Back in the 1980s, hiking in the mountains was also a way of life

After laughing, Liu Guilan asked with an incredulous look on her face:
"Those broken plates and bowls sold for over 50? That's incredibly valuable!"

Wang An quickly shook his head and said:

"No, 500,000 is Hong Kong dollars. If we convert it to RMB 80,000 or 90,000 at the normal exchange rate."

After Wang An finished speaking, Wang Dazhu, somewhat dumbfounded, said:

“That’s a lot, eighty or ninety thousand! That’s eighty or ninety thousand! Our family has over 360 acres of land, and we can’t even earn 1 yuan a year. We struggle to earn seven or eight thousand. Oh my god, what do you think they’d do with all that money buying that junk? It’s not like we can eat or drink it. What’s the point?”

In Wang Dazhu's mind, those plates and bowls were just a pile of junk. Apart from being used to scoop feed for livestock, they were truly useless. You can't eat with things dug out of graves, can you? That would be too disgusting.

Of course, it's not just Wang Dazhu who thinks this way now; Liu Guilan and Mu Xueqing think the same way.

Wang An smiled and said:

"Yeah, they're really not very useful to us. They just take up space. But there are people who like antiques. Our plates and bowls may not look like much, but they are Ming Dynasty antiques. They can make a lot of money by buying them."

After a long while, Wang Dazhu, his face full of shock, belatedly pointed towards the secret chamber and said:
"So, how much are those things you put in there worth now?"

Wang An thought for a moment and said:
"It's hard to say. If you were to sell them now, they could easily fetch several hundred yuan each."

Upon hearing this, Liu Guilan immediately said with a look of urgency:
"Then why don't you sell them all together? It would be so much better to get cash. If the price drops later, there's no point in keeping those things."

Although Liu Guilan was definitely a virtuous and kind woman who was good at supporting her husband and raising her children, she was limited by her knowledge and didn't really understand these things.

So Wang An explained:

"Of course we can't sell it. Compared to a few years ago, the price has already increased several times. It will definitely rise even more in a few years. Our family doesn't lack money. Let's wait a few years and see."

Time flies, and several more days have passed.

That day, the village loudspeaker suddenly blared:
"Attention, residents of Kaoshan Village! Attention, residents of Kaoshan Village! I have some good news to share. The telephone we promised to install in our village has been installed."

"Okay, what am I going to say? I'm going to explain how the charges work. Calls within the county are 15 cents each, for 3 minutes. Calls outside the county are 20 cents each, also for 3 minutes. Calls exceeding 3 minutes will be counted as two calls. Receiving calls is free. Villagers who need to make calls, please take note! I'll say it again."

Upon hearing the announcement from the loudspeaker, Wang An immediately stood up and said to Mu Xueqing:
"This phone is finally installed! I'm going to make a call."

Mu Xueqing, who was watching TV, glanced at Wang An and said:

"Okay, let's go then."

More than a week has passed since Zhang Zhenbang and Wu Dong left last time, and Wang An really wants to know what the motorcycle factory is up to now.

So Wang An was thinking of going to the county town before the end of the month to see what the situation was like.

The main reason is that April is just two days away, and motorcycle prices are about to rise. If we don't seize this opportunity before the price increase to import a large number of motorcycle parts, we'll lose a lot of legitimate money.

It's worth mentioning that ever since Kaoshantun got electricity, the village has been arranging for the installation of telephones, but it took more than a year and a half to finally get them installed. This shows just how "fast" the efficiency was back then!
A few minutes later, Wang An arrived at the village headquarters, where only the village head, Sun Dafu, and the accountant, Li Youcai, were present.

After explaining his purpose and offering each of the two men a cigarette, Wang An walked towards the telephone.

Tunbu An's telephone was still the mainstream type of telephone of that era, namely a crank telephone, and it was an old one.

Looking at the old telephone, Wang An strongly suspected it was one of the old crank telephones that the county magistrate had replaced with rotary dial telephones. What a blatant reuse of trash!
Before he could even get a handle on the conversation, he grabbed the crank handle and cranked it rapidly several times before finally getting a handle on the conversation.

The reason you need to crank the handle when using a crank telephone is that you are actually calling the operator.

Because this crank is actually a small generator. By cranking it a few times, the coil rotates and cuts the magnetic field lines to generate a current signal. The current signal is transmitted to the operator through the telephone line. Only after the operator receives the current signal will they answer the phone and transfer the call.

Wang An waited for a long time, but the operator never answered the phone.

However, Wang An was not discouraged, because this was the norm at this time. It was normal to not be able to get through for a while, and there was no use in being anxious.

There are many reasons why you might not be able to get through. It could be that the distance is too far and the current or voltage from the dial is insufficient, so the operator didn't receive the message at all. Or the operator might be busy and not have time to answer you.
In short, in remote areas, it's considered quite good if you can get through once out of ten attempts at making a phone call.

Wang An hung up the phone and continued cranking the crank.

After several attempts, Wang An finally heard the operator's voice. Wang An immediately said:
"Please connect me to the office of the head of the Wuzhuang Bubu Village in the county."

The operator agreed, and after waiting for quite a while, Wu Dong's somewhat distorted voice finally came through the receiver:

"Hello, this is Wuzhuangbu, who are you?"

Wang An hurriedly said:

"Brother Wu, it's me, Xiao An. Oh my god, it took this guy so much effort to call you, my arm is sore from shaking it."

Wu Dong laughed and said:

"A crank-operated telephone, huh? Hahaha. Where are you calling me from?"

Wang Andao:
"In our village, we finally got a telephone installed. It took more than a year and a half of delays, and they even installed an old one. You can imagine how long it took."

Upon hearing Wang An's somewhat complaining words, Wu Dong was already laughing uncontrollably on the other end of the line.

After a long while, mainly waiting for Wu Dong to finish laughing, he then spoke to Wang Andao:
"It's good enough to have a phone number; it'll make it easier to contact you later, hahaha. Um, you called me just to tell me your village got a phone number?"

Wang Andao:
"No, I was just wondering about the motorcycle. Have you gotten all the parts and stuff back yet?"

Upon hearing this, Wu Dong was very pleased and said:

"Yes, they're being transported by ship right now. They're probably already at Dalian Port. Then they'll be transported by train. They should all be in place by the day after tomorrow or the day after that."

Wang An immediately said happily:
"That's great, really great! I reckon prices will go up next month, and I've been thinking about it a lot, hahaha!"

Wu Dong was also very happy and said:

"Yeah, Liangzi was bragging to me about this yesterday. He said that as soon as our batch of goods left the port, the prices went up. The whole truck and all the parts went up, and the total price went up by more than 400 yuan. Those bastards."

Wang An had originally intended to ask about the progress of the engineer recruitment, but then suddenly felt that this wasn't something he should be concerned with, so he said:

"Yes, if we can replicate some of the parts as soon as possible, we can significantly reduce costs." (End of Chapter)