Back to 1978

Chapter 198: Distributing Bicycles

"What's wrong with the people in this county? Why do the young people look so ruffian?" Ma Laowu got off the jeep, clutching a faux leather bag filled with a huge sum of money in both hands, and stood at the gate of the Bingyang County Bicycle Factory, looking around nervously.

In his memory, the most common colors of clothes in rural areas are black and gray, while the common colors of clothes worn by city dwellers he meets in the city are gray, green and blue.

But now, the people riding bicycles on the streets seem to have more colors on their bodies.

For example, although young female comrades still wear blue workers' uniforms, the style has definitely been changed to make them look slimmer, and almost all of them wear a red or white scarf around their necks.

As for the young guys, their faces are almost all covered with cheap brown frog-eye glasses. I don’t know if they can see the road clearly if they wear these things after get off work as it gets dark early at night.

"Let me tell you, Uncle Wu, I saw a sentence in a book. It said, 'How to judge whether a person is old is to see whether he can understand the changes in the street when he walks on the street.'" Xie Hushan said to Ma Laowu a sentence he read in a book.

Accountant Zhao, who got off the car later, probably felt that he couldn't be considered old by Xie Hushan, so he looked around in a pretentious manner, with his hands behind his back and nodding continuously:

"I think it's OK. It's not as uncouth as Lao Wu said. It looks more energetic. This is called a new atmosphere."

"Don't act like you're being arrogant just because you learned a word from the newspaper. Go ahead and pretend, Accountant Zhao, you're still new. You're just afraid that Hu Saner will call you an old-fashioned person!" When Ma Laowu saw that Accountant Zhao was not on the same side as him and was pretending to be a worldly-wise person, he pointed at him angrily.

Behind the jeep, four Yellow River brand tractors from the Zhongping Production Brigade drove over in a mighty procession.

Those who drive the tractors are all young female comrades from the third production team of Zhongping. They are praised as female role models in front of others, but scolded as female cunning people behind their backs.

While other production teams were learning how to prevent illegal infringements, the ten old ladies from these three teams took the opportunity and actually went to the Agricultural Machinery Management Station to hang out there without paying any attention to day or night. Within three days of driving here, they could drive tractors around the world there.

Among the 19 production teams in Zhongping, 18 production team leaders could not help but use swear words when scolding Production Team 3.

The newly appointed team leader, Xie Hushan, relied on his position as the brigade's security director to create difficulties for other teams and gave the green light to the female comrades in his own team, without doing any personnel work.

It's the farm machinery of the brigade, but it's occupied by ten old ladies from the third team. The men from other teams don't dare to grab it? What if someone calls them hooligans? Wouldn't the men in their own team be beaten to death?

Send the female comrades in your own team to grab it? It's useless. The female comrades in your own team don't know how to do it. How can they grab it from others? To put it bluntly, they have not been trained and can't even operate a tractor!
We didn’t even know where the tractor crank was hidden by those old ladies from Team Three!
It’s not that no production team went to the brigade to complain, saying that Production Team 3 was too domineering and that this was unfair. It was useless and Han Laogou couldn’t do anything about it. The ten old women from Team 3 said that there were no women in your team who knew how to open a business, so you should learn how to do it before coming back to compete.

Where can I learn? The commune's agricultural machinery station will not let members tinker with the machines in the station at will. The drivers are all licensed, unlike the ten tiger women in Zhongping Brigade who are so aggressive. They don't care about driver's licenses or not, they just drive and run.

What Xie Hushan is most satisfied with now is that he selected ten female comrades to work as agricultural machinery drivers at the agricultural machinery station. This decision was very wise.

There were ten female comrades, all of them were young wives between the ages of 20 and 30, in their prime and still maintaining the drive to study hard. Although not all of them were stunningly beautiful, even if the young female comrades were not stunning beauties, standing there in blue work clothes, white gloves, and a neat Liu Hulan hairstyle, one could feel the youthful vitality at a glance, which was eye-catching.

At this time, four people got off the tractor at the gate of the bicycle factory, which immediately attracted the attention of passers-by on the road.

I have seen female tractor drivers before, but this is the first time I have seen a tractor driver who keeps the tractor clean and pays attention to her appearance and wears a uniform, except for the photos in the newspapers.

"Wow~ Are you here to our factory to pick up your bicycle or to show off? These four female comrades and four new tractors parked on the side of the road, everyone would wonder where these female model workers came from and are waiting to be photographed, right?" Old Yang's sister-in-law, Ma Jianhua, had been waiting in the guard room early in the morning. When she heard the noise outside, she came out. After seeing the four female tractor drivers who were a sight to behold wherever they went, she smiled and joked at Xie Hushan.

Xie Hushan walked towards Ma Jianhua and said, "Big sister, how is it? This shows that our Zhongping Production Team 3 attaches great importance to you and the bicycle factory and has shown the best spirit, so you have to help bargain no matter what. Last time when Lao Yang got married, my brother-in-law hurt our Zhongping guys' hearts. He and my second uncle blocked us downstairs with their arms around each other and refused to let us go upstairs. What bad intentions do you think we have? We just want to help Lao Yang or something."

"You are courting death! You dare to say this in front of Limin's sister-in-law! My nephew needs your help? I will let his uncle deal with you later!" Ma Jianhua smiled and stretched out his hand to hit Xie Hushan, then looked at the situation in front of him:
"Forty vehicles in total, I don't think they are enough for you to show off. It's not worth making such a big fuss. People who know you are here to pick up bicycles may think you are here to pick up tanks from your posture."

"Let me tell you, big sister, you don't know. Today was the first time that our team three didn't need the production team leader to wake everyone up. We changed the charter and on the contrary, before four o'clock, that wicked guy knocked on the wall of me, the production team leader. I thought it was the widow trying to get into my bed in the middle of the night! I got up and went out to look for the widow, but it turned out that the members urged me to get up and pick up the car quickly." Xie Hushan smiled and gave the guard a cigarette, lit it and said with a smile.

The two guards and Ma Jianhua all burst into laughter, as if Xie Hushan was telling them a joke.

Only Ma Laowu and Accountant Zhao knew that this was not a joke told by Xie Hushan but a true story.

Ever since Han Laosan was helping to guard the door yesterday and learned that Xie Hushan was going to buy a large iron donkey for each family in Team 3, it took him less than ten minutes to let everyone in Team 3 know the news.

After dinner, at least fifty people came to visit Xie Hushan's house and almost trampled down the threshold of his house, just to confirm whether this matter was true or not.

Normally, if there is work to be done in Production Team 3 every day, the team leader would call everyone to get up and gather to work. But today it was the opposite. It was still dark, and five or six people came to call Xie Hushan to get up.

I'm afraid that the captain has overslept today and delayed the important things to be done today. Please help the third team to pick up the car.

At the latest at four o'clock, Chen Daxi's suicidal father Chen Damazi pretended to get up to pick up manure, and ran to the outer wall of the west room of Xie Hushan's house and knocked gently on the wall. Xie Hushan guessed that he might be afraid that Erxi would bite him to death, otherwise he might even jump over the wall and knock on his window.

Xie Hushan was awakened by the rhythmic knocking on the wall. He drowsily turned on the light cord and glanced at the watch beside him. It was just three fifty. He thought that Han Hongzhen had come to her senses and was planning to come to his kang in the middle of the night to warm his bed while Taozi was back at her parents' home.

Xie Hushan was both excited and nervous. He was nervous because he thought the young widow was crazy. His grandmother and Daxiu were still sleeping in the east room. If she came in and made some noise that was not suitable for children, he was afraid that his grandmother would be mad to death.

But then he thought that Han Hongzhen had finally mustered up the courage, and he couldn't discourage her enthusiasm. The worst that could happen was that he could go with her to the steel mill office to sleep.

It's okay to sleep less, but you can't delay doing something like having an affair with a widow.

So Xie Hushan got dressed in the middle of winter, got off the kang, left the house without disturbing his grandmother, and walked around to the outer wall of his east room with a flashlight, and then he saw a scene that almost gave him a cardiac arrest.

Chen Damazi was carrying a dung basket on his back and knocking on the outer wall with a small dung rake, shouting in a low voice:

"Hu San'er, Hu San'er, it's daybreak, hurry up and go get the car for everyone..."

If this stinky guy wasn't the elder, Xie Hushan would have let him experience how his son Chen Daxi felt when he was beaten up because of Xie Hushan's morning grumpiness.

After driving Chen Daxi's father away, Xie Hushan had just returned to the house for a while when that big fool Wu Shuanzi came and knocked on the wall again. When he thought that the person who came was not his widowed sister-in-law but Chen Daxi's father, Xie Hushan's anger was finally directed at Wu Shuanzi. Wu Shuanzi ran away, covering his stomach with his left hand and his butt with his right hand.

"Lady comrades, please drive your tractors directly in. Follow me. I will arrange for you to park and load the tractors first, and then I will take them to pay the money and go through the formalities." Ma Jianhua greeted the guard and after getting his consent, he waved to the four female tractor drivers, indicating that they could drive the tractors into the factory.

"Sister, what's for breakfast in your factory canteen today?" Xie Hushan looked at the factory canteen in the distance and remembered that he hadn't had breakfast yet. It was all because of these troublemakers who urged him to have breakfast. He didn't even have time to drink a sip of the porridge cooked by his grandma at home.

Ma Jianhua said: "Dumpling soup with fried fruits." "Does it work if I remind you?" Xie Hushan asked with a smirk on his face.

"It works, go ahead." Ma Jianhua found Xie Hushan very pleasing to his eyes. Although this kid looked irritable and out of touch, he actually had a good heart, was warm-hearted and generous.

When they didn't know each other at first, he took the initiative to help her sell gloves. When they met for the second time, he learned that she was Yang Liming's sister-in-law, and she gave him several foreign goods that she had brought back from Hong Kong Island with great effort.

"Old Five, you two follow the elder sister to pay the money and broaden your horizons. Don't always let me do anything in the future. It makes a big leader like me lose all my sense of mystery. It's not good to be too approachable. It affects the image of a leader." Xie Hushan walked towards the direction of the cafeteria and said to Ma Old Five and Accountant Zhao:

"I went to inspect the cafeterias of other factories and learn from them."

Ma Laowu held his briefcase with both hands and wanted to scold Xie Hushan, but he was too embarrassed to open his mouth in front of outsiders, so he could only look at Accountant Zhao: "Aren't you a member of society? How about you talk to the factory leaders later?"

"Didn't you just say that I was pretending? I'm not." Accountant Zhao muttered softly beside him.

When Ma Laowu thought about chatting with the leaders of the bicycle factory, he felt a little guilty. He didn't know what to say to them. They were all city people and he was a country boy. They couldn't even have a conversation together. He also didn't know what this kid Xie Hushan was talking to them.

"I say, the conditions in your production team are so good now? Every family is given a bicycle? This treatment is better than that of the workers. Our factory produces bicycles, but the factory director didn't even say that everyone would be given one." Ma Jianhua said to Ma Laowu and the others as they walked.

Ma Laowu and Accountant Zhao looked at each other, then immediately puffed up their chests and Ma Laowu coughed lightly:
"Well, that's nothing. Hu San'er is a new captain and has no experience. I need to take over. I'm thinking of giving each family a TV. I don't want black and white ones, but color ones. Hu San'er is still young and has no courage. I'll just train him slowly."

After saying this, Accountant Zhao, who was standing next to them, pulled at the corner of Ma Laowu's clothes, indicating that the whistle had been blown. If Xie Hushan heard this, he would definitely do something to punish them.

It was unknown whether Xie Hushan would deal with them, but Ma Jianhua, who was walking in front, stopped and looked at the two guys carefully after hearing what they had said, then continued walking forward, sighing as he walked:

"The farmers are living a good life now, and you can tell from their bragging. They are even more boastful than the workers in the city. Why don't you say that every family in your production team is given a plane and every family flies it to work in the fields?"

When Ma Laowu, Accountant Zhao and Ma Jianhua paid the money and completed the formalities and came out, they saw four tractor drivers each holding a fried fruit, eating and chatting with Xie Hushan. Forty brand new large iron donkey bicycles were already lined up on the four tractors next to them.

"Twenty kilograms of corn dregs, newly harvested in autumn, to be kept for making porridge at home, and two bottles of wine that your nephew asked me to bring to his uncle." Xie Hushan saw Ma Jianhua finish the formalities and send them out. He wiped his hands, took out a small bag of sorghum rice and two bottles of Fenjiu from the jeep and handed them to Ma Jianhua:
"If I give it to you first, I'm afraid you'll say I'm not particular. I'll give it to you after I'm done. Don't be polite to me, big sister."

"It's as if I helped you just for these little bits of corn dregs." Ma Jianhua smiled:

"Got it. I'll ask you if we can buy steel pipes later. It's not easy to do because the previous suppliers were all old friends of the factory director, so don't worry, just wait."

At this point, Ma Jianhua hesitated to speak. Xie Hushan waved to Ma Laowu and Accountant Zhao. After Ma Laowu and the others were a little further away from him, Ma Jianhua looked at the guard in the distance who didn't notice him, and said to Xie Hushan in a low voice:
"I was eating sunflower seeds in the supply and marketing department last time, and I heard that there is a 323 research institute in Yaoshan. The county pipe factory that supplies our factory also supplies there, but they think it's hard to serve there, and they don't want as much as the bicycle factory. Why don't you ask around first and send them some samples to see if that research institute likes your products."

"Thank you, big sister. I'll ask around later. If any of your relatives want to buy foreign goods, please come to Zhongping to find me and I'll help you. It's cold, so go in. We're going back too. The team is waiting to distribute the bicycles." Xie Hushan smiled at Ma Jianhua and said goodbye to her. Turning around, he found that Ma Laowu and Accountant Zhao had already got on the tractor. It was quite cold, but the two of them squatted in the tractor bed and were not afraid of freezing.

"Are you two trying to recall the good times you had back then or are you trying to take advantage of the female comrades in our team? What's the matter? You don't want to ride in the jeep but have to squat on the tractor. Do you think it's comfortable? Isn't it tiring to work with a man and a woman working together?" Xie Hushan looked at the two of them with a puzzled look on his face.

Ma Laowu explained: "You never say good things. What do you mean by taking advantage? I was squatting in the truck bed, not sitting in the cab. I was afraid that the road would be uneven and the bicycle would be damaged. I squatted in the truck bed so that I could reach out and help at any time."

"You two are totally crazy. Why did you buy this kind of bicycle? Isn't it because this thing is not afraid of falling? Not to mention getting damaged by being shaken on a tractor, if you ride one and collide with a tractor, you're done for, and even the bicycle won't be fine." Xie Hushan said speechlessly as he opened the jeep's door.

Ma Laowu said to Xie Hushan: "Can you hope for the best for us? Ever since I nominated you as the team leader, why do we feel like we are not your benefactors, but your class enemies?"

Xie Hushan was too lazy to pay attention to these two guys. He drove in front to lead the way, and four tractors followed his car all the way back to Zhongping.

As soon as we entered the village, there were already members standing on both sides of the road watching the fun. They simply ignored Xie Hushan's jeep and all gestured towards the four tractors, expressing their opinions enthusiastically.

It was not until Xie Hushan entered the village that he understood why the two old bastards came back squatting in the truck bed.

At this time, Ma Laowu and Accountant Zhao were both standing in the tractor bucket with their hands on their hips, just like they were parading a military parade. From time to time, they waved to the members of the brigade who were watching the fun, and they were just about to shout: Hello, comrades.

The members of other teams could not hide their envy in their eyes. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, in Zhongping, whether it was the big pot meals or the cooperatives, or even the later production teams, I have never heard of a production team that, after having some money, would not buy industries for the team, but instead give bicycles to members' families to buy large items!
That's a bicycle. If you have this thing, it will be easier for you to get a wife than others.

There were no members of Team 3 among the onlookers, only a few young kids from Team 3. When they saw the tractor loaded with bicycles coming back, they ran towards the Team 3 headquarters as if their butts were on fire, apparently to report the news.

The members who came to watch the fun followed the tractor all the way to the Yaowang Temple. In the open space in front of the temple, the members of the three teams had spontaneously organized themselves and set up two tables in the team office. Everyone may have spontaneously drawn lots to decide the order of queuing. At this time, they lined up in front of the tables in an orderly manner in groups of families.

"I've never seen them so diligent when working." Ma Laowu muttered as he watched the busy scene.

"Hu San'er has to be the team leader. He really works hard for our team three! This iron donkey, without any quota, directly pulled forty bicycles. Look, the spokes are all shiny and new!" Chen Daxi's father, Chen Damazi, might have felt that he had let Xie Hushan down for what he did in the morning. When he saw the bicycles being transported back, he clapped and cheered at the top of his voice.

The other party ignored his words, causing Ma Laowu, who was standing on the tractor with his hands on his hips, to almost sprain his waist: "You only thank the captain, the vice-captain, the team committee and so on, but not others?"

"Old Five, our team three is so kind to you. The team is so rich, but you are just like a stingy landlord who doesn't give a penny to anyone. I think I should teach you a lesson like I teach a landlord, so that you can understand what it means to serve the people. Tiger Three is serving the people, and you still thank me. Thank you!" Chen Damazi said to Ma Old Five with disdain, "Do you still think you are the captain? You should have done it a long time ago! Stop putting your hands on your hips, are you going to run away again?"

"Okay, Chen Damazi, you keep showing off. You will be well behaved soon." Ma Laowu said to Chen Damazi while gritting his teeth.

Xie Hushan got off the car, smiled at the people who cheered and applauded him, and went straight into the team headquarters to warm himself by the fire. He didn't want to stand outside in the cold to distribute bicycles. Anyway, everyone knew that it was him who got the bicycles for them, and the rest of the work could be done by Ma Laowu and the others.

Ma Laowu sat at the table: "Are all the families here? I'll call a few people to help unload the bicycles, Chen Damazi, Chen Daxi, Chen Ergui, Chen Xiaoliang..."

"Just tell us to unload the bikes." Chen Damazi was so angry at Ma Laowu's blatant revenge that he laughed: "Since we are giving out bikes today, I won't argue with you. Let's go and unload the bikes."

As soon as he gave the order, dozens of people in the team surrounded the tractor and worked together to unload the bicycles.

Bicycles were being distributed outside. In the team headquarters, Xie Hushan warmed himself by the fire, drank some hot water, and then drove to the pipe factory. Ma Saner was recovering from his injuries, so he went to the workshop to find Ge Baosheng who was working with everyone else:
"Captain, there is a research institute called 323 in Yaoshan. This institute needs steel pipes. Can you find out where it is?"

Ge Baosheng wiped the sweat off his face and said, "No need to ask, they are the army."

These eight words made Xie Hushan's eyes brighter than the red-hot steel pipes in the workshop.

(End of this chapter)