Chapter 232 – Village-Wide Meeting

The people of Shangshui Village were busy, but the people of Zhoujia Village were even busier.

After all, Zhoujia Village had many “industries.” Besides the vegetables planted along the riverbed, they also raised chickens and cultivated mushrooms.

Like the other villages, they also needed to allocate manpower to help with public tasks. Most importantly, Zhoujia Village had its own project to work on: building a reservoir.

As soon as they returned to the village, the old Party Secretary seized the moment while everyone was present and convened a village-wide meeting.

Each household had to send one representative.

The meeting was held at the village’s threshing ground. Those who lived nearby brought stools; those from farther away had to stand. From the Zhou Yimin household, of course, it was Zhou Yimin who attended.

“Quiet down, everyone,” the brigade leader called out.

The old Party Secretary waved at Zhou Yimin, “Yimin, come sit over here.”

The villagers around Zhou Yimin quickly made way for him.

Without thinking much of it, Zhou Yimin walked over and sat next to the old Party Secretary. His purpose for attending this village-wide meeting was mainly to listen. He didn’t plan on giving any sort of speech.

“Alright, first off, our village completed the public grain quota smoothly this year and was rated as first-class grain.”

As soon as this was said, the villagers who hadn’t gone along to deliver the grain began murmuring among themselves, their faces beaming with happiness and pride. First-class grain wasn’t easy to achieve.

Generally speaking, if your grain was rated first-class, the commune would even give recognition and rewards.

There were some tangible benefits involved, which is why everyone was so pleased.

Besides that, it was a collective honor. In this era, collective honor mattered greatly. Receiving such recognition—how could they not be happy?

After the public grain was handed over, the old Party Secretary also reported how much food remained in the village. He gave a detailed breakdown, including how much each household would receive, in addition to the portion retained by the village itself.

This year’s wheat harvest wasn’t especially great, but it was better than last year’s.

This was thanks to improvements like the installation of hand-pumped wells.

If the village didn’t have its other “industries,” they would’ve had to tighten their belts again. That little bit of grain would’ve been barely enough to last until the next harvest—barely.

But in Zhoujia Village, there was no panic at all—after all, they had Yimin!

As long as their side businesses like vegetables, chickens, and mushrooms were running well, they’d have money. With money, they could access grain through Yimin’s channels.

Besides, over at the riverbed, they had other crops too—those belonged to the village and didn’t need to be handed over.

The villagers whispered among themselves.

Soon, the sound of a hand slamming on a table brought the place to silence again.

The old Party Secretary continued, “The second matter is the commune’s requirement for each village to send people to work on the canal construction. The number has been set: our village needs to send 20 people.

Now, everyone discuss and decide who’s going.”

This was one of the key purposes of the meeting.

There was no pay for going to help build the canal, but food would be provided by the commune. In previous years, people were unwilling to go. But this year, many villages had poor harvests, and after handing in public grain, not much was left.

In such circumstances, the opportunity to eat at the commune became desirable. Some villages were even trying to sneak in extra people to ease their own food burdens.

Of course, that didn’t apply to Zhoujia Village.

Zhoujia still had a relatively ample supply of food—they weren’t at that point yet.

“Secretary, I heard other villages want to send more people,” someone spoke up.

In ancient times, this would’ve been considered forced labor. No one liked being dragged off for such things—it meant hard labor, and people feared it. But now it was different. The commune provided food, and many villages were low on grain.

“Mhm, that’s true,” the old Party Secretary nodded.

Some villages even went to the commune to request more slots. As for the reason—everyone understood.

“In that case…” Zhou Yimin started to speak but quickly stopped himself.

“Yimin, if you’ve got thoughts, just say them. We’re all family here,” the old Party Secretary encouraged.

The brigade leader nodded in agreement.

If anyone wasn’t part of the community, they’d have been pushed out long ago. Zhoujia Village now was like a solid iron wall. In tough times, only unity could get them through.

Zhou Yimin continued his earlier thought: “We could give up Zhoujia Village’s quota and let another village send people in our place. I bet some villages would be glad to.”

Right now, Zhoujia Village was short on manpower. If they lost 20 able-bodied workers, it would definitely affect their development plans.

So Zhou Yimin thought they could transfer their slots.

Didn’t the other villages want to send more people to the commune for meals? He believed some village would be happy to take Zhoujia’s place, free of charge.

As soon as he said this, it was like a light bulb went off in everyone’s heads.

Yes!

That way, everyone wins.

Other villages would be eager to send people, and Zhoujia could retain more labor for their own work while still fulfilling the commune’s assignment. A win-win solution.

The old Party Secretary and brigade leader both lit up, suddenly seeing the solution clearly.

Exactly—there was no need to argue over who should go.

Just as Yimin said, there were definitely other villages willing to take it on.

“Secretary, I think this’ll work,” the brigade leader said first.

“Mhm. Then let’s talk to the other villages. When registering names, though, we still have to write down our villagers, just in case,” the old Party Secretary said, thinking a step ahead.

“I’ll go make inquiries tomorrow,” the brigade leader offered.

The old Party Secretary moved on to the next matter.

It was about the crops near the riverbed. The baby bok choy that was previously picked could be harvested again, and the string beans were now ready too. The harvesting would be handled by the women of the village, with detailed work assignments to be announced tomorrow.

“Yimin…”

Zhou Yimin understood and nodded at the old Party Secretary. “Got it. I’ll drive back tomorrow. You can pick more this time—the steel factory won’t need all of it. I can take the rest to the instant noodle factory.”

The instant noodle factory had a large number of workers now, and their food consumption was no joke.

Zhoujia’s harvest really wasn’t enough to meet the demand.

The old Party Secretary tucked his thanks away in his heart for now and went on to discuss other matters—raising chickens, growing mushrooms, and so on.

Finally, it was time to talk about the reservoir.

Yimin had pulled some strings and managed to acquire a small hydroelectric generator, which a research institute had “donated” to support Zhoujia Village.

The generator was already sitting in the village warehouse!

Once the reservoir was built, the old Party Secretary and brigade leader planned to dig a small canal to divert part of the river into it, filling the reservoir for electricity generation and other uses.

They were planning to mobilize over 80% of the village’s adult male population for the project, aiming to finish the reservoir by year’s end.

It wasn’t a massive reservoir, so they were confident they could pull it off.

“Three days from now, construction begins,” the old Party Secretary announced.

The villagers had no objections and were ready to follow orders.

As long as they could get electricity, they were more than willing to put in the hard work. In fact, many were already eager to start.

And just like that, the village-wide meeting ended—no dragging things out.

(End of Chapter)