or six in the afternoon, villagers who had nothing to do would come over with their stools to watch TV.

Among them, the earliest to arrive were the family of Ou Guofang, the family of Ou Guohua, and the family of Guan Yongying. This was because Zhang Xiuping heard her father-in-law say that there would be a good show like the Spring Festival Gala in the evening, so she went over to tell the little sisters to come early to reserve seats to watch TV.

It's enough to have a bench to occupy the seat, there's no need for people to sit there all the time.

So when the villagers arrived, they first gathered around the fire at Deng Shirong's house to warm themselves and chat, and it would not be too late to move to another place after the TV started.

After chatting casually for a while, someone asked, "Jiu Gong, when do you think the weather will warm up?"

When others heard this, they all agreed. They also wanted to know when this terrible weather would end.

Deng Shirong said: "I don't know exactly when this weather will end, but I guess it will gradually warm up in the spring."

Deng Yunkun said worriedly, "We went to Lingshan County in June and July to order lychee seedlings, but we don't know if they have been frozen or killed. The weather is not suitable for planting. We have to wait until the weather warms up."

Both father and son were well-known honest people in Naye Village. When Deng Shirong's family was reclaiming the orchard, they asked the three of them for help.

This year, seeing that Uncle Jiu and Deng Yunqiang's family had a bumper harvest of lychees and sold them for so much money, the whole village couldn't help but follow suit and plant lychees. Deng Yunkun naturally didn't want to be left behind, so he went to Lingshan County with other families in the village to order enough lychee seedlings.

It is worth mentioning that although team leader Deng Yunjun and others took action earlier, after they spent several months reclaiming the orchard and were preparing to go to the credit union for a loan, several villagers who had been full of confidence began to retreat a little.

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Finally, after discussing it a bit, they decided that they did not need to waste a few months and would just wait and see how the lychees from Uncle Jiu's family and Deng Yunqiang's family grew, to see if there was really any profit in growing Guiwei lychees, and then decide whether it would not be too late to take out a loan to purchase the lychees.

Therefore, the first group of people who wanted to follow the trend did not plant litchi trees right away.

This result made them both regretful and grateful.

What they regret is that this year they saw that Uncle Jiu's (gong) family and Deng Yunqiang's family had a bumper harvest of lychees, and they easily sold them for more than a thousand yuan, which really shocked them. They did not plant these Guiwei lychees at the first time, which naturally made them regret it.

After all, the earlier you plant, the earlier you can harvest.

However, the occurrence of low temperatures and frost weather this year, which has not been seen in decades, made them feel fortunate instead of regretting it.

Because if they choose to plant litchi trees this year, they will encounter such extreme low temperatures, and the litchi seedlings have poor resistance and may be frozen to death. In that case, the loss will be too heavy.

Therefore, the person who had retreated before would brag to everyone that he had foresight and showed off in front of the villagers.

However, in June and July this year, the whole village no longer hesitated and sent representatives to Lingshan County to order enough lychee seedlings, planning to plant them in the early spring of next year.

However, they are not sure whether Lingshan County has been affected by this extreme weather.

Deng Shirong comforted him, "Don't worry, there are great experts at Xinguang Farm. Even if the weather there is the same as ours, they can protect the lychee trees and cultivate the lychee seedlings.

When spring comes, you can send someone over to talk to them about delaying the delivery of the lychee seedlings. I believe they will understand."

Deng Yunkun heaved a sigh of relief and said, "That's good. As long as there are no problems with the litchi seedlings, we can bring them back and plant them when the weather warms up."

Everyone talked about the problem of fruit trees, and then talked about which commune not only had oxen frozen to death, but also people had frozen to death.

"I heard about it when I went to my uncle's house some time ago. That family was originally poor, and they only had a few thin quilts at home. In previous years, they just managed to survive the winter. But this year, the weather was too cold, and the man got sick, which was like adding insult to injury. In the end, he couldn't survive and passed away."

"Alas, this kind of thing was very common more than 20 years ago. At that time, every village had people dying of starvation and cold. However, this kind of thing has rarely happened in recent years."

"It's mainly because I'm sick. If I wasn't sick, I wouldn't have been unable to make it."

"The weather this year is really weird..."

“…”

When everyone was discussing people freezing to death, Deng Shirong didn't find it strange.

Although people's living conditions are much better now than before, there are still many poor families. In terms of food, clothing, housing and transportation, the only thing to be thankful for is that they can have enough to eat and no longer have to face the risk of starving to death at any time like in the difficult times before.

But clothing, housing and transportation are still very difficult to deal with.

Let's talk about clothes first. It will be clear if we use a local jingle to describe it. The jingle goes like this: "Three taels of rice, morning and night, three feet of cloth, trousers and jackets (fourth tone)."

What this sentence means is that three ounces of rice are enough for one day's food, and three feet of cloth are enough for one set of clothes.

If you don't have money to buy cloth to make new clothes, it is normal to have more patches on your clothes than the original cloth.

Speaking of housing, most rural residents now live in mud brick houses, and a few particularly poor people even live in thatched houses. Naturally, the living conditions are not very good.

Many families' straw mats were almost rotten and they had no money to buy new ones. They could only pick up some newspapers and spread them on the bed to continue sleeping. There were only a few thin quilts, and they didn't dare to take off their clothes when it was cold. They all slept in thick clothes.

Finally, it is possible. There is no need to explain more. At that time, bicycles were not popular in rural areas of Bobai. Only those who could afford bicycles were from well-off families. Most people walked on two legs.

In the past, until the 1990s, there were still many families in Naye Village living in extremely difficult conditions.

However, under the influence of Deng Shirong in this life, this situation is expected to change greatly. Apart from anything else, after all the villagers have planted Guiwei lychees next year, the annual income from this orchard alone should be enough to help them get rid of poverty and become rich.

Soon, more and more people came to watch TV.

Today is New Year's Eve. Deng Shirong did not wait until 6:30 to turn on the TV. Instead, he turned it on early and locked it to CCTV so that the villagers could watch it first.

What is rare is that Deng Shian, the brigade secretary of Bangjie Brigade, also came to Deng Shirong's house to watch TV tonight.

In today's Bangjie Brigade, in terms of personal prestige, the brigade secretary Deng Shi'an should be the only one who can be compared with Deng Shirong.

The two men are of the same generation, but Deng Shi'an is already in his early sixties this year, a dozen years older than Deng Shirong. He has been the brigade secretary for many years and is also the clan leader of the Naye Deng clan (which means patriarch, generally called clan leader locally). Needless to say, his prestige is very high.

In his previous life, Deng Shirong's prestige in the Bangjie Brigade could not be compared with that of this old man. It was only in this life that Deng Shirong was reborn and achieved results far beyond his previous life. In addition, he issued a warning to everyone in advance this year, allowing everyone to minimize the losses. Only then did his personal prestige catch up with Deng Shian and even have a tendency to surpass him.

"secretary!"

"Happy New Year, Secretary!"

"Secretary, there is a seat here, come and sit here."

“…”

Seeing the brigade secretary coming, everyone greeted him.

Deng Shian nodded and said, "You guys watch first. I'll warm myself by the fire and then watch again later."

The fire in Deng Shirong's house was burning inside the house.

If buildings in later generations were done this way, the ceiling would certainly be smoked black. But now his house has a tiled roof, so it is naturally not afraid of smoke. The fire can be burned inside the house where the wind cannot reach it, so when he is roasting a fire, he will not feel "hot in the front and cold in the back".

At this time, everyone was watching TV, and Deng Shirong was the only one in the room warming himself by the fire.

Deng Shian came over and sat down. After they chatted for a while, the brigade secretary asked a question that surprised Deng Shirong: "Laojiu, do you have any idea of ​​becoming our brigade secretary?"

Deng Shirong was stunned for a moment, and asked back: "Secretary, why do you ask this? Aren't you doing a good job as a secretary?"

Deng Shian said with emotion, "I am already over 60 years old, and my health is getting worse day by day. I might fall asleep and never wake up again one day. If there is no suitable candidate, I can only work for two more years. But now I have a suitable candidate like you. If you are willing to be the secretary, I will go to the leaders of the commune and let you take this position."

Deng Shirong waved his hands repeatedly and said, "Secretary, thank you for your appreciation, but I am really not suitable to be the brigade secretary. You should work hard for a few more years!"

Deng Shian said, "Why are you unsuitable? You have high prestige in the brigade, and you are trusted by everyone. You are generous and willing to lead everyone out of poverty and into prosperity. Looking at the entire Bangjie Brigade, there is no one more suitable to be the brigade secretary than you."

Deng Shirong said: "The main reason is that after becoming the brigade secretary, I will be considered a state cadre, and there will be more restrictions in all aspects. I can't do whatever I want like I do now, so I really don't want to be the secretary."

Seeing that Deng Shirong really had no such intention, Deng Shian could not help but sigh and said, "Well, since you don't want to be the secretary, you can give up, but you can't refuse to be the head of our Deng family."

"this……"

Deng Shian interrupted, "Old Nine, stop nagging. Apart from you, who else in our Deng family is qualified to be the head of this clan?"

Deng Shirong said helplessly: "Secretary, you are totally forcing me to do something!"

Deng Shian laughed and said, "There is no other way, because you are the most suitable one. If I push someone else to be the leader of the clan, he won't be able to convince the others!"

This is really true. Anyone who can become the head of a clan is basically selected from the small group of people with the highest prestige in the clan. If someone does not have enough prestige but tries to sit in that position, he will only be laughed at and no one will take him seriously.

Now that things have come to this, Deng Shirong couldn't refuse. After all, the clan leader was just a figurehead, and there weren't many things that really needed to be handled by the clan leader. So he nodded and said, "Okay, I'll take this."

Deng Shian said happily, "With you, Laojiu, leading our Bangjie Deng clan, I believe our Bangjie Deng clan will get better and better. I will find a time to gather the clan members to discuss this matter after the New Year. With your prestige in the clan, everyone will be happy to know that you are the clan leader, and no one will object."

(End of this chapter)