Wang Fuchun is a true farmer who has been living in the countryside and farming with her husband for a living. Life is not rich, but it can be maintained. Farmers, as long as there is land and farmhouses to do, there is no problem with the rations of at least a few members of the family. You can't eat enough vegetables.

But smallholder farmers like Wang Fuchun and her husband struggle to get enough cash from agriculture alone. Although Wang Fuchun's husband is already very diligent, because now there are fewer and fewer people willing to farm, and many people in the village have empty self-reserved fields, and her husband has contracted to grow them himself. But after all, they are small-scale farmers, and the area they can cultivate with a walk-behind tractor is very limited. If the land is not a plain area with a link in everything, just relying on the husband and himself to plant thirty acres of land is already the sky.

The husband wanted to contract all the fields and connect them so that he could do more in the same time. Even planting a hundred acres is fine. But how can I have so much money to buy all the land?

Besides, there is still a lot of land belonging to the old people in the village. Now the young people in the village are working in other places, and no one is farming. In order to keep a place for their children to settle down in the future, and when they can't get along in the city, they can at least return to their hometowns to farm, and these old people will not rent, let alone sell. They would rather be fortunate and plant some vegetables in the field every day, and not let the land be empty.

Wang Fuchun's husband sat in the corner of the hall smoking a cigarette in the corner of the village, and the cigarette butts flickered in this corner where no light shone, like a firefly that would go out at any time.

On the desk in the hall, a big red enveloped admission letter lay there happily, shining with pride in the hall with large white walls and concrete floors.

Wang Fuchun walked into the hall, as if his eyes were burned by the jubilant red, and he didn't look at the admission letter.

"Where's the son?" she found her husband hiding in a corner, and the glow of fireflies stood out in the dark corner.

"I sent him out. Let him go and play with his classmates in town. The husband stood up and walked out of the dark corner. Walking in the sun, the white hair on the forehead shimmers silver in the sun.

"You're going to inquire?"

"I inquired. Wang Fuchun pinched the corner of his clothes and didn't know how to speak.

"How much?"

The third uncle in the town and several uncles who had gone to work in Huaihai said that if they went to Huaihai to study at university, the tuition fee would be a fixed amount, but the living expenses would be ...... , hey, the tuition and living expenses add up to 20,000 yuan a year, which is the least. The corners of Wang Fuchun's clothes were about to be crushed.

"Twenty thousand. The husband took the last puff of the cigarette, the flames burned to the butt of the cigarette, and the chemical fiber burned with a choking smell. The husband snuffs out the cigarette butt.

"In charge, I'm afraid this money is not enough for our family. Wang Fuchun pinched the corner of his clothes and counted the accounts: "Last year, our family just changed rice seeds, and the quality of the rice grown by the Oriental Koshihikari rice is good, but the yield is too low." One acre of land only has a yield of 800 catties. ”

The husband sighed lightly: "Yes, it is said that the unit price of Koshihikari rice is high, and I only planted it." As a result, one pound is only three cents higher, two dollars and two pounds. One acre of land is only about 3,500 yuan for planting two crops a year. Our family's 30 acres of land are only 100,000 yuan a year. There are also 25 acres of land to be rented, and a hundred yuan a year is paid for one acre of land, as well as money for seeds, fertilizers, and tractors. The seeds of this Koshihikari rice are much more expensive than the seeds of our domestic rice. I didn't think it would be so unprofitable. ”

Wang Fuchun shook his head: "Boss, Koshihikari rice is cheap in our fields. The last time I went to see my son at a high school in the city, he took me to the supermarket next to their school, and Koshihikari rice sold for more than 30 pounds a pound!"

The husband was a little angry when he heard this, but it was more of a helplessness, and in the end he could only turn into a long sigh: "Anyway, it won't be those of us who only know how to dig in the field to make money." So my son has to go to Huaihai University to study, this is a university!"

"We don't have that much cash. Wang Fuchun said one of the biggest flaws of many small homesteaders: "We only built this building the year before last, and we have already used up our savings and pulled foreign debts. There are still more than 50,000 foreign debts that have not been paid off. ”

In rural areas, there is no concept of commercial housing, everyone is a homestead, and if you want a house, you have to build it yourself. In the early years, the village was full of adobe houses, and later some people became rich and built brick houses. From the mid-to-late nineties to the present, the mainstream of self-built houses in rural areas has become small buildings with three to four floors.

At present, it is easy to buy a house in the cities by hundreds of thousands, millions, or even several millions, and peasants can build a small four-story western-style house for only 5,600,780,000 yuan to build a house in the rural areas, which seems to be a very cost-effective deal. Many people in the city are envious.

But people in the city can only pay a down payment of 300,000 yuan to buy a house of 1 million, and the rest of the bank loan will be repaid slowly. However, there is no way to take out loans to build houses in rural areas, and you can't build them without money. Because masonry, cement, and steel bars cost money, manual masters also need money, and renting various construction machines is still money. The money must be paid out of cash, and there is no way to delay.

Therefore, building a small three-story building in the countryside, even if it is not renovated, is already the biggest expense in life for farmers with low cash income. Many people build buildings to pull foreign debts, and Wang Fuchun's family is no exception.

Because Wang Fuchun is willing to work and has a good reputation in the village, his relatives and friends are also willing to lend him money. But this day of repayment cannot be delayed, each family has its own difficulties, and you can't just think about yourself.

The yield and price of Koshihikari rice planted last year were not satisfactory, and more fertilizer was sprinkled, so it can be said that Wang Fuchun's family basically did not make much money. The real bulk of the money is made by middlemen.

"My son is going to Huaihai to study, let's be more generous, let's ask for 100,000 yuan in four years. Wang Fuchun has the unique shrewdness of a rural woman: "Even if the child can work and study to share a little, it will not be much less." My son went to college, and they all said that interpersonal interaction in college costs money. Especially when children go to big cities, their classmates are all from the city, so you can't let your children not make a friend for four years in college. When you go to college, you may fall in love, and it will cost money. Our family has to prepare 100,000 yuan in four years, most of which is indispensable. ”

The wrinkles on her husband's face deepened a little when she heard this. There is a certain amount of money you can earn in a year, and this is not a disaster year. If there is a drought, a rice disease, a pest plague, as long as these occur, it is equivalent to a year of dryness. It is true that modern society has not been eaten for thousands of miles because of a major drought, but for Wang Fuchun, a small yeoman farmer, it is all the hardships of the year.

"Then let's grit our teeth and get through it, and wait for the child to graduate from college. The only way the diligent and honest husband can think of is to cut back on expenses: "Let's eat less, buy less at home, and save more." It's just four years, and you can always get through it. ”

Wang Fuchun looked at the white hair on her husband's forehead, and she couldn't help touching it with her hand: "Master, you're too tired." ”

"It's a man's responsibility not to be tired, to support his family. ”

“...... In charge, I heard my third aunt say that I can make money by picking cotton on the border. I will earn 10,000 yuan or 20,000 yuan in two months, or I will go to the border with my third aunt and them to pick cotton. ”

"No! I know how to go to the frontier to pick cotton. That work is much harder than our farm work. The third aunt had to get up at five o'clock in the morning, go down to work in the field at six o'clock, and eat lunch in the field. After eating, dry until the sun goes down and you can't see it at all. Fifty people live in one room, and they eat clear soup noodles or steamed cabbage. Look at the third aunt every time she comes back from the frontier, she looks like a person is not a ghost or a ghost, her spirit is not good, her hands are all scratched, and her hands are ......."

"But the master, we want money!"

"......" The husband was speechless, and the man in his forties suddenly choked up.

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Wang Fuchun finally went to find the third aunt, she was going to the frontier to pick cotton.

"No, I can't go. "The fifty-year-old third aunt goes to the frontier every year to pick cotton, and now she looks like she is in her sixties. She sat on the bed and shook her hand: "I can't go now." ”

"Why can't you go?" Wang Fuchun was anxious, if this road was blocked, what should his family do?!

"Labor is expensive, and now the frontier uses machines to pick cotton, and there is no need for people. "What the third aunt said is right, the price of labor has risen, but the purchase price of cotton has not risen significantly, and more and more cotton farmers have no money to hire manual picking. They prefer to use machines because they are cheaper. Even if the quality of cotton picked by machines is much lower than that of manual cotton. At present, the number of cotton pickers recruited from the interior of the frontier has dropped from 700,000 in the two months of the peak season to less than 100,000 each year.

At the same time, the price of pure cotton fabrics in the city is getting higher and higher, and some of them are already so expensive that people can't understand them.

An admission letter was originally a joyful and joyful thing, but it was a heavy burden for Wang Fuchun's family.

"I can't let my child still dig in the soil. Wang Fuchun, who has been farming all his life, has made up his mind that even if he goes to the city to work, he will earn enough tuition for his children.

Ding Lingling~

Wang Fuchun's mobile phone of more than 200 yuan rang, and a familiar voice rang when he answered the phone, it was his distant cousin Wang Yan: "Sister Fuchun, how are you doing lately?"