Courtyard House: From Deputy Division Commander to Civilian, Progressing All the Way

Lin Yang stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked down at the masses of people in Beijing.

"The Spring Equinox is just the beginning of the real show. They used overt tactics to force me to compromise, so I'll use hard power to smash the foundation upon which they depend for survival. How's the fertilizer and agricultural machinery production lines at the Ministry of Heavy Industry progressing?"

"Three production lines have already been installed and debugged. They will be officially put into production next month."

The first batch of domestically produced heavy-duty tractors and high-efficiency fertilizers will be directly distributed to impoverished agricultural areas across the country. Zhao Lichun immediately reported this as a mistake.

"Very good." Lin Yang's eyes revealed boundless domineering power and control.

"Once these industrial products reach the countryside, those rebels who maintain their rule by shouting slogans and engaging in struggles will find that the people care more about whether they can have enough to eat than about their political struggles. The power of industry will ultimately destroy all political illusions."

Lin Yang turned his head to look southeast, which was the location of northern Jiangsu.

"As for Wei Dong and his group, they will learn something more important than driving tanks on that saline-alkali land. That is, how to carve out a bloody path for themselves with their own hands at the very bottom of this cruel society."

Outside the window, the evening breeze in Beijing was still chilly.

But the giant ship of Chinese industry and the unbridled growth of the Lin family's children at the bottom had already irreversibly begun to move forward.

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In November, the wind on the North Jiangsu Plain whips up like rusty saw blades, pulling and ripping at people's faces.

In early winter, the saline-alkali land of Qinghe Brigade develops a layer of white alkaline crust on its surface. Beneath this crust lies dead yellow mud, frozen as hard as stone. Without irrigation or chemical fertilizers, this land is like a dried-up corpse, devoid of life. No matter how much sweat people pour into irrigating it, the crops that grow are always sparse, withered, and shriveled.

At six o'clock in the morning, before dawn, a hazy mist enveloped the reed beds.

Lin Weidong and Lin Jianguo, dressed in coarse cotton-padded jackets covered in mud, had their knees submerged in the icy, bone-chilling ditch. Holding rusty shovels, they were digging a deep drainage ditch.

A thin layer of ice covered the water's surface. As they swung their shovels, shards of ice constantly struck their calves, cutting small, bloody gashes. Icy water mixed with mud and sand seeped into their straw sandals, and the biting cold shot from the soles of their feet straight to the top of their heads, as if freezing their very bones.

But the brothers' movements did not falter or deviate in the slightest.

Three years of grueling training in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps' Independent Armored Division had forged their bodies and wills into tireless war machines. Lin Weidong pursed his lips, his breathing steady and rhythmic. Each time his shovel cut into the frozen ground, it carried a fierce, explosive force, and he precisely tossed clumps of dead mud, each weighing over ten kilograms, onto the shore.

Three meters in front of him, Lin Jianguo, like a tireless robot, frantically loosened the hard subsoil with a pickaxe.

On the bank, a dozen or so strong laborers from the Qinghe Brigade were leaning on their hoes, panting heavily. They stared at the two "Beijing educated youth" in the ditch, who seemed to have gone mad, their eyes filled with a ghostly shock.

Old Liu, the brigade secretary, was wearing a tattered sheepskin coat with the cotton wadding showing. He squatted on the edge of the ditch, holding an empty tobacco pipe in his hand and puffing away.

"Where did these two young men come from?" an old commune member muttered in a low voice as he approached Old Liu. "They've been here in this poor place for over half a month, and they never complain. They work like their lives depend on it. Yesterday, carrying manure, that young Lin carried the equivalent of four people's loads all by himself. His shoulders were chafed and raw, but he didn't even flinch. These aren't city punks; they can work harder than the strongest ox in the team!"

Old Liu sighed and tapped the frozen, hard soles of his shoes with his pipe.

"What good is being capable?" Old Liu looked at the saline-alkali soil on the ground, his voice filled with deep despair. "This land is dead land. If the subsoil isn't turned up, the alkaline water won't drain away. Even if these two young men work themselves to death in the ditch with these few broken shovels, not a single good grain will grow next spring."

Old Liu stood up, walked to the edge of the ditch, and shouted down, "Weidong, Jianguo! Come up and rest for a while! Have some hot water! Don't catch a cold!"

Lin Weidong forcefully flung a shovelful of mud onto the bank, straightened up, and wiped the white sweat from his forehead with his mud-covered sleeve. He glanced at Lin Jianguo, and then the two of them strode across the slippery mud slope onto the bank.

Old Liu handed over a chipped, rough porcelain bowl filled with hot water from a large pot, with a few withered yellow thatch blades floating on the surface.

"Uncle, are we just going to dig these alkali ditches by hand?" Lin Weidong took the bowl without complaint, gulped down half a bowl of hot water, and sharply scanned the boundless wilderness.

"If not manpower, what can we rely on?" Old Liu gave a bitter laugh, his face crinkling with wrinkles. "Qinghe is a poor village. The county's agricultural machinery station only has three dilapidated Dongfanghong tractors, all of which are reserved for the wealthy communes to the south. As for fertilizer... that stuff is a precious commodity; a bag of urea can be exchanged for a pig! We can't even get enough to eat, how can we exchange it?"

Lin Jianguo, rubbing his frozen hands, asked with a puzzled expression, "Hasn't the country been promoting agricultural mechanization? I remember reading in the newspaper that the Luoyang Tractor Factory produces quite a lot every year."

"The output is considerable, but it doesn't reach us poor people." Old Liu shook his head, a hint of helplessness and indignation flashing in his eyes. "The allocation quotas from above are deducted layer by layer. Those cadres wearing red armbands spend all day shouting slogans and engaging in struggle sessions at meetings, but they don't do anything practical. Even if a tractor is allocated, they take it to do private work for their cronies. The poor people who really need to till the land and survive have no choice but to dig mud with their own hands."

Lin Weidong tightened his grip on the rough porcelain bowl slightly, causing his knuckles to turn bluish-white.

He stood in the cold wind, his deep, cold eyes piercing through the mist, as if looking towards the distant city of Beijing.

In the army on the frontier, he learned how to destroy the enemy's steel armor with a 100mm rifled cannon; and in this barren, muddy land of northern Jiangsu, he finally saw clearly the wounds and pain of the country's lowest level.

Without industry supporting agriculture, without machinery and fertilizers, the farmers' blood and sweat could never fill this desolate saline-alkali land.

"Uncle, don't worry." Lin Weidong handed the rough porcelain bowl back to Old Liu, his voice as steady as an unshakeable mountain. "It won't be long before Iron Ox comes and turns this land over."

After saying that, Lin Weidong turned around, grabbed a shovel, and jumped into the icy, muddy ditch without hesitation.