Chapter 762 – Son-in-Law and Father-in-Law

"Little Xi can marry Er Yin just fine. Keep the good water in the family field—besides, she's still young, no rush." Fu Bu'er spoke with confidence. "Marrying her to Er Yin saves us the bride-price, and she's bound to be capable. As for Yijin, I think Xiao Fu is a fine lad. He'll surely make something of himself. If we make this match now, we won't lose out later."

Husband and wife schemed half the night before finally sleeping. The next morning Fu Fu rose early, shouldered a hoe, and went to the fields with everyone else. The attitude Fu Bu'er and his wife had shown at dinner made him think marriage might be within reach. Though he technically had no ties to the Fu household anymore, they might soon be son-in-law and father-in-law. Naturally, Fu Fu meant to make a good impression.

Fu Bu'er might seem hapless in other matters, but he was a capable hand at farm work. Before they set out, he assigned each person a specific task: digging ditches, threshing, collecting manure, mucking out the pigsty, grazing sheep, tending the vegetable plot—everything orderly and efficient.

The Fu household had more hands than most, but also more land and sidelines. Labor was not in surplus. With wages for short- and long-term workers spiking, help was hard to find; he could hire fewer people than before. Fu Bu'er had learned from the threshing machine and winnowing fan the Tiandihui sold him—equipment that greatly boosted efficiency—that if human labor was uneconomical, machines were the answer. At autumn harvest he had used a bank loan to add an ox and bought a small traction harvester and seed drill from the Tiandihui shop, products of the Agricultural Implements Factory. Two oxen pulling mechanized equipment allowed the Fu household to finish harvesting and planting ahead of everyone else.

While other farmers were still busy threshing and sowing green manure and winter wheat, the Fu household had already moved on to irrigation maintenance, manure collection, and sideline work.

Fu Bu'er was also intent on cultivating Fu Fu. They worked together clearing ditches. Meiyang Village's irrigation system was newly built and not to the high-investment, high-standard specifications of the Agricultural Division's own farms. The facilities were more primitive. The channels had not yet been hardened, and after a summer's use—especially after the rains—they had silted up badly. The main and branch canals were cleared by village work crews; according to the principle of "whoever benefits, maintains," each household was responsible for clearing its own field ditches. This kept the system in shape and provided silt for composting.

Black, stinking muck was shoveled out and tossed into baskets on the bank. From time to time a wriggling loach emerged from the mud. Whenever that happened, Fu Fu pinched the fish by the gills, threaded a willow twig through, and hung it aside. Even loaches that the spade had chopped into pieces were picked up and tossed into a small basket—edible all the same. In the old days, such finds had been a rare treat. Even now Fu Fu hadn't broken the habit.

Fu Fu wore only a homespun button-front jacket—the army issued a cotton undershirt for winter, but he was reluctant to wear it—and had an army-standard towel printed with "Defend Home and Country" draped around his neck. Sweat gleamed on his bronze muscles in the sunlight. Fu Bu'er watched him work and thought: Give my daughter to him and I certainly won't lose out—where else would I find such a good worker? Seeing Fu Fu pause for breath, he smiled and handed over a bamboo water jug.

Fu Fu took a long drink and wiped the sweat with his towel. He exhaled contentedly. There was a cathartic joy in farm work. Fu Bu'er said, "Take a break! This ditch goes on forever. You can't finish in one go!"

Fu Fu wiped his lips, climbed back onto the ditch bank, scraped his mud-caked feet on the dead grass, and sat down.

"Master, the family's land has grown a lot."

"Yes, yes—blessings of the leadership. The acreage is up, though a good share is public land that Manager Wu lets me sharecrop. The yield gets split; the better the harvest, the more they take." Fu Bu'er pulled out a cigarette. Fu Fu fished a pack of matches from his trouser pocket and lit it for him.

Fu Bu'er exhaled a smoke ring, eyes narrowing happily. "Manager Wan from the Tiandihui—he's a marvel. The farming tricks he knows—all the farmers here put together wouldn't match his little toe." His praise of Wan Lihui was really self-congratulation over his own foresight. If he hadn't joined the Tiandihui early, how could he have reached this position? Fu Bu'er saw clearly: the Australians liked to set up "model figures." Be the first to jump in and back their initiatives, and the benefits were immense; late adopters got far less.

"It's Master Fu's foresight that made it happen," Fu Fu said, offering flattery.

That hit the sweet spot. Fu Bu'er grinned. Pointing around, he said: "See this land? East to that mound, west to the little woods, north to that ditch…" He was showing off his holdings.

"How did Master's land get so… consolidated? All newly bought?" Fu Fu noticed something. "Wasn't that western patch wasteland before?"

"This whole stretch is mine. I sold off the scattered plots I used to have and used the money to buy land around this parcel, piecing it together. I also bought some adjoining wasteland and cleared it, so now it's all in one block…"

"Cleared wasteland?" Fu Fu was surprised. This field had been the Fu family's largest; Fu Bu'er and his household had originally expanded it bit by bit through land-clearing. Clearing was no easy task—it consumed enormous labor, and newly cleared land demanded heavy fertilizing. Without fertilizer, yields would be pitiful.

"The Tiandihui has a land-clearing crew. They've got special big machines—a dozen oxen pull them. Three or four days and the land's cleared and leveled. Fertilizers come from the Tiandihui too, delivered in sacks…" At this, Fu Bu'er grew a little worried about his loan—the mechanized plowing and the fertilizers had both been financed.

Fu Fu had seen such machines during his agricultural-support missions. Made entirely of iron, enormous in scale, they could be fitted with different attachments for all kinds of farm work: plowing, harrowing, tilling, seeding, harvesting—practically omnipotent. But they required big enough fields to operate—so far they were used only on the leadership's own estates. Even local big landowners rarely had contiguous holdings of that size.

To think Master Fu has assembled such a block! Fu Fu mused. He must be planning to use Australian heavy equipment going forward—save labor and effort.

"Master's planning to rely more on Australian machines in the future?"

"Manager Wan says machines are the way forward; human labor is too slow." Fu Bu'er said, "Something called… efficiency? Right, efficiency. He says our efficiency here is too low."

Fu Bu'er's strategy of consolidating scattered plots hadn't originally been about mechanization; he had picked it up from chats with Wan Lihui—he had drawn insights from conversations with leadership many times. Experience proved the leadership was always far-sighted.

Wan Lihui had talked about labor efficiency. He observed that East Village's efficiency lagged West Village's. West Village settlers had been given consolidated allotments; each household's land was in one place. East Village farmers rarely had contiguous land—fields were scattered here and there. Whether owner-farmers, landlords, tenants, or hired hands, people spent considerable time just commuting between plots. The cumulative waste was significant.

Large-scale consolidated farming offered other advantages too—for instance, irrigation works were far easier to plan. Fragmented small plots touched on every household's interests, making consensus almost impossible. Meiyang Village's infrastructure had gone relatively smoothly in large part because Fu Bu'er's rapid rise served as an example. Only because everyone trusted the Tiandihui's guidance had the irrigation system advanced as it did.

"The leadership likes everything big!" Fu Fu said with a laugh. Fu Bu'er laughed too.

Fu Bu'er took a few more puffs on his cigarette and then said slowly, "Xiao Fu, you've been in this household for over ten years. You're not my son, but I did raise you all those years." He took another drag, as if weighing how to continue. "I understand what's on your mind."

Fu Fu's face reddened. "It's good that Master understands."

"I approve of this." He stopped Fu Fu from showing his delight too soon. "Yijin can be promised to you—but you're still in the army; you can't marry yet. You live in barracks, you drill every day, and you might be sent off to battle again. Yijin is a young woman; she can't follow you to camp."

"Yes. I've been thinking about when I can muster out…"

"Muster out? What for?" Fu Bu'er quickly cut him off. "Come back and do what—be a common peasant? You're doing well in the army. Have some ambition…"

Fu Fu was no fool. He soon grasped that Fu Bu'er wanted him to become an officer before they could marry. "Master, don't worry. After New Year I'm going into the training cadre—I'll be a sergeant. The officers I've seen were just men who followed the leadership into a few fights. After another battle, I'll be an officer too."

Fu Bu'er was pleased by his attitude and assumed a fatherly air. "You're young. Yijin isn't old either. Wait a few years. Marry when you've got insignia on your shoulders—won't that be more respectable than now?"

"Master is right." These words kindled Fu Fu's ambition. He nodded. "I'll definitely become an officer and then come back to marry Yijin in grand style!"

"Don't worry. When you two marry, I won't shortchange you," Fu Bu'er said.

"Thank you, Fath—"

"Heh heh heh." Fu Bu'er laughed smugly. "A bit early for 'Father.' Feel free to use it at home, but don't go blurting it out in public…" He waved a hand. "Back to work."

(End of Chapter)