Chapter 39 Chapter Thirty-Three

The oil lamp on the stove was getting dimmer and was about to go out.Faced with a dozen or so cigarette butts that alternately red and dim and the dark figures sitting in the cave dwelling, Gao Liangjie sat with his back against the kang in the darkness and remained silent.By the reddish light of the oil lamp and cigarette butts, one can see his burly figure in an old military uniform, motionless and stern.Occasionally when a match was struck, he could clearly see his honest face and a pair of smart and calm eyes.His wife, Shufen, had already slept with her daughter on the kang with her clothes on.It was late at night, the electricity was cut off, and the lamp oil was almost burned out, and the cave dwellers were talking in the dark, puffing smoke.They began to gather at Gao Liangjie's house after dark.

The new secretary of the county party committee is leading the standing committee members of the county party committee to patrol below today.Zhu Quanshan of Huangzhuang Reservoir was turned over and lifted up, and promoted to the county.Pan Goushi, secretary of the Henglingyu Commune, was about to be removed.Next, Li Xiangnan will lead a mighty force to the Phoenix Ridge Brigade.At 10:30 tomorrow morning, the Standing Committee of the County Party Committee will hold an on-site meeting to prohibit deforestation in Wuji Ridge of the Fenghuang Ridge Brigade. "Liangjie, this must be aimed at you." The person who said this angrily with a southern accent in the darkness was the head of the cadre section of the Organization Department of the county party committee, and the red light from the cigarette butt reflected his thin chin face.He voiced the concerns and unease that have been repeatedly expressed.

"Maybe, come as soon as you come, and withdraw at worst." Gao Liangjie said calmly.An empty sleeve on his left arm hangs straight against his body, further enhancing his awe-inspiring military demeanor.He was always ready for a blow to fall on his head. He is the branch secretary of the "Dazhai-style brigade" in Fenghuangling and a member of the county party committee.He had publicly contradicted the new county party secretary.At this county-wide "suggestion meeting", he remained silent.In the end, he must be asked to express his opinion. With a cold face, he put forward three points both in principle and concretely: 1. Don’t make a fuss about the past; 2. Don’t make a one-size-fits-all approach to the present;Then he kept silent without any explanation.At that time, the atmosphere in the venue was a little tense.Everyone knows that he is a model of Dazhai who was raised by Gu Rongshu.

People fell silent in the dark.The cigarette butts were red and dark again, illuminating the faces. Gao Liangjie is a banner in their hearts.Because he used to be the branch secretary of the famous Dazhai-style brigade in the province who worked hard, and he dared to use silence to express his reservations about the current situation; it was also because he was honest and steady, good at uniting everyone, and giving people his own opinions.There is another point that they didn't see through: precisely because he still maintains the positions of county party committee member and brigade secretary in the changing situation, he has become a banner for the frustrated and dissatisfied.Every night, his cave dwelling was filled with smoke and smoke: cadres from the local brigade, cadres from other brigades, from the commune, and even from the county.Anyone who is politically sensitive in Guling feels that there is Fenghuang Ridge in the county, and Gao Liangjie stands on Fenghuang Ridge.

"This doesn't just affect you alone. If you remove Gao Liangjie, how much will it affect?" The cadre and section chief angrily extinguished his cigarette in the dark, and said. "They shouldn't be involved anymore, right?" Gao Liangjie smiled gently.He is thirty-nine years old, although he is younger than many people present, but he always listens patiently to the complaints of people around him as a honest elder.The gathering of people around him somewhat comforted his feeling of being left out in the past two years.What he can't stand most is being surrounded by no one around.But he himself seldom complained, and occasionally said a few enlightening words.He was very aware of his special position in the ancient tomb.He is a person who sees his own situation, his relationship with his surroundings, and the relationship between various forces very clearly.He knew exactly why so many disgruntled people flocked to him, and he was fully aware of the specific interests of each of them.But the clearer he was in his heart, the more honest his face became.On the one hand, he tried his best to establish his prestige among these people, and on the other hand, he kept a certain distance from everyone.He only wants to be the leader of this faction, but he absolutely avoids this reputation in public opinion.When it comes to politics, he will never give up his mind easily and follow the situation to "follow the wind", and he will never play tricks on his own political life.

"Liangjie, I really admire you. You can hold your breath when it comes to your head." A hoarse voice said in the dark.This is a deputy head of the county cotton and linen station. He used to be the deputy secretary of the commune. He was going to be transferred to another county to be the secretary of the county party committee. "I think you are following Liu Bei's example of growing vegetables and keeping a low profile. With the badge of a county party committee member on your back, you dare not even speak. We Zhima officials have nothing to fear. I don't understand these things now. The big landlord in Guling in the past Wang Shimao has been to Hong Kong for decades, and now he is a VIP again. His housekeeper was killed at the time, and he was sitting in a small car, and our senior officials accompanied him to visit the ancient mausoleum, hum."

"This is for the united front." Gao Liangjie said with a smile.The man from the cotton and linen station talks too casually, and sooner or later something will happen.He is also slightly more distant from him. "If it can't be unified, it will be unified. Huangling Village dismantled the tractor into eight pieces, and Weizhuang dismantled the barn into a pile of useless broken bricks and tiles." "It's not Wei Zhuang, it's Zhao Zhuang." Gao Liangjie corrected him naturally without interrupting the other party.He remembers such things better than anyone else.

"Huangcaoping engaged in production contracting and tore up all the original irrigation canals." "Yes," Gao Liangjie sighed slightly, and felt it necessary to insert a sentence here, "Water conservancy facilities for mass production are relatively advanced productivity, and farming by one household is a relatively backward production relationship. There are contradictions." He said without inclination. "Some people get rich first, how come they get rich?" The man at the cotton and hemp station continued to explain, "That Wang Zuizi from the county bought 10,000 long scarves in Beijing last year. They cost three yuan a piece and sold them for five yuan when he came back. Three five I made 20,000 yuan in one county transfer. Whose money is this 10,000-yuan household earning?... Come on, it’s useless to talk too much. If we want to get rich, we can resell silver dollars.”

There was a momentary silence in the darkness. Gao Liangjie broke the silence: "Speaking of selling silver dollars," he said slowly, looking at the faces lit up by the twinkling cigarette butts, "the reference is on the list, and the silver dollars that have flowed into the European smelting center through Hong Kong in recent years It’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars.” He reads the People’s Daily every day, refers to the news, and uses a red pen to mark from page one to page eight. "This month's People's Daily has an average of 1/3 less publicity for 10,000-yuan households than the previous two months, and the page is also placed at the back. Have you noticed?" He asked everyone again inquiringly.

People stared at each other in the dark, no one noticed. "Liangjie, you don't panic, you can figure out everything." The man at the Mianma station got impatient, pointed at him and said excitedly, "A few days ago, you have been notified of the deforestation in Fenghuangling. , isn’t that an excuse for Li Xiangnan to take you for surgery tomorrow?” Gao Liangjie was silent. "For Fenghuangling, you led the mountain to blow up rocks in the cold winter months. You lost your arm and almost lost your life. How many years have you worked so hard? Now that the wind blows, you will be fine?"

Gao Liangjie lowered his head and smoked fiercely. The dark red fire light illuminated his frowning face, and his cheeks twitched a few times.He felt the drooping empty sleeve on the left, and a trace of sadness surged in his heart.In terms of emotions, he is far stronger than some people.According to him, if China goes on like this, there will be trouble sooner or later, but he never reveals this.His heart is buried deep.He was engaged in political work in the army for many years, and when he returned to the local area, he was borrowed to do project work in the county for several years. Later, he voluntarily asked to return to the village to lead him to learn from Dazhai.He doesn't have the habit of saying weird words, so that doesn't solve any problems except asking for bad luck.One of his methods is silence; the other is to wait and see what happens.When one tendency covers up another tendency, extremes lead to opposites.He raised his head and looked at everyone with a slight frown, and said, "Be patient when it comes to China." His eyes and voice were reserved. At this time, strange footsteps suddenly came from outside the door.Then there was a soft knock on the door. "Who?" Gao Liangjie turned his head and asked several times. No one answered.The knock on the door became more and more urgent, and there was also the rattling sound of fumbling for the knocker tremblingly.This is especially crisp and deafening late at night in the mountains.Everyone in the cave felt strange, exchanging wary glances with each other in the darkness.Gao Liangjie reached out to touch the flashlight on the side of the kang, turned it on, and exchanged knowing glances with his wife who raised her head from the pillow.I checked the watch pressed under the pillow, it was only after three o'clock, and it was pitch black outside the window.The mountain wind was blowing late at night.He turned off the flashlight, stood up in the dark, took off the semi-automatic rifle hanging on the wall, and lightly tapped the bayonet.In the past two years, he has always felt a little insecure, and he always carries a gun when walking in the dark.Especially a few days ago, after the five sheep he just got home were stolen from the yard at night, he became more vigilant. As soon as the door opened, a man fell in.He and everyone were startled, and he flashed the flashlight again, and it was Uncle Mong. "What's the matter, sir?" He hurriedly put down his gun, and squatted down to help the old man who was foaming at the mouth and bleeding from the corner of his mouth.Shufen heard the sound and immediately put on her clothes and got off the kang to support him together.The crowd also gathered around. Uncle Mong has saved Gao Liangjie's life.Thirty-eight years ago, on a snowy winter day, Mr. Men picked up a frozen baby from the snow at the mouth of a ravine, hugged him back and warmed him up in his arms, then took his only few liters of old corn, and hugged him They sent back to the parents of the baby who had not opened the pot for three days. This baby is now Gao Liangjie. Uncle Mong stared blankly, and was fed a few sips of water before he woke up.He saw the people around him by the light of the flashlight. "Little Liangzi," he called Gao Liangjie by his nickname, struggling to get up from his chair, "Go and take care of it, they are going to cut down Fenghuangling." He said the first sentence in a trembling voice talk. "What's the matter? Sir, please speak slowly." Gao Liangjie asked with his only right hand supporting him. "Go ahead, they're going to cut down Fenghuang Ridge." The old man said these words over and over again, his voice getting higher and higher.Finally, I finally got it right: the old man just came back from the dark thirty-mile mountain road in Huanglongtan.He went to the timber black market to catch people who stole birch trees, and someone was going to coax and cut down Fenghuang Ridge at dawn. "You don't care, Xiao Liangzi?" the old man stared at him and asked loudly. "I... take care of it..." Gao Liangjie nodded in agreement, his eyes couldn't help getting a little wet.He supported the old man, and felt the trembling of the old man's thin body.His body exudes a decaying, baseless heat.The muddy black cloth clothes were wrinkled.Shufen was wiping the blood from the corner of the old man's mouth with a wet towel under the light of the flashlight. "Okay, okay, you can take care of it, you can take care of it." Uncle Men kept grunting in his throat.No matter how much he tried to persuade him to rest for a while, he couldn't be persuaded, and he stared blankly, hunched over his back on his back, and staggered towards the door, going back to his Fenghuang Ridge. "Master." Gao Liangjie went up to stop him for the last time. "You don't care, Xiao Liangzi?" Uncle Mu raised his head and shouted with blank eyes, "You don't care, I will die in front of you." "I'll take care of it." Gao Liangjie stepped aside as he spoke, turned his head and confessed to the cave dwelling, then followed out with a gun on his back and a flashlight. The cold stars in the sky are twinkling, the shadows of the mountains near and far are dark, and the mountain wind in the middle of the night is icy cold.With a flashlight on, he sent the old man down the mountain road to Gaojialing (Gaojialing Village where he was located was a team of Fenghuangling Brigade), turned around the foot of the mountain, and entered Xigou.When he raised his eyes in the dark night, his heart was shocked: the old elm tree with a hunchback that had been standing under the cliff at the mouth of the ditch had also been cut down at some point.Thirty-eight years ago, he was picked up by Mr. Bo in the snow under this old elm tree.Since he was a child, he has had a kind feeling for this hunchbacked old elm tree. It stood hunched and black in the cold wind, and it always reminded him of the kind old man, Mr. Men.The old man hunchbacked and staggered past the elm stump without seeing anything.Gao Liangjie suddenly thought of something, and a pang of sadness surged in his chest. Not far away, in the dark mountain valley, there is a cave dwelling at the entrance of the village of Xigou Squad, brightly lit and noisy with people.It's three or four o'clock in the middle of the night, what are you doing? He had a premonition that something serious was brewing in the middle of the night, but he didn't have time to check it out. Uncle Men walked in front, and he followed behind with a flashlight on, making three turns and eight turns, all the way up the mountain.The sound of the wind, the sound of trees, and the rolling gravel under Gao Liangjie's feet all rang, and the old man hunched forward and walked mechanically, as if he had never seen with his eyes, but walked step by step based on decades of memory , without rolling a stone.Finally, he arrived at his forest hut.The old man opened the gate of the fenced yard in a daze, then flinched and took out the key from his pocket, and opened the door of the thatched house.Gao Liangjie flashed his flashlight to follow, and wanted to settle down the old man, but the old man blocked him from the door: "You don't care, Xiao Liangzi?" He stared at him with blank eyes again. "I care..." The old man stared at him with dazed and cloudy eyes, as if recognizing a stranger, then lowered his head and murmured: "Okay, you take care of it, you take care of it, sue them, ask the secretary of the county party committee, he will come tomorrow." It was closed from the inside. Gao Liangjie stood at the door for a while, the cold mountain wind blowing his clothes and his face.The oil lamp was on, and the light came through the crack in the door.Hearing the sound inside the house, it seems to be opening a box.He thought for a while, turned and went down the mountain. He wants to hurry to Xigou Village to have a look. He took a shortcut and crossed the East Ditch to the West Ditch.But passing by Donggou Village, he was shocked: in the dark night, under the big black pagoda tree at the intersection of the hillside, a large room was also brightly lit and noisy with people's voices.Why are you holding meetings all night?He put his gun on his back, turned off his flashlight and walked over.This room is the classroom of the first-grade students in Donggou Village, with glass windows on three sides.Three or four horse lanterns were lit inside, and the smoke filled the room. A strong young man with hanging eyebrows and red phoenix eyes was squatting on the desk and talking. Gao Liangjie knew his name was Fenglai.He opened his five fingers and patted the desk: "More than half of Fenghuangling used to belong to our Donggou, so why should we say that Xigou belongs to them? Gaojialing and Xiaozhai also came to grab it, and now we have no discussion with them. Liang went up the mountain and cut down the tree." "That's it." Many people responded by clapping their arms on the table. There was a short farmer with a black and yellow face. Gao Liangjie knew his name was Qing You, and he was lowering his head with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, preparing to confront other people's pipes and pots. At this moment, he turned his head and added, "Go before dawn." Several old men squatted in the corner smoking dry pipes in silence.Others squatted on the ground and dozed off with their heads drooping. They lowered their heads lower and lower, and then woke up in a blink of an eye. They raised their heads sleepily and looked around, trying to figure out where the discussion was going. "Let's decide like this, will everyone pass or not?" The person who said this was the team leader Zhao Daozeng, with blood-red eyes, two deep horizontal lines on his forehead, and some gray stubble. "Isn't this against the law?" asked an old man wearing a melon cap and smoking a pipe all the time. "What kind of law is this?" Feng Lai slapped the desk away again. As a result, the matter that was about to be concluded was once again disputed.The whole night will be like this tossing and turning.As long as the day breaks, the final conclusion will be drawn. Gao Liangjie walked to the door and wanted to push it in, but he didn't. It's not like it was two years ago.At that time, as long as he opened the door and stood there, all the people in the room would be silent and calm. He didn't need to say anything, and he cut off the heads of people with a glance.Right now, everything is falling apart, and it's hard to say what will happen.And he has his own principles in everything. When he engages in sports and criticizes people, he asks the deputy party secretary to come forward; when he announces the replacement of team cadres, he asks the team leader to come forward; when he criticizes members who steal crops, he asks the security director to come forward.Although he made all the decisions, he never showed up in everything.In this way, the enthusiasm of each brigade cadre can be brought into play, and he can maintain the real authority of centralized leadership. When it is necessary to unite with the punished, he can have room to speak leniently. He left the Donggou team in a hurry.When we arrived at the Xigou team, the dark sky had revealed a glimmer of dawn.People who had held an all-night meeting were rushing out of the cave with lanterns noisily.Someone's voice yelled in the darkness: "Everyone eat quickly. Bring your fellows. If they chop, we will chop. Whoever chops will get it." He didn't let them find out, and quietly walked away from the village.When I got out of the ditch, turned around the foot of the mountain, and was about to go up to Gaojialing, I found that on the dark mountain opposite, Gejialing and Xiaozhai, there were flashlights and horse lights shaking in the distance.Probably because the all-night meeting just ended.It seems that the situation is serious, but I have no news beforehand. When he got home, the cave dwellers had dispersed long ago, and it was almost dawn.Seeing him come back, his wife straightened up from the stove. "Grandpa delivered it?... Fenghuang Ridge is about to turn upside down, I think you are going to be in bad luck." Shu Fen scolded him sharply while filling rice bowls around the stove. He smiled knowingly, took the bowl of blue flowers in one hand as usual, straightened his burly figure of 18 meters tall, and went outside to have breakfast.The more serious the matter, the calmer and less revealing he became. His cave dwelling is at the highest point of Gaojialing Village, and there is a small courtyard at the entrance.On the side of the yard, there is a black and gray pan-top pine tree, which can be seen from several miles away, like a pavilion.Outside is a few feet of loess cliffs, falling straight down. Below is another row of cave dwellings and several courtyards. You can clearly see the actions of the people below in the courtyard.The people below cook, and the people above see the smoke.The whole village is like this with several floors of cave dwellings and courtyards up and down, left and right.A faint mist shrouded the gray hills near and far.Down below, the tens of miles long valley sandwiched by mountains was submerged like a sea of ​​milky white fog. The railway at the foot of the mountain could not be seen, and only the sound of locomotives snorting at the Fenghuangling Railway Station below could be heard. Like the hour, six or seven other brigade cadres also gathered at the door of his house with big steaming bowls, squatted down on the top of the pan in a circle, and started the compulsory subjects every morning. The Phoenix Ridge Brigade has fourteen teams and more than thirty natural villages, scattered on dozens of hills on both sides of the twenty-mile valley.The farthest teams are separated by twenty-five miles of mountain roads.Like a gypsophila, very scattered.Ten years ago, as soon as he returned to the village to serve as the branch secretary of the brigade, he immediately took a series of measures to strengthen centralization.In his view, the greatest advantage of socialism is centralization.On the first day he took office, he decided to change the accounting of the small team into the accounting of the brigade. The more scattered the mountainous area is, the more centralized leadership must be strengthened.The second measure he took was to relocate several brigade cadres from various mountain villages to Gaojialing to live together.The cadres of the brigade left their villages and moved to one place across mountains and ridges. This was unprecedented.What if he was dismissed again?Move back?What about the house?He didn't care, in a word, he did what he said.It is convenient to hold meetings and concentrate.Every morning, the cadres of the brigade put on bowls and squatted down on top of the pan, while drinking boiled water to make steamed buns, they arranged the day's affairs.As big as spring plowing and summer harvest, sports struggles, as small as quarrels between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and trivial matters.Then ring the bell and go to work.Now that Fenghuangling has begun to contract production to households, the brigade's centralized command over production has basically disintegrated, but it is still a routine for the brigade cadres to get together every morning if they have nothing to do, and it is earlier than in the past. hold up.Everyone takes it as an important matter, as if to prove something.This is not it, people from various households in Gaojialing below, young offspring carrying empty buckets down the mountain to carry water, mothers-in-law and aunts who open nests to herd chickens, old men walking livestock on the mountain roads with hands behind their backs and cattle and black donkeys assigned to households , all looked up at the tall Panasonic, and even the little figures on Gejialing on the opposite side looked here from a distance through the faint mist.Gao Liangjie and the cadres of the brigade who were squatting around felt the gaze from near and far.The cadres of the brigade are still discussing matters on the top of the Panasonic every morning-this is the impression they get together and squat here every morning.This is also a kind of public opinion that none of them said explicitly, but they are all supporting it together.Of course, the content of the gathering has changed. In the past, production was arranged in one, two, three, and four, but now it is mostly to vent grievances. I don't have time to whine all over the place today.The situation is more serious: Several teams planned to coax down Fenghuang Ridge overnight.The secretary of the county party committee is coming.He definitely wants to "solve the Phoenix Ridge problem."The Henglingyu Commune may have changed its leadership.Gao Liangjie put the bowl on his knees. While scratching the bowl with his chopsticks and drinking the hot soup, he looked at everyone calmly and explained the matter. The cadres of the brigade looked at each other, and the atmosphere was dull. "We worked so hard a few years ago, but it didn't work out?" said Luo Qingshui, deputy party secretary and militia company commander, thick and black, squatting there like a tiger with a bowl in his hand.He checked Gao Liangjie's expression, then pointed angrily in circles with his chopsticks, and said, "Which one of the cadres in our Fenghuangling brigade doesn't work more than 300 days a year? Liangjie, you lead the construction of canals in winter for water conservancy. "He glanced at Gao Liangjie's empty sleeve, but didn't say anything about it, "I was so tired that I vomited blood a few times, and the landslide broke my ribs. Is this all a crime?" Gao Liangjie smiled lightly: "Why is our route wrong? Do it, of course it's better not to do it." He spoke in a tone that seemed to be kind and honest to persuade the other party, but also seemed to be despondent and self-deprecating, and seemed to contain a deep Discontent and sarcasm. "What's the crime of harvesting too much food? How can I deal with you now?" Luo Qingshui said indignantly, and handed the bowl to the six or seven-year-old girl who just came up from below.The little girl came here to bring daddy a bowl of rice. "Which way?" Shufen also came out of the cave to bring Gao Liangjie a bowl of food, "Huh, Fenghuang Ridge has almost finished cutting down the trees, so it's enough to punish him." "But now that the policy has been completely abandoned and the mountains and forests are divided, who can control it?" Luo Qingshui said. Just as Shufen was about to open her mouth to argue, Gao Liangjie glanced at her. She swallowed her words and turned back to the cave. "Take care of it as much as you can." Gao Liangjie said with a slightly downcast face. It disappeared immediately, and no one dared to argue anymore. "But how do you manage it?" After a moment of silence, people carefully checked his face and asked. Gao Liangjie felt that his words still had the authority of a thousand hammers and a final word among this group of people, and he also felt the eyes of people looking at him carefully when he spoke.All this made him feel the satisfaction of centralized power.But how do you manage it?Outside of the group in front of him, in the entire Fenghuang Ridge, the centralized leadership of orders and prohibitions is disintegrating and collapsing, which he feels every day.He looked at the dozens of distant and near hills gradually revealed in the mist, and he tried his best to establish a unified concentration in this scattered and backward mountainous area.The entire leadership system is like his neural network, and the mountain roads of dozens of miles are like his body and limbs. Every will of his will affects every corner of Fenghuangling Mountain.Now, everything is cracked, and nothing can be grasped.He is empty-handed, so why bother?However, the current situation is very urgent, so we have to take care of it no matter what.No matter how dissatisfied he is, he has not been dismissed yet.On this one, he can't just let it go. He was about to open his mouth. "Hey, I said Liangjie." A panting shout made them all turn their heads.A middle-aged fat man with beards was coming to this small courtyard from a steep path, and he was just rising to reveal his upper body.He lowered his head, propped his hands on his knees and struggled to climb the last few steps, he let out a heavy breath, and finally came up.This is Old Dong, the station master of Fenghuangling Station, who has just been transferred from the army. "You are really tall here." He took out his handkerchief sweating, and spoke with a bit of a tongue. Gao Liangjie asked him to sit down on the rock next to him.He is very friendly with Station Master Dong. He has long been looked down upon by others on the agricultural front for imitating the Dazhai red flag, but in the eyes of those who wear military uniforms and work clothes, he has not received any disgust.He is sensitive to this difference. Stationmaster Dong shook his hand while panting and wiping his sweat.He lifted his collar, flapped his sticky military uniform, and said, "Hurry up and send five hundred migrant workers. Yesterday's heavy rain, floods and mudslides from the mountains broke the railway in two places. I say Liangjie, The sooner this matter happens, the better. The Road Bureau may have to come today. The one-day outage will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.” "Now there are all kinds of companies, where did you gather so much labor for you all at once?" "Your Phoenix Ridge brigade still can't attract people? No problem, Liangjie has a solution." Dong stationmaster waved his hand indisputably, "Besides, the members don't work for free." Fenghuangling is a section of more than ten miles of railway maintenance. There is a contract with the brigade on the use of migrant workers. "Let's find a way." People still wanted to show embarrassment, but Gao Liangjie said calmly.Stationmaster Dong's trust in him undoubtedly stimulated his self-esteem. Misfortunes never come singly.Xiaohong, the guide of Xuanzhong Temple on the opposite mountain, also climbed up the mountain out of breath.This is a well-dressed girl, with a white gauze short-sleeved shirt, a pink suspender skirt, a perm shawl, neat short hair with pressed eyebrows on her forehead, and a tender little Buddha face.Whenever there was any foreign negotiation, the temple management office sent her out. "Secretary Gao," she begged in an urgent and fast tone, "the rocks and mud washed down from the mountain buried the back wall of Xuanzhong Temple. The pressure made the wall tilt inward, and it was about to collapse. Old Cheng told me See you, find dozens of commune members to help us clean up, the wages will be calculated later, and there are still foreign guests today." "When will the secretary of the county party committee come today?" A brigade cadre with a walnut face looked at Gao Liangjie anxiously and asked in a low voice. "A live meeting will be held on Wuji Ridge at 10:30." Another brigade cadre replied. People looked up at Wuji Ridge, which was higher behind Gaojialing. "How about it," Gao Liangjie said as he put down the empty bowl.The cadres of the brigade immediately calmed down. Every time he uttered these three words, even though it was in a negotiating tone, the matter was considered a decision. "Each of you go to a small team, just go. If you go to Gejialing, you still go to Xiaozhai, you still go to Xigou, you go to Donggou, and you still divide the work according to the old division of labor. Two tasks: one, to persuade the masses, The trees in Fenghuangling can’t be cut down, so if there are problems, we can study them again. One more thing, gather labor to help repair the railway. As many people can come, as many people, help Xuanzhong Temple to clean up. The work here in Gaojialing, or I take care of it." "Okay, then I'll wait for your people." Stationmaster Dong went down the mountain with confidence. Xiaohong also left happily because she had completed the task. Once assigned by Gao Liangjie, the cadres of the brigade did not hesitate to put the chopsticks and the empty bowls together, and held them in one hand. They stood up one after another and went home to put the bowls away, ready to go down the mountain and go to each team immediately.Gao Liangjie felt a little bit of joy and satisfaction in doing what he said with a single command.But it was this sliver of satisfaction that made him feel all the more painfully what he was losing now.He stood up, turned around and returned home, put down his rice bowl and was ready to go out. "Can tree-cutting and disturbance be stopped?" Shufen asked.She is washing pots and dishes by the stove, ready to go down the mountain, and she works as a hygienist in the brigade health station.Eight-year-old daughter Fangfang is sweeping the floor. "It's hard to say." Gao Liangjie stopped, glanced at his wife, and replied. "Why is it hard to say? Don't let anything happen to Mr. Men." Shufen stopped. "The present is no better than the past, and we cannot rely on hard orders." "Isn't there a policy to prohibit deforestation?" "Many policies are contradictory now." Shufen looked at him in surprise.She hadn't thought about this level, nor heard him talk about it.Gao Liangjie was frowning as he looked at the frames of awards for learning from Dazhai hanging on the wall.He reached out and picked them off one by one. "What are you picking that for?" Shufen suddenly understood that he was out of prudence. She stacked the bowl and said confidently, "What are you afraid of? That's history. Who doesn't have history?" "Others don't necessarily see it that way." "You don't care what other people think." Gao Liangjie smiled kindly, but there was a hint of desolation.He has a calm personality and never quarrels with his wife, but he still has to do what should be done.He put the frames in the box.Gao Liangjie's gaze landed on several People's Daily papers on the kang again, some of which he had marked with red lines.He also packed it up and put it in a drawer.People who eat politics know the dangers of politics. "The secretary of the county party committee should come and see it. What are you afraid of?" Shufen took off her apron and patted her body up and down, pointing to the cave and scolding, "Let them visit the poor house of you, the secretary of the brigade. See what you did. In the past ten years, the branch secretary has eaten too much, or has taken too much. Is it a prestige, or a blessing. I work day and night, and the transfer fee is included, and my life is almost included. I take an extra straw at home. No? Of the 500 households in Fenghuangling, how many households are poorer than your branch secretary's family." Gao Liangjie looked at his wife and closed his lips tightly.The big cave in front of him is all his belongings.The cave is deep, with glass windows, and still very dark.Next to the window is a big earthen kang, and a button box is placed against the window, and a kang mat is spread beside it, and patched quilts are rolled up.Attached to the wall and further inside are several water tanks, noodle tanks, and pickle tanks.On the other side, against the wall was an old three-drawer table with peeling paint.There are a few tree stumps and small benches on the open space in the cave, which shows the emptiness of the cave even more.What is he plotting?There was a burst of sadness in his heart, but his face was even more stern. "Stop complaining." He glanced at his daughter who was dusting aside, and scolded his wife in a low voice. Tears welled up in Shufen's eyes, and she pulled her daughter Fangfang over: "Who has complained to you? Take a look." She grabbed Fangfang's hand and showed him that there were calluses all over her small palm. Blisters, bloody cuts, "The child's hand hurts so much that he can't write. In the past, you were injured for the collective. Now who will farm for you?" Gao Liangjie looked at his wife, who looked thinner due to fatigue, and gently took his daughter to his side, stroking her hair with his hand, and the daughter clung to his body obediently. "Does your hand hurt?" he asked. The daughter shook her head.His family allocated 12 acres of mountain land. He had three broken ribs and lost an arm, so he couldn't do a lot of work.Shufen and her daughter picked up the hoe every day when they came back. "There were mistakes in the past, that's the situation in the past. I think you have a clear conscience after working in Fenghuangling for these years. Now you have to take care of what you should do. I believe that the people of Fenghuangling still support you." Shufen said. He looked at his wife with emotion.Yes, he believed that the masses still supported him as they had in the past.He patted his daughter on the head, walked out of the cave steadily, and came to the top panasonic. He stood in the sky and looked at the mountains near and far, feeling even more restless. The cool wind blowing in the direction of the valley has dispersed the mist on the top of the mountain and the thick fog on the bottom of the mountain.A touch of orange has already lit up on the mountains to the east.Dozens of mountains near and far are clearly showing their faces, and there are dots of houses and winding paths on the mountains from a distance.In the valley below, there is the rolling Yellow Dragon River, roads like yellow stripes, railways like black lines, a train station with a row of small yellow houses like matchboxes, red lights, purple lights, and few people on the empty platform. The silhouettes of people, the empty square courtyard of the Fenghuangling Brigade Headquarters beside the highway, are all vividly visible in the early morning light.On the opposite mountain, a few years ago, two large slogans hundreds of meters long were paved with granite blocks.One is "Learn from Dazhai in agriculture", which is not suitable now, and it has already been dismantled.There is another item, "strengthen the unified leadership of the party", except that the word "party" is blurred by the flash flood, it is still there.Looking at it from a few miles away, it is impressively written on the mountain.He looked at it, feeling a little moved by the passage of time. He saw the small wooden poles as tall as a person on the opposite mountain, stretching the distance and leading the thin line to the mountain.That was the cable broadcasting line that he connected to 30 natural villages for the first time in his first year in office, and installed subwoofers in every family, including the sheepherds who lived alone in the mountains. He saw the telegraph poles shrugging their shoulders again, pulling the wires up to the mountains far and near, and extending in all directions along the ridges.This is one of the things he went around doing in the second year of his tenure: he connected the entire Fenghuangling mountain area with electricity for the first time, and used electric lights to illuminate the dim mountain villages that have been lit with oil lamps for generations. Looking at the winding path connecting the mountains, he couldn't help but be moved.For hundreds of years, people have stepped out of the road, making the remote hills have the initial contact network with the society.In the past ten years, he has added two layers of contact networks to these dozens of mountains.In order to change the backward appearance of this remote mountain area and build it into a unified whole, he has been fighting unremittingly against the scattered, anarchic, and isolated small-scale peasant conservative consciousness for ten years.Finally, he centralized everything, even the eggs laid by the chickens of each family were centralized under his leadership.Some, now seem to be too much, too dead.However, now that the policy has been loosened, all of them have been dispersed. Isn't it too much? His gaze fell on a two-foot-long steel rail suspended from a pine branch in front of him.他用手摸了一下，透心的冰凉，它微微摆动着。这就是他准备要敲的钟，这也曾经是他加强集中采取的重大步骤。他在每个小队的山岭顶上都吊装上了这样的钟，用钟声统一指挥几十个山头上五百户人家的行动。早晨，全大队统一出工。他在这高家岭上一敲上工钟，对面最近的葛家岭、小寨一听见也马上敲钟，再传过去是王虎岭、云寨，他们又敲。就这样，像古代烽火台一样，很快钟声传遍二十里山岭，十二个小队，三十个自然村，五百户人一起上工。不管春夏秋冬。 寒风刺骨的严冬，半夜他一敲民兵紧急集合钟，能使二十多里范围内的几十个山头上的几百名基干民兵，在一个多小时内跑步集中到大队部。 他抬手从松树桠杈上拿下一截搞水利时磨短了的钢钎，这是敲钟锤。 他心中突然有些激动，已经很长时间没有敲过钟了。往日敲钟时那种发号施令、朝气蓬勃的心情，带着一丝陌生和新鲜感，连同强烈的感慨、怅惘一起涌上心头，他此时才感到这敲钟的权力无比宝贵。 他举起了钢钎，却感到手有些紧张发抖。 社员还会听从、响应吗？