Compared with the rural areas in the liberated areas, Mangshan Village can be called a paradise.

Living at home is inseparable from firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, when passing through Dishi, the "spy husband" bought a lot in the city, stuffed the carriage and the back row, and accompanied the son who couldn't stay in the dormitory to go out and find that there was a shop in the village, opposite the village office (village department). The shops are Chinese-owned, and the stores are large, with everything from daily necessities to fertilizers and pesticides, and the prices are not more expensive than in the city.

The "spy husband" is not the only person in the village who owns or can drive a car.

The village chief's youngest daughter, Ruan Thi Lian, who was in a relationship with Dr. Zhang, pointed to the young man unloading the truck in front of her, and proudly introduced: "Brother Nan is my second brother-in-law, and he can drive a car like Principal Gao, and the store is his family." If you want to take An An to Di Shi to play, and Principal Gao doesn't have time to send you, take his ride. ”

Du Shimei was surprised and couldn't help asking, "...... you Your second sister is married to a Chinese? ”

"What's wrong with the Chinese, Dr. Zhang is also Chinese."

Ruan Shilian felt that she didn't look like a city person, she looked back at her like a bun, and asked in surprise: "Amei, don't you watch movies, if you don't watch movies, you should have watched TV, who still pays attention to that now, as long as you like it, you can get married, some marry in, some marry past, there are more like my second sister and Brother Nan." ”

There is no electricity in the liberated areas, so how can there be movies and television.

Du Shimei touched her nose in embarrassment, and asked perfunctorily: "Your brother-in-law often goes to Dishi?" ”

"Not often, but every day. At 5 o'clock in the morning, I left on time at the gate of the village office. Came back on time at 11 noon. It doesn't matter if it's windy or rainy. ”

"Go every day. What are you going to do? ”

"His family wants to buy goods, and other people have to go to the city to do small business, otherwise they will grow so many vegetables, raise chickens and ducks, lay so many eggs, and sell duck eggs to whom? The car should burn oil, and it should not be used in vain, four yuan for one person back and forth, and four more yuan for things. You and An An are different from them, you don't have to pay for the car. You can sit in the front and not squeeze in the back like them. ”

If you go to buy goods, you can also earn the villagers' ride money, once a day, like a bus in a big city, you have to be convinced, Chinese capitalists really know how to do business.

From the shop and the two-story house behind the store, it can be seen that her second brother-in-law's family is definitely the richest person in the village. And her family is not simple, at lunch together the priest said that the eldest son of the village chief, that is, her eldest brother, seems to be a major battalion commander of the 3rd Division of the puppet army, and the troops are stationed in Da Nang. I rarely come back.

From the tone of his father's voice at the dinner table, and the attitude of the villagers towards his father. You can see what kind of status his father has in the village, which is simply the same.

Unexpectedly, his family not only supported the puppet government in Saigon, but also married rich Chinese capitalists, Du Shimei couldn't help but feel a burst of disgust, and asked casually: "Fourth sister, what about your eldest sister, is your eldest sister married?" ”

Ruan Thi Lian's mood suddenly became a little depressed, and she was silent for a while before she whispered: "The eldest sister is dead, she was killed by the Vietminh in her hometown. The eldest brother said that one day he would go back to his hometown to help the eldest sister take revenge. ”

"...... By...... Killed by the Vietminh? ”

"We are Catholics and do not believe in the Viet Minh. The Vietminh wanted us to renounce our faith, to help them fight the French, to confiscate our land, and even to kill the priests. Of course we won't say yes, so we will fight them. I was young and ignorant, otherwise I would have been a militiaman like my eldest sister. ”

It suddenly dawned on Du Shimei that this was a hardcore anti-G Catholic village, and that they would not have fled from the north to the south if their ideas were progressive.

The village is not big, but the layout is neat.

A grey (cement) road runs east-west through the village.

Rows of tiled houses are built on both sides of the road around the village office, church, clinic, school, power distribution and shop, and on the telephone pole on the left side of the village office, three loudspeakers in different directions are being installed to broadcast the news program of the Dishi radio station.

Farmers who have been tired all day gather at small tables placed on the side of the road to eat, chat, and enjoy the coolness. It's the best time for the shops to do business, with kids running around, buying drinks for the grown-ups, and exchanging the change for soda or snacks.

Back in the school dormitory, the "spy husband" had already cooked the meal.

Braised pork, scrambled eggs, scrambled beans...... Two meats, two vegetables, four dishes and one soup, worthy of being the chef's son, with all the color, flavor and flavor, make people salivate at a glance.

"Eat slowly, no one will rob you."

Fang Le pinched his son's little face first, picked up the dishes and chopsticks and said with a smile: "The meat, eggs and these vegetables were sent by the whole parents to the students, there are still a few fish in the kitchen tank, and the dry firewood is about to pile up on the roof, it is really pitiful for the parents of the world." ”

Du Shimei sandwiched a piece of beans and muttered: "When you are a principal, you can't take a stitch from the masses." ”

"People respect teachers, if they don't accept it, the parents of the students will be unhappy. Besides, this is not my hometown, follow the customs of the locals, and follow the customs of the villagers. ”

Respect for teachers is also true in the liberated areas.

Du Shimei didn't want to discuss this topic anymore, and asked lightly: "You will be a teacher from tomorrow, what should I do, do you just eat and wait for death?" ”

"What kind of bastardization waits for death, it's so ugly."

Fang Le smiled first and said meaningfully: "Amei, I swore that I would let you live a good life, and from now on, you don't have to do anything, just be a full-time wife at home." By the way, when I came back from dinner to find you, I passed by the store, and I asked the owner of the store to help me bring a TV tomorrow. Watch TV at home, listen to the radio, and go out for a walk, and it won't get boring. ”

The principal's salary is paid in the township, 2,300 piastes a month, not to mention in the countryside, it can be regarded as a high salary in Saigon, enough for the family to spend, not to mention that he has a lot of savings, it doesn't matter if she makes money or not.

However, his money was stained with the blood of his comrades.

Du Shimei didn't want to spend his money, and muttered: "I have hands and feet, I can support myself and An An, and I don't need to be a broad wife." ”

Being idle will only be cranky, and it may not be a bad thing to have something to do.

Fang Lexian was just about to suggest that she use the small piece of land on the east side of the school to grow some vegetables and fruits, when a villager rushed over. Holding on to the door frame, he smiled embarrassedly: "Principal Gao." The classrooms have some lights and electric fans. The fourth uncle wanted to convene a meeting of the big guys at night to say something, but the village office couldn't sit down, and the church was the same, thinking about it...... I want you to borrow a classroom for a while. ”

The fourth uncle is the village head, Ruan Van Yan, and this face must be given, not to mention that the school's electricity bill was originally borne by the village.

When someone sent someone to say that it was to give you face, Fang Lexian agreed without hesitation: "What to borrow or not, come on." It's okay. ”

"Then it's decided, I'll go and inform, and I'll be here in a moment."

After lurking inside the enemy for so many years, Fang Lexian knew almost nothing about the situation of the rural grassroots organizations in the six lower provinces, and although he was no longer engaged in intelligence work, he was still very interested in the village meetings. He even decided to write a report if he found any deficiencies, and asked Mr. Kuai to help him hand it over to the decision-makers to remind the decision-makers, after all, he had some experience in rural organization work.

When night falls, there are only a few influential people in the village. Eat and drink, talk and laugh and come to school.

The priest changed into a solemn robe and took advantage of the time before the meeting. First went to the dormitory to see if the family had settled down, and inquired about their family's religious beliefs, and when they learned that they were not Catholics, they preached the benefits of having faith.

Du Shimei hated this "magic stick" very much, thinking that the country was divided by them, but in order for the children not to be discriminated against, she was not only able to maintain great restraint, but also reluctantly showed a smile.

Fortunately, the meeting was about to begin, and the priest, as the number two man in the village, had to finish the sermon with great enthusiasm and enthusiastically invited the "lost lambs" to attend.

Walking into the senior classroom, Fang Le was first made to laugh and cry by everything in front of him.

The village chief and a group of men sat in the middle, surrounded by women, knitting sweaters and beads, doing their own handiwork, and doing their own chores, and their voices louder than the men.

Du Thi Mei's most familiar village chief, Nguyen Thi Lian, also came, and was sitting in the corner with Dr. Zhang. Holding hands in public, her father turned a blind eye to it.

Seeing her expression of surprise, the shopkeeper Qian Agui smiled and explained in a low voice: "Mangcun is far away from Dishi, and it is inconvenient for the villagers to see a doctor, so it is not easy for a doctor to come, and his character and appearance are good, of course he must be left behind." It seems that it is almost done, and in a few days, I will invite Principal Gao and Mrs. Gao to drink a wedding wine. ”

He was the village chief's in-laws, and he was qualified to send an invitation, Fang Le was happy first, and couldn't help but smile knowingly.

"Hey, hey, hey, what about you, come and enjoy the cool, just work, work, where is there so much nonsense, you are talking about things, keep your mouth shut for me."

The women became more and more unscrupulous, and the village chief was not happy, so he got up and reprimanded him. He sat down and was about to continue, when a woman got up and sneered: "Fourth uncle, it'll be fine in a while." Boss Qian, come and help me see, is this a mistake. ”

"Okay, I'll take a look."

The in-laws must give face, and the village chief was so angry that he didn't say a word.

Unorganized and undisciplined, Du Shimei felt very funny, Fang Lexian didn't think there was anything bad about this, but thought that this atmosphere was very relaxed, and whispered in his wife's ear: "They do manual work, those sweaters and decorations are all exported, Boss Qian is the broker of the manufacturer, take the materials to them to do, do a good job of helping them send them to the factory to get wages, I heard that the income is good." ”

Opening a shop, engaging in transportation, and being a broker, this Chinese capitalist is too black-hearted, and he is simply trying to extract the surplus value of the villagers.

Just when Du Shimei was indignant that the villagers were being exploited by the capitalists, the meeting finally got to the point.

The village chief knocked on the table again and said with an unhappy face: "The day before yesterday, I went to the township office for a meeting, and the township chief said that there was a cement product factory in Nong Village, specializing in cement sewer pipes, floor slabs and cement telephone poles. How many cement pipes will be used to build a canal in the north? How many telephone poles do we need to pull wires in the villages that have no electricity in Xinhui?

Dairy farms, dairy factories, brick and tile factories, wood processing factories, silk factories, freezing factories, and now what cement products factories are opened, the income of the villagers is several times that of us, a production team tops our village, the captain drives a car, and the villagers drive a motorcycle. A few days later, the son of the village chief got married, and I was embarrassed to drink the wedding wine! ”

When he first withdrew from North Vietnam to the south, thanks to the help of the church, Mang Cun was far better off than Nong Village. At that time, I was complacent, and after a few years, others came from behind. The more you do it, the better.

What a shame!

The village chief will get angry if he doesn't have face. One by one, they drooped their heads and did not dare to speak.

Others are afraid of him. Ruan Thi Lian was not afraid, and suddenly said: "Dad, this can only be blamed on you, if you don't kill cattle and eat meat at that time, we also have a dairy farm now." ”

This is a big joke that the people of Mangcun are ashamed of.

When they first settled here, Australian volunteers brought in more than a dozen cows, none of whom knew how to raise them and could not use them to cultivate the land. Coupled with the fact that every family had no meat on their dinner tables during the Chinese New Year, Ruan Wenyan simply asked the villagers to kill the cattle and live a year with beef.

No one sent cows to the neighboring village, but when they heard that several Catholic villages around them wanted to kill cows for meat, they pooled their money to buy all the cows from other Catholic resettlement villages, and sent people to Saigon to invite people who could raise cows to come and teach the technology, so there were dairy farms, dairy factories, and refrigeration plants. That's where the gap begins.

"It's none of your business here!"

Ruan Wenyan's old face turned red, and he knocked on the table again: "Let's talk about the front first." We can't catch up with Nong Village, and we can't be as good as Xindaluo. If you don't want to build a few decent factories, and then you don't want to make more money, not to mention that young people can't be retained, even if they stay, it's troublesome. ”

A villager asked puzzledly, "Fourth uncle, what's the trouble left?" ”

"People go to high places and water flows to low places, good girls marry good people outside, good young men can't marry good girls, isn't this trouble?"

The priest thought so deeply and added with a serious face: "Last year, twenty-six girls in the village were married, eight were married to the city, seven to the industrial village, and four to Nong Village, and only seven were married in the village. ”

Ruan Wenyan nodded, and continued: "Farming to make money is not as much as going to the factory to work, last year men and women combined to go out more than 70, some went to Dishi Industrial Village, some went to Nong Village, the farthest to Phu Quoc Island, come back to bring a few at a time, come back to bring a few at a time, and then go down like this, who planted, who patrolled around?" ”

The Dishi Industrial Village has absorbed a large number of rural laborers, and those big bosses prefer to come to these resolutely anti-G Catholic villages to recruit workers for the sake of factory safety, and young people go out to open their eyes and earn more money than farming at home, so they are reluctant to come back, which directly leads to serious labor loss and imbalance between men and women in the village.

These problems did not exist in the liberated areas, where men participated in the revolution, many people went and never returned, widows could be seen everywhere they went, and the ratio of men to women was equally imbalanced, but there were more women than men.

Du Shimei couldn't help but compare Mang Village with the liberated area, and the villagers discussed what kind of factory to set up and how to make young people make money at home.

Obviously, this is not the first time this topic has been discussed, and after a long time of discussion, no results have been reached.

The second topic is to convey the instructions of the township, the village chief held a small notebook, gritted his teeth and said: "The more G kills my heart, the more I die, the more troublesome I make in the north, the more fierce it is." We all escaped with death, and we can't forget the past just because we have lived a few good years. In order to prevent Vietnam from entering the six provinces, the Fourth Tactical Region should expand the army, and the province should implement a military service system, with all men between the ages of 20 and 30 serving as soldiers for three years, and women receiving reserve training, that is, civilian training.

Whether for revenge or for future generations, we must not be ambiguous about military service. The list is handed in, and it depends on how much the first batch will collect. Make it clear here that if you don't go after receiving a conscription order, you will be a deserter, and you will be punished as a deserter. All our lives were picked up, and I believe that this kind of humiliating thing will not happen in our Mang Village. ”

"It's good to be a soldier, Uncle Si, why didn't you say it earlier!"

"Don't be happy too early, the policy has changed, and in the future, it will be a compulsory soldier, what is a compulsory soldier, it is to fulfill the obligation. During the service, there is only an allowance and no salary, and only if you are promoted to a corporal for great merit, or if you are promoted to a corporal by the army after three years of service and perform well during the service, you can get more than 1,000 a month like Wen Qing. ”

"No money for three years?"

"You're not the only one, all the six provinces are like this, and everyone is treated equally. Regardless of whether the young master of the big boss's family or the son of the provincial governor and county magistrate's family, as long as he receives a conscription order, he must report to the conscription point as soon as possible, and whoever does not go will be a deserter and will be imprisoned. ”

"What about the work at home?"

"Military dependents have the treatment of military dependents, if you are too busy to work in the field, the whole village will help your family to do it, the field tax will be halved during the compulsory military service, and the marriage between you and your daughter-in-law will be protected by law.

When it comes to everyone's vital interests, the classroom suddenly becomes silent.

The village chief paused, and then said: "The army is like this, once a year to visit home, fifteen days of vacation, reimbursement of round-trip expenses. The exact time when they can return to visit relatives should be arranged by the commander of the unit according to the situation. After all, everyone wants to go home for the New Year, and if they all go home during the Spring Festival, won't there be no one in the army?

There are no eyes for bullets on the battlefield, in case, I'm talking about just in case, in case of bad luck and death in battle, the army will give the family a pension of 20,000 piastes. In addition, depending on the family's situation, the county government and the township office will issue subsidies ranging from 20,000 to 50,000 yuan. Guarantee to help you raise your children up to the age of 18 and that your children will be given preferential treatment in terms of medical care, education and work......"

Du Shimei thought that the villagers would strongly resist "La Zhuang Ding", but they not only did not have any resistance, but were elated one by one, eager to receive a call order tomorrow.

Fang Lexian knew very well that this had a lot to do with the anti-G propaganda that had been going on for several years in the "Department of Industry and Investment", and in movies, television, radio, newspapers and magazines, it was not propaganda about how dark North Vietnam was, how brutal Vietnam was, and how heroic deeds of this or that kind were there.

If you want to become a hero in the lower six provinces, there are only two ways to truly gain respect, either to start a business and become a big boss, to bring how many people to work, how much tax to pay to the country, and how much to contribute to the country. Either join the 4th Tactical Zone and become a glorious "Gongtou Department" soldier and make contributions on the battlefield. (To be continued.) )