Rural contractor

Gansu, the village contractor, is the geometric center of China, Hexi Corridor is the center of China, and Shandan Military Racecourse and Lenglongling in Hexi Corridor are the heart of Qilian.

I was born in the west of the heart of Qilian Mountain, with Longshou Mountain in the north and high mountains in the south. There is a plain between the two mountains, and Shandan County is a small oasis located on this plain. Shandan Railway Station is 3 kilometers west from the county seat along the 3 12 national highway, and Huaizhuang, my hometown, is to the west of the railway station 1 km. Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway and National Highway 3 12 meet in the north of the village and head for Xinjiang. We grew up listening to the roar of steam locomotives.

The traffic in my hometown was very good in China at that time. The national highway runs smoothly from Lanzhou in the east, to Ma Pingchuan in Xinjiang in the west, to Alxa Right Banner in Inner Mongolia in the north, and to Qinghai in Qilian Mountain in the south. The key is that the train station less than two miles from the village can go directly to Beijing and Shanghai by train.

It was on 1992 that I took the train to Changsha, Hunan, and went to school to chat with my classmates from six provinces in China. Only then did I know that it was a great event for the train to pass through the village. 40 years ago, the county connecting trains in China was Chengjiao, Mao Feng. Many people have never seen a train. It is said that some people were surprised when they saw the train: how tall this guy stood after lying for so long. When I was a child, I always heard my father say: Without a fixed production quotas, everyone would not have enough to eat. As for my memory when I was three or four years old, I can remember that it was "fixing production quotas to households" and dividing trees in the village. At that time, my father was the first captain of the production team after production quotas decided, leading a group of people in the village to count the big trees growing at the head and end of the village. Someone in the village joked with me: Wazi, did you see that big tree in front? You run and hug first, and the tree is yours. I didn't know it was a joke, so I immediately ran out of breath and hugged the tree. Many years later, I thought the tree I was holding belonged to my family.

When I was a child, everyone in the village said that my father was particularly lazy when he was in a big group. My father, who studied for three years, is a man of culture. He was the first to herd sheep for the collective. After he got married, he opened a steel mill (that is, an electric flour mill) for the village collective. Being able to "guarantee production" and "go home", my father seems to be a different person. After busy farming, I drive mules and horses to the countryside to do food business during slack farming. Later, I bought a walking tractor for transportation in partnership with Da (Uncle). Later, I contracted the lime kiln in the village to burn lime. Later, I built two lime kilns myself. I have been working for my father in my own lime kiln since junior high school.

Father's lime kiln work was contracted out to others in stages. The fried stones on the mountain were contracted to Uncle Zhijie of the second team; Pull stones to the kiln factory and settle accounts by car; Putting the stone in the kiln is also a bag for the five teams of Wang Shu; Kiln burning, coal pulling and slag tapping are also contracted; When the lime is burned, it is made by our family, because the moisture in the air will decompose into mature lime after the quicklime comes out of the kiln, and the timing of coming out of the kiln depends on the sales volume of lime. We have three brothers and sisters, two universities and a technical secondary school. My father burned the tuition and living expenses. I worked as an accountant in my father's lime kiln when I was a child. Everything is simple, except the handling fee of finished lime. Because they are all contracted by kiln workers, my father gives the money to the leader, and people divide the money according to the attendance day. The loading and unloading of finished products is calculated on a part-time basis, because time cannot be contracted according to customers' needs. I couldn't figure it out when I was young. I asked my father, "We have work to do. We can do it ourselves. Why should we pay someone to do it? "

Father said, "Can you finish a whole kiln of lime by yourself?"

Later, I understood that everything has time requirements, and many things need the cooperation of many people to complete. What I experienced as a child was probably related to my later becoming a contractor.

Father lives at home. As mentioned earlier, the traffic conditions in my hometown are relatively convenient, and some courageous parents began to travel around by train, communicating with foreigners from south to north, capturing information and doing business of exchanging needed items. Some of them happen to be in Xinjiang and Qinghai, where there are few people and many construction projects need construction workers, so the first batch of contractors in our village was born.

These contractors are basically the same age as my father. They were born in the 1950s and went to school for two or three years. At that time, the only specialty of people who came out of the countryside was that they were not afraid of hardships and spared no effort. At that time, it was a lucky thing to find a job that earned money by strength. At first, I worked hard by myself in twos and threes. Later, there was too much work, so I went back to my hometown to find someone to do it. Those who are loyal, generous and responsible gradually become recognized contractors.

In 1980s, how did a farmer grow into a contractor? My father told me a story: Uncle Lu and Uncle Mao in the village were the first people to go out to work. They contracted a masonry project in Qinghai. Grandpa Mao worked for half a year, and his income was 1 ten thousand, 8 1 year 1 ten thousand. It is said that the monthly salary of a people's teacher was less than that of 40 yuan. Because the rest of the work is basically bones, and the weather is cold, Uncle Mao settled accounts and went home. Uncle Lu felt that it was idle to go back and insisted on gnawing off the remaining bones. In the second year, Uncle Mao, who tasted the sweetness, continued to look for such opportunities, while Uncle Lu had already discussed with Party A the work for the second year before going home for the New Year. In this way, Uncle Lu unconsciously embarked on the road of contractor. Therefore, I think it is the primary requirement to be a contractor in the 1980 s to be able to endure hardships and maintain its true colors.

But suffering alone is not enough. Being able to continue to work is the key to the development of contractors. After graduating from junior high school, I went to Hunan to study in a technical secondary school. I don't know Uncle Lu, but I heard my father say that Uncle Lu is generous and kind. What I know is that many of his relatives have become his leaders because he has taken on many jobs. These smart people who know some construction techniques become "second contractors", that is, Uncle Lu subcontracts the contracted work to him and is responsible for the profits and losses independently. It is said that every year Uncle Lu pulls several carts of mutton as a gift. During the Chinese New Year, Uncle Lu's house was crowded with people coming and going, and it was very lively.

? Uncle Lu's two-story building was built in the late 1980s and is the only building in the village. At that time, only the county government and the post office were buildings in the county. From a distance, Uncle Lu's house looks resplendent against an adobe house in the village. In my secondary school years, Uncle Lu built a cement factory on a piece of land near the national highway, and one of my junior high school classmates became a chemist in the factory. Longshou Mountain in the north of my hometown is rich in limestone, and the cement industry is the pillar industry in the county. The technology, talents and other resources needed to run a cement plant are readily available to Uncle Lu.

To tell the truth, among the contractors in my hometown, Uncle Lu is the one I admire most. Among the farmers' contractors, I think Uncle Lu has the most entrepreneurial spirit. I sometimes think, why doesn't Uncle Lu start a construction company? Maybe you can continue to start a business like Yang Guoqiang in Country Garden and become a well-known real estate enterprise in Gansu and even the whole country. Later, when I became a contractor, I realized that sometimes the choices you make actually match the resources and knowledge you have. After 95 years, due to the implementation of the bidding system, construction qualification is a threshold for Lu Shu to undertake the project. It is estimated that Uncle Lu was tired of wandering for a long time, so he chose to go home and start a second business.

Uncle Lu's second venture should be successful. He became the earliest private entrepreneur in our village, and his enterprise solved the employment problem of many people in the village. Again: it is lucky to have a place where you can make money continuously at home. My uncle has two trucks pulling stones for the cement plant. Although it is very hard, I have a stable income after all. In the early morning of the holiday, I can always see Uncle Huang riding a bike in front of my house. After he retired from the army, he became a security guard in the cement factory: my primary school teacher, a private teacher who has taught for many years, could not be a full-time teacher because of his academic qualifications, and he also worked in Uncle Lu's cement factory a few years ago. ...

After the cement plant entered the formal stage, Uncle Lu never retired. Uncle Lu contracted thousands of acres of land in Liuba Beach near Shandan Racecourse and planted various fruit trees and crops. It is said that Lu Shu worked tirelessly in every process of planting, just like when he was a contractor, he led the workers to do it themselves. I once met uncle Lu's son Govin, who is in charge of the cement factory business. Govin said that the planting industry has a large investment and a small output, and a hard year is not enough to pay workers. My mother said that once I saw Aunt Lu organizing people to sell their apricots in the street, people were much older.

I don't think Uncle Lu is simple. In their generation, hard work and struggle are engraved in their bones. Although I am rich as a contractor, I can't change my habit of hard work and plain living. They will work all the time, and as long as they can, they will work until they can do nothing. When a person encounters an accidental opportunity, it is easy to be a contractor; At that time, it was not difficult to earn some money after becoming a contractor; However, it is difficult for contractors who have made money to grasp themselves when they suddenly opened up and grew wildly in the 1990 s. Like uncle Lu, it is really commendable to be able to grasp wealth and keep the initial heart; Being able to return to my hometown for a second venture, I think Uncle Lu has completed the transformation from a contractor to an entrepreneur. When he was old, Do not forget your initiative mind, like Chu, chose to take root in agriculture. This is no longer a question of making money. The old man has his own way of life and beliefs. For various reasons, the first-generation contractors rarely become great entrepreneurs, but we should pay tribute to the first-generation contractors like Uncle Lu, who were the trendsetters and pioneers of that era.

Grasping and using wealth is a kind of ability. Brother Hao De is also the contractor in our village. He is about ten years older than me. At one time, he was very close to my brother-in-law, so I met him several times. His story is very legendary.

Hao Dege lives in the west of the village. Although he is about the same age as my brother-in-law, he should be called Ge according to the seniority in the village. Like my brother-in-law, I went home to farm before I graduated from junior high school. At that time, those who studied well in junior high school were admitted to normal schools as teachers, agricultural schools as officers (civil servants in charge of rural affairs), and those with urban hukou (non-agricultural registered permanent residence) could also be admitted to technical schools as factory and mine workers. Only a few children with good family conditions and some knowledgeable parents will enter the senior high school entrance examination university, and even fewer will be admitted to the university. According to the elders in the village, the ancestral graves of children admitted to universities are not only filled with smoke, but also hidden dragons and crouching tigers. At that time, education was selected from junior high school, but because everyone had similar conditions, parents rarely interfered with their children's learning. Teaching is completely out of school, and there is no review material at home and I can't afford a tutor. After-school tutoring is to help the family do farm work.

Many people who farm at home, like my little uncle, are unwilling to farm at home all their lives. My grandfather died when my father was fourteen, when my uncle was less than three years old. My father is sometimes more like my uncle's father. Uncle learned to do business with others in the county, selling clothes and matches, and basically didn't make any money. Brother Hao Dege is similar to my uncle. He goes out to explore the world from time to time, but returns to the village from time to time. Except that he came back dressed differently from the villagers, others were no different.

But Hao Dege is really different from his uncle. His father is an employee of the highway maintenance section. He goes to work in the maintenance section next to the railway station by bike every day. Before the Spring Festival, a car came to Hao Dege's house, and four or five HT 125 motorcycles were unloaded from it. This big wooden box is too heavy, and it will take a long time to unload it. Even now, have you ever seen anyone selling motorcycles and buying four or five at a time? The New Year is coming, and everyone in the village has basically arrived, which makes the whole village boil.

It turns out that with the deepening of reform and opening up, some maintenance projects in the maintenance section are allowed to be contracted out. Hao Dege has four brothers. His father worked hard for most of his life and his wife died early. Taking into account the difficulties of his family, the leaders of the maintenance section contracted some projects in the section to Hao Dege at the cost price approved by the section. This contract was issued by Hao Dege. After the New Year, Hao Dege bought an HTC 125 motorcycle for each brother. What needs to be explained here is that Hao Dege's father did not abuse power for personal gain. He is an ordinary employee in the locomotive depot, and Hao Dege didn't cut corners to do anything. What Hao Dege earns is the labor price difference formed by the poor efficiency of state-owned units and self-employed households.

This point should be emphasized. Some people misunderstand the contractor because they don't understand that particular era. At that time, on the one hand, the salaries of employees under the state-owned mechanism were basically based on seniority, and the work efficiency could be imagined. On the other hand, there are a large number of surplus laborers in rural areas with nothing to do, and the prices of workers are extremely low. In state-owned enterprises, it is time-consuming and laborious to give the same thing to their employees, and the quality is average. If you give it to a social contractor, you can do it quickly, spend less money and manage it well. In this case, the contractor has become synonymous with high efficiency. After the cost of state-owned enterprises is halved, the contractor can also make money. Hao Dege contracted projects for the first time. Although he had little management experience, the workers were honest and willing at that time. In addition, Hao Dege and his brothers personally took the spirit of doing farm work to do the project. Hodegger made a lot of money on his first project.

But sometimes shortcuts are not necessarily the right way. Zeng Guofan said that when he was a teenager, he was not in good times. Too smooth a start often breeds a bumpy future. If this opportunity is hard-won, you will cherish it, seize it and try your best to keep it going. But if this opportunity comes suddenly and I never thought about it, then whether it is an opportunity or not should be carefully considered. In this world, the chances of buying millions of dollars in lottery tickets are slim, but the outcome after winning the lottery is not much better. Why? I think sometimes if the necessary process is omitted, the result is hard to say. Hodegger's later development has always made me want to cry.

Hao Dege, who has already made money, has no way to return to the farmland. Sometimes there is no outsourcing project in the maintenance part. Haudeger misses the days when he used to make a lot of money. Those days were short, busy and exciting. He started looking for projects everywhere, as far as Xinjiang. The following stories are all from villagers, which may be exaggerated, but they are by no means groundless.

Hao Dege brought back a female secretary when he came back from Xinjiang. Don't think too much, she is a veritable secretary. During the winter vacation, Hao Dege's secretary lives at home, and Hao Dege's wife will cook for this employee. It is said that Hao De's brother worked as Hao De's sister, saying that it is standard for a secretary to contract projects outside, otherwise people will think that you are not strong enough. Sister-in-law Hao De's relatives also make money with Brother Hao De, and they all prove that the secretary is indeed the secretary in charge of copying. Mrs Howard also saw on TV that the secretary of the big boss is really a lesbian. Based on my understanding of Haudeger, I think he has a lot of face, and I also think that a female secretary is the standard for a big contractor.

It seems that the work in Xinjiang is not going well. You can see it from the gift that Hao Dege brought to my uncle. When I first went to Xinjiang to get a project, Hao Dege came back in a suit and gave my uncle a Russian dagger bought from Urumqi Grand Bazaar. The handle is beautiful, and my father won't let my uncle take it, saying it's something that causes trouble. Once secretly took it out to show off at school. When I came back, my ass was about to bloom. When he came back the next year, Hao Dege did not bring the Russian telescope back to his uncle as promised. Later, my uncle didn't know if Brother Haode had come back.

It is said that Hao Dege didn't make any money on the project he got in Xinjiang. Hao Dege was generous, and many people surrounded him, saying that he had access to introduce the project to Hao Dege. Eating, drinking and having fun are small things. The key point is that there were many engineering swindlers in the world at that time, saying that they had the ability to find a job and asked Hao Dege for money on the grounds that everything needed to be done. People lose their judgment when they are in a hurry. With the luck of "in case the dream comes true", the money that Hao Dege earned by some luck has gradually been spent on his own wine field.

Water flows downwards and people go upwards. When water reaches the place, it gathers into lakes and seas. When people reach the heights, there is only unbearable bitterness. People who make quick money always miss the time to make quick money. Brother Hao De began to borrow money everywhere and gave it to others after borrowing it. He wanted to try his best to find a project, and when he finished it, he went back to his hometown in his clothes and returned to his former glory. However, money, the more you desperately want it, the farther away it is from you. After that, no one wanted to lend it to Hao Dege again. Even if he has a project, no one will cooperate with him. In the words of now, Haudeger's personnel have completely collapsed.

A few years later, Haudeger returned to the countryside. Less than forty years old, a little bald and lonely. Sometimes he goes to a small shop in the village to play mahjong. This is the case in the countryside. You can simply leave and never come back after you leave. But if you come back, the countryside will accept you with the greatest tolerance. Everyone avoided your glory at that time, stopped talking about your sadness now, and life returned to the previous calm. Later, I went home and heard from my uncle that Hao Dege's brother had a rare disease, which disappeared in a few years. Thankfully, Hao Dege's son studied very well and was the first child in our village to be admitted to the 985 college. The money for children to go to school is basically given by grandpa, who retired in the highway maintenance section with a high salary. Generation after generation, they are constantly striving for a better life.

There is a village in my hometown, which is not simple. It was commended twice by the Central Organization Department in 1989 and 200 1 respectively, and was established as the "National Advanced Grassroots Party Organization". This village is called Lubao Village, which is a famous wealthy village in the whole province. At the beginning of 2000, the village collective accumulation increased to 10 million yuan, and the annual income of the village collective increased to 10 million yuan. There are more than 50 middle and high-end cars such as "Desert Princess" and "Audi" in the village, more than 50 people with more than 654.38 million yuan, and several rich people with more than 10 million yuan. This may not be surprising in the south, but it is absolutely a miracle that such a village appears in the hinterland of Hexi Corridor, which is backward as a whole.

How did the miracle come about? The road to the development of Lvbao is the road for the contractor to start a business. In the late 1970s, a group of people from the village party branch saw hope in the sound of the trumpet of reform and opening up, and decided to start businesses in the west under the pressure of poverty and drought. As a result, more than 60 villagers embarked on the "gold rush" tour of Qinghai Oilfield, which opened the prelude to the "westward tour" of Shandan County's labor force.

In the early 1980s, when labor services were exported, the village collective funds had increased to more than 300,000 yuan. After the implementation of the household contract responsibility system, village collective funds have become the focus of villagers' attention. At this critical moment, a group of people from the village party branch always kept a clear head. After some thinking and discussion, the final conclusion is: start a second business. As a result, this fund became the initial investment for starting brick factories, flax factories and other enterprises, and opened up the "Lubao Road" for entrepreneurship. After years of accumulation and development, the village has four collective enterprises: Qinghai brick factory, flax factory, hemp chip board factory and village brick factory. More than 500 young laborers go out to work, bringing in 6 million yuan of income every year. The left-behind middle-aged people and women work in village-run enterprises such as flax factories, hemp board factories and brick factories, and become "amphibious" farmers who work and farm. Among the net income of more than 4600 yuan per capita, wage income accounts for more than 70%.

I have a cousin from this village who later became a contractor. His growth process was more inspirational, from slave to general. My cousin, the eldest son of the family, joined the village construction team after graduating from junior high school. My cousin started as a coolie on the construction site, lifting the dust, turning around and putting on airs. The diligent cousin soon gained the appreciation of the bricklayer. He is thoughtful and considerate. He became a bricklayer in less than a year after he joined the construction team, and his salary was three times that of a coolie.

When I was a child, my cousin just came back from Qinghai when I went to the menstrual home with my mother. Big man, big eyes and big hands, his mother pulled his rough hand and asked, "Is it hard on the construction site?" Are you tired? Can you eat enough? "

Cousin just smiled. Uncle said slowly, "He found the pain himself."

My uncle is an old Chinese doctor, and he is famous for his prescription for treating digestive system in Shili Baxiang. I want my cousin to study medicine with him and help the world. But my cousin often communicates with the young people in the village at the construction site. The outside world is wonderful. It's boring to stay at home and recite those dizzy prescriptions. In the face of my cousin's sudden resistance, my steady and open-minded uncle expressed helplessness and support.

No one thought that my cousin, who laid bricks in the construction team, had made a name for himself. He first learned to read engineering drawings. Once the construction party made a mistake in setting out, which led to the demolition of the wall that my cousin had built all afternoon. Since then, my cousin has to look at the drawings by himself before building the wall, and then he starts to work after checking. From simple floor plan, to more complicated structural drawings and sectional drawings, to the overall plumbing and electrical construction drawings, my cousin quickly changed from a bricklayer to a competent builder.

After becoming a builder, my cousin continued to show her talents in the construction industry. At first, he was able to accurately estimate the number of mortar and bricks needed for masonry. Later, he was able to accurately calculate the amount of steel bars and concrete used in each floor. Later, he could casually tell the materials used in the whole building, and recorded in detail how many workers were used after the completion of the project, what kind of work they were and when they entered the site. Who doesn't like a technician who has such a plan in mind? After several construction sites, my cousin has changed from an excellent technician to an experienced construction project foreman.

The foreman is basically the organizer of the whole construction site. From material planning to construction equipment, from worker arrangement to cost control, my cousin has shown extraordinary organization and coordination ability. The leader of the construction unit likes such a foreman, who is a bricklayer and reliable. From the foreman to the contractor, some people have a lifetime, and some people just need a meal of wine. 1992 When I was admitted to a technical secondary school, my cousin was already an excellent contractor in Lubao and should belong to a millionaire in their village.

It's a pity that my cousin, who taught himself how to build a house, has a professional talent. After digging the first bucket of gold, he failed to keep up with the development of the later construction market. After 2000, he returned to the county, bought the earliest commercial building in the city, and bought a car for his son to rent in the county. At the same time as my cousin, some contractors returned to their hometowns to start businesses, set up brick factories and stone yards, engage in large-scale agriculture, and some engage in real estate development. The contractor group is an elite group in small counties.

Personally, it is even more regrettable that those village-run collective enterprises in Lubao Village, because of their single products and low technical content, gradually disappeared into the smoke of marketization after a short period of glory and less than five years after the beginning of the new century.

Not long ago, the author walked into Lubao Village, Weiqi Town. Cement streets are clean and tidy, brand-new street lamps are erected, and rows of illustrated cultural walls give people beautiful enjoyment. The unique folk culture square makes people shine.

It is understood that Lubao Village, as the first national civilized village founded in Shandan County, paid special attention to excavating local cultural elements during the construction of beautiful countryside. It not only collects many villagers' idle old farm tools and furniture, but also rebuilds the old waterlogging pond used before, which not only improves the appearance of the village, shows the inheritance of folk culture, but also creates a good place for people to relax and entertain in their spare time.

"When we see many old objects in the square, we will think of many things when we were young. It is vivid and meaningful to watch them tell the children about the past. Children can intuitively feel the times experienced by their elders. " Zhang, an entrepreneur who has lived in Lubao Village for more than 60 years, said that he was very happy to see that the village was getting better and better, and that his used old objects could beautify the village. I suddenly remembered that sentence: there is only a certain era, and there is no such-and-such era at all.