Chapter 64 The Poor Little One Killed by His Uncle 20

Chapter 64 The Poor Little One Killed by His Uncle 20

This time they were going to eat from a collective big pot and all the food had to be handed over to the brigade headquarters. Some villagers who had accumulated large amounts of food disagreed.

The old village chief was unwilling too.

In the old village chief’s dream, this time he obeyed the commune’s order and summoned the villagers to hand over grain and vegetables so that everyone could eat together in a big pot.

However, on the first day of eating from the big pot, some villagers felt that since all the food had to be handed in together, they would be at a loss if they ate one bowl less than others.

So, no matter whether they could eat more or not, everyone ate in big bowls, and many people ate until they vomited.

Even in several villages near the Xiaxi Brigade, the villagers were like crazy, dumping large bags of grain onto the road and jumping and dancing on the grain, wasting a lot of food.

This also led to a major disaster in the following three years, with extreme food shortages and many people starving to death.

During the Great Steel Production Movement, everyone handed in all their cookware, and the big pot meals were disbanded within less than a year. The villagers went home to cook without iron pots, so they could only use clay pots to cook rice and stew vegetables.

At that time, you needed a ticket to buy a pot, but the villagers didn’t have the tickets, so for a long time they had no iron pots to use.

It was not until the ticket system was abolished that every household in the village was able to use iron pots again.

In the old village chief's dream, this big pot meal and the subsequent steel-making campaign were both a waste of food and money, and he did not agree with doing so.

The old village chief discussed it with the team leader, and finally the team paid for a large canteen to be built next to the team headquarters. They set up two large earthen stoves, bought two large pots, and had each family contribute ten kilograms of grain to the team headquarters, just to make it look like a formality in response to inspections from above.

When the Great Steel Production Campaign began and it was time to hand in the iron pots, the old village chief asked the villagers to hand in the broken iron pots that had been replaced at home, and the good ones were hidden in the cellar.

"Village chief, first the big pot meal, then the mass steelmaking, what's next?"

The old village chief patted his pipe and sighed as he reminded the villagers, "Don't keep too many chickens and pigs at home. Just three chickens and two pigs per family is enough. If you keep too many, it will be troublesome."

Upon hearing this, the villagers rushed back to kill the chickens.

These days, the whole Xiaxi Village is filled with the aroma of chicken.

Sure enough, a few days after the iron pot was handed over, the commune sent down another document, allowing each household to only raise three chickens and two pigs, and any more had to be handed over.

The villagers breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, they had killed the chickens earlier and sold the extra pigs to the brigade headquarters, which raised them collectively. Otherwise, they would have been taken advantage of by the people in the commune.

After that, no one from the commune came again, and the village returned to its ordinary life of working from sunrise to sunset.

In the middle of winter, the fields were frozen and there was no farm work to do, so the old village chief organized some villagers to cut willow branches, weave willow baskets, winnowing baskets and vegetable baskets to sell.

Another part of the villagers went to the mountains to collect mountain products. The sour hawthorns, jujubes and astringent fruits that the villagers looked down upon in previous years were not spared by the old village chief. He brought them all back and tried his best to accumulate more food for the village.

While other villagers were spending the winter leisurely, the villagers of Xiaxi Brigade were busy going up the mountains and down the rivers to get food.

It was not until the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, when everyone stopped all work.

This was the first year after collective production and the last year before the three-year drought. The old village chief made up his mind and organized the village butchers to kill ten big fat pigs so that everyone in the village could get five pounds of meat.

Families with large populations can get nearly 100 kilograms of meat.

Yuanchun also got five pounds of meat. She asked for two pounds of pork belly to make braised pork, and three pounds of pork tenderloin to make fried crispy pork.