Rebirth of the Wild Age

Where is Song Weiyang?

Let's go back in time to two months ago.

Song Weiyang's graduation thesis topic was originally "Survey of Purchasing Power of Townships and Rural Areas in China". After consulting social science magazines in the library and getting the market survey data from Xifeng Company, he changed the title to "A Study on the Relationship between the Decline of Purchasing Power in China's Townships and Rural Areas and China's Insufficient Domestic Demand".

After Song Weiyang stayed in the countryside for a month, he didn't know what to write. There were too many questions, and he couldn't finish writing a paper.

Song Weiyang's first investigation target was the hometown of bodyguard Hong Weiguo, an ordinary small village in the central region.

The Xifeng sales branch in the provincial capital borrowed a van, and Song Weiyang and Hong Weiguo took turns driving for 18 hours. From the national road to the county road and then to the village road, the van was almost shaken and finally arrived at the destination of this trip.

The seedlings in the field are lush and green, and the growth rate is gratifying. The wheat in the mountains is about to ear. This year, the weather will be good and there should be a good harvest.

The village road was leveled out by the farmers themselves and paved with many gravels. However, it just rained two days ago, and the road surface was pressed out of deep grooves by the wheels of the tractor. Coupled with the erosion of rainwater, it turned into large and small puddles.

Sometimes the puddles are too deep, and the van gets stuck in the puddle and cannot get out, so the villagers can only be asked to help push the van.

"One, two, three, hey, work harder, let's go!"

Farmers are simple, at least for the moment. They helped push several pits along the way, and everyone was covered in mud and water, but they laughed and didn't ask Song Weiyang for money. From their point of view, if the clothes are dirty, they can just go home and wash them, and it doesn't matter if they sell their strength, since they have plenty of strength anyway.

The van drove to the small store in the village and stopped. Hong Weiguo said: "I can only park here. To get to my house, I need to cross a few field ridges and turn over a small hill."

"Then get out of the car and walk," Song Weiyang took out a banknote, and shouted to the owner of the canteen, "Bring out two sodas, everyone is tired. I treat guests, and each will give out two bottles."

The shop owner smiled and said, "Okay!"

The farmers laughed honestly: "The boss is generous, pushing a cart is nothing."

"Weiguo, is this boss a foreigner?" Hong Weiguo's fourth uncle asked.

Song Weiyang took out a pack of Hongtashan, gave out one to everyone, and said with a smile: "I am not a boss, I am a market researcher from Xifeng Company, and I came to the countryside to do business research. By the way, Xifeng Company Don’t you sell the drink in your village?”

The owner of the canteen added: "Not to mention the village, there are only one or two in the town. Xifeng's iced tea and cola cost more than two yuan a bottle, and farmers are reluctant to buy them. I can't sell the goods even if I bring them in."

Song Weiyang pointed to those glass bottles of soda and asked, "Is this from your local production?"

"It's made by the county soda factory," said the shop owner. "The wholesale price of this kind of soda is only 20 cents. I'll sell it for 20.5 cents."

Song Weiyang asked: "Boss, when did you start doing business?"

"This shop has been open for more than ten years." The owner of the commissary lit his cigarette.

"How is business?" Song Weiyang asked.

The owner of the canteen said: "In the past, the goods were better sold, but it was not easy to buy them. Now it is easy to buy them, but they can't be sold. For example, beer and soda are only bought during the busy season of planting seedlings and threshing. Who has the spare money to waste ah."

Song Weiyang asked: "Before the peasants had money?"

"Of course," the owner of the commissary said with a smile, "in the 1980s, farmers were the richest. It was enough to pay 50 catties of millet per mu of land. At that time, they were very active in paying public grain, rushing to contribute to the country. There is still a lot of public grain left, which can be sold to the grain station for money, and the farmer has spare cash in his hands. Now an acre of land has to pay several hundred catties of millet, and the grain station does not give cash when sold to the grain station. They only give you a white note. Where are the farmers going? Get money?"

Song Weiyang asked: "How much is the agricultural tax?"

The owner of the canteen said: "There are a lot of three mentions and five regulations, and it is different every year. Let alone me, the leaders of the town may not be able to figure out how much agricultural tax. For example, in the past, the 100-yuan plant grew in the soil. For food, 90 yuan belongs to the peasants. Now, if the peasants can keep 20 or 30 yuan for themselves, they should wake up."

"Except for the land?" Song Weiyang asked.

The owner of the canteen said: "In the past, I owned pigs and planted trees. Now I have to collect taxes for selling pigs, and I have to collect taxes for cutting trees and selling them. The most annoying thing is the village-run enterprises!"

Song Weiyang smiled and said, "There are still businesses in your village."

The owner of the canteen said: "It was established more than ten years ago. Everyone raised funds. This one was 10 yuan, that one was 20 yuan, and those who had money raised a few hundred yuan. The enterprise belongs to everyone, and the money earned is distributed according to shares. During the Chinese New Year, it was very lively to share money. Later, it failed. The enterprise is not owned by everyone, but in the village. It has become a big pot, and some of the money earned will be taken by the town. Who will do it? The factory will collapse. "

Hong Weiguo explained: "I know the factory in the village. The real reason for the collapse is that the products cannot be sold."

Song Weiyang asked: "Where were the products sold before?"

Hong Weiguo said: "When sold in the nearby township markets, the customers are all farmers. Later, farmers had no spare money, and fewer people bought products."

Song Weiyang remained silent, and what he said in a few words was actually the collapse of the market in China's towns and villages.

China's rural reform began in 1978, and the following ten years were the golden age of rural development, and became the era in which the income of farmers was closest to that of urban residents in China's thousands of years of history.

In the past ten years, the countryside, farmers and agriculture have promoted the prosperity of China's economy, farmers have abundant food, and countless townships and village-run enterprises have been set up. At that time, although the state's finances were not abundant, it not only allocated funds for new water conservancy projects, but also helped rural areas build medical insurance and education systems.

However, after 1987, finances were divided into separate kitchens, powers were delegated, and all rural affairs were taken care of by the township governments. Even the expenses of military martyrs were not allocated by the finances above the city level. The actual result was to shift the burden to the farmers. In rural areas, including building roads, electricity, telephones, and building schools, farmers have to rely on farmers to raise funds, but after the farmers pay the money, the property rights of these things do not belong to the farmers.

Then came the tax reform in 1994. The local government had no money, and the city and county levels also took money from the farmers, and the burden on the countryside increased exponentially.

The countryside, the farmers, seemed to be forgotten all at once.

Song Weiyang's original purpose for this thesis was because Xifeng's products could only be sold at the county level, and the income in the village and town markets was almost zero. From those data, he found that the economy in rural China is collapsing. At this time, there are 900 million farmers, and these 900 million farmers have lost their purchasing power. How can we talk about stimulating domestic demand?

If you don't investigate, you have no right to speak. Through some exchanges with the owner of the canteen, Song Weiyang found that the rural reform in the 1990s did not slow down as he imagined, but accelerated!

The speed of rural reform far exceeds that of urban reform and state-owned enterprise reform, but the direction of rural reform is reversed... m.