Marry a female star at a bargain price

November 7th is the beginning of winter.

It was Friday, the day for the public selection of apartments in the resettlement housing project of Xingguang Town – Xincun Garden Phase II.

This batch of houses was constructed by Dijin Group, a leading real estate enterprise in Yizhou City.

A total of 420 households will be resettled, with a total of 1000 people from 15 natural villages near Xingguang Town.

Of course, the total number of villagers to be relocated in the entire village consolidation and town merging project is definitely more than just 1000.

Xingguang Town has a permanent resident population of 8000, but a registered population of 2.

These two figures are extremely low for a township, especially considering that Xingguang Town actually has a large area, but most of it is covered by mountains and forests, leaving very little land for village and residential construction.

The first and second phases of Xincun Garden are for resettling villagers from natural villages within 5 kilometers of the town.

As for villages further away, the approach was to consolidate them by merging villages with small permanent populations and inconvenient transportation with nearby larger villages.

These natural villages are all more than seven or eight kilometers away from the town center, and transportation is inconvenient, so it is not realistic to force the villagers to leave their homes and move to the town.

Even the best policies become tyranny when implemented in such a one-size-fits-all manner.

Before Lin Xiao took office as the mayor of Xingguang Town, the previous mayor had done the same thing, which led to widespread resentment and a strong aversion to the policy among the villagers.

This aversion has not been eliminated to this day.

It was only because Lin Xiao helped the navel oranges in various villages sell well that the town government's image in the eyes of the villagers was slightly restored. However, everyone still held a cautious and wary attitude towards the re-promotion of "merging villages and towns".

The reason why this happened.

On the one hand, it's because the previous mayor went too far, leaving the villagers with a bad impression of being "once bitten, twice shy."

On the other hand, the hot sales of navel oranges in autumn have benefited almost all the farmers in the town, filling their pockets. The original sorrow and distress about the hardship of making a living in the village have been completely dispelled, and instead, a sense of ambition and pride has arisen that I can work for another five hundred years.

In this situation, bringing up village-town mergers or orchard outsourcing to the villagers would not only provoke resentment, but also breed hatred.

After all, cutting off someone's livelihood is like killing their parents; such is human nature.

Regarding these backgrounds.

Therefore, whether it's "merging villages" or "merging towns," judging from the feedback from village directors recently, the situation in the villages is very unfavorable.

Fortunately, Lin Xiao's efforts over the past six months have paid off.

His biggest gain was that he had subdued the village directors and cadres of all 12 village committees.

This matter is both useful and useless, and it's also useful in some ways than others.

The reason it's useless is that the village chief has absolutely no say in the villagers' affairs.

Especially when it comes to villagers' pockets and vital interests, it's difficult for the village head alone to persuade most people.

A village committee is formed by combining several natural villages.

No matter how important a village head is, he can only have a voice in his own village, and these villages are mostly large villages with large populations, which are not included in the relocation and resettlement campaign.

For other sparsely populated natural villages, even the village head has very limited influence.

When implementing a major policy like merging villages and towns, the entire village is relocated. If even one holdout refuses to leave, the entire effort is wasted.

But if we're talking about usefulness, then it really is very useful.

After all, village chiefs are all native to the area and have the clearest understanding of the villagers' sentiments, dynamics, and demands.

Having village chiefs lurking in the villages to help collect this information also helps the town carry out its work and knows which direction to focus its efforts on.

Of course, the village head's usefulness is not reflected in this.

Their most crucial role is actually to avoid instigating trouble.

This statement is outrageous, but it is also the truth.

When Lin Xiao first arrived in Xingguang Town, he was a novice and his position was unstable. He immediately started to promote the "merging of villages and towns" work, but he had to suspend it due to the great resistance he encountered and instead adopted a conciliatory policy.

The biggest obstacle at the time was actually the resistance led by the 12 village chiefs.

Of course, the village chief did not exert any force openly, and always appeared to be following the orders of the town mayor.

But as soon as work is assigned, they either complain about how difficult it is or they outwardly comply but inwardly disagree, saying yes and yes on the surface, but then doing nothing after they go back.

It's not that the village head is bad, but that the previous town mayor scared everyone.

Although village chiefs are an extension of the town's work and are local officials in one term, they are also villagers who enjoy the village's resources and benefits.

Once the policies mentioned above clearly affect and infringe upon the interests of the village.

Whether the village chief acted impartially or abused his power for personal gain is hard to say.

Lin Xiao has just taken office, and we don't know his temperament or personality yet. He only has a big background and a good reputation, but his background and reputation cannot prove that he is a dedicated and hardworking cadre.

The village chief was naturally unwilling to submit to his orders.

After the recent surge in navel orange sales, and the changes he has brought to Xingguang Town through his own abilities over the past six months, all the village chiefs have been completely subdued by this unconventional town mayor.

Actually, Lin Xiao didn't intend to deal with them.

They cleaned it up as a side effect, simply because of Mayor Lin's enthusiasm and achievements.

The village chiefs all believed that Mayor Lin genuinely wanted to do good things for everyone. Even such a good mayor was vigorously promoting the policy of merging villages and towns, which at least proved two things.

First, this policy is definitely inevitable, and there is no point in resisting it. Second, this policy may really be beneficial to the development of the village collective and the villagers, so it is better to go with the tide and give it a try.

These changes in my mindset didn't happen overnight, but rather gradually over the past six months.

Now, all 12 village chiefs are completely obedient to Mayor Lin and no longer dare to treat him as that "young punk under thirty."

With the help of the village head.

Lin Xiao kept abreast of the situation in each village and knew that the resistance to the policy of merging villages and towns was no longer as strong.

Of course, most villagers are still unwilling to move away from their old homes.

However, this "unwillingness" has gone beyond simple resistance to the town government. It stems from reasons such as reluctance to leave one's old home, discomfort with the new residence, and reluctance to leave the orchard where one can make money. These are all understandable realities.

This background information played a decisive role in Lin Xiao's decision to start selecting a house directly.

What he fears most is the villagers' mindless resistance to the policy, which is the most difficult to deal with because no matter how he tries to persuade them, it will be useless.

Now, the villagers' resistance has its reasons.

As long as there are rational reasons, we can break through them one by one, and we are not afraid of the villagers covering their ears and refusing to listen.

That's truly worrying!

……

All in all, all in all.

With 12 village chiefs acting as "insiders," Lin Xiao's confidence in tackling the tough task of merging villages and towns increased from less than 10% to 50%.

Although it's only halfway through, we can already get started.

After all, waiting until everything is perfect before taking action is not prudence, but incompetence.

True masters are those who can overcome any obstacle, find their way through mountains and build bridges over rivers, and adapt to any challenge to achieve victory.

So on the day of the Beginning of Winter in November, Lin Xiao made the decision to set the date for choosing a house.

During the initial preparation phase, all the town's officials were still uneasy, feeling that the preparations were not yet complete and that doing this was a bit risky. They worried that if the villagers came directly to the "sales office" to cause trouble, it would be difficult to handle the situation.

In contrast, Lin Xiao, the person primarily responsible, remained remarkably calm.

Regardless of the town government's sentiments.

In any case, everything is ready for the "merging of towns" project, and now it's time to proceed.

The town's officials spent a restless night.

It was 8:30 a.m. on Friday.

Half an hour before the event was scheduled to begin, the house selection site had already gathered villagers from the surrounding villages, numbering about two hundred people.

And villagers are still arriving.

The scale and grandeur of the event took the three deputy mayors, who had initially harbored deep concerns about today's ceremony, quite by surprise.

They had thought today's house selection ceremony would be quiet and deserted, but they didn't expect the villagers to be so enthusiastic and come in such a hurry.

Ge Tao, the deputy mayor in charge of this task, was puzzled: Could it be that Mayor Lin's efforts to help each village sell oranges have completely won over the villagers, and that they are finally willing to put aside their prejudices and stubbornness and support the major policy of merging villages and towns?

Ge Tao's worries had subsided by 80%, but he still dared not relax completely.

Because things seemed to be going too smoothly, and the situation seemed a bit suspicious. In contrast, Lin Xiao's attitude was much more rational—he wasn't overly optimistic about today's work at all, despite the villagers' enthusiastic arrival.

The truth is quite the opposite.

The more villagers came, the more nervous and wary he became, because this was very unusual.

Lin Xiao didn't believe he had that kind of personal charm. He thought that by simply helping everyone sell all the oranges, he could easily gain the villagers' trust and make them willingly leave their land and homes to live in apartments in town.

Even if a few farmers are righteous, most people are still selfish.

Moreover, Xingguang Town is quite large, with a permanent population of 8000, and not everyone owns an orchard.

The land belongs to the village collective, and this land includes housing land, farmland, hilltops, and orchards.

More than a decade ago, these lands were distributed equally among households based on population. However, because the quality of the land varied, a lottery had to be held every two or three years to ensure fairness.

However, the lottery system can be used in farmland, since crops are only harvested once or twice a year, and winter turns to spring, marking a fresh start.

But fruit trees are not an option.

Fruit tree planting is a business that lasts for a decade or more, and it is not suitable for repeated changes of ownership.

Moreover, orchard management is very labor-intensive. The same batch of saplings, when distributed to different farmers, will grow in completely different ways depending on the effort they put in.

If the lottery is redrawn every three to five years.

That could easily lead to your carefully tended fruit trees becoming someone else's orchard, while you, being unlucky, end up with the kind of fruit trees that don't require much care.

In this way, no one will focus on farming, which will only cause trouble.

Therefore, the orchards in each village have always belonged to the village collective, with unified planting, unified labor, and unified sales. The money from the sales is distributed equally among the households, achieving maximum fairness.

However, in recent years, with the outflow of a large number of rural residents, the problem has resurfaced.

People who go out to work are still registered at home and cannot participate in orchard work. Should the future harvest of the fruit trees be shared with them?

Not separating them is definitely not an option, after all, they are also part of the village, and their household registration is still valid.

But it's not right to split it equally, since everyone else worked hard while these people made a lot of money without contributing anything. That's very unfair.

So it has to be divided, but not equally; this is the new rule.

However, determining the profit-sharing ratio raises many questions and conflicts, and as more and more people go out to work, these problems and conflicts are becoming increasingly serious.

Many migrant workers look down on the meager harvest at home, transfer their household registration to other cities, and settle down there.

As more and more people like this emerged, the village population dwindled, becoming mostly elderly.

The sharp decline in population has led to a labor shortage, and the large orchard is gradually becoming unmanageable.

In addition, oranges are not fetching a good price.

Therefore, more and more villagers began to abandon fruit tree planting and turned to planting rice and cotton, since the prices of these crops were guaranteed.

This situation is unique to all 33 natural villages in Xingguang Town.

Seeing that a large number of orchards were beginning to fall into disuse, the town and villages began to think about changes. They adopted a contracting system to retain some young and middle-aged laborers, which also aroused the fruit farmers' enthusiasm for farming.

After contracting the orchards, fruit farmers only need to pay a small amount of rent to the village committee to enjoy the entire harvest of the orchards.

As for agricultural work, that's not a problem either.

Although the orchard is large, unified management saves more effort. It also allows the use of modern machinery and tools, and can hire local elderly villagers to do the work, which can increase the income of the elderly.

The contracting system was promoted and quickly implemented in various villages because all parties were satisfied.

In the past five years, 1 mu of orchards in 33 natural villages in Xingguang Town have been contracted out. Some of these orchards were contracted out by local villagers, while others were contracted out by agricultural companies.

This situation has resulted in the fact that, despite Lin Xiaojin's remarkable achievement of selling out navel oranges in the local area this autumn, the actual beneficiaries are less than one-twentieth of the orchard contractors. Most villagers receive only a fixed daily wage and do not receive much additional income.

Those who presented Lin Xiao with banners at that time were all orchard contractors.

It was only natural for the village chief to come along, since the oranges being sold out was a great thing, representing a bright future for the village.

In reality, the orchard's lease price was set long ago.

Whether the oranges sell well or not has nothing to do with the village. If the contractor is a villager, it might be reasonable for them to give the village an extra share of the profits. But if the contractor is an outside company, there is absolutely no such possibility.

Therefore, Lin Xiao's busy work only truly moved a very small number of people.

Whether these people will truly be grateful to him remains to be seen.

The vast majority of other villagers, as well as the young and middle-aged villagers who returned after hearing about the development decisions of their hometown, were even less likely to be easily persuaded and co-opted, and obediently leave their homes to live in the town.

Regarding this kind of understanding.

Lin Xiao's first reaction to the bustling scene at the house selection site today was—something's wrong, there's a trap!

His prediction soon came true.

When the event was announced to begin, the project representative of Xincun Garden Phase II started introducing the features and highlights of the new houses. However, after only a few words, the villagers on site began to get impatient.

"This house is way too small!!"

"You think the quality is good just because you say so? I've heard that the houses in Phase 1 had really bad leaks!"

"Business people don't get up early for nothing. If there was no benefit for you, would you have taken on this project?"

"There's a subscription fee? Didn't you say it would be free for us?"

"Why would I bother coming all the way to your town if I need money? I could just go to the county seat!"

"I'm giving you my land back home for free, and you expect me to pay out of my own pocket to buy a house here? Do you think I'm an idiot?!"

"Now that the oranges in the village are selling so well and tourism is booming, and Xingguang Town is becoming more and more lively every day, why are they pushing us all to the town at this critical juncture? What are they up to?"

"Is there even a question? They're upset that we're in the village and preventing others from making money!"

"They drove us away, and now this huge land and orchard are being rented out or sold off. All the money they made ends up in the pockets of corrupt officials. What a cunning scheme!"

"I thought we finally had a good town mayor this time, but he's even more corrupt than the last one!"

"I knew it! How could a big-name celebrity mayor give up making big money on TV to come to this remote mountain village to do charity work? It's ridiculous!"

"That's really ruthless! They even covet the farmers' hard-earned money!!"

"Our ancestors have lived here for generations, and now I'm being driven away! Is there no justice?!"

"..."

One person took the lead, two others echoed, and in no time at all, they aroused immense anger on the spot.

The once orderly house selection site immediately became noisy and agitated.

This sudden turn of events left all the town officials responsible for on-site services completely bewildered, and even the village directors were caught off guard.

Only Lin Xiao stood by the side the whole time, coldly observing everything.

He had long anticipated that today would not go smoothly.

When I saw so many villagers come to show their support, I was a little confused. I had a feeling that they were planning something big.

Now, the true intentions have been revealed as soon as the house selection process begins.

Lin Xiao, on the contrary, breathed a sigh of relief.

Although the villagers were shouting and looking very excited, it was clear that those who were speaking were young people who were clear-headed, articulate, and even had loud voices.

This is unreasonable.

If the villagers are saying that merging villages and towns is not accepted, it is the elderly who are truly opposed to it.

They are the people with the most deeply ingrained concept of "being attached to one's homeland," preferring to suffer hardship and poverty rather than leave the home they depend on for survival.

As for young people, they have almost no attachment to their hometowns; they even spend money to buy houses in counties or cities.

Now, you can get a house in town for very little money.

Any normal person would think this deal is a great deal.

But now, those leading the shouting are not the elderly, but young people in their thirties and forties.

Lin Xiao spotted the key point in a second.

He wasn't angry; on the contrary, he felt fortunate and even a little excited.

"This is because someone with expertise is guiding us... Things are getting more and more interesting!" (End of Chapter)