Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 236 Let's get down to business
Liu Dan didn't kill the rooster he caught; instead, he killed the turtle that Zhang Wenliang had lost to him. However, Chen Fan also agreed to help cook at Zhang Wenliang's house that day.

Joking aside, it was Old Zhang's birthday celebration, and Zhang Wenliang had invited him, so he couldn't possibly refuse to help. This had nothing to do with the bet. Besides, even if he lost the bet, Zhang Wenliang would definitely give him the turtle to cook as a return gift for his help. In this respect, Zhang Sanhu knew much more than Chen Fan.

In the "General Office," the octagonal table was moved to the middle of the room, and Chen Fan and An Quan sat together in the main seats. On the back wall was a red sun, a portrait that Jiang Lili had just put up during the Chinese New Year. There was one in each of the four rooms, and it was not neglected in the slightest even though people were away.

Captain Yang and his two companions sat on opposite sides of a table. On the table was a pot of braised turtle, with a low, flat charcoal stove underneath. The red-hot charcoal was roasting the earthenware pot, and the gelatinous substance on the turtle's skirt had melted and mixed with the sauce. It was crystal clear and glistening with oil, making it look incredibly appetizing.

Next to the turtle was a pot of pickled fish, made with a black carp weighing over 7 pounds. The fish bones were used to make the soup, and the fish meat was sliced ​​thinly. The pot was full of fish, and a layer of red oil was poured on top, making it very fragrant.

As for other dishes such as stir-fried celery with cured pork, hand-shredded cured fish, and stir-fried eggs with garlic sprouts, they all have to take a backseat at this moment.

Chen Fan raised his wine glass, said some polite words, and then took the first bite, officially beginning the banquet.

They were still talking about running a side business of breeding farms.

However, as the conversation went on, the topic veered off course, becoming how much more money the production team members could earn if the side business succeeded.

Accountant Liu, holding his wine glass, his face already flushed, said, "If you ask me, each worker this year should be worth at least 1.5 yuan. Otherwise, wouldn't all those chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, and pigs have been raised for nothing?!"

Huang, the storekeeper, picked up a piece of cured meat and put it in his mouth. While eating, he calculated and said with a frown, "It's more than that, it should be more than that. Let's not count the work points for now, let's start by calculating the family sideline business."

With earthworm farming technology, every household, as long as they are willing to work hard, can raise more than a dozen chickens. Let's say 10 chickens. A live chicken costs 90 cents per pound, and each chicken weighs about three or four pounds. Taking the middle number, that's 3 yuan per chicken. 10 chickens would be 30 yuan. They can raise two or three batches a year, which would be 60 to 9 yuan, more than the dividend of a strong laborer last year.

Then there are the rabbits. Baby rabbits cost 1 yuan a pair, and adult rabbits cost 27 cents a pound. An adult rabbit weighs about 5 pounds, which is about 1.35 yuan. According to Xiao Chen, a female rabbit can produce a litter of 6 to 10 babies every two months. If there are 10 female rabbits, you can get about 80 baby rabbits each time.

If you can get through the first year, starting from the second year, you can sell your livestock every two months, earning more than 100 yuan each time, which would amount to 600 yuan a year…

At this point, even the warehouse keeper, Huang, was startled, his eyes widening instantly. "My goodness! Who needs work points? Just raising rabbits alone can build two houses in a year. If you include work points, chickens, and pigs, you can earn over a thousand yuan a year!"

These words startled almost everyone, except for Chen Fan.

Because he had already calculated it, and that was the most basic algorithm.

If the brigade headquarters had been more ambitious, they could have set up a food processing plant to process chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits into cooked food, supplying them to units, canteens, and state-run restaurants in various communes of Gufeng County. They could even have gone a step further and established connections with the Bureau of Commerce to enter the vegetable markets in the county town and various communes, owning a fixed stall and selling their produce daily.

There are also incomes from chicken feathers, duck down, goose down, rabbit fur, etc., and the total income can at least double.

The reason why the production brigade was poor was not because it lacked resources.

In this era brimming with opportunities, what limits them more are their mindset and habits, making them afraid to act and unwilling to act.

Otherwise, Huang Xinwen from Zhongshan County wouldn't have been able to earn over 37 yuan a year and make a net profit of around 7000 yuan by raising pigs. That was back in 5, when cadres were proud to earn 78 yuan a month.

The labor he contributed at that time consisted of only three people: himself, his wife, and his sister.

Therefore, as long as the people of Lujiawan want to make money, Chen Fan has plenty of ways to help them do so.

In an era when individuals were not allowed to conduct business, helping the production team develop rural sideline businesses and taking advantage of the situation to legitimately increase one's income earned one's respect and praise from everyone who came by!
Or perhaps, he should be a good person?
Just as Chen Fan was lost in thought, Accountant Liu exclaimed in surprise, "Over a thousand yuan? That much?"

Just now, I was joking on the earthen slope behind the house, saying that I wanted to save up a thousand or two yuan to build a house. Now, Huang, the custodian, is telling me that as long as I raise rabbits and start a family side business, I can earn thousands of yuan a year. It feels like a dream.

The storekeeper, Huang, looked at him and said, "Did I calculate it wrong just now?"

Accountant Liu snapped out of her daze and nodded repeatedly, "Yes, definitely right."

He was beaming, as if he had already earned a thousand yuan, and was already thinking about how to spend it. Should he build a two-story house, or a few large bungalows? It was a bit of a headache!
Captain Yang chuckled, "Raising rabbits doesn't require much food or feed. Just cut some grass, give them some rotten vegetable leaves, or throw in a few carrots, and they'll survive. There's almost no cost involved; at most, you just need to put in a little more labor. It's truly a highly profitable business."

At this moment, Anquan put down his chopsticks and said with a smile, "Old Yang is right, and Old Huang, your analysis is also correct. But have you thought about it? Rabbits have a big appetite, and if you want rabbits to grow well, you have to feed them some concentrated feed every now and then."

If only one or two families raise rabbits, the available forage in the wild should be enough. But if the entire brigade raises rabbits together—five or six hundred households in total, each raising several hundred rabbits—plus the brigade headquarters also needs to set up a breeding farm and increase the number of water buffalo and mules, will there still be enough wild grass to feed them?

Accountant Liu and Warehouse Keeper Huang felt as if they had been doused with a bucket of cold water; their brows furrowed, and they were momentarily at a loss for what to do. Captain Yang looked at Anquan and smiled, "It seems you've been thinking a lot these past few days. So tell me, how do you plan to solve this problem?"

Anquan smiled, then turned to Chen Fan and asked, "Teacher Chen, you should have a way, right?"

Upon hearing this, Accountant Liu and Warehouse Keeper Huang immediately looked up at Chen Fan.

Chen Fan laughed and said to An, "Brother An, you've also thought of a solution."

Anquan chuckled and then smiled at Chen Fan, "How about this, let's learn from Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu today and write down the answers?"

Captain Yang immediately said, "I'll go find some paper."

As he spoke, he prepared to call his daughter, Yang Ju.

Chen Fan quickly waved his hand and said, "No need, no need, I'll just dip the brush in the wine and write on the table."

Anquan smiled and nodded, "That works too."

Then, without looking at each other, the two dipped their fingers into their wine glasses and wrote two words on the table.

Captain Yang and Accountant Liu read it aloud together: "Wasteland."

The five people at the table looked at each other and burst into laughter.

After the laughter subsided, Anquan said seriously, "Small-scale farming can rely on oneself, but large-scale farming must rely on the collective. Under the leadership of the production brigade, all the members of our brigade work together to make use of all available land in Lujiawan, clearing weeds and miscellaneous trees, planting alfalfa, sorghum, corn and other forage grasses, and distributing them in a planned manner under the guidance of the brigade headquarters, which can meet the needs of all farmers in the brigade."

However, to do something like this, everyone has to work together. It's impossible to succeed by relying on any one family alone, and it doesn't align with our rural development policies.

Even if it's wasteland, it's the common property of all the members of the production team. How can we let just anyone take it?

He looked up at the custodian, Huang, his expression growing increasingly serious. "Old Huang's calculations just now were correct. On the surface, raising rabbits and chickens at home would bring in much more income than earning work points."

In this situation, do you think someone might slack off on public duties and do private work?

The custodian, Huang, nodded in deep agreement, "No need to ask, it's definitely there, absolutely!"

Everyone has to feed themselves, and everyone has their own little calculations. Unless you're one of those "Sanhe Gods" (a derogatory term for unemployed people in Sanhe), anyone with a bit of ambition wants to make a good living. In this situation, if working independently earns significantly more than working for the commune, how many people would still be willing to earn those meager work points?

"That's it."

Anquan turned to look at Captain Yang and the other two, and continued, "So we need to explain the reasons to the commune members. Without the production team, they can't run their own family farms."

Without a production team, where would the feed come from? If the chickens and rabbits got sick, who would treat them without a veterinarian from the production team?

If this point cannot be explained, then family farming should absolutely not be carried out; this is a matter of principle.

Furthermore, even if it is implemented, I will make a suggestion to Secretary Yang and the others at the brigade headquarters: the distribution of forage and other feed must be linked to work points.

If you can't even finish your production team's tasks, yet you have time to take care of your own pets, that's shirking public responsibilities and doing private work.

"We can't control what happened before; you could slack off and they'd only deduct your own work points. But once the farm is up and running, if someone who slacks off gets the same amount of feed as everyone else, then there's a problem. Even if I agree, and the brigade headquarters agree, the rest of us will absolutely not agree."

After saying this, he smiled slightly, picked up his wine glass and said, "I'm being a little naive now, but I'm being upfront about this. I don't want the commune members to make money but neglect the production team's fields, delay the country's grain quota, and cause a lot of conflicts."

In that case, even if you make money, if everyone is dissatisfied, then it's better not to make that money at all.

(End of this chapter)