Capital city.
Yao Chunyu waited for ten days, but the Su family in Houhai never contacted her again. She really liked the courtyard house. From the first time she saw it, she had a strong premonition that she wanted this beautiful house. She had worked hard for two lifetimes but had never lived in such a good house.
When Yao Chunyu asked Su Tianwen, Mr. Su sneered and said in a sarcastic tone, "We are not selling the house anymore. Ms. Yao still hasn't given up?"
Su Laoshi didn't like Yao Chunyu. I heard that she had been asking around recently to see who was short of food and wanted to sell their house. She had already bought two courtyard houses, but she was still eyeing the Su family's house. She was greedy. The person who sold the house to her at a low price now had a family of more than a dozen people living in a 20-square-meter coffin house. They were living in dire straits and regretted it. Su Laoshi almost sold the house passed down from his ancestors for 100 kilograms of food.
They were both reselling grain, but the "Nicai Village" didn't have that kind of trap. They were not like her, hoarding grain and waiting for the right price to sell it! This was pushing people into a desperate situation.
Su Tianwen was the middle-aged man who received Yao Chunyu that day. He said politely, "Ms. Yao, thank you for your care. Our difficulties have been resolved and we don't plan to sell the house."
After not seeing him for a few days, his face had gained some flesh, his protruding cheekbones were no longer so exaggerated, his face was rosy, and his lips were no longer pale. It seemed that the food problem had really been solved.
When Su Tianwen picked up a corn cob and started chewing it, Yao Chunyu knew that there was nothing left in this courtyard. This family was not short of food, otherwise why would they chew corn as if it were fruit? Before leaving, she casually asked Su Tianwen, "Did you buy any food?"
Su Tianwen was stunned and nodded.
Su Laoshi glared at him fiercely, and he stopped without going into details.
Yao Chunyu thought: If so, there are no more houses for sale in this area of Houhai. Could it be that all the owners of this area have solved the food problem like the Su family
How much food is needed to ensure that everyone in Houhai has enough food
The corn that Su Lao just ate had plump, golden kernels and large cobs. In the past two years, there have been constant floods and droughts, and it is not easy to produce such plump and uniform grains. Yao Chunyu has been growing corn for decades, so how could he not see that this kind of corn is of high quality and can only be produced in fertile soil and sufficient sunlight. The question is... where did they buy the grain
When Yao Chunyu thought about this, a familiar feeling came over her. At first, she sold her grain in City C in exchange for gold bars and houses. But after she hooked up with her old classmate Su Lina's family in City C, it became difficult for her to exchange her grain for gold bars.
Wait... Su Lina, Su Tianwen, both have the last name Su
Yao Chunyu was quite perceptive in this regard. Su Lao's family was indeed a distant relative of Su Lina, and Su Lina was Guo Aiguo's cousin. The family of Mr. Li next door was a relative of Li Maogang, the husband of Ms. Fang's cousin.
The history of Chinese people is full of wonders. Li Maogang and Fang Xiulian were introduced to each other by these two neighbors.
Su Laowen took 50 kilograms of grain from his old friend's house. He thought he would have to wait for a long time for the "Nicai Village" to sell grain again. Unexpectedly, before he had finished eating the grain, they started selling grain again! This time, Su Tianwen also received a small note from them, which was a "price list".
Fine grains cost 2.5 yuan per pound, pork belly costs 10 yuan per pound, and there are also vegetables such as sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, etc. The price has dropped a lot compared to last time. Mr. Su was so moved that tears flowed down his face. This "big trader" actually took the initiative to lower the price. He is really conscientious!
Mr. Su contributed all his savings and bought 50 kilograms of fine grain in one go, which he carried back to Mr. Li's house to return the grain to them.
…
After Yao Chunyu returned, he tried his best to find out some clues. Someone was selling a large amount of grain, and at a very low price!
How could there be so much food during this lean season when famine is at its worst
Yao Chunyu's heart was pounding. Although she was very angry that these people had disrupted her plan to buy a courtyard house, there was so much cheap food...why didn't she take advantage of it and create more value
Yao Chunyu has been reselling grain for a year, and knows the rules of the black market very well. She has also established deep relationships with many families. She has sufficient funds and a wide network of contacts. Everyone wants to go to Yao Chunyu and thinks: she has the ability to get a piece of the pie!
She clearly realized that this was an opportunity to make a fortune, allowing people to quickly accumulate assets in a short period of time.
She spent money to find a specialist to inquire about the families in Beijing who had suddenly solved the food problem. She exchanged the gold bars in her hand for RMB, and exchanged for more than 30,000 yuan in total. This huge amount of money was enough to scare many people to death in this era. An ordinary working-class family might not be able to save this much even if they didn't eat or drink for a hundred years.
The price of grain was three yuan per pound, but Yao Chunyu was willing to buy it at twice the price and sell it to others when he had accumulated enough.
At first, Yao Chunyu had a hard time harvesting crops, and almost no one was willing to sell to her. What was money? Did they lack money? Yao Chunyu was not discouraged. This is how people fail to withstand the test. Even "Das Kapital" says, "Once there is a proper profit, capital will rise boldly."
"If there is 100% profit, capital will dare to trample on all human laws."
Yao Chunyu patiently put down the hook, and gradually she collected six yuan a pound of fine grains. She took a deep breath while holding the white flour and high-quality rice. The wheat aroma was fresh and sweet, and the rice grains were crystal clear and plump.
The rice is fragrant and soft after cooking, and is indeed much more fragrant than the old rice sold by Yao Chunyu. Her grain was purchased last year when she was just reborn. After a year, the taste is naturally a little lacking. But this batch of grain purchased at a high price is of good quality, just like special rice, with full and firm grains, good color, fragrance and taste, and soft and chewy.
This kind of grain is worth ten yuan per pound, let alone six yuan!
Yao Chunyu gritted her teeth and made a bold decision: she would borrow money to buy the grain, and buy as much as she could. In Yao Chunyu's memory, the famine began to ease in 1961, when the three-year natural disaster ended. This was the last opportunity to make money in the 1960s. It would be difficult to make money so easily in the next 20 years.
Su family.
Mr. Su has a good impression of the old man in "Nicai Village". He is very grateful to this hardworking "trader" for saving his family from dire straits. Recently, he found that someone was buying grain at a price of "six yuan" per catty. Those who still have surplus grain cannot resist the temptation and will sell a little grain to supplement their family income.
Su Lao frowned. Isn't this... wasting other people's kindness? If they go to the market like this, there will be chaos sooner or later. Can they still eat food peacefully like now
These people are too greedy and short-sighted! Although they are both traders, Su Lao has a special grudge against the trader from "Nicai Village". As the saying goes, even thieves have their own code of conduct, and they are the ones who really give benefits to ordinary people.
He quickly wrote a "report letter" to "Nicai Village", "Dear Nicai Village Production Team, you may not know that someone is buying your grain recently, at 2.5 yuan per catty, and the purchase price is 6 yuan per catty. At 6 yuan per catty, how much can you resell it for to make a profit? I think you don't want your hard work to be wasted, so please pay attention to this!"
…
Shanggou Village.
Su Ye received the feedback quickly. She was not surprised to receive such news.
Where there is profit, there will be capital chasing after it. Now, where there is a market, there will be dealers... However, in the 1960s, were people really not afraid of being caught for reselling grain? Su Ye often worried that one day when he woke up, comrades from the National Security Bureau would suddenly appear in front of him.
These grains embody the blood and sweat of Ruan Ruliang and a group of students. Su Ye will never tolerate their blood and sweat being trampled upon.
Soon, Su Tianwen, Li Xianyi and other "second-level sellers" received small notes from "Nicai Village".
"Dear comrades, we are from the production team of 'Nicai Village'. Like the vast majority of Chinese people, we have a heart to fight and serve the motherland, and hope to solve the current poverty problem. 'Nicai Village' promises that grain prices will never increase in the future, but we have recently discovered that some people are reselling grain to make a profit. If there is such behavior that disrupts the market price, please report it to us. These comrades will be disqualified from buying grain. Everyone should cherish yourselves and cherish every moment."
After throwing the letter, Su Ye let the matter go.
The country can't control her for the time being, so how can it control other audacious behaviors? At this critical juncture, the act of reselling grain is like poking the lungs of the country. Report one and arrest one. Su Ye can barely be considered a grain producer, and this kind of person is a pure speculator.
Time passed like flowing water, and gradually they reached the week before the Frost Descent.
Two days before the Frost Descent, the weather was sunny and bright.
Ruan Ruliang decided to harvest the sweet potatoes in the field, and the first team of Shanggou Village was very excited. They had allocated two pieces of land for outsiders to grow sweet potatoes, and they were ridiculed for half a year. Teacher Su Ye said that the yield of these sweet potatoes per mu was at least 6,000 kilograms. If this yield was true, their first team would be completely proud.
Experienced farmers knew that it was impossible for white sweet potatoes to reach this yield. They had been growing sweet potatoes for decades and knew the result. As long as the educated youth could harvest 3,000 to 4,000 kilograms of sweet potatoes, the land would be worth it to them.
Everyone was looking forward to the harvest, and some were also waiting for Ma Gensheng to give the order to stop these educated youth from making trouble.
Liu Gang led a group of educated youth to carefully loosen the soil and harvest the sweet potatoes along the vines. This piece of land, which was not fertile originally, became shiny and fertile after Ruan Ruliang's careful care. You could even find earthworms when you dug with a hoe. This was because he dried the manure of pigs, chickens and ducks every day and made it into organic fertilizer. He fertilized one field and did not fertilize the other field as a control group.
Ma Gensheng and his father also stood on the edge of the field and harvested together. Secretary Ma was an old hand at farming and was very skillful in digging sweet potatoes. He could easily pull out all the sweet potatoes from a vine.
The more he looked, the more his eyes became hotter. The sweet potatoes planted by Teacher Ruan were unexpectedly large and strong. He had to put his two hands together to hold it. It was twice as big as an ordinary sweet potato. The old branch secretary washed the sweet potato in the stream beside the field and took a bite.
"Well, not bad, very sweet!"
He smiled from ear to ear, "Congratulations, Mr. Ruan! The sweet potatoes are so big, I guarantee that this acre of land will have at least 4,000 kilograms!"
Four thousand kilograms of sweet potatoes is already a great harvest, which usually only happens when the weather is good and the farmers take good care of the crops. This year, their village only harvested two thousand kilograms of sweet potatoes per mu, while they usually harvest 2,000 to 2,500 kilograms, but this is because there was little rain this year. After the summer, there was less rain.
Ruan Ruliang's two sweet potato fields were planted after the summer began. With less rain, he grew twice as many sweet potatoes as others, and the yield per mu was also twice as much as others. This time he can finally be proud of himself!
Secretary Ma's affirmation gave Liu Gang and others more motivation. More and more people were curious about how many sweet potatoes Ruan Ruliang had harvested from his land. Before Ma Gensheng started a call to harvest sweet potatoes together, a group of farmers spontaneously started digging up sweet potatoes in the fields.
Su Ye stood next to the scale for weighing grain, weighing batches of sweet potatoes and finally adding up the data.
Under everyone's expectant gaze, she excitedly reported the numbers: "Teacher Ruan, the harvest of sweet potatoes from Experimental Field 1 is 3,202 kilograms, and the harvest of sweet potatoes from Experimental Field 2 is 2,576 kilograms!"
Everyone was shocked by this number, and their mouths were wide open in shock. The unit is kilograms, this is kilograms! Everyone burst into a thunderous cheer, and the students and educated youth applauded enthusiastically for a long time.
Two mu of sweet potato fields yielded 6,404 jin and 5,152 jin respectively. Educated people farm differently. Planting one mu is equivalent to planting three mu!
Liu Gang was so excited that his hands were about to break. All the male educated youth lifted up the nearly 60-year-old Ruan Ruliang and threw him into the air, cheering and applauding. The farmers in Shanggou Village were also very happy. No one could ignore this achievement. Output was the lifeblood of farmers!
Today, Ruan Ruliang is the hero of Shanggou Village.
As the production team leader, Ma Gensheng couldn't help but think: If the whole village planted Ruan Ruliang's sweet potatoes in the spring, how many acres of land would be saved? How much more food would be produced by planting rice, wheat, soybeans and corn on the saved land? Planting one acre is equivalent to planting three acres. Just thinking about it made his blood boil.
Secretary Ma stroked his beard and said happily: "If this had happened a few years ago, our village would have become famous!"
The yield per mu was 6,000 jin, two or three times the yield of ordinary sweet potatoes. Who wouldn't be surprised? Fortunately, he had allocated two mu of land to Ruan Ruliang. Before, everyone said that this decision was too risky. Now Secretary Ma felt that the allocation was too little. If he had allocated ten mu of land to Ruan Ruliang, wouldn't their village have enough food for the whole year
Ruan Ruliang laughed so happily for the first time in his life. He was tossed around by students and didn't even mind that his mirror fell into the field. While groping for the mirror, he said excitedly: "I think the potential of sweet potatoes is not just this. Theoretically, it is possible to produce 10,000 kilograms per mu."
The others almost fainted when they saw the blackness ahead. Secretary Ma waved his hands repeatedly, "It's fine if we can produce 10,000 catties per mu! Teacher Ruan, be more down-to-earth. Let's move forward steadily and don't think about getting rich overnight."
During the Great Leap Forward a few years ago, wasn't the slogan of many places to produce 10,000 catties per mu? Now everyone is afraid of this word from the bottom of their hearts.
"Teacher Ruan, let's kill a chicken in our village to celebrate for you today!"
Ma Gensheng said: "Don't be disgusted. Our village didn't raise pigs this year. Otherwise, we would definitely kill a pig and set up a few tables of wine!"
Li Xiao thought to himself that there were no pigs in the village, but they had raised three piglets on the hill behind the dormitory. Now he couldn't bear to kill them. He would definitely eat pork next summer. It happened to be the harvest season of spring potatoes next summer, so the timing was just right.
Liu Gang showed his white teeth and said cheerfully, "Even if we don't raise pigs, we can still eat pork. I heard that pork is now sold in the black market in the county. I'll go buy two kilograms of pork tomorrow and bring it back to Teacher Ruan to bring good luck!"
His suggestion was approved by everyone. Ma Gensheng went back and took out the thirty yuan that was kept at the bottom of the box in the production team and gave it to Liu Gang to purchase pork.
After weighing the sweet potatoes, Ruan Ruliang's sweet potatoes were used for further research, and the remaining 11,356 kilograms of sweet potatoes were added to the autumn harvest of the first production brigade and handed over to the state. Originally, Ma Gensheng's production team did not have enough grain to pay to the state this year, but with this batch of sweet potatoes, it was enough. What an honor to complete the task target in the famine year!
In addition to being glorious, paying the public grain tax also meant that each person in the first team would get a few dozen kilograms more of grain when the grain was distributed at the end of the year. The members of the second production team couldn't help but think, if they were the ones who distributed the land to Ruan Ruliang, wouldn't they also get this grain? The thought of this not only made their faces burn, but also made them regret it.
The production team leader of the second team kept silent. He originally wanted to watch the fun today. He thought that Ruan Ruliang and this group of educated youths could not do anything. But now his face was burning, and he felt hot looking at other people's sweet potatoes. With complicated feelings, he received the condemning eyes of the team members and immediately lost his temper.
Su Ye looked at the dejected second captain and said cheerfully, "When spring comes, let's plant sweet potatoes together!"
The second captain's droopy face suddenly broke into a smile. He raised his head happily and asked, "Really?"
Ruan Ruliang nodded affirmatively, "Really! The spring potato harvest will definitely be good. If we plant more, we can raise pigs in a year!"
Everyone burst into laughter, and everyone was happy. This kind of smile was full of hope and joy, sweeping away the bitterness that had been on their faces for years because of hunger. They hadn't been this happy for a long time. Sweet potatoes are drought-resistant, so they have a stable supply of food for the whole year.
…
The first snow fell in the north, and newspapers published sporadic news about homeless people who froze to death on the roadside. But there were also news reports that in several cities severely affected by the snowstorm, many kind-hearted people from the public spontaneously gave free food to homeless people and to soldiers who were helping with the disaster relief.
This "good deed" warmed the hearts of the people across the country. Everyone looked at the newspaper and couldn't help but sigh: There are still many kind-hearted people! This year, everyone is short of food, and this little bit of food is squeezed out of people's teeth.
In fact, these grains were not squeezed out of people's teeth.
Su Ye felt heavy-hearted after listening to the news on the radio. He sent 100,000 kilograms of food and a loving letter to his "second-level dealers" overnight. "Dear comrades, Nicai Village heard about the snowstorm in the north and felt very heavy-hearted. So we sent 100,000 kilograms of food overnight. I hope you can help us in any way you can."
The National Security Bureau has been targeting the "Mud Village" for more than half a year, considering them to be secretive and dangerous elements. However, this move makes them feel complicated. Looking back on what they have done, it seems that they have not harmed the society or the country. On the contrary, they have done a lot of good things.
With a creaky sound, the wooden door was pushed open.
Liu had just slaughtered five rabbits. In winter, the rabbits' skins had accumulated a thick layer of fat, which made them very delicious. He made his own chili sauce and started cooking rabbits. The rabbit meat was cut into even small pieces and dipped in the fresh soup made with bones. The rabbit meat was cut into small pieces and roasted by the stove. When it was cooked, it was dipped in chili powder and the sauce and eaten.
Add shredded radish, winter melon, and vegetable leaves and roll it up. It is delicious and refreshing.
"Teacher Su, Teacher Ruan, come and have some rabbit meat!" Everyone shouted happily, and everyone sat in a neat row, staring at the plump rabbit meat, swallowing their saliva. Although they had never been hungry since they came back to the countryside and had meat to eat every now and then, the luxury of killing five rabbits at a time was something they only experienced once in a while.
Because... the winter solstice is here.
Su Ye put down the brush and took a deep breath of the aroma, "Great, it smells really good! Liu Gang's cooking skills are getting better and better. He will definitely be able to support himself by opening a restaurant in the future."
Liu Gang smiled shyly and said, "I don't want to open a restaurant. I want to be a farmer, a farmer who grows high-quality food like Teacher Ruan."
Ruan Ruliang smiled kindly, "Then you must work harder in the future! Don't be lazy, get up early, work carefully, and study hard."