NOVPUB
Chapter 641: Chapter 631: The vigorous pioneering activities began
In the following days, Li Hongjun’s war buddies arrived one after another; even Chen Jing and his wife made their way over. They were welcomed just like Sun Dawei had been—treated to a meal at home before heading to the work site due to lack of space at the house, taking their belongings with them to live in the straw huts that Sun Dawei had constructed.
Including Chen Jing and his wife, sixteen people arrived in total. They thoughtfully allowed Chen Jing and his wife—who were the only couple—to occupy one of the straw huts by themselves, while the remaining fourteen men squeezed into the other three huts.
Meanwhile, the energetic land reclamation project at Shen Yunfang’s farm had begun.
Of course, after they arrived, Shen Yunfang found time to go over the compensations once again, so once the actual land reclamation began, they naturally divided into three groups. Each group consisted of five men, and Chen Jing’s wife was responsible for cooking three meals a day for them—a task assigned by Shen Yunfang.
Chen Jing, Zhang Weizhong, Zhao Erkui, Zhang Chunwang, and Liu Jianqiang formed the first group; Zhao Xuebing, Qian Yu, Li Zhongqi, Zheng Hao, and Liu Zhiyuan made up the second group; and Feng Guojun, Teng Yingda, Miao Shan, Li Dabao, and Zhang Hongwen were the third group of five.
Most of these men had once served under Li Hongjun, and for various reasons had been discharged to return home to farm or take other jobs. Over the years, though, their households had not prospered. They weren’t exactly living in poverty, but they were far from affluent.
When their former captain called them to help, they came without a second thought, lugging their bags. It was only upon arrival that they learned of the generous wages Shen Yunfang offered, which took them by surprise. Yet, they had all agreed that they would only send thirty yuan home each month to support their families. The rest, they could not accept and insisted it should be returned to Shen Yunfang.
Shen Yunfang had no idea they felt this way. If she did, she’d probably laugh herself awake—such employees are an employer’s dream.
Once these men were in position, the farm’s three tractors began to operate day and night. They were all skilled in operating tractors, so each group had one person driving the tractor and another standing on the large iron plough behind it. Once the rich black soil was turned over, the remaining three started to pick out the roots. If left unremoved, these roots would grow back and make weeding much more troublesome.
"Come on, time for a rest, time for water," Shen Yunfang called out as she brought cooled boiled water to the field’s edge and began to shout.
Every day after finishing morning chores at home, she would ride her bike to the site. Not only to supervise but also to lend a hand to Sister Chen, who was busy cooking for over ten workers. Shen Yunfang’s main duty, of course, was to bring rice and vegetables.
Soon, several men approached, "Sister, no need to busy yourself. Just leave it here, and we’ll drink when we’re thirsty." Living conditions here were quite difficult for the time being. There was no running water or electric bulbs, and currently, their water supply came from the river, fetched early in the morning by tractor.
"Alright, next time I’ll just leave it here, and you can drink when you’re thirsty," Shen Yunfang responded, standing beside a large basin filled with several damp towels. The young men came over, guzzling water and then picking a towel out of the basin to wring out and wipe their faces and necks.
In the blistering heat, they would become sweaty after a short time working, and wiping down with a cool towel offered some relief.
"It seems each group has managed to clear quite a bit," Shen Yunfang said, hands on her hips, looking over the fields.
Clearing land with tractors was indeed convenient. As long as there was enough diesel, they would work from the moment they woke up until it got dark and they could no longer see. They had turned over quite a bit of soil in the last few days, with the groups collectively clearing over a hundred mu. However, the subsequent work couldn’t keep pace with this progress.
Removing roots was a job no machine could do; it had to be done by hand, bending over to pick them out one by one. Therefore, if the tractors advanced too quickly, they would sometimes stop to allow all five men to clear the field together. After several days, the amount of completely cleared land amounted to nearly twenty to thirty mu.
"Picking up the roots is really tough; otherwise, we’d be able to clear a lot more in a day," said Zhao Erkui frankly.
"You definitely are, this is wasteland; if it doesn’t grow grass, what will it grow? You get called silly and you’re still happy about it," Liu Jianqiang gave Zhao Erkui’s butt a light kick from behind.
Shen Yunfang had gotten used to their way of interacting over the past few days; it wasn’t strange to her anymore.
"Sister-in-law, will we still have meat to eat today?" Miao Shan was the youngest and greediest of the bunch. Every time he saw sister-in-law, he would ask this because she would bring them a few pounds of meat every day.
"You youngster, is there anything other than food on your mind?" Feng Guojun shook his head; the kid was beyond hope.
"Hehe, I don’t have any other hobbies, just a craving for meat," Miao Shan didn’t care what others said, he was just happy to see sister-in-law nodding.
"Don’t worry, working with sister-in-law, you’ll definitely have your fill of meat," Shen Yunfang also liked this big boy quite a bit.
She usually brought a basket of vegetables every other day, and a piece of pork every day — about a day’s worth, since there wasn’t a fridge here and the meat would go bad if left out too long.
However, with these men around, those few pounds of meat didn’t stand a chance of being neglected.
"Yunfang, we don’t need to eat that well; as long as we’re full, it’s good enough," Chen Jing, who was among the eldest here and whose wife was in charge of cooking, had considerable influence in this small group.
"It’s fine, I haven’t brought much, and you’re all doing physical labor. How can you have the energy if you don’t eat well?" Shen Yunfang really believed that; as the old saying goes, if you want the horse to run, you have to make sure it’s well fed.
"You guys don’t need to worry about this, Sister Chen and I will manage. Chen Ge, I want to discuss something with you," Shen Yunfang said, thinking that, based on their progress, it was time to start the next step.
"What is it? Just tell me," Chen Jing indeed stopped nagging about the previous matter, and the others, hearing that sister-in-law had something to say, also gathered around to listen.
"I was thinking, although I’ve contracted all the land, it’s not very realistic to expect to clear all of it before July."
The others nodded along; there was so much land, and it was impossible to clear it all in a short time even if they worked themselves to death.
"So, I was thinking, could we start clearing land at the front and at the backside prepare the cleared land, plant something on it, to at least have a harvest this year? It’s almost June, and if we don’t plant something soon, it might be too late," Shen Yunfang shared her thoughts.
"Sure, there’s not much we can plant at this time of the year anyway. Let’s move quickly, and however much land we can prepare, we’ll plant. At least we’ll have something in the fall. Yunfang, have you decided what you’re going to plant?" Li Dabao asked.
Among these people, most were younger than Li Hongjun, so they called her sister-in-law, but there were also two older than Li Hongjun: one was Chen Jing, and the other was Li Dabao. Li Dabao simply called her Yunfang, following Chen Jing’s lead.
