Chapter 260: Dividing the Money

In Shangshui Village, Village Chief Wang gathered with a few others.

“This is all the money we’ve made from selling vegetables recently. Let’s all talk—how should we handle it?” Village Chief Wang didn’t make unilateral decisions. He sought everyone’s opinion.

Now that they’d made money, it was time to establish rules about how to spend it.

“Divide it among everyone?” someone asked.

In truth, the villagers were all hoping for a payout. That was the whole reason they’d worked so hard growing vegetables—dividing the money was the best way to keep motivation high.

If, in the end, nobody got a cent and everything went to the collective, people would definitely start slacking off.

Even if collective assets technically belonged to everyone in the village, if they never saw a direct benefit, they wouldn’t really feel a sense of ownership or care much.

“How do we divide it? Per person? Or per household?” someone else chimed in.

This was another thorny issue.

If it was divided per person, smaller families would complain that it wasn’t fair. But if it was divided per household, then larger families would feel shortchanged.

“Let’s divide part of it, so we don’t discourage people from growing vegetables. The rest can go toward other things the village needs—like stocking up on coarse grains, which we can eat ourselves or use to raise chickens later!” someone suggested.

Not dividing it at all would definitely dampen morale. Everyone was looking forward to a payout, after all.

But if they gave it all out, the village would struggle to grow. If anything happened, they’d be defenseless. Just like last time—people starved to death.

If the village had had enough grain reserves, would it have come to that?

Obviously not.

The concept of “grain reserves” had originated in Zhoujia Village, and unsurprisingly, it was Zhou Yimin who had come up with it.

Indeed, it had been Zhou Yimin who talked to the old party secretary and others, proposing that Zhoujia Village build up a supply of reserve grain so that in the event of a major famine, villagers would at least have food to survive.

The old party secretary and the rest had strongly supported the idea. They set aside some funds and asked Zhou Yimin to procure the grain.

They understood all too well how important it was to have grain in reserve. The hardships of the past two years had only made that more clear.

As the saying goes, “With grain in hand, there’s no fear in the heart.”

Zhou Yimin recalled how, in the future, the nation would stockpile grain on a massive scale to prepare for disasters. The central government did it, as did local governments, all maintaining their own grain reserves.

Some statistics showed that even if China’s crops completely failed, the country’s reserves could feed 1.4 billion people for over a year.

And that was a conservative estimate.

It was hard to even imagine how astronomical those reserve numbers would be in the future.

“Who’s in favor? Who’s against?” asked Village Chief Wang, addressing everyone present.

He was in favor of the idea himself. Upon learning that Zhoujia Village was building up reserves, he had wanted to do the same. But since it involved spending money, he had to hold a meeting and get everyone’s agreement.

Unilateral decisions were unacceptable.

Of course, everyone could already tell that this was what the village chief wanted.

But the idea wasn’t a bad one—having more grain on hand could only be a good thing.

So, everyone nodded in agreement. No one raised any objections.

“Alright! Since everyone agrees, we’ll split the money from the vegetable sales into three parts—one part as dividends for the villagers, one part to purchase reserve grain for our village, and the last part to keep on hand for emergencies.” Clearly, Village Chief Wang had thought this through thoroughly.

Someone asked, “Chief, how exactly are the dividends going to be split?”

A tough question.

But Village Chief Wang had already considered it.

Calmly, he said, “It’ll be based on how much labor each household contributed. For example, if your family sent two people to work in the fields, you’ll get two shares.”

He was using a “more work, more pay” system—though he didn’t phrase it that way explicitly.

After all, this was still technically the era of collective labor and communal meals, where “more work, more pay” wasn’t officially the rule.

But everyone nodded—no one objected.

It made sense. This way, there’d be no arguments.

After all, it wouldn’t be fair for someone who didn’t lift a finger to get the same share as someone who worked hard every day.

“I agree!”

“Me too!”

…

During this period, Shangshui Village had made a total of 1,018.5 yuan from selling vegetables. 300 yuan would go toward buying reserve grain, 300 yuan would be set aside as emergency village funds, and the remaining 418.5 yuan would be distributed to the villagers.

Their village had just over 100 households, so that meant each household would get around 4 yuan.

That wasn’t bad at all.

After all, vegetable sales were ongoing—they hadn’t even stopped earning yet!

What did they earn from working for labor points anyway?

Typically, a full laborer could earn 10 points a day. Women usually earned 6–7 points a day.

The production team had a dedicated record keeper to tally up everyone’s labor points over the year and then distribute bonuses at the end.

That’s why, in some rural areas, a saying had become popular: “What’s the point of reading books? As long as you can understand labor points, that’s enough.”

And ten labor points were worth just 1 jiao and 1 fen.

That meant even if you worked every single day of the year and got full points every day, you’d only earn 3,660 points—a total of just 30 to 40 yuan. And realistically, even that was impossible.

Even if you were strong and worked hard enough to get full points every time, there’d always be days with no work.

Besides, rural labor was already in surplus.

In the short time they’d been growing vegetables in Shangshui Village, they’d already earned about 4 yuan per household. Even if they earned only 4 yuan a month moving forward, that’d be 48 yuan a year—nearly 50 yuan!

Wasn’t that better than working for labor points?

So, those 4 yuan were more than enough to satisfy the villagers.

“Good! In that case, let’s call everyone together and hold a meeting to distribute the money!” said Village Chief Wang.

As soon as the words left his mouth, someone dashed out, eager to spread the word.

Before long, villagers came pouring in, faces lit with joy. Word had already gotten around that the village was distributing money—people even put down their meals just to come.

“Alright, settle down, everyone. Let’s go over the village’s decision,” Village Chief Wang announced.

The crowd instantly quieted. If a dog had barked just then, someone probably would’ve slapped it a few times to shut it up.

Once it was quiet, Village Chief Wang clearly explained the village’s plan: divide the vegetable money into three parts—300 yuan to buy reserve grain just in case, 300 yuan saved for emergencies, and the remaining 418.5 yuan distributed as dividends.

Then, Village Chief Wang began calling up household representatives to collect their shares. When their name was called, they stepped forward.

To people in the cities, 4 yuan wasn’t much, but in the countryside, it was a decent sum!

And with more vegetables expected from the fields in the near future, everyone was in high spirits. As they collected their money, they chatted excitedly about how to plant next.

They were farmers, after all—what else would they talk about if not crops?

And right now, motivation was running high.

As for the village’s decision to set aside 300 yuan for grain reserves, no one objected. Of all people, they knew exactly how important grain was—no one wanted to go hungry again. It was unbearable.

(End of Chapter)