Siheyuan: Pushing Huairu, the Prime Minister admits defeat

The author is a native of southern Henan, and his hometown is Jiangnan in the North, which is the middle of Jiangnan in the North.

On the one hand, I wrote period literature to earn some money to supplement the family income, and on the other hand, it was out of the emotions of a farmer's son. When I first finalized the draft, I planned to set the identity of the protagonist as a genuine farmer's son.

Through hard work, he became a city worker.

But when I thought about the real rural scene, it seemed as difficult as climbing to heaven, so I had to give up.

I want to share with you all my deepest feelings about writing period articles, and I'll just write this as an essay to comfort our predecessors.

The following contents are all objective statements, narrated by my grandfather-in-law and grandfather, and supplemented by me.

I have no intention to fabricate something out of thin air and damage the feelings of fellow countrymen who are in the same boat and participating in the grand ceremony together...

It was the mid-1960s, when Taizu ruled the people.

Workers and farmers are divided into different household registrations. Non-agricultural households can go to the grain station to collect rice with a quota of grain books and various receipts, or exchange them for the necessary non-staple food and general merchandise. They receive wages according to different levels of standards based on their administrative and worker identities.

The general salary of the eighth-level workers can reach hundreds of yuan, and the third-level workers are stable at around 2 yuan. The market price of pork is around 5 cents. Only in years of famine will the price of pigeons in the market rise a lot.

But in normal years, it is not difficult to eat out and have a good meal occasionally.

In this context, the vast majority of non-agricultural households were not rich, but they were well-off. At least they had enough to eat meat and wear clothes. For example, Iraqi dates and Cuban sugar donated by the same camp at that time were regarded as snacks by this class.

When getting married, it was popular to have "a few legs", that is, the number of tables, chairs, benches, cabinets and other furniture. After the 70s, three-wheeled and one-ring, crystal radios, large-bar bicycles, Shanghai brand large steel watches, and Bee brand sewing machines became popular.

The factory takes care of all weddings and funerals, and most of the jobs are shared among the workers. That means each worker has his own job, and two-income families are formed.

Marriages between people with rural household registration are rare. According to the policy, when non-agricultural household registration marries rural household registration, the children born will all have rural household registration. However, people with rural household registration do not enjoy benefits such as quota food and non-agricultural free medical care.

Therefore, only some extremely beautiful people can marry into the city by chance. Most rural girls cross the social class to enter the city, and even marry disabled people...

Although houses are not allowed to be bought and sold, they can be distributed free of charge. Unless there is a major accident, the factory director or secretary cannot expel workers from the factory without reason. It can be said that they have a safe and secure iron rice bowl.

Most shopping is done in state-owned department stores and various supply and marketing cooperatives.

Purchasers, cooks, projectionists, broadcasters, factory workers, supply and marketing cooperative employees, car mechanics, and even restaurant waiters are paid well.

Restaurants everywhere hang warning signs such as "Do not hit or scold customers at will!" However, the warnings are ineffective and serve no purpose, and countless diners are still beaten.

More importantly, these iron rice bowls are still dominated by the shift system, where the father retires and the son takes over, which truly interprets the meaning of "a bowl is passed down for three generations" and the bowl remains even after the person leaves.

Each major factory has its own team. The security department, affiliated hospitals, affiliated primary schools, and even clubs are all internal exclusive. If there is any violation of the law or discipline, the police are not allowed to arrest people at will, and the security department will handle it.

In terms of education, junior high school graduates with urban household registration can choose to take high school or apply for technical secondary school. Those with high school education can take the college entrance examination for further studies. Technical secondary school tuition is free and they enjoy financial subsidies. Graduates are guaranteed to be employed in state-owned enterprises, and some of them start out as clerks.

The situation is different for rural residents. They dig for food in the fields and work hard day and night, but can only get a few meager work points. As for the grain produced in the village, it is all packed up and taken away. The food for people and horses is all allocated from other places, mostly dried sweet potatoes, potatoes, cornmeal and the like.

Due to bad luck, there were consecutive years of rainy and humid weather, and all the dried sweet potatoes and potatoes we brought in became moldy and sprouted, so much so that people of my grandfather's generation would turn pale at the mention of dried sweet potatoes.

In years of famine, they would peel off the relatively tender bark of trees, pound it into powder, mix it with picked wild grass into a paste, and swallow it down whole. They had to swallow it quickly to avoid the bitter taste from coming back to their ruminants.

During the three-year disaster, a ghost world appeared where "people ate people, dogs ate dogs, and hungry rats gnawed bricks."

When the years were good, we would dare to use these work points to exchange for some soybeans from the production team near the end of the year, and grind them into tofu to satisfy our craving for tofu. I still remember a story my grandfather told me.

At that time, my great-grandfather raised livestock in the stable, including cows, horses, mules, etc., and he took good care of the collective property. At that time when mechanization was not yet popular, animal power was the best way to farm. Even if people starved to death, cows would not. My great-grandfather did not dare to be negligent and was extremely careful.

It so happened that a relative of mine was promoted to the position of production team leader. The next day, the township was going to have someone come to inspect. Everyone in the commune looked pale and was so hungry that they were swollen like steamed buns soaked in water. How could they be provided with decent food?

Then a strange scene appeared. When my great-grandfather got up in the middle of the night to feed grass, the well-cared-for ox was still vigorously swinging its tail to drive away mosquitoes.

At dawn the next day, when my great-grandfather was feeding the cow with a fork, he was shocked to find that this ox that had made great military achievements seemed to be so grateful to the commune for raising it that it had no way to repay the kindness and could only fall ill overnight. It was slaughtered quickly like a butcher cutting up a cow.

When my great-grandfather saw the cow again, only white bones were left, without a trace of meat.

In the commune canteen, several people with connections with him cooked soup for me.

There was no onion, ginger or garlic, only some bitter salt with some foam floating in it that was not sure whether it was blood or oil.

Although he felt sad, my great-grandfather still drank several bowls of wine with tears in his eyes, until his belly was full...

The clothes were so poor that anyone who heard about it would cry. Several people in the family could not even put together a set of clothes that fit them. Patching them together was a luxury. Several people shared one pair of shoes and one set of clothes.

In the bitterly cold twelfth month, people would dress only when they went out to do work, leaving those without clothes to huddle in their straw quilts.

So it was not popular to visit neighbors casually at that time. Even if you were visiting relatives or friends, you had to inform them in advance so that neighbors could share clothes with each other.

Needless to say, we lived in adobe houses, a method that was similar to that of the movies. We found a few relatives we knew, dug mud and built houses on a sunny day, and covered them with straw. When it rained heavily outside and moderately inside, everyone had bedsores on their backs.

OK, that's a luxury. Without a letter of introduction, it's hard to move forward. Rural residents only get work points but no salary, so when they go on a long journey, they usually carry dry food on their backs, or exchange food for food coupons.

In terms of education to change your social class, technical secondary schools are not eligible. There are too many minefields. To be cautious, you can search on your own.

At the end of the century, corvée labor and taxation were indispensable. Every year, they volunteered to repair canals and pave roads, build roads and remove silt. The iconic building "XX Canal" was dug with the help of countless farmers in southern Henan. Most of the corvée laborers brought their own dry food, did not ask for rewards, but only for contribution...

After the contract responsibility system was introduced, farmers were able to work independently and still had to pay the public grain tax. Agricultural tax was levied until the beginning of the millennium, and "kicking the bucket" was common. A solid kick would require the farmers to pay an extra ten kilograms of grain, which was a shadow of the farmers.

I can’t write in detail, because the details are too hard to read…