Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 650 Ideological Education Class

In the past, an autumn harvest would take at least ten days of busy work, including harvesting, threshing, threshing, drying, removing dregs, bagging, and storing.

Finally, the grain had to be transported to the grain depot for delivery. Not a single pound of grain could be missing, whether it was government grain or purchased grain, and it had to be good quality grain with plump grains and the required moisture content.

Only after this matter is completed can the autumn harvest be officially considered over.

This time, Lujiawan only took a week in total. This was because the drying process took too much time. Otherwise, if they had harvested for one day and cleaned for one day, they could have delivered the grain on the third day.

In some places, grain must be delivered three times a year: wheat and rapeseed in spring, early rice in summer, and late rice in autumn.

Fortunately, in Nanhu Commune, wheat was not a major crop, and the quota for rapeseed was not large, so the task of delivering it in the spring was waived. When delivering grain in the summer, they could just deliver some rapeseed along with it.

Without spring harvest tasks, completing this autumn harvest means that the Lujiawan production team will officially enter the "winter off-season".

The term "winter off-season" only applies in comparison to the rest of the year. There are still many other trivial matters to attend to, the most important of which is probably the renovation of water conservancy projects during the winter.

However, the river level hasn't bottomed out yet; it will take some time, and it also depends on the arrangements from higher authorities. If it's just minor repairs, it can be completed in a few days, followed by a long holiday to wait for next year's spring planting.

On the country path, Yang Chuanfu pointed to the fields where only rice stubble remained and told Chen Fan stories of the past. "In the early years, when the agricultural work group came to inspect, they demanded that our farmland not be abandoned in winter and that all the land be put to use. If we couldn't grow rice, we could grow wheat or rapeseed."

He suddenly stopped, lifted his open jacket, put his hands on his hips, looked at the nearby rice paddies, and chuckled twice. "Back then, the commune mobilized a batch of seeds and made us all plant rapeseed. And guess what happened?"

Chen Fan pulled out his pipe from his waistband, filled it with tobacco, and laughed, "Judging from the current situation, it's definitely a failure."

Yang Chuanfu shook his head, took out his pipe, lit a pipe, took a few puffs, exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, and then sighed, "That year, the rapeseed harvest was bountiful."

However, because the rapeseed planting period was too long, it delayed the spring planting of early rice. There was also insufficient fertilizer to supplement the soil, resulting in insufficient soil fertility and directly causing a reduction of nearly 30% in the early rice yield.

If it weren't for the late-season rice harvest salvaging some of the losses, some people would have almost had to borrow grain from the team that year. But the team didn't have any extra grain, and in the end, they still had to pay a high price to buy grain through negotiation.

Chen Fan narrowed his eyes slightly and remained silent.

The rapeseed of this era is vastly different from that of later generations. Low yield is a minor issue; the key problem is that the planting period is much longer than that of improved varieties in later generations. If one is not careful, it may delay the planting of early rice.

Two rice harvests a year are a production task that cannot be delayed in the slightest.

Moreover, fertilizer production is currently insufficient, and a large portion of it needs to be imported from abroad; that's where the joke about urea bags and pants comes from.

Whether imported or produced domestically, the amount and destination of fertilizers are planned in advance.

It's understandable that a last-minute rush to plow and plant crops was made, but there wasn't enough fertilizer available.

Over-cultivation of land without replenishment of nutrients will inevitably affect grain yields.

Speaking of large houses, there's a very interesting phenomenon.

Those who are interested can look through newspapers from the 70s. At that time, reports on rural areas indicated that after adopting the "big house" model, there would be a bumper harvest and the lives of the people would be better than before.

Then, a few years later, in the 80s, newspapers were full of negative reports, saying that all rural areas were starving back then, and that life only got better after the distribution of land.

When it came to promoting hybrid rice, the same old methods were used again.

Hehehehe...

Some elements in the literature about educated youth were borrowed from here.

A former Beijing youth who returned from Jilin later wrote an article recalling his time in the countryside. He admitted that the village did not lack food and they ate white rice, but meat was scarce.

There was a quiet, taciturn older brother in their educated youth settlement who was a master at catching chickens and dogs. In two or three years, he caught almost all of the village's guard dogs, and they all ended up in his stomach.

Later, when he went back to the place where he had been sent to work in the countryside, he ran into the old team leader from back then and was even jokingly scolded.

The old team leader said that everyone knew they were the ones who did it back then, but no one said it outright to save face for them.

Yet, in the novel written by that educated youth, this very place was still depicted as a barren wasteland where people ate corn porridge and steamed buns every day.

When the old team leader asked, he shamelessly said it was artistic creation. If it wasn't written about poverty and hardship, there would be no dramatic conflict, editors wouldn't like it, readers wouldn't want to read it, and the article wouldn't be published.

Therefore, many of the real situations are known only to ordinary people. As for written materials, especially newspapers and realistic novels, they are just for entertainment.

Yang Chuanfu silently smoked his cigarette, pausing for several seconds before saying, "That incident caused quite a stir back then, and even now, many places are still learning about it..."

Hearing this, Chen Fan couldn't help but nod. When he was a broadcaster, he had even written about the Lujiawan School Mansion.

Yang Chuanfu continued, "So, even though there were problems that time, we still insisted on doing it the following year..."

He raised his head and exhaled a long breath, looking at Chen Fan and smiling, "The entire Yunhu area is a land of plenty, with nine out of ten years of bumper harvests after the floods were controlled. But instead of natural disasters, man-made calamities have struck."

For several years in a row, the grain output in Lujiawan decreased year by year, and for almost three or four years, people did not have enough to eat. Sweet potatoes and pumpkins, which were used to save lives in the past, became supplementary food.

Later, after the storm finally passed, the higher-ups finally let the matter drop. That year, our five brigades joined together to talk to the old secretary of the commune. With no one watching us from above, the old secretary was understanding, and we stopped planting winter rapeseed that year.

Then they didn't care what kind of manure it was—pig manure, horse manure, human excrement—they just threw it all onto the land, and it took them a whole winter to barely recover some of the soil's moisture.

He pointed into the distance and said, "Then the land was left uncultivated for three or four more winters. Every year, we burned rice stubble and spread fertilizer in the fields until it was almost back to normal."

At this point, he suddenly muttered, "This harvester is great in every way, except it compacts the rice too low. The stubble left behind isn't even a hand's breadth high. You have to spread some straw in the field for it to catch fire."

A "squeeze" is the distance between your thumb and forefinger when they are spread apart. If you want it to burn, this height is not enough; it needs to be at least 20 centimeters.

Chen Fan smiled and said, "It's alright, the height of that sickle can be adjusted. I'll have the farm machinery operator adjust it later."

Yang Chuanfu nodded, turned to Chen Fan and said, "Back then, because of this incident, I told Yang Ju that she must leave the countryside in the future, so that at least she can have enough to eat and won't have to suffer like she did in the countryside."

Unexpectedly, thanks to you, I actually got into university, and Tsinghua University no less! After graduation, I'll have cadre status, so I won't have to worry about going hungry anymore.

Chen Fan smiled and said, "She also has to be willing and eager to learn, and there just happened to be a good policy, otherwise there's nothing I could do. So this is what she deserves."

Yang Chuanfu's face suddenly darkened. He waved his hand gently and said, "If it weren't for you, even with good policies, that girl would still be destined to be a peasant."

He looked towards the brigade headquarters as he spoke, "Just like Lujiawan now, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have to worry about food and clothing, but want a few thousand yuan in dividends a year? Hmph, you can't even dream about such a good thing!"

After he finished speaking, he knocked the ash out of his pipe, put his hands behind his back, and said with a stern face, "We've only had a few good days, and some people are already becoming arrogant, complacent, and lazy."

During this meeting, you can just keep criticizing. I want to see who's gotten tired of the good life and actually…

Chen Fan, his face falling, quickly interrupted him, "It's not that bad, it really isn't. It hasn't come to that yet."

Yang Chuanfu glanced at him sideways, "How many more steps are there before we reach that step?"

Chen Fan was speechless for a moment after hearing that.

How many steps?

How would I know how many steps it is?!
However, during this period, he noticed that the children in the school were not as dedicated to their studies as they had been at the beginning of the school year.

The members of the production team were no longer as excited and busy as they had been a few months ago, but instead, there were many more people playing mahjong than before.

That's why I reminded Secretary Yang and the others on the day of the last harvest.

Who knew that everyone from the brigade headquarters to the squad leaders would be so excited?
Today, Chen Fan originally planned to go to the school to give the students a lesson on moral education.

As a result, when I said this yesterday, Secretary Yang heard me and thought it was necessary to let the commune members come and listen.

Since the autumn harvest was over, farm work wasn't so busy, and there wasn't a need for so many people to do side jobs, the head of each household was asked to gather at the school to listen to Teacher Chen's class.

They didn't even give Chen Fan a chance to object.

Chen Fan was on his way to give a lecture when he was stopped by Captain Yang, and the two walked together.

Since it was still early, he didn't ride a horse, but instead walked, following Captain Yang along a shortcut across the field ridges.

It wasn't actually that close, but I didn't expect Captain Yang to make a statement.

That impassioned and passionate speech completely overwhelmed him.

But Captain Yang is still waiting.

Seeing Captain Yang's expectant look, Chen Fan thought for a moment, "Two or three steps, I guess."

Yang Chuanfu's expression changed drastically. "Only two or three steps?"

His face was ashen, and he frowned as he thought for a moment. "Two or three steps? It seems this matter is very serious. We must put a tight rein on everyone."

Then he waved his hand and said, "Let's hurry up. I need to talk to the people in Team 6 beforehand and make sure they all listen carefully."

Chen Fan followed behind with a blank expression. "I just wanted to fool the kid a little, is it really necessary to go to such lengths?"

……

Both of them had good stamina, and after more than half an hour, they arrived at Team 10.

Chen Fan thought he was early, but he turned out to be the last. Before he even entered the school gate, he could hear Secretary Yang giving a speech inside. Judging from his voice, he was using a large tin megaphone. "Did you all remember what I just said?"

Perhaps because Secretary Yang used many greetings during his speech, the responses were not only uniform but also very loud: "I'll remember."

Secretary Yang, "Didn't you have breakfast?"

This time, the voice was two orders of magnitude louder: "I...remember...it...is...it..."

Secretary Yang then twitched his face and said, "If you had this much strength when you were working, would we need to put you under such pressure today?"

On the playground, nearly a thousand people stood in unison and shouted, "Didn't you tell us to answer loudly?"
At the very front of the crowd, a group of immature children were trembling with fear. Was this the legendary brigade secretary?

How impressive! He scolded his father so badly that his father didn't dare to say a word. He wants to be the brigade secretary in the future!

Standing on the flag-raising platform, Secretary Yang looked down and immediately saw Chen Fan and Yang Chuanfu enter the school gate. His expression immediately brightened, and he grinned and waved, "Teacher Chen, come here, come here. The discipline has been emphasized. You can go ahead and talk."

Chen Fan walked in with a stiff smile, waving as he went, drawing the attention of a thousand people... Then Secretary Yang roared, "Are they all idiots? Can't they clap?"

Snap snap snap snap snap snap snap...

Chen Fan's already stiff expression became even more awkward. This was a speech to a thousand people! He was so excited... Oh, he had given this speech to students in a correspondence literature course before.
That's fine.

Today, he wasn't wearing his work suit from the past few days: a homespun jacket, shorts, and straw sandals. Instead, he changed into his usual outerwear: a shirt, dress pants, and leather shoes.

He certainly looks like a respectable person, with the demeanor of a teacher.

He strode up to the flag-raising platform. Without exchanging pleasantries, Secretary Yang pointed to the desks that had been set up and the loudspeaker attached to them, saying, "Use this to give your speech and let everyone in the team hear it."

Chen Fan's eye twitched slightly. "You've brought this all out here, so why bother talking about it at school?"
Can't you just sit in a radio station and still talk?
Although it deviated a bit from the plan, Chen Fan was a man of the world. After exchanging a few pleasantries with Secretary Yang, he plopped down in a chair and gently flipped the switch on.

This switch is a long, thin cylindrical object. Flipping it up turns it on, and flipping it down turns it off. It's very easy to use.

Once turned on, the loudspeakers of the entire brigade creaked and immediately attracted the attention of everyone in the brigade.

Almost all the squad leaders were warning their squad members that as soon as the loudspeaker blared, they all stopped, found a bench with only one or two people, and sat down quietly to listen to the lecture.

In the brigade headquarters, Yang Mei, Huang Li, and Liu Lu huddled together, each of them holding their faces and resting their hands on the table. As soon as they heard the loudspeaker, they immediately sat up straight.

Throughout the entire Lujiawan brigade, people from every household dragged out chairs and sat on the open ground in front of their doors, looking towards the loudspeaker.

Chen Fan patted the microphone, producing two muffled sounds. After checking that everything was fine, he spoke into the microphone.

"Hello everyone, you all know me, so I won't bother with introductions. Secretary Yang just said that he wanted me to give you a lecture on ideological education. To be honest, it was indeed my suggestion, but I just wanted to talk to the students at the school. I never expected it to be such a grand event, which makes me a little nervous."

Upon hearing this, the very serious atmosphere immediately eased, and many people chuckled softly.

When speaking in rural areas, the worst thing is to be verbose and use overly elaborate language. These days, rural people have only recently become literate, and many can only barely recognize a few characters. If you quote classical texts and use idioms and phrases, their minds won't be able to process it, and they won't be able to understand anything.
Therefore, Chen Fan not only had to use the simplest language, but the content he spoke of could not be any grand principles; it had to be something that they could all understand and preferably something that they were interested in.

This is when his vast knowledge truly shines through.

He had a cigarette between his fingers, his travel teacup on the corner of the table, and a red flag fluttering high behind him.

His posture wasn't very upright either; he crossed his legs and occasionally took a puff of his cigarette, just like the other commune members below him.

The weather was nice today, sunny and breezy, with a refreshing autumn breeze. Chen Fan spoke eloquently into the microphone, "It's called a moral education class, but it's really just storytelling. Many profound truths are hidden in these little stories."

Upon hearing that he was going to tell a story, not only the head of the household on the playground, but even the elderly people who had sat down at their doorsteps to show their support, quickly perked up.

Someone was shouting, "Little Gouwa, bring the teapot out with Grandpa!"

He then quickly pulled out his cigarette holder, preparing for a long battle.

Seeing that everyone was looking at him, Chen Fan felt that he had successfully built up the atmosphere before class, so he continued, "What story should I tell? Today I will tell you how Mr. Li led our troops from nothing to something, from small to large, how they survived in the cracks, and finally achieved victory."

He glanced at Secretary Yang and Captain Xiao, who seemed somewhat puzzled, then turned back and chuckled, “Whether it’s revolution or any other endeavor, the principles are the same. From these stories, we can see that Mr. Li’s great wisdom and profound principles not only guided the success of the revolution but also guide our construction and development in Lujiawan.”

Next, Chen Fan transformed into a storyteller, only missing a gavel in his hand, and began to recount the stories of how his predecessors had overcome numerous hardships, struggled to survive, and grown strong in the face of adversity.

Although it has been simplified, this lecture still took up an entire morning.

"Those were tough times. We were burdened by three mountains, and the Blue Army was a hopeless case that kept tripping us up."

Imagine you're harvesting rice in the field, and someone next to you not only refuses to harvest but also kicks you from the left and punches you from the right. What would you do? The way our ancestors did it was to say, "To hell with him! I'm not cooperating anymore. Let's gather another team and do it ourselves."

This is what it means to be self-reliant and not wait for handouts. It was this spirit that enabled our team to take root in northern Shaanxi.

Now that you have a team and it's developing quite well, it's time to achieve results. Otherwise, what's the point of having a team?
However, the method of struggle is crucial. We can't just act haphazardly; we need to employ methods. What happens if we act haphazardly? Everyone knows… well, yes, we encounter failure.

Later, it was Mr. Li who stepped in and used his great wisdom to lead the team out of the deep pit and create a new world for them.

But comrades, what is the most crucial thing?

Even in the most dangerous and difficult times, when many people had lost faith in the future, our leaders did not give up and continued to find ways to break through. This shows that mindset is very important…

Chen Fan spoke at school, and the entire brigade listened through the loudspeaker.

It's impossible to expect rural people to just listen and not speak.

On the school playground, things were alright. Several leaders from the brigade headquarters were there to keep an eye on things, so no one dared to make a loud noise and only whisper among themselves.

Because Chen Fan controlled the pace and gave them time to discuss when it came to the key points, Secretary Yang and the others did not have a chance to get angry.

But it's a different story at the doorsteps of each household.

In teams like Team 6 and Team 10, where the houses are more scattered, it's a bit better. In most cases, the elders will mutter a few words and teach the younger generation to listen carefully and learn attentively.

But for teams like Team 5 and Team 9, where the houses are closely adjacent, that's something else entirely.

One by one, the old men came out onto the road, and soon formed several groups, listening intently to what was being said over the loudspeaker, while also engaging in lively discussions.

"Teacher Chen is really insightful. I've heard these stories for twenty or thirty years. Before, I only knew that Mr. Li and his colleagues were very capable, but I didn't think much about it. After he summarized them like this today, I realized that there are so many profound truths in them."

“That’s right. We used to have meetings every day, every single day. People from the commune would even come to hold special meetings for study sessions. They talked about all sorts of big principles, but I couldn’t remember any of them. But today, in just half a day, I’ve memorized several.”

"Yeah, me too. Before, when I listened to stories, I just listened to stories; when I complained, I just complained; when I studied, I just studied. It was all so confusing that I just wanted to doze off. But today, Teacher Chen brought up this whole thing, and wow, I actually listened to it. No wonder he's the one who's taught dozens of college students."

"You can talk all you want, but don't forget to listen. It might be like before, with another exam. This is no joke."

"You don't even need to tell me. When it comes to his side hustles, Teacher Chen is a man of his word. If you dare to disobey him, you probably don't want to make money."

"Putting aside making money, just look at Teacher Chen as a person. He's willing to teach, and you don't want to listen? Are you stupid?"

……

Chen Fan drank two cups of tea and smoked eight cigarettes before finally finishing the whole story.

Then he started having a headache again. In order to teach the children, he broke the story into four lessons and planned to teach it for a month.

As a result, Secretary Yang forced them into this situation, turning primary school lessons into large-scale lessons for the entire production team. How could they possibly hold back their skills?
The only option is to release all the courses at once.

Or should we hold a few more brigade-wide meetings?

He didn't want to go through all that trouble.

After working myself to the bone, I finally finished this lesson on ideological education.

What can I tell the children later?

Looking at the sea of ​​heads in front of him, Chen Fan silently complained to himself, shifted his sitting position, and chuckled, "Our Lujiawan has finally achieved some small success thanks to everyone's hard work..."

At the entrance of Lujiawan Production Team, where it connects to the town, Secretary Qian of the commune, along with several people, sat in front of a resident's house. Hearing the loudspeaker blaring in the distance, he turned around and chuckled, "Did you hear that? This Teacher Chen has such high aspirations!"

The commune director, Jiang, grinned and said, "If you weren't ambitious, how could you have caused such a big incident?"

Deputy Secretary He flicked his cigarette ash, pursed his lips and nodded, “He is ambitious and capable, but that’s not the most remarkable thing. The most remarkable thing is that he doesn’t forget his roots. Even though he has already gone to work at the Provincial Writers Association and become a leading cadre, he still hasn’t forgotten Lujiawan.”

I come back several times a year, and every time I discover a problem, I immediately give a lecture and sound the alarm. If Lujiawan doesn't recover, it would be an injustice.

Secretary Qian nodded in deep agreement, “The situation is basically clear now, it just depends on when the specific policies will be introduced. Lujiawan is a piece of fat meat that can’t be moved. This piece of meat has been delivered to our mouths. If we don’t open our mouths, we will be letting down the more than 20,000 people in the commune.”

Director Jiang chuckled, "We've not only let the people down, we're probably going to get a lot of flak. We're worse than the members of the production team. At least they know how to reflect and learn. What are we doing?"

Secretary Qian threw away his cigarette butt, picked up a chair and carried it into the main room, saying with a smile, "We are also learning. Now that the lesson is over, we need to go back and think carefully about how to take advantage of the momentum of Lujiawan to drive the development of the whole commune."

Director Jiang also chimed in, "Hmm, we need to discuss this issue with Old Yang and Old Zhang. We can't just say they're eating meat and taking four production teams with them, forgetting that there are still thousands of people in the town who aren't even left with a drop of soup."

Deputy Secretary He put down his chair, clicked his tongue, and said, "There is too little industrial land available in Lujiawan. I think the garment factory is a good example. We should try to get them to move all their factories to the town. We can provide support in all aspects. The only problem is that they might not come."

The group waved to the homeowner and then chatted as they walked toward their workplace.

(End of this chapter)