The golden age began in 1977

Chapter 19: I'll give you credit

This Dongfanghong-75 is an old revolutionary.

The paint was peeling off and was more mottled than the slogans on the commune's propaganda board.

The tracks were as rusty as the bottom of a big pot in the cafeteria, with old straw mud embedded in the cracks. Two coughs could shake off two pounds of dirt.

Lao Zhao said, "It drives fine. It just had a checkup in the fall and had the cylinder head gasket replaced. It drives like a donkey, and it's as powerful as a donkey."

"If we weren't short of drivers, I would have gone to the countryside long ago to help with our socialist autumn harvest..."

Xu Weidong climbed up on the tracks.

A middle-aged man wearing a liberation cap pulled him and said, "Hey, hey, hey, comrade, what are you doing? Can you get on the kang just like that?"

Liu Youyu introduced Qian Jin and the other two to each other: "This is Captain Luan from the Hongxing Maotoudu Production Team of our commune."

Captain Luan brought three people to the agricultural machinery station, and they were obviously here for the tractor.

The three people wore red armbands like Qian Jin.

But it is not a "labor assault team", but a "worker-peasant mutual aid team".

The armbands are equally red, but their status is different.

The labor assault team is composed of unemployed youth, and the worker-peasant mutual aid team is composed of workers.

Among the three, there was a fat young man who puffed out his chest. On the chest of his blue work clothes were the words "State-owned Haibin No. 7 Rubber Factory":
"Who are you? How dare you snatch things from us, the Seven Glues?"

Another young man with the 'Yellow Sea Pioneer' badge on his chest sneered:
"Labor Commando? Which street are these vagrants from?"

Upon hearing this, Qian Jin didn't care, but Xu Weidong exploded on the spot.

As the saying goes, lies cannot hurt people, the truth is the sharpest knife.

What is blind flow?

In 1953, the state issued an "Instruction to Prevent Farmers from Blindly Flowing into Cities", which gave rise to this name.

The situation of the members of the labor assault teams in each street is complicated, but most of them are educated youth who have returned to the city and have no family to accept their household registration or unit to accept them for work.

Some city dwellers looked down on them and called them "blind migrants" in a contemptuous manner.

If the commandos encountered this name on the street, they would definitely fight.

Now Xu Weidong is about to start the fight.

His face changed and he rushed forward with a pair of 36D fists.

The force was so strong that it flushed away all of Lao Zhao's cigarette butts:

"Stop it right there! This is outrageous! If anyone starts this, I'll call the Youth League Office right away!"

Captain Luan and Accountant Liu quickly stopped both parties.

Old Zhao picked up the cigarette butt and said, "Old rules, the first one to arrive can't leave, and the last one to arrive can only leave!"

The first ones to arrive were complaining: "What kind of junk do you have here? Don't you have Iron Ox-55, Harvest-35, or Worker-Nong-12?"

Old Zhao waved his hand to drive them away.

The fat young man quickly instructed his fellow workers to start working: "Look for it quickly, there is a handle. Use the pressure reducing handle to reduce the resistance when starting the engine."

"I have a crank here..."

After hearing this, Lao Zhao grabbed the crank and said, "You don't know how to drive!"

He also looked at Qian Jin and the other man with a bad expression.

Qian Jin was embarrassed.

He wouldn't start the car either.

Driving is no problem, as he has driven crawler bulldozers, which require more complicated driving techniques.

Xu Weidong climbed onto the car regardless, his work clothes shiny with oil stains.

Captain Luan was about to question again.

He interrupted and said without hesitation: "This car is my wife now, I can get on it whenever I want!"

As he said this, he deliberately pushed the operating lever, making a clanging sound.

"Three newbies still want to fuck Old B!"

"This is the old Dongfanghong. You have to use the rope to pull the auxiliary engine on the car first. After the small motor starts the car, you can shift gears and start the main engine!"

After walking around the car for a while, he quickly found the rope and started the small gasoline engine.

There is a clutch on the side. Xu Weidong closes the clutch and the power is transmitted to the diesel engine.

Suddenly, there was a deafening roar and black smoke billowed!
The main engine was running normally and he pulled the clutch back.

Suddenly the small engine was separated from the diesel power, and when he sent the carburetor to its death, the small engine died.

This combo of moves dazzled Qian Jin.

Old Zhao nodded in agreement.

Xu Weidong shook his head handsomely and greeted: "Old Qian, it's your turn!"

Qian Jin hesitated: "That's not good, this is my sister-in-law!"

Liu Youyu had already climbed up excitedly.

He wiped the two operating levers with his sleeves, as gently as if he were wiping a woman's face:

"Yesterday, the kids in the team helped transport corn, and their hands were covered in blisters."

"That's great! With this, the autumn grain can be stored in the warehouse at least two days earlier!"

Captain Luan, who was sitting under the car, had a long face.

He didn't dare to offend the workers-peasants mutual aid team of the rubber factory, so he could only sulk on his own.

The three young workers were embarrassed.

The fat young man said, "That was the startup method of New Dongfanghong. I didn't expect that this shabby place is still the old Dongfanghong from the 1950s..."

Xu Weidong successfully started the tractor, but he didn't have much driving experience.

Tracked vehicles are different from wheeled vehicles. They do not use steering wheels and rely entirely on joysticks to control forward, backward and turning.

Qian Jin naturally took the driver's seat.

Similar to a bulldozer, sit firmly and slowly release the clutch pedal, while lightly pressing the accelerator pedal and shifting into neutral, and the tractor will start smoothly.

Three members of the Workers-Peasants Mutual Aid Team coughed in the thick smoke.

I can't get used to smoking this.

Liu Youyu gave the directions. Qian Jin, sitting in the driver's seat, gripped the joystick tightly, his palms sweaty and cold in the autumn breeze.

When the tractor drove onto the farmland path of the Red Star Liujia Production Team, the members who were craning their necks to look out cheered, "Hey, hey, hey! Here comes the Iron Ox!"

Upon hearing this, the children who had nothing to do ran over to see, and some of them jumped directly from the fields to the front of the car.

The accident came so suddenly!
Liu Youyu was panicked.

Qian Jin remained calm: Look at my magic move!
The left track slowed down and the right track accelerated, and the tractor successfully pushed its head into the roadside ditch.

The corn stalks at the edge of the field are lying flat on the ground.

This scared the members who were watching in the fields.

Liu Wangcai was jumping up and down in the distance, yelling, "Whose kid is this? Catch him now! Hang him up and beat him!"

The children, who were originally in high spirits, ran away or cried when they saw that they were in trouble.

When they were caught by the adults and beaten together, they all cried together.

Qian Jin slowly reversed the tractor and drove it back onto the path.

He shouted to the people who gathered around him, "Stop beating the kids. It's none of their business."

"You call it the Iron Ox, don't you? Oxen love to eat crops. Seeing that we have good crops, it disobeyed us and went out to look for food on its own."

Xu Weidong tried to smooth things over:
"This Iron Ox isn't very conscious. I think he's upset that we three didn't treat him well enough on the road, so he's looking for some snacks himself!"

As he said this, he pulled up his pants that had fallen off in fear, picked up a corn, and pretended to stuff it into the exhaust pipe.

Qian Jin breathed a sigh of relief: "Don't mess around with your waistband - I thought you were going to take off your pants and offer your cow to feed it."

After saying this, the atmosphere became relaxed and everyone burst into laughter.

When the tractor came back, diesel was immediately added for use.

The production team had a wooden cart.

This vehicle has four rubber wheels and a flat carriage. Long wooden logs are tied to it horizontally and vertically so that it can carry a lot of straw.

After hanging up the cart, the members piled up the bundles of corn stalks, making the stacks long, wide and tall.

As usual, Xu Weidong started the car and Qian Jin drove.

They looked through the rearview mirror and saw black smoke billowing from the hills of corn stalks, like a moving volcano of firewood.

An elderly person was worried and shouted:

"Comrade, this iron ox consumes diesel and spews out the hope of our team. Drive it steadily, and the harvest of our team members is in your hands."

Qian Jin made an OJBK gesture.

High spirits.

Driving a tractor is very impressive.

Men have to drive tractors.

Sweat the most and drive the wildest car.

When the cadres of the neighboring production team learned that they had driven the Dongfanghong-75, they came over overnight to borrow people and vehicles.

Their production team had a poor geographical location, with the terrain being very bumpy on the small hills by the sea, with many ups and downs.

It is very difficult to push grain and corn stalks with a wheelbarrow. It is easy to drag people down when going downhill, and it is very tiring to go uphill.

The next day, Qian Jin and Xu Weidong drove to the next production team and helped haul corn for half a day.

The production team cadre shook the two men's hands and thanked them repeatedly: "You have helped us a lot. You have helped us a lot."

"You are all educated youth sent to the countryside. You are different from those assigned to my team. They worked for a day, one got a headache, the other got diarrhea, and they all ran away!"

"We must commend you! We must commend our comrades in the team, and we must commend you at the commune, at the Youth League Office, and even in the city!"

The news that the Hongxing Liu family had a tractor spread, and then other production teams came to them asking for help.

Even Team Leader Luan from the Maotoudu Production Team came...

After three and a half days of hard work by both people and vehicles, the cornfield was cleared.

The golden fertile fields turned into gray land.

Liu Wangcai finally squatted on the edge of the field, looking at the land while blowing smoke rings and sighing:

"That's all right, let the storm come, we are not afraid of it!"

The weather forecast is fine.

The typhoon that hit early autumn this year was very strong and has moved northwards into the peninsula area.

The sky is filled with strange dark clouds.

Liu Youyu came and called him: "Captain, go back. It might rain tonight."

"I've discussed with Commando Captain Zhou that we'll have dinner early tonight. They want to make the night journey home to avoid being stopped in our group by the storm."

Liu Wangcai nodded: "Okay, tell the family to quickly prepare some wine and good food."

"Also, Comrade Qian Jin has been very helpful to us. Have you informed all the members?"

Liu Youyu said: "We privately informed every household that if anyone has old items and wants to exchange them for something good, we asked them to raise money..."

"Don't rush to go. Wait until the other members of the commando team have left. I'll leave some extra money for a day or two, and then you can go find him." Liu Wangcai became more cautious.

Liu Youyu said, "Is it okay?"

"Other city dwellers have been exchanging food coupons with our members for things these past two or three days. They're exchanging food coupons for dried fish and shrimp, and spending money on eggs."

"Isn't this what all agricultural support teams do when they go to the countryside?"

Liu Wangcai took a puff of his cigarette and shook his head: "Comrade Qian's situation is different. He wants old things."

After puffing out a puff of smoke, the old captain's face became a little blurry: "How can old things be the same as other things?"

That night we had another feast of fish and meat.

After dinner, Zhou Yaozu and others packed up the grain and agricultural and sideline products they had exchanged with the members over the past two or three days and returned.

Liu Wangcai left Qian Jin and Xu Weidong behind.

Among them, Xu Weidong was drunk and fell asleep on the bed in the wing room of Liu Wangcai's house, while Qian Jin stayed in the warehouse alone.

The warehouse is now full of corn cobs and does not feel empty at all.

Then that night a woman came in and reached into her bosom and took something out: "Leader Qian, look at this..."

(End of this chapter)