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

Upon hearing this, the members of Qinghe Brigade around him became anxious, but due to the authority of the commune director, no one dared to utter a sound and could only look at Lin Weidong with longing.

Lin Weidong was wiping the oil stains off his hands with a rag that was covered in engine oil.

He raised his eyelids, and his deep, cold eyes swept over Director Wang as if he were looking at a dead man.

"This tractor is a designated support material directly sent by the Ministry of Heavy Industry to the Qinghe Brigade. It has military stamps on the body. Without an order from Beijing, no one can drive it away." Lin Weidong's voice was flat, yet it conveyed an undeniable firmness.

Director Wang felt humiliated when a former educated youth publicly contradicted him, and his face darkened.

"How dare you! You're just a sent-down youth, what do you know about the big picture? I'm the head of the commune, and I call the shots on this small plot of land! Men, get in the car and drive it away!"

Several commune cadres immediately rolled up their sleeves, preparing to forcibly get on the bus.

Lin Jianguo's face turned cold, and he grabbed a large car repair wrench from the side, ready to step forward and stop him.

Lin Weidong grabbed his cousin's shoulder, a mocking sneer curling at the corner of his mouth.

"Let him drive."

Lin Weidong not only made way for him, but even gestured for him to proceed.

The clerks climbed into the driver's seat triumphantly. However, no matter how they turned the key or pulled the cable, the Dongfanghong tractor seemed to be dead, not even making a muffled sound.

The officers were sweating profusely with anxiety. After fiddling around for a while, they jumped off the car in embarrassment.

"Director... this car seems to be broken; it won't start."

Director Wang pointed at Lin Weidong in a fit of rage: "Did you sabotage this vehicle? Damaging state-owned agricultural machinery! I can arrest you and parade you through the streets anytime!"

Lin Weidong sneered, took out a fist-sized metal part from his pocket, and weighed it in his hand.

That was the core valve of the high-pressure oil pump in the tractor engine. While wiping his hands, he removed this crucial component in less than ten seconds. This ability to disassemble engines blindfolded was a skill he honed in his recruit training at the armored division, honed by his company commander whipping him with a belt.

"The vehicle isn't broken. I was just worried that someone might not know how to drive it and end up driving this precious iron ox into a ditch, so I'm keeping the core components safe for the country."

Lin Weidong casually tossed the metal valve into a muddy ditch half a meter deep beside him.

With a splash, the part sank into the murky mud and disappeared instantly.

"You want a car? Fine. Go find it yourself. Once you find it, install it yourself, and you can drive it away." Lin Weidong looked down at Director Wang, his eyes filled with undisguised mockery and murderous intent.

Director Wang's face turned green as he stared at the muddy ditch filled with ice shards and cow dung. If he actually jumped in and touched it, how could he ever hold his head up in the commune again? But if he just left like that, he would completely lose face.

"You...you just wait! This is defying your superiors! This isn't over!"

Director Wang angrily pointed at Lin Weidong, flicked his sleeves, and led a few staff members to slink into the jeep and drive away in a flash.

Behind him, the members of Qinghe Brigade burst into a long-suppressed roar of laughter. Old Liu looked at Lin Weidong, gave him a big thumbs up, and his eyes were full of awe.

Lin Weidong did not laugh.

He turned his head, looked at the endless black expanse of earth, and then glanced at Lin Jianguo.

"Jianguo. In this muddy swamp, you can't survive by just working." Lin Weidong lowered his voice, his gaze becoming deep and cold. "We not only have to farm, but we also have to train these young men from Qinghe Brigade into a team capable of fighting tough battles. If anyone dares to steal our grain or our machinery, we must have the strength to smash their teeth."

From that day on, the atmosphere in Qinghe Brigade completely changed.

During the day, Lin Weidong and Lin Jianguo would drive tractors to plow the fields, and at night they would gather dozens of young and strong men from the village to conduct semi-military physical and combat training on the threshing ground.

Under the grueling training of these two battle-hardened armored soldiers, in just a few months, the peasants of the Qinghe Brigade were transformed into a fierce bandit with absolute discipline.

Autumn of that year arrived.

When the golden waves of wheat rolled in the wind on the saline-alkali land of Qinghe Brigade, the whole of northern Jiangsu was abuzz.

That was an unprecedented bumper harvest since the founding of Qinghe Brigade! The full ears of wheat bent the stalks, and the power of tractors and fertilizers was perfectly demonstrated in this autumn.

Office of the Ministry of Industry.

Lin Yang was sitting behind a large mahogany desk, reviewing the autumn grain summary reports from all over the country.

"Minister, a resounding victory!"

Zhao Lichun, dressed in a sharp Zhongshan suit, stood in front of his desk with great spirit, his tone revealing barely suppressed excitement.

"Our first batch of 12,000 tractors and hundreds of thousands of tons of fertilizer, which were forcibly deployed to rural areas, have completely revitalized more than a dozen extremely impoverished counties in Northwest, North, and Northern Jiangsu. According to preliminary statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, the autumn grain yield in these designated areas this year is 2.5 times higher than last year!"

Zhao Lichun pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, a sly glint of pleasure flashing in his eyes.

"Now, those radicals in the city have completely shut up. The people's granaries are full, their stomachs are full, who wants to listen to them shouting those empty slogans on the radio every day? The senior leaders in charge of the economy at the top have greatly admired your thunderous measures this time. The wind has now completely shifted to the track of 'restoring production and rectifying the economy'!"

Lin Yang put down the report in his hand, picked up his teacup, and gently blew on the floating tea leaves.

"That's the way things are. You can fool people with slogans for a while, but you can't fool the people's empty stomachs."

Lin Yang turned his gaze to the window. It was autumn, and the sky was high and azure.

1973 was a remarkable turning point. A great leader had begun a sweeping overhaul of the industry. The Ministry of Heavy Industry, under Lin Yang's control, was the most solid and irreplaceable ballast stone in this overhaul.

"Don't be blindly optimistic at the start of spring. Ensuring basic needs in agriculture is only the first step. The foundation of industry still requires more intense tempering."

Lin Yang stood up and walked to the huge map showing the distribution of industries across the country.

"Although steel mills and coal mines across the country have resumed production, their efficiency is too low. In many places, ore is still being transported manually by carrying it on shoulders and backs. This backward productivity simply cannot feed the large-scale machinery and equipment that are about to go into production."

Lin Yang turned around, a fervent industrial ambition igniting in his deep eyes.