At the end of the land reform, Xu Qihu served as the village head and branch secretary of Pailou Village. He gave four acres of good land on the sunny side of his pond, and built three ingot-shaped tile houses in front of Jiang Qingyu's door, like a big tiger lying horizontally.

The Xu family has three people, and his wife Gou Xiaofeng is eleven years younger than him, and she has fine skin and tender meat. This woman was born with a good voice, she can learn to play the waist drum as soon as she twists Yangge, and her brother Gou Cunwang promoted her to be a cadre, married Xu Qihu and gave birth to a son named Xiaohu.

In the winter of 1953, the state implemented unified grain purchase and marketing, and provinces, counties, and villages gradually issued the task of selling surplus grain. Pailou Township plans to requisition 250,000 catties, and distribute them to each village according to 15 catties per person.

When the township office gave the task, the village cadres had sad faces, complaining that the rations were still insufficient, how could there be surplus grain to sell? In a pessimistic atmosphere, Xu Qihu spoke loudly: We should not complain to the township leaders. What should the village cadres do if they complain to the township leaders? Leave the difficulties to the Party Central Committee? He patted his chest and assured that Pailou Village was determined to complete and strive to exceed! The dull air in the venue was swept away, and the secretary and head of the township took the lead in applauding him.

At the villagers' meeting, Xu Qihu stammered and read the materials, publicized the significance of selling surplus grain, and then announced the decision of the village office: poor hired peasants should sell surplus grain for each person, middle and rural cadres should sell 20 catties of surplus grain, and landlords and rich peasants should each have 40 catties, and the villager group leader signed a task letter with the village office. He bit his lower lip with his upper teeth and said fiercely: The task book is a military order, and three days later, each group will hand over the receipt of the grain depot, which one can't be completed, hum, don't blame me for being welcome!

There were 2,000 people in the whole village, and 30,000 catties of surplus grain were requisitioned. Xu Qihu remembered that during the land reform, he relied on the class line of the poor peasants to unite the middle peasants and crack down on the landlords to limit the rich peasants, and decided to assign tasks according to the components, which would not only win the support of the majority of the people, but also increase the number of people to ensure excess.

The abacus is very wishy-washy. But he ignored the fundamental one: in the past three years, most people's lives have not improved. In the past, farming and rent, but now they do not pay rent but pay public grain, and there is little land, more people, and little increase in grain income. The croppers who live on gruel mixed with melons and vegetables are difficult to fill their stomachs, how much surplus grain can be sold?

After the meeting and returning home, the villagers discussed while walking: There are still three months before the wheat harvest, and the food is not enough to eat. I heard that there are fifteen catties per person in other villages, why are there so many in our village?

On this night, Pailou Village was shrouded in an atmosphere of panic and sorrow.

Almost all of them coincidentally hid their grain stockpiles, fearing that village cadres would come to search for them. Some filled pillows, some hid them in wardrobes, and some buried them in oilcloth bags in the soil. People are hungry and afraid, hide a few catties more, and be less hungry, and the days of strangulation and saliva are not people's lives. Zhongnong Ji Yubao cooked most of the pot of rice and woke up a few children to have a full meal. Watching the children gobble up and choke up, they said: Eat slowly, you can't eat anymore.

Xu Qihu decided to take the landlord Ji Datou and the rich peasant Jiang Qingyu Lu Scar.

Ji Datou's real name is Ji Yuchun, and he has a long head in the shape of a winter melon. After graduating from junior college, his son worked as a doctor in Haocheng, and often brought pocket money to honor him. The two daughters married to a foreign country, and the family was old. Ji Datou admitted the task of selling surplus grain for eighty catties, and Xu Qihu trembled as soon as he gritted his teeth, and the children would not let their mothers and sons starve to death.

Lu Scar's eyes are large Lu Yongxing. Since his father's generation, his family has not only farmed, but also opened a "Lu Ji" butcher shop. Lu Yongxing was born with an eye disease when he was a child, and he cried so much that his father was reluctant to ask for a doctor. At first, I couldn't open one eye, and then I couldn't close it like a belly button, and people said that this was retribution for killing life.

The eldest son had encephalitis at a young age, and walked like a duck studying and squatting (which became evidence that the elders advised people not to kill); The second son, Lu Ernian, was clever, and the kite he tied flew the highest in the village; Three years and four years are twin daughters. His wife Fei Wen'e looked good when she was young, and after marrying into the Lu family, she quickly became obese, with a thick head and neck, and got the nickname "Big Fat Goose".

As soon as he heard that he was asked to sell 240 catties of surplus grain, Lu Yongxing blinked and muttered: This year, my rice has a plague, and the harvest is less than half of that of previous years, and the whole village can see it. I don't move the place, and your village chief will go to my house to search to see if there are 200 catties of grain in total? The state called for the sale of surplus grain, but I did not say that I had surplus food, and there was still a shortage of rations for two months.

Oh, you're waiting to eat government handouts. What about you? Xu Qihu stared at Jiang Qingyu with an awl-like gaze.

Jiang Qingyu replied unhurriedly: My family's crops have been harvested. 1,800 catties of rice are harvested in autumn, 150 catties of grain are handed over, 100 seeds are left for next year, and 800 are eaten by eight people in four months. There are still 100 days before the wheat harvest, and it will cost 500 catties to save some food and eat 6 taels a day. When I am a cadre, I don't tell lies, there is no surplus grain, the government calls for the sale of patriotic grain, the rise and fall of the world is the responsibility of the husband, I sell 240 catties of patriotic grain.

He did the calculations, and the numbers he said were basically devoid of moisture. Xu Qihu preached the significance of selling surplus grain, and he listened most carefully and understood the government's difficulties. He has done his best to sell 240 catties.

Your rich peasant, three hundred and twenty catties for eight people, one seed is not allowed to be less! Xu Qihu gritted his teeth.

Jiang Qingyu argued: Village chief, why do you set the task of selling grain according to the ingredients? You don't have this in the file! Three years after the land reform, everyone is equal in farming and eating, and there should be a standard for selling grain. I'm selling two hundred and forty isn't less.

All equal? Do you want to be equal to the cadres? Equality with poor wage farmers? Xu Qihu gritted his teeth and asked.

Ji Datou was put home.

Lu Jiayan refused to sell the surplus grain, Jiang Qingyu did not subscribe enough, and also demanded "all equal", Xu Qihu said to the militia Nunuzui: Help them calm down!

The militia cut off the arms of the two and pushed them out of the house on the west hill. There were three buckets there, the surface of which was covered with a thin layer of ice, and the outside of the bucket was slippery and greasy with the ice film.

Thirty-nine days dripping into ice, the northwest wind is like a knife. The militia forcibly stripped off the cotton clothes of the two people, pulled off their shoes and socks, and "planted" their coats and shorts in the ice bucket against the wall. The bucket prepared for Ji Datou was empty and useless.

In less than a minute, the two of them trembled like chaff. Lu Scar's eyes were like a pig slaughtered, and he howled high and low, begging Village Chief Xu to spare his life; Jiang Qingyu knocked his upper teeth on his lower teeth, and the breath he exhaled condensed into frost on the stubble, and his two feet took turns as if he was standing on a soldering iron. He doesn't howl like Lu Scaryan, is he unwilling to scream or can't scream?

Under the kerosene lamp in the house, four village officials, three men and one woman, were playing cards. Xu Qihu thought Lu Scar's howl was annoying, so he asked the militia to stuff the socks in his mouth, and the crying stopped abruptly.

Xu Qihu took a cigarette in his mouth and boasted to his companions about the game he invented: "Frozen Popsicle" does not hurt bones or break skin, does not exert strength or breath, and freezes into the heart from the outside. He sneered: I don't believe in evil, and I'm not afraid of the stubbornness of the stinky rich peasants.

The female deputy village chief is timid. After playing two rounds of cards, it was suggested that Xu Qihu put a "popsicle" home, and it was not easy to freeze to death.

Xu Qihu put on his coat and went out, and the northwest wind was piercing. A cold moon hung in the sky, illuminating the two frozen black shadows in the ice bucket. He came to the middle of the two, grabbed his frozen ears with one hand and asked, "Have you calmed down?" What are you doing with me? Let you go today, go back and figure it out, if you don't make sense, you will come back tomorrow!

The militia pulled the "popsicles" out of the bucket and put on their clothes, pants, shoes and socks. The two of them knocked their upper teeth and their lower teeth rattled, and they couldn't stand without leaning against the wall. Xu Qihu waved his hand and shouted angrily: "Get out!" ”

The dead silence of the night in the countryside was heard, with the occasional baby crying. After the liberation, the bandits eliminated the world and became peaceful, there was no need to take care of the home and no food to feed, the dog became a rare animal, and the dog barked no longer in ten miles and eight villages.

The ground began to frost, and the leaves of the grass on the roadside seemed to be sprinkled with a layer of salt. The moon grows a circle of burrs, which is a sign of an impending wind. The two ghosts moved around, and Jiang Qingyu sighed: I can't live this day. Lu Scar's eyes and teeth squeezed out three words: It's better to die!

Jiang Qingyu stumbled and pushed open the door of the house, trembling and lighting the kerosene lamp.

On the table is his son Lesheng's homework book, and the teacher is full of red ticks, and there are comments such as excellent and very good next to the word "read". Only her son in the village was admitted to junior high school, and even Gou Xiaofeng was envious, she touched Lesheng's school emblem and said greedily: One day my little tiger wears it, and he wakes up with a smile in his dream!

Jiang Qingyu tiptoed to find a hemp rope and walked into the door with an oil lamp. He wanted to take one last look at his son, and then hang himself from the mulberry tree behind the house, so as to end this impossible life. Lesheng fell asleep, his long eyelashes flushed and his face snoring slightly. Jiang Qingyu's nose was sour, and tears couldn't help but welled up in his eyes: he couldn't bear to leave his son to die, so he turned off the light and lit the smoke pot, and smoked it one after another.

It takes a lot of courage to commit suicide, unless you are completely desperate, you will not rush to death, and the slightest "thought" will stop and turn back. The son summoned Jiang Qingyu's courage to live. He is in the prime of life, and he has never done anything unfortunate in his life, so why should he look for a short-term view? How big is it? He believes that the government's policies will not be wrong, and that the misdeeds of individual people are just a dark cloud, which cannot stop the sun after all, and there will always be a time to be reasonable.

Jiang Qingyu threw away the hemp rope and went to bed. The whole body really looks like a frozen popsicle, only a little warmth in the chest.

Lu Scareye hanged! As soon as the morning dawned, the news spread quickly in Pailou Village.

The door of the Lu family's pigsty was crowded with people watching the excitement. Lu Scareye was lying on the ground with his back facing the sky: one was staring at him like a dead fish, and the other was bloodless like a belly button turned out, and his tongue was more than three inches long and drooping on his chin. Fei Wen'e and her four children knelt around the dead body, crying out to the sky and the ground: Father, you died a bitter death! Good man, how can you live without orphans and widows? Two cat-sized piglets curled up in a corner of the pigsty, their eyes trembling with horror.

Watching the lively and making all kinds of discussions, mixed with "hi" and "tsk" sad and regretful sighs. I died and died, and when I was like this, I lived in vain! is only fifty-one years old, which generation will be born again?

Xu Qihu hurried over when he heard the news. The "big fat goose" was disheveled, knelt down on his legs and moved towards him step by step, kowtowed a few times and cried: Village chief, this dead ghost left us orphans and widows, how can I live? You save us!

Xu Qihu was in his chest, pretending to ask: How did you do it? What can't you think of? Did you husband and wife quarrel? Three years and four years answered, there was no quarrel. "Big Fat Goose" cried and shook his shoulders: he went to a meeting last night, woo-woo - I don't know when he will come back. Blame me for sleeping too dead. At dawn I went to the pigsty to feed the pigs, woo - the man was hanging from the beam, cold all over, woo -

Xu Qihu waved his hand: Don't cry, crying can make people cry alive? How ugly this corpse is on all fours, quickly cover it! While urging everyone to disperse: Don't make trouble here if you can't help, what's so good about the dead? Then send the villagers and the second year of the Lunar New Year into the city to buy coffins, shrouds, paper candles and other burial supplies. asked Fei Wen'e how much money to come up with, not enough for the village finance to give him.

No way! The dead have to be sent. This kind of thing happened, a woman has never seen the world, and the child is small, how can I not ask as the village chief? Xu Qihu pretended to be warm and wanted to bury people as soon as possible.

Seeing his mother and sister kneeling on the ground and kowtowing when they saw someone, Lu Danian also grinned and howled. Lu Ernian was silent, and he was pondering in his heart: If his father has something to say, how could he suddenly hang himself if he was not wronged? Xu Qihu has always been domineering, why is the Bodhisattva hearted today, uninvited to run before and after Zhang Luo?

After a group of six people went into the city to buy the coffin, they asked their brother and the villagers to go home first and go to their uncle's house to report the funeral.

Uncle Fei Wenli is a well-known barber in the county. The public-private barber shop was opened in the alley opposite the county people's committee, and the secretaries and county magistrates often asked him to cut his hair.

Fei Wenli heard that his brother-in-law had a meeting to sell surplus grain, and he hanged himself early this morning, and he already understood a little in his heart. He asked Ernian to ask other people who stayed in the association, and if his brother-in-law was forced to commit suicide, he would directly go to the county magistrate and secretary to complain. Xu Qihu is ruthless, the township chief is his brother-in-law, and it is definitely useless to find the township.

One morning, Fei Wen'e knelt on the ground, dipped a towel in hot water to warm her husband's eyes, and prayed while wiping: Father, close your eyes! Then he wrapped his tongue with a handkerchief, opened his mouth and stuffed it in: Good man, retract your tongue! At noon, the coffin arrived at home, and Xu Qihu ordered the body to be buried quickly. Next to the coffin, a half-cut broken cylinder was placed, Lu Danian wore a filial piety hat, and knelt beside the broken cylinder with a lock of braids tied to the hat, and threw a piece of paper money into it, and a string of flames rose when he threw it back, and the paper ash hovered in the air and fell down, fluffy and filled with the broken cylinder. He cried in a hoarse voice mechanically and rhythmically: Father, you collect money, it is easy to use on the way to collect money!

Xu Qihu found two monks, hummed and knocked on the wooden fish to recite the scriptures, and ordered the coffin to be sealed and buried after reciting the scriptures three times.

When Lu arrived home in the second year, it was already dark. He said like an adult: The village chief has worked hard, you worry about helping for a day, go home and rest. My uncle's relatives will arrive tomorrow and want to see my father one last time, and he can't go out for the funeral today. He began to cry as he spoke.

Xu Qihu was anxious when he heard this, and taught him a lesson as a village chief and elder: Why are you so ignorant of this child? The coffin pit was dug up, and the bearer of the coffin and the rope pole were ready. Wouldn't it be okay for relatives to come to the grave and burn some paper? As he spoke, he asked someone to forcibly seal the coffin and tie the rope into the pole.

Lu Ernian jumped up, lay on the lid of the coffin, and half cried and half yelled: Father, you died in vain, so bitter! Tomorrow the relatives will come to the funeral, and accompany our orphans and widows to squat for another night!

The big fat goose also knelt down for Xu Qihu, village chief, you can give it a day. When this woman saw the cadre, her legs were weak, and she was accustomed to speak in a pleading tone. The villagers who helped also said that their relatives did not come, so tomorrow will be tomorrow. Some people also say that it is okay to leave the corpse for a few days in the cold winter.

Xu Qihu sank his face and roared: Bury it or not, your family affairs are over here, I won't ask! After saying that, he left stupidly - fifteen-year-old Lu Ernian smashed his wishful thinking.