"The old woman is not energetic, so let's get straight to the point."

The old lady drank tea slowly, and after a while, she smiled and said to Li Dongfei: "You came all the way from the capital, it is nothing more than that you heard about the letters from our family, am I right?" ”

Li Dong changed color violently, he followed Chang Xian here, and he didn't say more than three sentences, but he was looked at by the old lady at once.

"It's nothing out of the ordinary."

The old lady shook her hand and smiled: "I am a lonely old woman, what is worth your visit?" That's all there is to it. ”

"You speak with a capital accent, that's one thing; Seeing that you are not angry and arrogant, and you are obviously in a high position, this is the second thing; Looking at your eloquence, with a sense of arrogance in your bones, it must be Zhong Mingding's food family, this is the third. ”

"You must know that that kind of thing, unlike the ordinary calligraphy and painting codex, the greatest value and the most needed place is not in the people, but in the temple."

"How many combinations, my old woman can't see it, isn't she blind?"

Li Dongfei stood up and asked solemnly: "Since your old man said it clearly, then I will also ask clearly, do you really have a letter from the leader here?" ”

Grandma Twelve took a sip of tea and said, "Yes." ”

She pointed to the gatehouse outside, and said lightly: "If it weren't for this talisman, my family's three-third of an acre of land would not be there, and it would be hard to say, but my old woman's grave must be full of basil and fox trails." ”

The twelfth grandmother looked at Li Dongfei and continued to explain: "In the summer of 1917, that Xiao Zisheng and his friend went on a study tour on foot. After arriving in Meicheng, he was shy in his pocket, and he helped the head of the family at that time, and later had contacts. In 1925, he came to Meicheng again, and later after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he wrote letters. ”

The old lady was obviously familiar with this period of history, and she spoke very fluently, which shocked Li Dongfei's spirit.

The old lady stretched out three fingers and said, "There are three letters and a banner." ”

"That's a good feeling!"

Li Dongfei pressed his patience, patted his thigh, and asked, "What do you want?" ”

"Hehe, what do I want?"

The old lady obviously had an idea for a long time, and she said leisurely: "I want you to promise that the township primary school will not be merged into other schools, nor will it be abandoned and moved away, and there must be at least twelve public teachers, and the teachers must be graduates of regular colleges." ”

"That's it, you promise, take it."

The township primary school here is less than two miles away from Pengjia Village, and passed by yesterday, the teaching building is a very large red brick house, four floors, after this semester, it will be merged into the Taoxi Township Primary School next to it.

In the future, the children in the village will have to go to school 20 miles away, not to mention the huge safety risks, and they will also have to bear the high cost of boarding school.

Li Dongfei never imagined that the other party would raise such a thorny problem.

A faint smile slipped across Grandma Twelve's face, she clapped her hands, got up to clean up the tea set, and left Li Dongfei to stay where he was.

……

The request made by the twelfth grandmother is not a trivial problem, it involves the current sensitive "withdrawal and merger".

Why?

Cut back on spending.

A county in Shaanxi Province conducted a survey in 2007 and found that by abolishing some small-scale schools, gathering students and reducing the corresponding teaching staff, the annual financial expenditure on education could be reduced by 16.7 million yuan.

Hey, 16.7 million!

Therefore, when the authorities issued a document in 2001 formally proposing to "appropriately merge rural primary schools and teaching sites", the "withdrawal and merger of schools" swept through the country's primary schools in an almost frenzied manner.

In 2001 alone, China lost 67,000 primary schools, the fastest rate in history.

According to statistics, in the 40 years from 1976 to 2016, a total of 916,000 primary schools disappeared in China.

From one million primary schools before the reopening, the number of primary schools has been less than 200,000 later, and most of them have disappeared from rural primary schools.

As a result, between 2008 and 2011, China's primary school dropout rate rose from 5.99 per thousand to 8.8 per thousand, falling back to the level of 1997.

The majority of school dropouts have changed from the fifth and sixth grades of primary school to the first and second grades.

Such a result is obviously disproportionate to the 16.7 million saved, and it backfires.

In 2012, the "Withdraw and Merge Schools" campaign, which had lasted for ten years, was halted.

……

Twelve grandmothers took out a sturdy cardboard box from the house, which was mostly filled with letters, one by one and classified, and each category was tied with small strips of paper, and marked with Juanxiu's small letters. Layers of blockade of the old man's youth and ups and downs.

She gently took out one of the stacks, and on the small slip of paper was written the words "with so-and-so", as she said, three letters and a piece of bamboo paper calligraphy.

Grandma Twelve gently pushed it over and said, "That's it, you take a look first." ”

Li Dongfei trembled and opened the calligraphy banner.

The banner reads "The Ballad of Returning to China":

"Tonight and the moon, the end of the world will be illuminated. The clear light does not make the green mountains lost, but the clear stream leaks to the green beach. The rooster stopped, and the horse hissed and the people spoke for a long time.

In the autumn of Ding Si, he traveled to Meicheng to study, got new words, and sent books to my friends. So-and-so. ”

It was 1917.

The leader's unique font has begun to take shape at this time, and then look at the three letters, the pen and ink are more and more wanton, the style is more and more obvious, and the letter after the founding of the People's Republic of China is even more discernible at a glance, plus the source of the letter and the requirements of the old man, there is no doubt about the authenticity.

"Old lady, I have an idea, do you think it is feasible?"

Li Dongfei took a few photos, calmed down, and said: "I hope to change the conditions, such as building roads for the village, or giving the village a large sum of money, which is more conducive to helping them improve their current lives." What do you say? ”

Sometimes whether a problem is a problem or not depends not on the problem itself, but on the person who stands in front of it.

Li Dongfei is not without a way to solve the problem of withdrawing points and merging schools, but the traditional sphere of influence of the Li family is not in Hunan Province, and a primary school does not look big, but now that the big plan has been decided, a lot of replacements must be carried out.

It's far less simple than spending money.

"Whether it's building roads or increasing income, this is the responsibility of the government and the village chief, and I can't overstep my responsibilities."

Grandma Twelve shook her head and said, "Once the primary school is moved, many people will inevitably drop out, and the quality of teaching will inevitably decline." The patriarch used to be in charge, and his people could not be more ignorant from generation to generation, this is his cause and effect. ”

"You may know that the peasants in the village are bitter, but why are the peasants suffering? Or rather, who is the peasant's worst enemy? ”

Grandma Twelve gathered her sideburns, pulled her silver-white hair to the edge of her ears, and said:

"During that period, countless people were knocked to the ground, why do you look at it now, most of the people in high positions or rich people are still those who were knocked down back then?"

"Those who are majestic and overthrow others still repeat the cycle of poverty of their ancestors."

"Barbarism can only create problems, not solve them."