Chen Fan saw his grandmother picking cotton when he was a child, but at that time, he did not pick it in the cotton field, but picked the whole cotton peach that had just opened his mouth together, and then pulled it to the field to expose it to the sun when the sun was out.

After a few days of drying, most of the cotton peaches dry up, and you can sit at home and pick out the cotton inside.

At that time, Chen Fan was still sitting next to his grandmother and picking cotton.

But that was a long time later.

The reason why there is one more step than picking flowers directly in the cotton field is because after the production is distributed to the household, each family takes care of its own way, and the rain begins to increase in early autumn, if it is delayed for a few days because of other things, there is not enough labor to pick in time, and the cotton peaches that are about to ripen are wet by the rain, which may rot and mildew, thus affecting the cotton grade.

Therefore, in order to harvest more cotton, everyone will first pick back the unripe cotton peaches, and then calmly arrange other farm work.

In fact, the grade of cotton picked like that is not as good as picking tidbits directly after ripening and fluffy, which is a helpless move.

In today's collective era, there is no such concern, and the production team leader will assign different people to do different things according to the workload and progress of the entire team.

Heavy physical work is naturally handed over to men to do, and women are arranged to go into battle for relatively light tasks such as picking and weeding.

Taking advantage of the big sun, all the women in the team are organized, as young as 13 or 4 years old, as old as 5 or 60 years old, and even old ladies over 70 years old are not uncommon.

If you are not skilled, like Jiang Lili, a few nimble little girls may not be as good as an old lady in her 70s.

Therefore, when calculating the work points, the picking amount is also an important reference index, and the old lady can get 10 points a day, which is only possible at this time.

With so many people in battle, and the area of cotton planted now is not as large as it was later, it only took two or three days to pick all the cotton into storage.

They picked it for two or three days, Chen Fan ...... Naturally, it won't follow the whole way.

After participating in the half-day labor, he experienced the arduous process of picking cotton, and then went back to close the door to work on creation.

I wrote two newsletters, the content of which was naturally the "advanced deeds" of the production team's bumper cotton harvest and everyone picking cotton together.

Because he personally experienced it for half a day, the articles he wrote were very close to life, and after being published in Yunhu Daily, they were well received by the majority of readers.

Then I received a bunch of letters.

In the courtyard of the educated youth point, a shelf was set up with benches and bamboo poles, and a bamboo curtain was laid on it.

In the comprehensive room, Jiang Lili opened the letters one by one and said softly, "These letters are all sent by readers in the Yunhu area, basically expressing their love for the articles you wrote, and some are unit leaders who want to invite you to give lectures." ”

On her right hand, Chen Fan leaned back in the chair, holding a small teapot in one hand and a pu fan in the other, fanning the wind for a while, and asked puzzledly, "Are all the authors so popular these years?" ”

In the past few months, more than a thousand letters have been received from Yunhu, in the province, and outside the province, inside and out, and he now understands why the fairy tale king wants to buy 10 suites as a warehouse to store letters.

Because there are so many faiths!

Jiang Lili put the opened letter aside, opened another one, and said with a smile, "I don't know if there are other authors, but even if they do, they will definitely not be as many as yours."

You are a frequent visitor to the magazine "Jiangnan Literature and Art", since the resumption of publication in May, there are articles published every month, or serialized, which is no different from opening a column, naturally not comparable to ordinary people. ”

Chen Fan frowned, and sighed faintly, "But I don't have a penny for the manuscript fee, I send a bunch of tickets every time, only the tickets have no money, how to spend it." ”

Hearing this, Jiang Lili couldn't help but wrinkle her nose and gave him a good-looking look of disgust.

If she also came from the afterlife, she would definitely blurt out "Versailles" at this time.

Now, I can only smile helplessly and shake my head, and continue to open the letter.

After a few sips of tea, Chen Fan was no longer idle and began to write back.

In these years, it is normal for readers to send letters to their favorite authors, and it is also normal for authors to reply to readers.

It's a pity that so far, Chen Fan has not received a gift.

Not only did he have no gifts, but he also had to pour letterheads and stamps to reply to readers, which made him feel a little lost.

The time to reply to the letter is not fixed, when I remember it, I will write, but there will be a little more at night, at that time Jiang Lili and they are studying seriously, he is on the side with a speed comparable to a typewriter, he can write a letter in a few minutes, write the address in the envelope, and then take it to the post office to mail.

Of course, you don't need to reply to every letter, those who only express admiration, generally don't pay attention, just need to mention a few names at the end of each issue of the article to express their gratitude.

Or you can pick a few replies like a lottery.

Don't worry about those who invite him to lectures, just make a statement in the newspaper or magazine.

But some people will ask questions in the letter, such as how to write, and even bring a copy of the article they wrote to ask him for advice, or some people are distressed and want to ask Chen Fan for advice.

For this kind of letter, a reply letter is needed.

It's okay to be lazy and not go back.

Because this is the mass base, if you reply to a person, he may become a loyal fan of the writer, and then influence the people around him.

And this is also a common habit of writers today, many well-known writers will insist on replying to readers for a long time, even if the number of letters from readers increases and the energy is low, they will also select a part of the reply and spread it all over the country as a variety of beautiful talks.

Now Jiang Lili is picking out the letters that need to be replied to for him, and the ones that are not needed are piled aside along with the envelopes, and the ones that need to be replied to are placed in Chen Fan's hand.

wrote several letters in a row, and at this time, Huang Ying and the three of them also dried the cotton stall and walked in one after another.

Chen Fan turned his head to look at them, lowered his head and continued to write, "How many days will the cotton be dried?" ”

Huang Ying sat down across from him and said, "Tomorrow should be fine." ”

Chen Fan, "The next key task is the autumn harvest." ”

Yang Ju and Liu Dan sat on the last bench together, and when they heard Chen Fan's words, Yang Ju shook his head, "It's not over yet, the dried cotton has to be transported to the 10th team, and the seed cotton will be rolled into lint with a cotton gin." The cotton production in Lujiawan was not much, and the commune did not give us too many tasks, so we only collected lint cotton, not seed cotton. ”

Jiang Lili raised her head, and unexpectedly saw Chen Fan blinking his eyes and being a little confused, so she smiled and said softly, "There are strict regulations on the purchase of cotton by the state, the first is to keep enough cottonseeds, so the first batch of cotton only collects lint, and the cottonseeds are selected and retained by the production team."

If the production team does not have a cotton gin, the supply and marketing cooperatives can undertake the cotton ginning task, and the production team will send someone to supervise.

Unless there is no cotton gin in any commune, or the number of cotton ginners is seriously insufficient, the cotton purchasing station will be allowed to buy seed cotton, and after it is shipped to other places to gin, the cotton seed will be sent back to the production team as seeds.

There is a cotton gin distributed by the commune in Lujiawan, so it must be implemented in accordance with the normal regulations, and only in addition to the cottonseed that meets the production team's own use, will the seed cotton be purchased in unlimited quantities.

However, the cotton output in Lujiawan is not much, the task is not heavy, and there is a special cotton gin, so the cotton purchasing station only accepts lint cotton from us, not seed cotton. ”

Yang Ju and her sisters have lived here for more than half a year, and they have long known that Chen Fan does not know the situation of many production teams, and every time Jiang Lili answers his questions, he is used to it, and sometimes he will take the initiative to join the commentary.

After Jiang Lili finished speaking, Yang Ju hurriedly said, "Nanhu Commune is mainly rice planting, except for our Lujiawan, the situation of the other four production teams is similar, and the Qingshan Commune next door is the main task of cotton and rapeseed oil."

They spend a lot of time planting and harvesting cotton every year, which is harder than we do to grow rice, and they are as tired as we are when we pay grain. ”

Liu Dan next to him was not to be outdone, "There are also rapeseeds, when rape blooms, there are rape flowers all over the mountains, there are many, many of them, but they are beautiful." ”

Chen Fan's eyes lit up suddenly, "Are there a lot of rape flowers in Qingshan Commune?" ”

Liu Dan nodded again and again, "Many, many." ”

At this time, Huang Ying said with a smile, "The southwest bank of the Liuhua River is Qingshan Commune, and when the rape flowers bloom, you can see it by boat." ”

Chen Fan smiled and said, "Then I'll have to go and see it next year." ”

Liu Dan immediately said, "Let's go together." ”

Hearing this, Chen Fan couldn't help but purse his lips and smile, "Okay, go if you have time." ”

Several girls laughed happily, when the rape flowers bloomed, it happened that the spring ploughing had ended, and there must have been time at that time.

Chen Fan thought that if you weren't in the university at that time, you should all be in the middle of it.

Still looking at rape flowers?

Think beautifully!

……

As the days passed, after harvesting cotton and going to the cotton purchasing station to hand in the task, the team had another income from selling cotton.

If it had been before, every household must have been silently calculating how much cotton and how much money they could share this year.

But this year, I didn't pay much attention to it, and only a few people would mention it in small talk, and then it was quickly replaced by a new topic.

"How many chickens do you have?"

"Where are there chickens, there are eggs, the chickens have already been caught, so I left 5 hens to hatch eggs, up to 12 at a time, and I don't know how many chicks can be hatched."

"Ouch, mine is about the same, the ducks and geese are all caught, and there are only a few chickens left to hatch their eggs. I don't even want to raise ducks now, ducks are too cheap to sell for a high price. ”

"Although the ducks are not valuable, they don't eat feed, and when they rush into the fish pond, they will find food for themselves."

"Then you might as well be a duck catcher, and all the chickens in the house are raised."

"I'd like to ask the team to agree."

In a burst of laughter, someone asked, "Since the opening of the 10 stores of the local government committee, there will be hundreds of chickens on this day, and the chickens of our team are about to be caught, and the back ones have not kept up, so what should I do?" ”

Someone immediately said, "You don't have to worry about this, our team's chickens, ducks and geese are about to be caught, but other teams still have ah, when the seedlings were distributed, they were originally distributed in batches, and this recycling must also be collected in batches."

Besides, all of our brigades are sold out, and there are 4 brigades in Ganjia Village, so let's take our time while adopting them. ”

"I know to take my time, but I don't know if I will be out of stock if I take my time, I heard that the 10 stores of the local committee can add up to 20,000 or 30,000 yuan a day, if you don't get the goods to sell, how much money will you have to lose? It's painful to think about! ”

……

Inside the brigade headquarters, the cadre office.

Chen Fan pushed the window open, moved the electric fan to the window and blew it out, and the smoke in the room was immediately absorbed and blown out.

In other words, this electric fan was too hot for him to sleep when he saw Jiang Lili and them grabbing it, so he specially wrote an article and sent it to "Jiangnan Literature and Art" in exchange for a few electric fan tickets.

At that time, he was in a hurry to buy an electric fan, so he "borrowed" a ticket from Zhang Wenliang, and later learned that it was actually a ticket given to him by the county motor factory.

Zhang Wenliang told the truth when he returned the ticket, but Jiangnan Literature and Art Magazine sent him 4 tickets, where did he use up so much?

I kept two for myself, and then divided two more for the brigade, anyway, I didn't bother to pull it off, just enough for myself.

Finally waiting for the smoke to clear, Safety suddenly said, "Eh, I found that the electric fan is blowing out, it seems to be cooler?" ”

Chen Fan turned around and said, "The electric fan is placed at the window opening and blows out, which is equivalent to sucking the heat out of the room and blowing it out, and the temperature is reduced......"

Halfway through speaking, he glared angrily, "Talking about business, it's useless to talk about it." ”

The closer he got to the announcement of the resumption of the college entrance examination, the more arrogant he became.

Like security, it is definitely 100% of the people who will take the college entrance examination, and the review materials are in their own hands, and at present, all the students who have the most solid grasp of the basic knowledge of the entire Nanhu Commune are their own students.

But whoever wants to review and take the college entrance examination, which one dares to blow up in front of him?

It's a pity that he doesn't know about safety, he glanced at Chen Fan and said with a snort, "You've been a little floating lately!" I had already written to my classmate, asking him to help keep an eye out for cheap accordions in Shanghai thrift stores, but yesterday he telegraphed back that there was, and it seems that you don't want it anymore. ”

Chen Fan pondered for two seconds, "If it's too expensive, it's better to buy a new one." ”

The security glanced at him, "The pigini accordion imported from Italy only costs 250 yuan, if it weren't for the fact that I had no money, I would like to keep it for myself." ”

Chen Fan immediately coughed dryly, and when he raised his head, his face was already full of smiles, "Brother An, I admit that I spoke a little loud just now, but in fact, I have a lot of respect for you." ”

Burst......

Puff......

Ha ha......

The room suddenly burst into laughter, and Xiao Liewen was choked by a puff of smoke, standing up and coughing.

Chen Fan turned a blind eye to everything around him, and said softly with a smile, "But I don't think the number 250 is good, please add a dollar to the store when you send a telegram back to your classmates." Of course, any stamps and telegram fees are mine, and you won't suffer! ”

It is impossible to bargain, and if you don't want 250, you can only increase the price.

Security covered his face and didn't look at it, and after a long while, he shook his head and sighed, "People, how can you do this?!" ”

Yang Xingxiu laughed so much that tears came out of her eyes, she lay on the table, raised her head and wanted to speak, but as soon as she saw Chen Fan, she couldn't help but laugh again.

At this time, Ye Shubao barely held back a smile, knocked on the table and said, "Let's get down to business." ”

Then he coughed dryly, and looked at the people who gradually calmed down, "No one thought that the business of those stores of the prefectural committee would be so good, not only the prefectural committee, but it has been more than half a month, and the sales of the three stores in the county have not declined significantly, especially the main store of the wharf, the turnover is still growing, although the growth is not much, but it is also rising!" ”

The growth of the store's turnover is still related to the spread of news. In the past, it was mostly only people who took long-distance passenger ferries, but now even passengers from short-distance small ferries come to patronize, and sales will naturally increase.

He looked around again and said softly, "Xiao An and I have made calculations, according to the current situation, in another month at most, even if we wrap up the live birds of their 4 teams in Ganjia Village, we can't plug this gap, now this is the situation, everyone talks, what should I do?" ”

They had discussed this before, but if they didn't have it, what could they do? So I could only call Chen Fan over to discuss it together, and now I naturally looked at him one by one.

Chen Fan looked at the safety in a daze, and said, "It's easy to solve, Nanhu Commune is not enough, just go to Qingshan Commune, Yangshan Commune, and Shuanghe County next to it, you can send someone to collect it."

Who to sell to is not to sell, let's buy it at the same price, do they have to walk more than ten miles to sell to the acquisition station? ! ”

Ye Shubao was stunned, "Grab business with the supply and marketing cooperatives?" ”

The long-term fixed thinking has made them believe that the purchase of goods in the countryside is the power of supply and marketing cooperatives, so they have not thought about it in this regard.

Chen Fan still looked at safety, "What kind of business robbery is this?" This year, even the poultry tickets have been canceled, it can be seen that chickens, ducks and geese are not out of stock at all, so the supply and marketing cooperatives should not have the hard task of purchasing chickens, ducks and geese, as long as they do not grab their share of the task, they still wish we would take a little more and save them some trouble. ”

After a pause, he said, "Another one, when the rabbits are ready to be slaughtered, get dozens of rabbits every day, give one point to each store, buy more rabbits, and buy fewer chickens, ducks and geese, so that you can also plug some loopholes."

If the rabbit is not enough, add more vegetarian dishes, potatoes and lotus roots, and then kill a pig the next day, and use pork to top up, anyway, there are many ways, why bother with chickens, ducks and geese. ”

Without waiting for Ye Shubao to speak, An'an raised his hands and surrendered, "Don't look at me, okay, I'll go and send a telegram to my classmate later, and ask him to buy that accordion." ”

Chen Fan suddenly smiled, "Brother An, please ask him, are there any other musical instruments, such as violin, piano, saxophone, erhu, suona, etc." ”

Safe looked at him blankly, "Are you playing a little flowery?" ”

Chen Fan smiled and said, "No way, being versatile is a bit expensive." ”

Security is speechless, do I mean that?

Ye Shubao patted his head and turned his head to look at Secretary Yang, "I'm okay here." ”

Sometimes that's how it is, as long as you open your mind, the problem is very simple. As long as you go to the supply and marketing cooperatives and ask, whether there is a hard live poultry purchase target this year, or what the index is, and if it is exceeded, they can let go of the purchase.

Didn't some of the people in the team just buy bicycles, and they don't do their jobs every day, and they all mess around, so it's better to ride their bikes to collect chickens!

Hang two larger cages next to the car, and even hang four, the chickens are relatively small, a cage can squeeze up to 15, 4 is 60, ten cars are 600, look, the problem is not solved a large part!

Secretary Yang nodded, then coughed dryly, and waited for everyone to look at him, he said, "This, I went to the commune today, Secretary Qian said, this year is the first year to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, this is not about to be the National Day, up and down are preparing to celebrate, our various production teams, also have to find a way to prepare a little program, do you have any good ideas?" ”

(End of chapter)