The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 67 Anthracite

Changcheng, Nanluoyuan.

"Master, this female boss is frying tofu. It smells so good."

"Hurry up and work, kid. We eat whatever the boss makes. Your cooking skills are pretty good now, so use the scraps here to make a small stool."

Master Li, who was working, said to his apprentice that although his apprentice is young, he started apprenticeship when he was in his teens. If he had not learned to make some delicate furniture, he could have become a master. They can make ordinary tables and stools.

It was time to cook, so Zhou Lingying had to cook, too. If she was alone, it didn't matter if she cooked early or late. But there were a few carpenters working at home.

In hot weather, tofu will not last long if it is not prepared. But a piece of tofu weighs 4 liang, and 4 pieces in total cannot be eaten in one day. A piece of tofu can be cut into slices to make a pan-fried dish, and another piece can be used to stew fish.

One is fried tofu, the other is stewed fish with tofu, which are pretty good dishes. The fish is not stewed all at once, it weighs several kilograms, so stewing half a fish is enough. In addition to these two dishes, Zhou Lingying will also stir-fry a large cabbage, and that's all the dishes for the day.

In the morning, Zhou Lingying washed and hung out her clothes, and then chatted with the neighbors in the yard for a while.

A woman like Zhou Lingying, who married well but had poor conditions, quickly mixed into the intelligence organization of the compound. Although she had just arrived in the compound, she already knew the situation of several families. What a person looks like on the surface, and what he is like behind the scenes.

Of course, when Zhou Lingying was busy, she was also the subject of talk behind her back.

To say that Zhou Lingying was a woman of poor conditions was not because of her appearance, but because of her status. In the city, in everyone's eyes, Zhou Lingying's status as an educated youth was actually worse than that of a rural woman.

Zhou Lingying married Jiang Cheng and could live in the city as a couple. If a rural woman married in the city, at most she would not have enough food, but she could still do odd jobs in the street office to earn some money to supplement the family income.

For example, sewing insoles, making cloth shoes, washing clothes for some units, etc.

But in fact, Zhou Lingying has only escaped from the management of the Youth League, but has not escaped from her identity as an educated youth. If she could escape from her identity by marrying a man from the city, there wouldn't be so many female educated youths across the country.

With the identity of educated youth, they could not even take odd jobs. If they could only take odd jobs at the street office to supplement their family income, it would violate the original definition of sending people to the countryside.

So Zhou Lingying is currently the woman with the worst conditions in the courtyard, destined to rely on men for everything. But she is also the woman with the best conditions in the courtyard, married to a man who drives a big car, and has no worries about food and drink.

On one hand, she looked down on someone, and on the other hand, she envied that person. Zhou Lingying was the only one like him in this yard.

The fried tofu smelled delicious. Nowadays, people are very sensitive to the smell of food. If you fry tofu in the front yard, you can smell it in the back yard. Many people want to improve their food and buy something better, but they can't bear to do so.

This time Zhou Lingying cooked a pot of rice, but the amount of rice today was larger than yesterday's. At least the rice was served in large bowls, so each person had a full bowl of rice.

Don't even think about adding more rice. Jiang Cheng was at home yesterday, and Zhou Lingying cooked more because she was worried that he wouldn't have enough to eat. Jiang Cheng wasn't at home, and she wasn't completely incapable of living. She might not be as frugal as others, but she was more or less calculating.

"Master Li, and the other two masters, it's time to eat."

"Boss, come right away."

After the meal was ready, Zhou Lingying invited the other masters to eat. Master Li responded immediately and asked the two apprentices to wash their hands and eat.

At the employer's house, if the male employer is not at home, the employer's wife can also be called the employer's wife. If both are present, before liberation, wealthy families had to call her Madam. Now the term Madam is no longer popular, and you can call her the employer's wife.

This time they didn't borrow a stool. Master Li and his two disciples each took a bowl of rice, put some vegetables in the bowl and squatted at the door to eat. Master Li ate with some manners, although he couldn't say he chewed slowly, but at least he was better than his two disciples who ate like starving ghosts.

The two disciples each had a bowl of rice and quickly finished it, but the master did not ask if there was more rice in the pot, which meant that there was no more rice. No matter how much you are still hungry, don't take the initiative to ask if there is more rice.

A big bowl full of rice was enough. If I worked in other places, I wouldn't even be able to get such a lot of coarse grains. And the fried tofu and tofu stewed with fish were so delicious, there was no need to be dissatisfied.

Anyway, not a single grain of rice is wasted, and there is enough left for the vegetables to eat in the evening.

After the meal, it was hot at noon, so Master Li and his two disciples just leaned down in the shade outside the house and prepared to sleep.

I will continue working when I wake up. Today, I will not only make a bed, but also use the old materials I have dismantled to make a table before tomorrow morning. It is not good to put the food on the bamboo bed.

Zhou Lingying also planned to take a break. She would go out with a female neighbor she met today to buy some corn flour. She would make steamed bread for the chefs in the afternoon and buy some pickled vegetables from the market.

A little after two o'clock in the afternoon, at Fengcheng Coal Plant.

"Brother Liu, is this appropriate?" Jiang Cheng asked as he looked at the truck full of coal.

"What's inappropriate about that? To be honest, it's our factory that is taking advantage of you. But you have to be careful at the intersection ahead, there are kids stealing coal ahead." Liu Yong said with a smile.

Jiang Cheng had to use a steel wire rope to tow Liu Yong's Liberation truck back to Fengcheng Coal Plant for more than 20 kilometers.

After Liu Yong returned to the factory, he reported the situation to the logistics department of the coal mine. The coal mine was also very grateful to Jiang Cheng. Even if it was the simplest solution, the coal mine would have arranged for someone to drive the oil pump over for repair, which would have taken a lot of time. Arranging a car to run back and forth would cost at least nearly one dollar in fuel.

Now Jiang Cheng's car was full of coal, which was certainly not sent to him. Instead, the coal factory entrusted him to help deliver it to the power plant in Zhangcheng. However, there were four sacks of good coal under the coal in the back compartment of Jiang Cheng's car.

Four sacks of coal weigh about 600 jin, all of which are anthracite. Anthracite is not honeycomb coal, which weighs 7 centimeters per jin. Honeycomb coal is usually produced by mixing coal foam and loess, so the honeycomb coal that residents buy weighs only 2.5 centimeters per jin.

Anthracite is used in many leaders' homes, and is also used for heating in winter by many families with good economic conditions. As for some big leaders' homes, anthracite is not qualified for heating, and they use charcoal instead.

Four bags of anthracite cost four yuan in the market, and ordinary people couldn't buy such good coal without a ticket. But Jiang Cheng had to help the factory deliver coal to Zhangcheng on the way, and if he made this trip, the coal factory would not lose money.

First of all, the coal plant has a transportation team that specializes in supplying coal to some power plants for thermal power generation. However, the coal used for power generation does not need to be of very good quality.

But the driver's salary plus subsidies is at least 60 yuan a month, because they deliver coal to power plants in nearby cities, and usually they can make two trips a day. But the coal plant's transport vehicles are all Jiefang trucks, which can't compare with Jiang Cheng's Yellow River trucks, which can count as two trips per trip.

So Jiang Chengbang could save the coal factory two dollars in wages by making each trip.

In addition, the coal plant’s own car has to make two trips, which has to be calculated based on the round-trip distance, and the fuel cost is also money.

Finally, the price of anthracite at 7 cents is the market price, which includes the transportation costs. Some cooperative units send vehicles to pick up the coal, but the price is not 7 cents.

Therefore, in this helping hand, there is no question of who is taking advantage of whom.

(End of this chapter)