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Chapter 165: Late Night Visit

Why do other communes near Zhongping think that the 5,000 acres of land in Zhongping Brigade is good land? The most obvious reason is that it relies on wheat harvest.

On ordinary land, one acre of wheat can be harvested and bundled into bundles, which is about seventy or eighty bundles.

The land in Zhongping is fertile. Experienced farmers like Han Laogou and Ma Laowu dare to sow more wheat seeds without worrying about the wheat seedlings being poorly developed. The wheat grows thicker and denser than that in other brigades. When it comes to harvesting wheat, about ninety or even a hundred bundles can be harvested per acre.

If there are more than ten or twenty bundles per acre of land, then that would be a lot more for 5,000 acres.

Of course, the work is much harder.

"Ma San'er, you bastard! I told you to tie it with hemp rope! Hemp rope! You insisted on using wheat straw. What are you using?" Ma Laowu took advantage of the time when everyone was having breakfast and ran over to check the work of the young people. He picked up a loose wheat bundle in his hand and scolded Ma San'er who was bragging to Han Hongbing and others whom he had not seen for a long time.

Reaping wheat is not difficult for young people. Even a novice can master the skills after harvesting a few acres of land. But the difficult part is bundling the wheat. Experienced farmers do not use ropes to bundle wheat, but directly use wheat straw.

First, cut a handful of wheat, and lay the ears of wheat upside down on the ground neatly. Then divide them into two bunches, cross them head to head, hold them with your left hand, and use your right hand to grab the left and right sides of the neck of the ears of wheat. Twist them clockwise like women do their hair, and then put them down. Then separate the wheat stalks to both sides and put them on the ground. A bundle of wheat is ready.

It only takes a few seconds and the whole action is completed in one go.

It looks simple, but it is not that easy to practice.

For young masters, they can learn it once they see it, but they lose it once they learn it.

If you use too much strength, you will easily break the wheat straw. If you use too little strength, the wheat bundle will be loose and will fall apart when you lift it. Therefore, young people hang a bundle of hemp rope around their waists and use it to tie the bundle to avoid wasting time.

Ma San'er might have not been back for a long time and was a little inflated. He felt that he had mastered the skill of tying wheat and didn't need a hemp rope. As a result, Ma Laowu chased him and scolded him for a long time.

Xie Hushan swallowed the big bowl of tofu pudding in a few mouthfuls, wiped his mouth, and asked Han Hongzhen, who had just taken two bites and was startled by Ma Laowu's cursing voice,
"Go on, you just said that the idea was from Lao Meng?"

Han Hongzhen nodded: "It was Lao Meng who came up with this idea. It's great. People who buy bricks praise us for our business skills."

She, Lao Meng, Ma Saner, Wu Shuanzi, and Wang Chong only returned in the evening of the day before yesterday and had no chance to talk to Xie Hushan. While having breakfast, Han Hongzhen talked to Xie Hushan about the recent business of the third team's brick factory.

There were no other changes in the brick factory. The most noteworthy thing was that Lao Meng inadvertently reminded Han Hongzhen, which gave Han Hongzhen an idea. That is, engraving flowers and printing words on some bricks would make the bricks more popular.

Because Lao Meng had secretly carved two pistol patterns on the mud of two green bricks. After the two green bricks came out of the kiln, he found the two bricks and gave one to him and Jin Laosan.

Jin Laosan couldn't let go of this blue brick, and now every time he played the brick-smashing game with the children in the village, he no longer picked up bricks temporarily. He had to carry this blue brick engraved with a pistol, which was so heavy that he wished he could use it as a pillow when he slept.

Because the other children could not hide their envy for the blue brick with a pistol engraved on it.

For this reason, many children in Yakou flatter Lao Meng by picking fruits, finding wooden sticks, and taking bird eggs, and regard Lao Meng as the new generation of child king in Yakou, just to let Lao Meng help each of them burn a blue brick with a unique pattern.

This gave Han Hongzhen an inspiration. She asked the workers to make several seal molds that could print words on the clay blanks. They were engraved with words and patterns such as "Safe Travel", "Five Blessings Come to the Door", and "Purple Air Comes from the East". She printed about a hundred seal molds on the clay blanks to be loaded into the kiln each time. After these blue bricks were fired, the blue bricks engraved with patterns and auspicious words could be used as doorheads for people who bought bricks to build houses.

Although this idea did not lead to a significant increase in the brick factory's sales, it did make business a little better, because rural people like to ask for good words, and when they see people building new houses with auspicious words printed on the door, they can't help but ask about it, and then try to get a copy when they build their own houses.

"It has to be Lao Meng." Xie Hushan said with emotion after listening to it, and then pointed at Han Hongbing and others who were gathered not far away, and cursed angrily:

"These good-for-nothings have been working with me for so long, who among them can come up with an idea to make money? Their brains are not as good as Lao Meng's, and they are always plotting to usurp the throne and seize my power."

However, Han Hongbing, Chen Daxi and others ignored Xie Hushan's scolding. They were listening to Ma Saner, who didn't take the scolding to heart at all, and was boasting about his experience at the cliff with a beaming face.

Didn’t Xie Hushan get each of the fourteen militiamen a bicycle for hiking? He didn’t deliberately not charge them for it. He sold it to them at a low price of 100 yuan per bicycle. If they had money, they could pay. If they didn’t, they could wait until the New Year when the team would distribute dividends.

Ma Saner and his gang specially found a rickshaw driver to help pull the bike to the cliff. When they had nothing to do, they would ride the bike for a few laps to show off. Before, Ma Saner and his gang worked in a brick factory all day long, and their clothes were no different from those of the workers, so no one could tell whether they were good or bad.

But now seeing those fashionable bicycles, they guessed that these young men must be from wealthy families, so some people in Yakou started to think about matchmaking for these three young men, Ma Saner, Wu Shuanzi, and Wang Chong.

"It's not like here where we look at each other secretly. Four girls squatted in a row by the river in the distance, pretending to wash clothes. The matchmaker asked me to tell her which one I liked. Any one will do. To be honest, all girls are pretty." Ma San said to Han Hongbing, Chen Daxixi and others.

Chen Daxi's eyes widened when he heard this, and he even stopped stuffing the oil cake into his mouth:

"Then why didn't you like it?"

"I'd like to, but I'm afraid my mother wouldn't like it. She and my grandmother have been asking me to find someone near our brigade." Ma Saner said dejectedly, holding the bowl:
"My mother said that the area was too poor and she was afraid that if I married someone else's girl, my parents would come to our house every day to ask for money and food."

"You can't get married even with your mother." Han Hongbing said with disdain.

After Xie Hushan finished listening, his first reaction was to look at Taozi. Then he saw that Taozi seemed to have guessed that Xie Hushan would look at her, and was looking at him with a smile:

"Are you afraid that I'll feel bad when I hear it?"

"Well, you can't fool me even if you pretend to laugh. Who can be happy to hear a friend who grew up with you like this?" Xie Hushan rarely had a teasing look on his face, but said to Taozi seriously:

"I want to ask your father to tell everyone at Yakou that life will definitely get better in the future, and they should not treat their daughters like animals to be picked. I will open another factory next year. I have thought about opening a garment factory. When the time comes, I will only need female workers and let them line up to choose their partners. It is not enough to just pick young men, they have to pick even their mothers-in-law."

"I just want to see how those snobbish old ladies would smile when their daughters make more money than their sons. Just like Chief of Staff Han said, any snobbish mother-in-law will not let them find daughters-in-law."

The smile on Taozi's face became fainter, but when she looked at Xie Hushan, there was more smile in her eyes.

When Han Hongzhen heard these words nearby, the corners of her mouth curled up slightly and her eyes lit up. Any girl who heard these words would be impressed by this guy.

Xie Hushan stood up and stretched his aching waist. Seeing Han Hongzhen looking up at him, he asked in confusion:
"You are so touched, don't be touched for no reason. Taozi could at least rub my back if she was touched. What can you do? Tell me to go into the sorghum field? Go?"

"Tsk! Get lost!" Han Hongzhen was so angry that she picked up her sickle and stood up to chop Xie Hushan. Xie Hushan laughed and ran towards Han Hongbing and the others, shouting:

"Lao Meng!"

"I'm here!" Lao Meng stood up with a fried pancake in his mouth.

Lao Meng came to work in the fields early, but he was childish at heart and could not stand being bored. He could not do the work of harvesting and bundling wheat. He could only pick up wheat ears with a group of children and load the bundles onto the cart.

Xie Hushan smiled and punched Lao Meng's chest twice:
"I heard from the fourth girl that you came up with a good idea at the brick factory, which helped the factory sell a lot more bricks. Our team has always been clear about rewards and punishments, and this is a good opportunity to show these good-for-nothings that Commander Xie is never stingy with his capable men. You can follow Cao Ma later and take whatever you like."

Then Xie Hushan turned to look at Cao Ma who was drinking water after finishing his meal: "Cao Ma!"

Cao Ma put down the water scoop and said, "Third brother, what are you doing?"

Cao Ma, this kid, has worked in a steel mill for a few months. Now he is as good as his school-age peers. Han Lao San’s temperament is completely different.

He had dark skin and was strong and muscular. Not only did no one at the steel mill treat him as a young boy anymore, but now that he was working in the production team, he was also counted as a young laborer.

Xie Hushan took out a key from his waist and threw it to Cao Ma:
"Go, take Lao Meng back to the factory, and bring back two boxes of soda from my small warehouse. Whoever gets to the end first gets to drink the soda first to quench his thirst. Then ask Lao Meng what he likes, and let him take whatever he likes. This is the sideline group's praise for Lao Meng's suggestions for the development of the brick factory." "Okay!" Cao Ma took the key and called Lao Meng:

"Good fellow, Brother Meng, come with me. You've got to pay for Third Brother's small warehouse... Tsk tsk, why can't I think of any way to help Third Brother make money."

The two of them walked towards the field. When Daxiu heard this, he didn't care about continuing to eat, and enthusiastically signed up to Xie Hushan: "Brother! Brother! I'll go move with you too!"

She had known for a long time that her brother had a small warehouse, but she had never seen it. When she heard Xie Hushan asking Cao Ma to take Lao Meng to move the soda, she quickly raised her hand to go with them.

Seeing that the two men were in a hurry, he didn't bother to get Xie Hushan's consent, and called Han Laosan and several other half-grown children to chase after them.

Seeing some people running away, Ma Laowu started shouting at them to come back to work.

On the first day of harvesting wheat, the spirits of the young members were still very high, and most of the rewards were received by the young people.

But starting from the third day, the young people were no longer as good as the older masters in terms of speed and strength.

Even Daxiu and the other half-grown kids had no smiles on their faces while they were working; their expressions were numb.

The wheat of the third team was harvested on the third day with the help of a harvester. Now the women of the third team, led by the women's team leader, are supporting other production teams in the brigade that have not finished harvesting wheat. The men are spending the whole day in the wheat field doing work that is more painful than harvesting wheat.

Threshing.

The men were bare-chested, working in the threshing field under the scorching sun, using manpower and animals to pull the threshing machine to thresh the wheat, and then using wooden shovels to winnow the wheat and shake off the chaff.

After five days of work relying on human and animal power, a thresher was finally delivered to the threshing ground of Team Three.

Once the machine arrived, it was even more of a night-time job. A light bulb with wires was erected in the middle of the threshing floor. Two or three strong young men like Xie Hushan would be assigned to stand behind the thresher, quickly untie the wheat bundles, and stuff the loose wheat into the entrance of the thresher. The wheat grains were spit out from the front exit by the roaring thresher.

Others held wooden forks or shovels and stood on both sides of the machine. They used the wooden forks to pick up the wheat bran and straw separated by the machine and piled them aside into straw stacks. They then used the wooden shovels to pull or push the wheat grains that had escaped to the side.

It took six and a half days for Production Team 3 to complete the wheat harvest, and the only step left was drying the wheat.

Drying wheat is relatively easy, so the women comrades withdrew to help the team dry the wheat, and the male members who had just finished threshing the grains had to pick up their sickles again and continue to help other production teams harvest wheat.

It took a full nineteen days for the nineteen production teams under Zhongping Brigade to complete the wheat harvest task. The wheat fields of each team were piled with hills of golden wheat grains.

There is no need to rush to turn the wheat into grains, because if it rains, even if there is no time to pack the wheat into sacks, each production team has plastic tarpaulin to prevent water leakage. They just need to wait for the sun to dry the wheat thoroughly and put it into storage, waiting for the public grain payment.

This kind of work can be done by the old masters in the team. There is no need for the young members to ask for it. Ma Laowu and the old masters will take the initiative to urge the young people to take a good rest these days.

However, Xie Hushan was unable to rest well at home because his aunt disliked him.

"Hu San'er, you are really capable. Starting from your grandfather's generation, the Xie family has never been so outrageous! How dare you do this?" While helping Xie Hushan scrub his dirty clothes in the main room, the aunt scolded Xie Hushan in the west room:

"Ask your uncle if he dares to act like a big shot like you do? Don't you have hands? Do you think being a security director is enough to make you successful? How can you order Taozi around like this?"

In the west room, Xie Hushan sat on the kang, soaking his feet in a basin of hot water, with his head lowered and not saying a word.

In fact, it was nothing serious. Taozi saw that his arms were swollen from exhaustion from harvesting wheat, and his calves were severely swollen from squatting on the ground for a long time. There was a dent when he pressed them, so Taozi brought a basin of hot water to help Xie Hushan wash his feet to relieve his fatigue.

He lives in the factory office at night during this period, and Taozi usually lives with her grandmother. Today, because Taozi helped Xie Hushan wash his feet and had not returned home until dark, her grandmother sent Daxiu to the factory with a flashlight to check, worried that Taozi had sprained her ankle while walking in the dark.

When Daxiu arrived at the factory, she saw Taozi washing her brother's feet. She went back and told her grandmother and mother.

When the aunt heard this, she was furious and took Xie Hushan back home and scolded him.

She didn't care how powerful Xie Hushan was outside, but if there was a mistake at home, she, as the aunt, would definitely intervene. Moreover, Chen Chunxiang felt that this matter was very serious and was not in line with the family tradition of the Xie family.

The Xie family has six brothers starting from the generation of Xie Hushan’s grandfather. It may not be realistic to say that none of the six couples have had any quarrels. Chen Chunxiang also doesn’t know whether all of them respect their wives. After all, she has never met two of the elders.

But the four elders she had met would never be so arrogant with their wives.

When she got married, the male members of the Xie family of Xie Qimao's generation, although not all of them were considerate of their wives, at least they knew how to care for them.

For example, her husband Xie Damao, although he was a little stupid and half deaf, and could not say anything nice, but he would never do such a thing as asking her to wash his feet even if he was beaten to death.

He even rebelled against him. If he dared to think like that, Chen Chunxiang would have to burn his feet off!
The Xie family is very successful now. His nephew is a public security director and a factory manager, yet he dares to put on airs with Taozi, who is not even married to him yet. What will happen if they get married?
"Chunxiang, stop scolding him..." Grandma suddenly spoke in the east room.

Chen Chunxiang was originally scolding her nephew, but was suddenly stunned when she heard her mother-in-law's words. Her mother-in-law was partial to her grandson, but she was not biased when it came to rules. She would never interrupt when her grandson needed to be disciplined. What happened today?
"Mom, we can't indulge him in this matter. If this gets out, people will laugh at our Xie family for not knowing how to educate our children and grandchildren and allowing them to bully their daughters-in-law." Chen Chunxiang said to her mother-in-law.

"Auntie..." Taozi slowly poked her head out from behind the curtain of the east room, and whispered to Chen Chunxiang as if she had made a serious mistake:

"I was the one who wanted to help Third Brother wash it, he didn't ask me to wash it, really."

"It doesn't matter if you want to. You can't spoil him. Listen to Auntie. It's not about this kind of thing that's good to him." Auntie lowered her voice and said to Taozi:

"Otherwise, you will be in trouble. This little bastard has no conscience. He is so lazy. He is nineteen years old, but his grandmother and I still have to wash his pants for him. You want him to be treated like a boss..."

Outside the courtyard gate, a man pedaled his bicycle and shouted inside:
"Third brother, let's go back to the factory. The guy you mentioned last time is here."

When Xie Hushan rushed back to the steel rolling mill, he found that Li Xingyuan, the former deputy director of the Bingyang County State-owned Pipe Manufacturing Factory and current director of the county's state-owned wire drawing factory, had asked a driver to drive him over overnight.

"Director Li." Xie Hushan pushed open the door of the office and greeted Li Xingyuan, who was making tea inside and did not treat him as an outsider at all, with a smile.

He and Li Xingyuan are now in a cooperative relationship. The other party has helped the steel rolling mill to obtain a lot of scrap steel, and he asked Song Tiesheng to help the other party to expedite the arrangement of car bodies for the wire drawing factory. It can be said that both parties get what they need.

"Brother Hushan, you should have made a lot of money in the steel mill recently, and the office environment should be improved. Why are you still drinking jasmine?" Li Xingyuan picked up the tea can and shook it, then smiled and said to Xie Hushan:

"You've gotten quite tanned. Mai Qiu looks tired."

"It's hot, scented tea can help reduce internal heat." Xie Hushan sat behind his desk and looked at Li Xingyuan: "Why did Director Li come all the way here after dark? Is there something going on?"

"Hey, something's up. Is your team interested in opening a pipe-making factory?" Li Xingyuan got straight to the point and said to Xie Hushan:

"I haven't eaten yet. Can we chat while we eat?"

Xie Hushan nodded: "Okay."

(End of this chapter)