Song Weiyang lived in the village for six days, and chatted with the elderly and children without any trouble, which finally attracted the attention of the village party secretary.

The village party secretary's surname is Liu. If he talks about relatives around the bush, he is still Hong Weiguo's distant cousin.

Seeing the setting sunset, Song Weiyang helped a deaf old man home, and was about to stroll to Uncle Hong Si’s house to have a meal. Secretary Liu suddenly appeared and stood behind him and said, "Xiao Song, are you a secret interview cadre from the province?"

Song Weiyang said with a funny look: "Why do you think I am a secret interview cadre?"

"I talk to the village every day, either a cadre or a reporter." Secretary Liu said.

Song Weiyang asked: "Aren't you afraid?"

"I didn't do anything wrong, what am I afraid of?" Secretary Liu slowly took out his cigarette puff.

"Get this," Song Weiyang handed over a Hongtashan branch, "I calculated that the withdrawal of funds in the village last year exceeded 20% of farmers' income. The central document clearly stipulates that the withdrawal of funds shall not exceed 5%. You are blatantly breaking the law!"

Secretary Liu was not afraid at all. He drew matches and lit cigarettes, sucked the clouds and said, "Then you go to the Fangyuan township to inquire. The withdrawal funds from our Baimiao Village are not the least collected, but at least they are the top three. If there is a task in the village, can I still fight against the village? I must have eaten the kickbacks, but that's a big deal. At most, I can get some cigarettes and alcohol. If you are an undercover cadre, then arrest me. If you are an undercover reporter, I advise you to go to Shengli Village in the next township, where the village cadres are skinned and drunk."

"How can I take off the skin and drink blood?" Song Weiyang asked.

Secretary Liu shook his head repeatedly: "I won't say it, offend people, you can investigate yourself, don't mess around in our village anyway."

Song Weiyang said: "I want to ask why the grain station gave farmers a blank sheet?"

"You still have to ask?" Secretary Liu sneered, "The grain station in the village has no money at all. What should I do if I don't write a blank quota? Even if the grain station has money, it will not be given to the farmers. Let's talk about it first."

Song Weiyang said: "Why do you hold it?"

Secretary Liu said: "It's a levy. It's a 50% lunar month. The farmers have to pay for everything. If the farmers refuse to pay, they will deduct it in a free note. It's convenient for everyone. If you really are a cadre from the province, you'll go to get a corrupt official in the city and county. Let me tell you, the handling fee for farmers getting married now is hundreds of dollars. The handling fee for people in the city is only a few dozen dollars, and no matter how much it is, it's about one hundred dollars. This is to be sure that farmers are easy to bully."

Song Weiyang felt that there was nothing to talk about and said, "I am really not a cadre or a reporter. Don't think about it anymore."

"Then you are wandering around the village all day long?" Secretary Liu said suspiciously.

"I am doing social surveys and preparing to write my graduation thesis," said Song Weiyang. "I am just about to graduate."

Secretary Liu turned around and muttered, "If students don't go to study, they will come here to play games."

...

In the following period, Song Weiyang visited more than a dozen villages in four nearby townships.

In comparison, the village in Hong Weiguo’s hometown is already considered a wealthy village with a medium or higher level. There are only two types of real poor villages. One is that the village cadres are too unintentional, and the other is that the land is too barren.

Let’s put it this way, with the degree of retention and levy for farmers, each acre of land must be collected at least 900 kilograms of millet per mu, otherwise the farmers will do it in vain. There are very few paddy fields that can feed more than 900 kilograms of rice, which are rare.

What causes this?

All the money farmers earn by selling agricultural and sideline products and working in short-term labor was cleaned up by withdrawal and payment fees, leaving only a pile of grain at home, and they had no money to spend on market consumption.

The two particularly poor villages have poor land and not much food, so they can only barely guarantee that they will not go hungry. The dropout rate in junior high school exceeds 30%, because farmers cannot afford to pay tuition and miscellaneous fees. Some of them can afford to pay and are unwilling to study. They go to learn crafts or work at the age of fourteen or five.

Further west, Song Weiyang went to the next province and visited the hometown of a comrade-in-arms in Hong Weiguo. The situation here is similar, but because it is close to the Yangtze River, more farmers go to the city to work, and they generally have to be a little richer.

Then he went to a southwest province, which was the hometown of Hong Weiguo's comrades-in-arms. He was afraid that something would happen, so he had to take the locals to lead the way.

The villages I visited this time were simply madly poor. Because they were remote and there were very few farmers going out to work, they could only stay in the fields to dig food and eat. There were barren mountains everywhere, and they could not grow a few grains. The per capita monthly income of farmers was less than 10 yuan. There was still a heavy burden. Not to mention eating meat, farmers could stir-fry a pound of vegetable oil for a year, and the smell of oil was not visible. If they could have two or three meat dishes at the New Year's Eve dinner, they belonged to wealthy families.

How the hell is writing a paper?

Just write a lot!

Song Weiyang studied the rural and township markets that boosted China's domestic demand, but the reality is that it cannot be affected at all. It would be good for farmers to eat meat.

...

There was no Internet cafe in the whole county, and Song Weiyang even wanted to dial up the Internet with a telephone line. He ran all over the county but couldn't get a cat.

This broken place probably doesn’t even have a few computers.

Song Weiyang had to go to the county library and opened up the relationship with a pack of cigarettes. He just looked for information in it. Soon he discovered an unexpected surprise and actually found a set of social science magazines published in this province, which were not available in Fudan's library.

A local expert on rural issues is also calling for rural marketization. The paper is well written, but it is not very practical.

The three rural issues have become the focus of research by many sociologists and economists. Song Weiyang has read hundreds of related papers in the library of Fudan. But it is useless and none of them are useless. To revitalize the rural economy, the rural economy must be marketized. Experts and professors talk about this very much, one is more wonderful than the other.

But there is only one real solution, that is, first cancel the agricultural tax. Avoiding this issue, talking about the marketization of the rural economy is all about hooliganism!

Song Weiyang came out of the county library, holding a cigarette in his mouth and scratching his head. He didn't know how to write his paper.

Hong Weiguo thought he was worrying the farmers and comforted him: "Boss, you really don't need to consider this. In fact, as long as farmers are willing to go out to work, the amount of levy in the countryside is nothing, and no one starved to death. Take my family for example. My brother worked outside for several months. Not only did the farm tax get back, but the remaining money was enough to buy grain for several years."

When Song Weiyang heard this, his mind flashed and suddenly laughed: "I know what to write, Lao Hong, thank you for reminding me."

"Ah?" Hong Weiguo didn't understand why.

Song Weiyang plans to start a new job and write an article titled "Rural Economic Situation and Food Crisis".

Humans are all profit-seeking, and so are farmers.

Nowadays, farmers can no longer make money by growing grain, or even lose money. More and more farmers will choose to go out to work and abandon the land in their hometown.

This account is easy to calculate. I can work for half a year when I go out and work, and I can pay the agricultural tax and buy enough food. The money I earn from working for the remaining half a year can be freely controlled. Since that is the case, why should I still have to farm?

Song Weiyang selected several major grain-producing provinces in the Yangtze River Basin. He pretended to be public and private, and asked people from Xifeng Sales Branch to help him check archives and materials in various places. Then he squatted in a small county in the southwest to receive faxes - the only old-fashioned fax machine in the local area, which was directly requisitioned by Song Weiyang.

The archives and information of government departments are not something you can check just by saying you want to.

Song Weiyang spent more than 60,000 yuan on his own and asked the people from Xifeng Sales Branch to help, and finally got the big data. Then he organized 30 people to go to the township to conduct on-site investigations, spending nearly 100,000 yuan to obtain more detailed data.

A total of 150,000 yuan was spent just to write a graduation thesis, and the money ability was everywhere.

According to the survey data obtained, the land abandonment area of ​​some major grain-producing provinces in the Yangtze River Basin has reached nearly 3% of the cultivated land area and is increasing year by year. Seasonal abandonment is even more serious, and miscellaneous grains are too lazy to plant, so farmers choose to work short-term labor everywhere to make money.

The more convenient the transportation and the smoother the information, the more serious the land abandonment situation will be. In some places, farmers in the whole village go out to work, leaving only some elderly, weak, sick and disabled people plant their own land at home.

In an old-fashioned tube building in a small county town, Song Weiyang finished writing the paper with a pen and then revised it, and the writing was quite satisfactory.

Well, you can take it back and let Doudou enter it into the computer, just like a child practicing typing.

"Lao Hong, go find the landlord and return the house. We will go back to Shenghai tomorrow." Song Weiyang sorted out the manuscript.

"Okay, I'll go now." Hong Weiguo quickly walked out.

This tube building is pretty good, the air is pretty good, and it is quiet during the day. It is not convenient to have no toilet. Every time I have to go downstairs and walk a few hundred meters to the nearby public toilet to solve physiological problems.

The dry toilet was smelly, and Song Weiyang almost vomited when he squatted in the pit for the first time.

With a cigarette in his mouth deodorized, Song Weiyang started to release water. Before he could finish peeing, he heard a faint cry of the baby. Fortunately, this was not at night, otherwise it would be scary. We can rewrite ghost stories.

Song Weiyang subconsciously leaned over to look at it and suddenly said in surprise: "Fuck me!"

There was actually a baby in the drainage channel of the dry toilet. Even the umbilical cord did not fall off and his whole body was covered in feces and urine.
Chapter completed!