Cannon Fodder Group Ch.239

Chapter 239 – Absurd Matters

The members of the Xu family naturally didn’t know that the reason why other villagers were able to contract and sign agreements so quickly was because of their family.

Two days later, when they found out that all the land, mountains, and ponds in the village had been contracted out, Xu Xiangdong secretly rejoiced for signing the contract early. If they had been a few days slower, they might not have been able to contract anything. If they had hesitated for a day or two, they might not have been able to contract the mountains and ponds they were satisfied with.

Xu Jinning felt somewhat amazed.

The villagers of Qinghe Production Brigade had actually contracted all the land, mountains, ponds, and so on.

In the original plot, the villagers were all adopting a wait-and-see attitude towards the new policy, so few were willing to contract in the first year. And no one wanted to contract for 20 years.

As a result, they all regretted it later.

Xu Jinning thought, this is change.

Everything is changing.

The Xu family is changing, and so are others.

This is good. If things had continued according to the original plot, that would have been the worst.

With change and development, we can look forward to a better future. This world is vibrant and full of life, not just rigid rules and regulations serving the protagonist.

As for everyone not having much hesitation and being willing to take on the contract, to be honest, even Captain Xu Changyi didn’t expect it.

This matter was promoted by him and the village officials, namely Cai Shumin’s father, Cai Yongjun.

When talking about this matter, Cai Yongjun said, “Our village’s villagers have a high level of ideological consciousness and trust in us.”

“You didn’t know, when the village committees from other villages went to the county for meetings, they were all saying that not many people in their village were willing to do contracting. They were worried.”

“I was thinking, once the land distribution to households was settled, we would then deal with contracting, but unexpectedly, the contracting issue was settled like this.”

“The next step should be distributing the land to households.”

Since ancient times, land has been the most important thing for farmers, so this matter is also very important.

These days, the village’s fields have been divided, based on the number of people listed in the household register.

Families with more people get more land.

This is also a bit fairer.

Otherwise, if it were divided evenly per household, families with more people would lose out. Families with fewer people might seem to benefit, but if you have more land than you can cultivate with fewer people, the land would be wasted.

So, it’s better to divide according to the number of people in the household register.

As for which piece of land you’ll get, it will be decided by drawing lots.

Wherever you draw, that’s where you’ll be, depending on your luck.

After all, even though it’s land from the same village, there are differences in fertility and slightly barren areas.

Also, the location matters.

If possible, everyone naturally wants fertile land close to their homes.

If every household wants this, how can we divide it?

So, drawing lots is fairer.

We’ll find another time to do the drawing.

As soon as this news came out, someone immediately had a question.

“If our family’s Shuanzi gets married now, gets registered, can we get an extra piece of land?”

“My daughter was supposed to get married the day after tomorrow, and her household registration would also move out. If that happens, our family will lose a piece of land, and the in-laws will gain one, won’t they? No, this won’t do. We have to postpone our daughter’s wedding.”

“Oh no, if that’s the case, I need to quickly arrange for my son to get married.”

“Jianjun, your son is only eight years old, still a child, and you’re already thinking about getting him married. Have you gone mad thinking about marrying off your son?”

“Besides, any family with a daughter with a bit of sense wouldn’t marry off their daughter at this time. Where will you find one?”

“Where will I find one? Is that your concern? If I can’t find one in the village, I’ll go to the mountains. There are plenty of mountain girls who want to come out. I’m giving them an opportunity.”

“…”

Soon enough, Xu Changyi and Cai Yongjun heard these rumors.

They even heard that some families, just to have an extra person on the household register and a chance for more land, were forcing their unwilling sons to marry a mentally challenged girl.

And some families with many daughters were openly putting a high price tag on their daughters, even the youngest ones.

Even more shocking was that some people were actually paying to get married just to get an extra piece of land later.

The most typical example of this was Wen Huihui’s parents.

Wen Huihui only found out about this when she returned to her parents’ home from the city.

Her parents, taking advantage of having several daughters, had long been planning to use their daughters’ bride prices to save money for their son’s future marriage.

Now that they finally had such an opportunity, they naturally put a price tag on their daughters, even the youngest one who was only five years old, they were thinking of selling her off.

When it came to land distribution, they also considered it, but unfortunately, the family was poor, and once they got the land, they still had to cultivate it.

So, selling off their daughters for some quick cash seemed like the better option.

When Wen Huihui learned about the implementation of the land distribution policy, she didn’t think much of it at first. But later, she faintly heard others discussing it.

That’s when she realized there was such a way.

And Wen Huihui felt that, given her parents’ personalities, they would definitely do such a thing.

In the past, Wen Huihui might not have cared so much. Whom her parents sold, which sister of hers they sold, didn’t concern her. She just wanted to live her own life well.

But now, Wen Huihui’s thoughts had changed.

She knew that if her sisters were sold off at a high price by her parents like that, they would definitely not have a good life in the future.

If possible, she wanted to help her sisters.

Just like she once hoped someone would help her.

So, Wen Huihui didn’t delay and immediately returned home.

It was fortunate she came back in time; otherwise, her second sister would have been sold by her parents for four hundred yuan.

She arrived just in time and stopped it.

She went to the village committee and informed them about her parents’ actions.

Immediately, her parents were criticized.

Although they insisted they weren’t selling but simply marrying off their daughter, Wen Huihui’s second sister, who kept crying and saying that she didn’t want to marry an old widower, had already explained everything.

…

Of course, it wasn’t just Wen Huihui’s parents who did this; similar incidents happened in nearby production brigades.

“No, this kind of forced marriages must not happen!” Xu Changyi exclaimed with a stern face.

Not only were there forced marriages, but some people also resorted to open bribery to expedite their household registration.

Some women even took induction drugs to give birth early just to get an extra piece of land. This resulted in some premature infants being weak or even dying.

“In that case, let’s issue another notice stating that although land distribution to households will follow the number of people registered, the deadline for registration is the day the land distribution policy was issued. Any registrations after that date will be invalid!”

“Hey, that’s a good idea.”

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