Chapter 220 - Son-in-law and Father-in-law

“Xiao Xi can marry Er Yin. Don’t let the fertile water flow into others’ fields. Besides, she’s still young, so there’s no hurry,” Fu Bu’er said with confidence. “Marrying Er Yin will save a sum of betrothal money, and she’s bound to be a capable person in the future. As for Yijin, I think that boy Xiao Fu is not bad. He’s sure to have a bright future. If we become relatives now, we won’t lose out in the future.”

The couple discussed it for half the night before falling asleep. The next day, Fu Fu got up early, shouldered a hoe, and went to the fields with everyone else. The attitude of Fu Bu’er and his wife at the banquet yesterday had given him hope about getting married. Although he no longer had any connection to the Fu family, it was very likely that he would become their son-in-law in the future. Of course, Fu Fu had to put in his best effort.

Although Fu Bu’er was a bit of a pushover in daily life, he was a good worker. Before going out, he assigned tasks to everyone, each with a specific job: digging ditches, threshing grain, composting, building pigsties, herding sheep, tending the garden… everything was in order.

Although the Fu Bu’er family had a relatively large number of hands, they also had a lot of land and were engaged in sideline businesses. Their labor force was not abundant. Recently, the wages for short-term and long-term laborers had skyrocketed, and it was difficult to find people, so he had hired fewer people. Fu Bu’er was inspired by the threshing machine and winnowing fan he had bought from the Heaven and Earth Society, which greatly improved production efficiency. Since using human labor was not economical, he would use more machines. During the autumn harvest, he took out a bank loan to buy another ox and a small tractor-drawn harvester and seeder from the Heaven and Earth Society’s store. Two oxen pulling agricultural machinery for mechanized operations allowed the Fu Bu’er family to be the first to complete the harvest and sowing.

While other farmers were still busy threshing grain and planting green manure and winter wheat, the Fu Bu’er family had already started on irrigation, composting, and sideline businesses.

Fu Bu’er also wanted to win over Fu Fu, so he worked with him to dig ditches. The irrigation system in Meiyang Village had been built not long ago, and the standards were not as high as those on the farms directly under the Ministry of Agriculture. The facilities were much more primitive, and the ditches had not yet been hardened. After a summer of use, especially after the rainy season, the ditches were heavily silted. The main and branch canals were cleared by the village, but the silt in the irrigation and drainage ditches was cleared by each family according to the principle of “he who benefits, maintains.” This not only maintained the irrigation facilities but also used the silt from the ditches as a raw material for composting.

The black, smelly silt was shoveled out spade by spade and thrown into baskets on the bank. From time to time, live loaches could be dug out from the silt. Whenever this happened, Fu Fu would grab the loach by the gills, string it on a willow branch, and hang it aside. Loaches that had been chopped into several pieces were also picked up and thrown into a small basket—they would be eaten back home. In the past, this was a rare opportunity for them to have a good meal. Even now, he had not changed this habit.

Fu Fu was only wearing a small homespun cloth jacket. The army issued a cotton underwear in winter, but Fu Fu was reluctant to wear it. Around his neck hung a standard army towel with the words “Defend the Home and Protect the Country.” The sweat on his dark muscles glistened in the sun. Fu Bu’er thought that giving his daughter to him would definitely not be a loss—where could he find such a good laborer? Seeing him pause for a moment to catch his breath, he smiled and handed Fu Fu a bamboo water bottle.

Fu Fu took a big gulp of water and wiped his sweat with the towel. He let out a satisfied breath. Farm work gave him a sense of exhilarating joy. Fu Bu’er said, “Let’s rest for a while! This ditch is long, we can’t finish it in one go!”

Fu Fu wiped his mouth, returned to the bank of the ditch, wiped his muddy feet on the dry grass, and sat down with a plop.

“Master, the family has added a lot of land.”

“Yes, yes, it’s all thanks to the Chiefs. We’ve added a lot of land, but a large part of it is public land, which Chief Wu has leased to me to cultivate. The harvest is divided. If the harvest is good, they also get a larger share.” As Fu Bu’er spoke, he took out a cigarette. Fu Fu took out a pack of matches from his pocket and lit it for him.

Fu Bu’er squinted his eyes happily and blew out a smoke ring. “Chief Wan from the Heaven and Earth Society is a magical person. He has so many tricks for farming. All the farmers here combined can’t even compare to one of his toes.” He praised Wanli Hui, but in his heart, he was proud of his own foresight. If he hadn’t been the first to join the Heaven and Earth Society, how could he have such a situation today? Fu Bu’er saw it clearly: the Australians liked to set up “models.” If you were the first to jump out and support what they were doing, you would always get great benefits. Those who followed later would be far behind.

“It’s all because of your foresight, Master Fu,” Fu Fu complimented.

This scratched Fu Bu’er’s itch, and he grinned from ear to ear. He pointed around:

“Look at this land, east to the hill, west to the small woods, north to that ditch…” He showed off his property.

“How did the master’s land become so neat? Is it all newly bought?” Fu Fu suddenly noticed something. “Wasn’t the land to the west originally wasteland?”

“But this whole piece is my own. I sold all my scattered plots of land and used the money to buy land around this piece. I tried to consolidate all the land into one large block, and I also bought some wasteland next to this piece and reclaimed it all into one…”

“Reclaiming wasteland?” Fu Fu was a little surprised. This piece of land was originally the largest piece of land in the Fu family, and it had been reclaimed bit by bit by Fu Bu’er and his family. Reclaiming wasteland was not easy. It not only consumed a lot of labor, but wasteland also required a lot of fertilizer. Without fertilizer, the reclaimed land would not have much of a harvest.

“The Heaven and Earth Society has a land reclamation team. They have special large machines, pulled by a dozen oxen. They can reclaim and level the land in three or four days. The fertilizer is also supplied by the Heaven and Earth Society, all delivered in bags…” Thinking of this, Fu Bu’er became a little worried about his loan. Hiring the Heaven and Earth Society’s machine plowing team and the fertilizer were all paid for with a bank loan.

Fu Fu had seen this kind of machine during his agricultural support work. It was all made of iron, and its size was astonishing. By changing different parts, it could be used for various farm work: plowing, harrowing, tilling, sowing, harvesting… it was almost omnipotent. The only thing was that the plot of land had to be large enough to use it—so far, it was only used on the Chiefs’ own farms. Among the local natives, even large landlords rarely had such large, contiguous plots of land.

He didn’t expect Master Fu to have acquired such a large piece of land! Fu Fu thought, needless to say, the master wants to use more of the Australian’s large farm tools in the future—saving labor and effort.

“The master wants to use more Australian machines in the future, right?”

“Chief Wan said that machine work is the future. Human labor is too slow,” Fu Bu’er said. “He called it… efficiency? Yes, efficiency. He said our efficiency here is too low.”

Fu Bu’er’s practice of consolidating scattered plots into one was not initially for the purpose of using machinery, but was inspired by a chat with Wanli Hui—he had been enlightened many times in his chats with the Chiefs. Facts had proven that the Chiefs were always far-sighted.

Wanli Hui had talked about labor efficiency in their chat. He believed that the current labor efficiency in East Village was not as good as in West Village. Because the land of the new immigrants in West Village was uniformly distributed, each household’s land was together. Few of the farmers in East Village had their land together; many families had plots scattered here and there. Whether they were independent farmers, landlords, tenants, or long-term or short-term laborers, they spent a lot of time traveling between the fields every day, which was a huge waste when accumulated.

Large-scale, concentrated farming also had many other benefits. For example, it was easy to arrange the layout of irrigation systems. Fragmented small plots of land involved the specific interests of each household, making it difficult to form a village-wide consensus. The fact that Meiyang Village was able to complete its infrastructure was largely due to Fu Bu’er’s rapid rise as a role model—everyone believed in the Heaven and Earth Society, which allowed the irrigation project to proceed relatively smoothly.

“The Chiefs like everything big, no matter what it is!” Fu Fu said with a smile, and Fu Bu’er also smiled.

Fu Bu’er took a few puffs of his cigarette before slowly saying, “Xiao Fu, you’ve been in my family for over ten years. Although you’re not my son, I’ve still raised you for over ten years.” He took a puff of his cigarette, as if considering how to say the next words. “I understand what’s on your mind.”

Fu Fu’s face turned red. “It’s good that you understand, Master Fu.”

“I agree to this matter,” he said, stopping the overjoyed Fu Fu. “Yijin can be betrothed to you, but you’re still a soldier, so you can’t get married yet. You live in the barracks, have to drill every day, and might have to go to war. Yijin is a girl, she can’t follow you to the barracks.”

“Yes. I was also thinking about when I could be discharged…”

“What for?!” Fu Bu’er quickly interrupted him. “What would you do after being discharged? Become a farmer? You’re doing well in the army, you should have some ambition…”

Fu Fu was not stupid and quickly understood that Fu Bu’er wanted him to become an officer before he could get married. He immediately said, “Master Fu, you can rest assured about this. I’m going to the training corps after the New Year to become a sergeant. I’ve seen those officers, they’ve only fought a few battles with the Chiefs. After another battle, I’ll be an officer too.”

Fu Bu’er was very satisfied with his attitude and put on the airs of an elder. “You’re still young. Yijin is not old either. Wait a few years, and get married when you have a rank on your shoulder. Won’t that be more respectable than now?”

“You’re right, Master.” These words stirred Fu Fu’s ambition to achieve success. He nodded. “I will definitely become an officer and then come back to marry Yijin in style!”

“Don’t worry. When you get married, I won’t treat you badly,” Fu Bu’er said.

“Thank you, Father…”

“Hehehe,” Fu Bu’er laughed proudly. “It’s a bit early to call me Father. You can call me that at home, but don’t get it mixed up outside…” He waved his hand. “Let’s get back to work.”