Target plane, at the end of August 1943, at the junction of Shanxi and Shaanxi, near the village of Xiamujiao on the northwest side of Shanxi.

At this time, the atmosphere in the whole village was tense, and the working group sent by Yan Huang had been stationed in the village for two whole days, and the poor people's group and the children's group had been set up one after another, each performing its own duties. The leader of the task force is called Pang Wenshan, and he has attended a short-term training course for the Red Party, but he doesn't recognize too many words, about 1,000 words, and he is so-so enough.

Pang Wenshan has a right-hand man named Guo Youyun. Although his name is Youyun, he was about the most unlucky one in Henan in 1943. Originally, there was an old lady and three children. As soon as he started on the road, his mother fell ill. In order to treat his mother, he sold his youngest daughter. For this reason, Guo Youyun quarreled fiercely with his daughter-in-law, not only because his daughter-in-law felt sorry for her daughter and was reluctant, but also because her daughter-in-law and her mother-in-law had a deep grudge in the past, and her daughter-in-law was unwilling to sell her little daughter to treat her mother-in-law. However, although he sold his daughter, he did not cure Guo Youyun's wife's illness, and the old lady finally died on the edge of the Yellow River. Guo Youyun found an abandoned earthen cave and hastily buried his mother.

When she arrived in Luoyang, her eldest daughter contracted smallpox again and died of illness in the charity. picked up the train to go to Tongguan, but his son didn't catch it, fell under the train wheels and was crushed to death. He and his daughter-in-law were left to come to Shanxi and herd sheep on the ground. After settling down a little, his daughter-in-law thought he was poor and lived too hard with him. The three children, who died and sold, lost their worries and eloped with a lame man.

Seeing that his family was ruined and people were killed, Guo Youyun, who was left alone, thought of suicide, but when he hanged himself, Pang Wenshan passed by and saved him, after a night of persuasion, he finally turned his mind around, and stopped crying a handful of snot and tears, and then stayed by Pang Wenshan's side to help with chores, but whenever he was free, he chatted with others, and still said to himself from time to time: "Why am I escaping?" I fled the famine to try to keep my family alive. Who knows that I am the only one who escapes, what am I doing when I run away? If I knew this, it would be better not to run away from this famine, and the whole family could still die together, and this would be scattered. ”

Today is the villagers of Xiamujiao Village, the sons of the villagers who voted for the village landlords Li Shihua and Hou Yongchang. After two days of propaganda, many villagers had a general understanding of the Red Party's policies:

"Is it true that taxes are just 1 out of 10? Don't pay rent, don't pay military rations? For two days, the villagers of Xiamujiao asked in disbelief.

"Don't pay it, don't pay it! In the future, you only need to pay one tax per mu of land, one out of ten, that is, you can hit 150 catties of grain per mu (the national average yield per mu during the Republic of China was about 137 catties), and you only need to hand over 15 catties to zhèngfu, and the rest is your own, you can eat and sell! Pang Wenshan repeats these words every day.

"Then sell it to whom?"

"zhèngfu announces the purchase guide price every year, and those who are willing to sell to zhèngfu will be pulled to the grain depot, and if the private purchase price is higher than the zhèngfu guide price, it can also be sold to private individuals!"

"Is this land really ours?" A poor peasant looked at the 18 acres and 7 points of land deed that was distributed to him, representing the whole family of 6 people, and muttered in disbelief.

"Of course it's yours, in addition to dividing the land, each family can get farm tools, clothes and chopsticks!" Pang Wenshan pointed to the dozen or so three-wheeled motorcycles that came with him and said loudly.

In the morning, in the open space at the entrance of the village, Pang Wenshan took a loudspeaker and began to shout: "Folks, everyone has heard the story of the landlord Zhou Papi and Liu Luo Guozi, and now everyone is holding the black sè stone in their hands (the chess pieces of Go) and began to vote, thinking that Li Shihua and Hou Yongchang are Zhou Papi who should be killed, and they are thrown into the basin with a knife in front, and they feel that it is not so bad, and they do not need to kill the head to vote in another basin, in short, the decision is in everyone's hands, and now start voting!" ”

"Ding Ding Ding ~~" one after another stones were thrown into the basin, Li Shihua and Hou Yongchang turned their backs to the villagers, and could not see the voting results, but the two had completely different mentalities at this time, Hong Yongchang was originally a middle peasant family, after the Japanese invaders occupied Shanxi, they immediately took refuge in the past, with groveling and inflammation, they grew rapidly, usually in the township, covering the sky with one hand, and the land under their names also increased from 3 acres to more than 300 acres; And Li Shihua is just the opposite, his family was a landlord in the era, and had more than 200 acres of land at its peak, but later the family fell into the middle of the road, coupled with the war, many fields were sold and taken away, and now there are only more than 30 acres of land, to feed more than 20 big families, it is not enough, if it is not for the support of two shops in the city, it has long been impossible to eat, but Li Shihua is temporarily at ease, hearing Pang Wenshan's shout, he asked himself what he has not done in the fish and meat township over the years, but he also donated money to repair the ancestral hall eight years ago, I should be able to save my life.

Three hours later, because ninety out of five of the villagers voted for Hong Yongchang's "death ticket," he was directly dragged out of the village to be executed without the slightest delay, and as for his relatives and family members, according to the villagers' reports and interrogation records, the severity of the crime was determined, and he was sent to the corresponding prison to be detained and labored.

And Li Shihua is half truth and half luck, more than 9 percent of the villagers voted for the "good person vote", not only to avoid prison, but also to get a piece of land and farm tools like the middle peasants, of course, the original house will be confiscated (here is also Wang Fan's insistence, after all, if a landlord is overthrown, his property is distributed on the spot in the village, the villagers who have tasted the sweetness of dividing things are difficult to say that they will not execute a few more landlords for their own selfish interests, and good individuals can share more property. Therefore, the practice of handing over all landlords' property and implementing the "separation of revenue and expenditure" similar to that of later generations can relatively reduce the occurrence of similar unjust and wrongful cases).

5 days later, Li Shihua's family, who settled down in a private house, had just had dinner, Li Shihua looked at the title deed issued by the Red Party in his hand in a daze, 67 acres of 2 points of land (corresponding to more than 20 people, if Li Shihua's family of 7 people is counted, there are 22 acres and 4 points of land), more than the original name, thinking of the twists and turns of the prison before and after and being frightened, I can't help but feel a little emotional and cry and laugh.

"Knock knock!!" The gate of the courtyard rang.

"Who?" Li Shihua, who was taken aback, asked.

"It's me, Pang Wenshan, is Li Shihua here? Open the door! ”

"Oh~ right away, right away!" Hearing that it was the biggest official in the village who was coming, Li Shihua didn't dare to delay, waved his hand and asked his mother-in-law to hide in the back room with a few children, straighten his clothes, and then walked quickly to the courtyard and opened the door latch.

"Captain Pang, hello, this is..."Seeing that there was still an unknown person standing next to Pang Wenshan, Li Shihua asked in a low voice.

"This is the leader from the county, Officer Xiong, I have something to ask you, let's go into the house!" Although Pang Wenshan was hindered by the policy and gave Li Shihua the land, he was born a poor peasant, and he had no good impression of the landlord, so he ordered with a stiff face.

"Yes, yes, please, please!"

Atrium of adobe house.

"Officer Xiong, what's the matter, may you ask!" After Li Shihua invited the two "leaders" to sit down, he stood aside and asked cautiously.

"Li Shihua, you can sit too, I read your interrogation records, 9 percent of the villagers support you, it's rare, you belong to the enlightened landlord gentry class, and you are also the object of our party's unity, sit down!" Officer Xiong saw Li Shihua with a nervous and restrained face, and said with a smile.

"Don't dare, don't dare!"

"What's the matter, Officer Xiong tells you to sit, you can sit!" Pang Wenshan saw that Li Shihua didn't look at it at all, and said dissatisfiedly.

"Yes, yes, I'll sit, I'll sit!"

"Alright, let's get down to business!" Regarding Pang Wenshang's attitude, Officer Xiong didn't care, after all, it was the era of the poor middle peasants turning over and becoming the masters, and it was inconvenient to extinguish the other party's positive xing, and now it was like this in many places, the law did not blame the public, as long as it was not too excessive and did not make a big incident, he would turn a blind eye. Thinking of this, Officer Xiong continued: "When we were tidying up the shops in the county seat, we found that there were two shops in the southwest stone street alley that were in your name, right? ”

"Yes, yes, but Officer Xiong, I don't want it, I don't want it!!" Hearing that the other party suddenly mentioned the two shops in the county, Li Shihua was afraid that there would be another accident, so that the life that had just calmed down would be revived, so he hurriedly said.

"Hehe, don't be afraid, our party has documents, to unite and protect the progressive national bourgeoisie and enlightened squires, now although most of the shops in the entire county have been seized, but not confiscated, we will only confiscate the property of those bully landlords, after confirmation, your reputation and reputation are very good, not in this list, so according to the regulations, you must be compensated accordingly, tomorrow you and I will go to the county seat to go through the formalities, on this matter, okay, it's over, we should go!" Officer Xiong likes to speak outright, and after finishing speaking, he gets up and takes his leave.

"Officer Xiong, I really don't want it, really!" Although Li Shihua heard Secretary Xiong's words, he still repeated it vigorously.

"Okay, don't be a mother-in-law, just do what Officer Xiong said!" Pang Wenshan's face was unhappy, and he quickly interrupted Li Shihua's words and followed.

On the village road, Officer Xiong saw that Pang Wenshan's face was not very happy, and asked, "Comrade Wenshan, what's wrong, unhappy?" ”

"Huh? No, no!! Pang Wenshang hurriedly replied.

"We are all revolutionary comrades, what do we have in our hearts, say it, how? Am I my own? Officer Xiong said with a black face and an unhappy expression.

"No, Officer Xiong, there is no such thing. It's just a little hard to figure out, we have already divided the land to the landlord Li Shihua according to the treatment of middle peasants, why do we still compensate them? So good for them? Pang Wenshan was afraid that the other party would be unhappy, so he hurriedly said.

"This~~ To be honest, I didn't understand it at first." As he spoke, Officer Xiong took out a cigarette, handed it to Pang Wen, then took out a lighter, lit it for himself and the other party, and continued: "A few days ago, Zhongyāng held an emergency meeting for us to convey the latest instructions, telling us that one-third of the peasant households in Quanyanhuang have less than five mu of cultivated land, one-fifth of the peasant households own five to ten mu, one-tenth of the peasant households own ten to fifteen mu, and the large landlords of more than 1,000 mu account for only two-ten-thousandth. Therefore, there are very few big landlords, and among all the landlords, there are only a few bad people who are rich and unkind. Therefore, we need to distinguish between the 'real enemy' and the 'false enemy', unite all the forces that can be united, and try to adopt a redemption policy for the property of the progressive squire, which is why I am looking for Li Shihua this time! ”

"Then how will we deal with the relationship with the landlord in the future?" Pang Wenshan was still a little puzzled and asked.

"Whatever zhongyāng says, we will do! Didn't the villagers vote for beans (i.e., vote), higher than eighty percent were shot, less than twenty percent were treated according to the middle peasants, and those in the middle part should be taken wherever they went, anyway, listen to zhongyāng, it must be right! Officer Xiong explained.

"Yes, I see!"

"Okay, don't think about those unhappy, let's go have two glasses, I brought a bottle of Shanxi Fen wine, tonight we don't get drunk and don't return, have a good drink!"

"Haha, okay, Officer Xiong, you can talk about my heart, go, go to my house, there is a snack made by my mother~~"

The next day, Li Shihua, who returned to the county seat with Officer Xiong, who was still a little drunk, received a redemption deposit certificate with a face value of 4,500 copper yuan (1,500 oceans) at the newly opened Northwest Bank (opened by the Red Party) in the county seat under the arrangement of Officer Xiong and several other Red Party staff.