Chapter 3 Dare to be the first

"But I see what my wife is worried about, and the volume of poems and books is full of joy. Singing songs in the daytime requires drinking too much, and returning home with the company of youth." Du Fu's famous line more than a thousand years ago can very well represent Dai Jietian's mood and behavior in 1979.That year, Dai Jietian, who took off his "hat", was transferred to work in the Policy Research Office of the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee. At this time, Dai Jietian was very happy because of the implementation of the policy.But after he hadn't contacted books and newspapers for a long time, he started to worry again as he got to know the current situation.

On March 15, 1979, Dai Jietian read an article in the "People's Daily" ""Based on all teams at the third level" should be stable."An "Editor's Note" was also attached to it, "In places where land has been divided into groups and production has been contracted to groups, the party's policies should be correctly implemented, and wrong practices should be resolutely corrected." This article has made many people in China worried. Some places that have already implemented household contracting have shrunk back, and people are waiting and watching.Anhui, which is actively promoting household production contracting, in order to avoid confusion, Wan Li, secretary of the provincial party committee, said, "You take your own way, and I will take my own single-plank bridge."He also instructed relevant personnel to write a letter titled "Correctly Viewing the Responsibility System for Linking Production".Under the efforts of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, this article was published on the front page of the "People's Daily" on March 20, and an "editor's note" was attached at the same time, explaining that some references made on March 15 were not accurate enough.The turmoil subsided temporarily.

A year later, Wan Li was transferred to the central government, in charge of agriculture.With the support of the central leaders at that time, especially the household contracting of production had achieved initial results. After repeated discussions, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China passed a document No. 75 "Several Issues Concerning Further Strengthening and Improving the Agricultural Production Responsibility System". The document did not dwell on Whether the household production contract is "community" or "capital" is just a great deal about the beauty of the word "package": "In those remote mountainous areas and poor and backward places, long-term food depends on resale, production depends on loans, and clothing depends on relief. The masses lost confidence in the collective, so they demanded household production contracting. The demands of the masses should be supported, and production could be contracted to households or households, and it would remain stable for a relatively long period of time.”

At that time, "People's Daily" published a long article titled "Yangguan Road and the Single-plank Bridge", explaining the spirit of household contracting.Dai Jietian, like farmers in many places, finally breathed a sigh of relief. While other places were still arguing about "Yangguan Road" and "Single-plank Bridge", the farmers in Wenzhou had already "picked up" the household contracted production, which was exactly the "return of the familiar swallow".When farmers in Wenzhou began to contract production to households, they not only applied it to agricultural production, but also applied it to industry and service industries. A series of labor-intensive, small commodity factories that produced daily necessities and produced large output came into being and developed rapidly. .

The new era has given Dai Jietian a new space for observation and thinking. The drastic changes in front of him have made his thoughts leap forward. He sees that the significance of household contracting is not only in the field of agriculture. In fact, what it releases is the market. The seeds of the economy.He was thinking about why Wenzhou was able to implement household contracting of production so quickly to all aspects of society? Dai Jietian went to the countryside again, just like he did surveys in the countryside. From farmers, supply and marketing workers to self-employed and professional households, he visited this land again.He believes that people on the land have their own survival wisdom.

After long-term thinking and research, Dai Jietian believes that the most fundamental aspect of Wenzhou's success is the early implementation of household contracting. Why?In fact, the household production contract that Dai Jietian paid a huge price for has never really disappeared in Wenzhou, but it has changed from open to secret.Especially during the "Cultural Revolution" period, Wenzhou grassroots villages were paralyzed for a period of time, so household production contracting was quietly carried out again.Although from the 1950s to the end of the 1970s, Wenzhou has been rectifying the household contracting of production, but "correction" cannot be done, and "correction" is often overt.Some cadres simply said, oops, correcting the household production contract is like pressing a floating melon on water, pressing down on one side, and popping up on the other side.Some people also said that it is impossible to correct the household contracting of production unless the Oujiang River flows back.

Many years later, Dai Jietian looked back on the past and did not immerse himself in the memories of the difficult years to hurt himself. He dug out the data on household contracting of production buried in the ground, carefully looked back at the persistence and struggle of those inspiring years, and reflected on the reasons and problems . In 1989, in an article, he characterized the experiment of Liaoyuan Society as "the self-improvement of production relations adapting to productivity."In his view, "the gentrification in 1956 was basically the product of the Soviet Union's agricultural collectivization model and the surplus grain collection system (unified purchase and marketing) as the 'catalyst'. As a result, the agricultural economy suffered serious setbacks. Peasants lost Land management rights and labor autonomy were lost. Due to the scissors difference in the prices of industrial and agricultural products, agricultural accumulations were all poached. Agriculture has no ability to develop itself, let alone transform into a commodity economy. Grain production has stagnated and farmers' enthusiasm for labor has declined. Incomes have fallen, purchasing power has declined, the domestic market has shrunk, and the entire national economy has stagnated."

Dai Jietian believes that in the past, household contracting was thought to solve agricultural problems, and it was the problem of farmers' food and production, but it is actually more than that.More importantly, household contracting broke the chains that had bound farmers for thousands of years.After contracting production to households, cultivating the land does not require too much labor, and the extra labor time and labor cannot be wasted, so the surplus labor goes out.In Dai Jietian's words: "These capable people have gone all over the world if they have the means." However, the road of capable people is not all smooth sailing.After the reform and opening up, a group of the earliest market trendsetters in Wenzhou encountered a cold snap for the first time. They are the "Eight Kings".

The "Eight Kings" are eight self-employed individuals engaged in different industries in Liushi Town, Wenzhou. Wu Shilian, the King of Sand Foundry, Wang Maiqian, the King of Secondhand Goods, and Chen Yinsong, the King of Bakelite. Due to limited knowledge, the "Eight Kings" of Wenzhou were arrested and imprisoned successively for the crime of "speculation". On January 12, 1983, Deng Xiaoping felt a gloomy atmosphere. He said: "It is not enough now. Both rural and urban areas must allow some people to get rich first. It is justified to work hard to get rich. Some people get rich first. Getting rich first in some areas is a new approach that everyone supports, and the new approach is better than the old approach.”

"In short, all tasks must be conducive to building socialism with Chinese characteristics, and whether it is conducive to the prosperity and happiness of the people and the prosperity of the country should be used as the standard for judging whether it is done right or wrong." On August 30, 1983, Hu Yaobang, then general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, had a discussion with more than 300 representatives of the collective economy and the individual economy. He encouraged everyone to say, "It is glorious to engage in individual labor. Anyone who has made contributions to the country and the people All workers are glorious."This kind of evaluation has caused the ideological shock of the whole society. The fate of the "Eight Kings" was thus reversed.

The "Eight Kings", as the earliest private businessmen in Wenzhou after 1978, were also the first batch of people in Wenzhou and even the whole country to taste the sweetness of the "market". Their fate is closely related to a man named Yuan Fanglie.It was Yuan Fanglie who ordered the arrest of the "Eight Great Kings" and who actively rehabilitated the "Eight Great Kings" in the future. In 1984, Yuan Fanglie, secretary of the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee, saw the problem due to the depressed economy. He made it clear: "If the 'Eight Kings' case is not overturned, there is no hope of revitalizing Wenzhou's economy. The wrong arrest is not a crime. They have made meritorious deeds. Because we are not clear about the boundaries and our minds are not emancipated, it is a very big mistake to arrest them as criminals. losses. I said that we Communist Party members are aboveboard, we will make mistakes if we make mistakes, and we will correct them if we make mistakes.” At that time, the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee had decided to rehabilitate the "Eight Great Kings".However, Yuan Fanglie believed that rehabilitating the case was settled, but the impact was too small if the court only sent a notice. In 1984, Yuan Fanglie represented the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government to rehabilitate the "Eight Kings".Yuan Fanglie announced that apart from some minor tax evasion, the actions of the "Eight Great Kings" were in line with the spirit of the central government, and they were able to develop the commodity economy and invigorate circulation. The "Eight Kings" were acquitted and rehabilitated. Later, Yuan Fanglie went to Wenzhou after retiring from the position of president of the Zhejiang Provincial Higher People's Court, and specially arranged for 3 hours to meet with the "Eight Kings".He said: "More than ten years ago, they were the 'Eight Great Kings' who caused a sensation in the country. I personally approved their arrest, and later I personally rehabilitated them. They taught me the most profound lesson at the beginning of the reform." Rehabilitation has become a signal that Wenzhou's economic development has crossed the first gap, and a new world has begun.With the further deepening of the reform, the management function of the Wenzhou government has gradually changed from "all-encompassing" under the planned economy to "doing something and not doing it". rule". In March 1997, the "Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China" abolished the "crime of speculation", which was an ill-defined crime that hindered the development of the market economy. The "Eight Kings" vividly demonstrate the entrepreneurial spirit of Wenzhou people who dare to be the first and keep making progress.Freed from the shackles of ideology, Wenzhou people have since created many "National Firsts". Qiaotou Town is more famous than Yongjia County to which it belongs.What made the town famous was a commodity so small it could hardly be smaller—buttons. The 30 years of rapid change have made the past time quickly become history.Today's button trade has come to the fore, and those deserted streets used to be the famous "Bridgehead Button Market" spontaneously operated by farmers. Even after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, the individual economy is still a restricted area.However, spring can't stop coming. Since 1979, from "Button Street" to Qiaotou Button Market, it has become the "Button Capital of China". In the mid-to-late 1980s, Qiaotou Town received thousands of merchants from all over the world every day, and 90% of clothes in China were sewn with buttons from Qiaotou Town.Xinhua News Agency's "Ban Yue Tan" called this town, which is famous both at home and abroad for its button market, "the Brussels of the East". Qiaotou Town made Dai Jietian think more deeply.Qiaotou Town used to be a very poor place, with only two cents of land per capita, but for a long time it insisted on "taking food as the key link" and returning labor to the fields.Before liberation, people in Qiaotou Town were already engaged in handicraft production such as making noodles and vats. Later, the productivity and creativity of farmers were completely tied to the land, and prosperity was nowhere in sight.Therefore, after the household contract was established, the farmers started their business. In Dai Jietian's view, the significance of household contracting is not only to arouse the enthusiasm of farmers, but more far-reaching is to liberate farmers from the bondage of the land within the highly centralized and unified planned economic system, and destroy the people's communes. A breakthrough created the cells of a vibrant market economy, and finally made the reform irreversible towards a market economy. In just two or three years, in Wenzhou, where land was scarce, some farmers began to enter the industrial field, which induced the emergence of township enterprises and the vigorous development of the market. The industrious and brave Wenzhou people have created various markets. The Qiaotou button market, the sign market in Jinxiang Township, and the cotton market in Yishan.People use an exaggerated sentence to describe the great vitality of Wenzhou, "There are only things you can't think of, and there is nothing you can't buy in Wenzhou." "One hundred thousand Wenzhou supply and sales personnel" traveled all over the country, expanding Wenzhou's development space with both feet, and explaining a concept called "market" to all Chinese people with the orders they brought back.Dai Jietian is excited and proud of the thriving business in Wenzhou. In 1985, Zhang Yeping, a reporter from the "Liberation Daily", came to Wenzhou and went down to investigate with people from the Wenzhou Policy Research Office. After returning, he wrote an article summarizing a phenomenon that shocked the whole country. On May 12, the "Liberation Daily" published an article titled "Three Thirty-three Thousand People in Wenzhou Are Engaged in Household Industry" on the front page. The article put forward the "Wenzhou Model" for the first time, and the people who created this model Known as "Wenzhou people". The word "Wenzhou people" has gradually become a specific appellation, not only referring to a group of businessmen, but also including the unique ethos of that group.In the future, with the continuous deepening of reform and opening up, "Wenzhou people" will become the first group of Chinese businessmen to appear in the world. For Dai Jietian, the city he lives in has undergone such dramatic changes that it has caught the attention of him and many other Chinese.Numerous study groups and visiting groups came here with questions. Dai Jietian received countless visitors while researching the brand-new Wenzhou. From 1985 to 1987, more than 10,000 people visited each year, and they brought various questions. The Wenzhou Policy Research Office received many tasks at that time.In many cases, the reception process is a process of debate.People come to "prick" with questions, and Dai Jietian and his colleagues conduct in-depth investigation and research according to the questions and report to the investigators. Just like the first household contracted production back then, the Wenzhou people who started the business were once again at the forefront, but to be at the forefront means taking risks.A research delegation organized by Beijing Normal University went to Jinxiang Township to conduct research, which made Dai Jietian and many Wenzhou people uneasy for a long time. The delegation had a certain understanding of Wenzhou before they came, and they came here with questions.When they enter the enterprise and have a discussion with people, they will send out 10 or 20 forms at once, and each enterprise has to fill them out, including how many workers the enterprise employs, how much capital it has, and how much income it has.People don't know what this is for, and they are panicked, for fear that they are looking for trouble. For more than a month, everyone was worried. However, even in the most difficult years, we all believe that history always moves forward.What's more, this is China after the reform and opening up. After more than a month of investigation, the delegation finally expressed their opinion that Jinxiang Township did not take any crooked way to get rich. Jinxiang Township relied on three-point stamps to send business letters to contact business, as the so-called "three-point stamps break through the world".The inspection team found that as long as they visited Jinxiang, people in Jinxiang were working day and night.This made the delegation a lot of emotion, they took out a flag, embroidered with five characters "dare to be the first in the world". This is the first time that Wenzhou City has received encouragement from an external investigation team and inspection team. This statement made everyone feel at ease.Dai Jietian thinks this is the highest compliment for Wenzhou people.