Reborn in 1977

He didn't win a single hand of cards, and was still sulking when Chen Fan rode his horse to the brigade headquarters.

He patted the horse's rump, letting it go off to play on its own, and then walked into the brigade headquarters office, giving the excited group a disgruntled look. "Is the recruitment fair over so quickly?"

Zhang Wenliang tossed him a cigarette, asking curiously, "Why are you so grumpy? Who upset you?"

Chen Fan finally sighed, walked over to the long bench by the window, and sat down. "I just sat down to play cards with Master Liu and the others, and I was about to win when someone ran over to call me to the brigade headquarters. Master Liu and the others cheated, throwing their cards away directly, so I didn't win a single hand."

Hearing him mention playing cards, Secretary Yang and the others, who had been full of excitement just moments ago, immediately changed their expressions slightly, not daring to say a word.

Zhang Wenliang even lowered his head, silently smoking. Could it be that he was the one who caused this mess?

Captain Xiao, relying on the fact that he was Chen Fan's mentor, sighed and said, "Master Lu Si relied on his card skills to dominate Shanghai back in the day. You've inherited his true skills, so don't come here to harm the villagers. Go play outside."

Captain Zhang followed up with a nod, "Master Liu and the others are all old enough to be your grandfathers. How much money could they lose to you?"

Chen Fan curled his lip, "We were only playing for 5 cents."

Zhang Wenliang's expression changed slightly, "Last year you played with us for 10 cents and won 500 or 600 yuan?!"

Chen Fan glanced at him, "500 or 600 yuan scares you? Besides, that wasn't all yours, you're so pathetic."

After venting, Chen Fan felt much better and turned to look at Secretary Yang, "How was the recruitment fair?"

Secretary Yang was about to say, 'Playing with you only leads to losses, only a fool would play cards again,' but seeing that he had brought up serious matters, he cleared his throat and said with a smile, "It went well. Originally, we planned to recruit 400 people, but today more than 600 people applied. Nearly half passed the initial screening. We told them that today was the preliminary test and that they would go to the factory tomorrow for the second test."

Currently, most of Lujiawan's sideline companies are concentrated on the slope not far in front of the 5th team, while others are scattered in several small teams, but they are not far away either.

For example, the pottery factory is in the 6th team, the bamboo weaving and furniture factory are in the 7th team, and the 5th team has a breeding farm, slaughterhouse, wool washing factory, cooked food workshop, as well as a food factory and clothing factory that are being prepared, and so on.

Most of these were proposed and handled by Chen Fan, with a small portion being developed by the brigade headquarters themselves.

The bamboo weaving and furniture factory in the 7th team is one such example.

Calling it a factory is actually just a distribution center. People from various small teams who can do bamboo weaving and furniture making send their finished products there. They record and sign for them, and then the transportation team sends them to various cooked food stores for consignment sales. After they are sold, the money is distributed.

Well, it's actually just a way to earn some small money, a little icing on the cake.

If Chen Fan were to take action, he would certainly have many ways to make this factory bigger, but this kind of purely handmade product cannot achieve scale and lacks artistic value, so he is too lazy to manage it.

The main thing is that after the other food and clothing industries become larger, the output value and scale will be much larger than this, with no comparability at all.

Given the limited resources of Lujiawan at present, he naturally wants to focus on those two, why bother dividing his energy to do small industries?

This is the current situation of the factories in Lujiawan, so the people coming for the second test tomorrow will also have to go to the factories in several small teams to wait for the final test.

Chen Fan was not interested in this, but he was somewhat surprised by the number of applicants, "Why did only 600 people come to interview?"

In his vision, the five major teams plus the unemployed youth in the town should be able to gather 3,000 people. Are people not in a hurry to find jobs these days?

Secretary Yang did not take his reaction seriously, saying, "600 people is not a small number. Among them, there are dozens of veteran masters. The young people you mentioned, not many of them came, and most of them are from other production teams. As for those who came to apply from the town, I doubt there are even 30."

Zhang Wenliang lit another cigarette and looked at Chen Fan, saying, "Xingxiu ran into a few people who came to Lujiawan to work in the countryside a few years ago, and chatted with them. Several young girls have been out of school for two years and haven't found jobs, so they came to apply.

Although they didn't say it explicitly, Xingxiu has seen many people and could easily see through their thoughts. They plan to ride a donkey while looking for a horse, first trying to get into the factory to find a job and learn a skill.

Once the town's units have openings in the future, they can immediately go over. The people in the town don't look up to our team-run enterprises."

Chen Fan bared his teeth, "They're almost starving, and they're still picky?"

He clicked his tongue, "Are team-run enterprises really that looked down upon? Community-run units aren't much better, they're still part of the commune."

Ye Shubao chuckled twice, "What else would it be? Although community-run units are only one level higher, they still have urban household registration and are regular units, strictly implementing national regulations, with all the benefits they should have, and they can even get housing."

Hearing this, Chen Fan couldn't help but grin and laugh.

Seeing him laugh, Ye Shubao couldn't continue speaking and started laughing along.

Soon, the office was filled with laughter.

After the laughter finally subsided, Secretary Yang waved his hand, exhaled a long breath, and said with a smile, "The wages of production team units are based on a basic living allowance plus work points. The unit is a small team, and calculations are based on the small team. The unit is a large team, and calculations are based on the large team.

Work points can be high or low. Anyone who has done breeding knows that having a fortune doesn't count if it's still on the hoof.

Our Lujiawan's sideline businesses are basically based on the breeding industry, and even a few unrelated ones have to be tied to the team for accounting. It's understandable that people in the town feel it's unstable."

Zhang Wenliang looked around, smiled, and said, "If they knew that a worker could get three or four thousand yuan this year, which is equivalent to 10 years of work in the town's units, I wonder if they would want stability or high dividends?!"

Chen Fan narrowed his eyes and thought for a while, then suddenly said, "Do people from other teams also get dividends?"

As soon as these words came out, the office instantly fell silent.

A few seconds later, Secretary Yang shook his head decisively, "No."

Captain Zhang said with a stern face, "This precedent must not be set."

If, as Chen Fan said, more and more outsiders joined Lujiawan's sideline companies in the future, would the Lujiawan members agree to give them dividends?

Wouldn't that make there no difference between the people of Lujiawan and others?!

Chen Fan was not surprised, and said with a smile, "Then it's simple. The people of our team follow the old method, and the outsiders use the new method. Just refer to the units in the town. Except for the urban household registration, everything else can be copied, and it doesn't matter if the treatment is slightly higher."

After a few years, when the production teams across the country have successively completed the separation of production and contracting, we can refer to the practices of some collective enterprises in the future.

The company belongs to the company, and the collective belongs to the collective. The company follows the internal salary management system, and after deducting costs, the annual profits are turned over to the collective in proportion. After the collective obtains the income, dividends are distributed according to household registration and headcount.

Employees can only get wages and bonuses.

If the employee is from Lujiawan, they can get double benefits, receiving remuneration in the company and receiving dividends back in the village.

But we can't do this now. Doing so would shake the foundation of the 'cooperative,' because the members' income is linked to work points. Without 'work points,' what kind of cooperative is it?

So, we can only take a dual salary system now.

At this time, Chen Fan suddenly understood why collective enterprises in this era use their own people. The main reason is that it's easier to calculate the accounts!

Zhang Wenliang looked at the speakers, blinked lightly, and said softly, "That can save a lot of money."

Secretary Yang and the others looked at each other, ignoring the topic as if nothing had happened.

Isn't it good to save money?!

Two seconds later, Secretary Yang said, "The reason I called you over was to talk to you about the recruitment fair. If there are no accidents, all the people who passed the preliminary test today should be hired.

For those that are still lacking, should we make up for them with people from our own team?"

Chen Fan nodded, "Sure, the ratio wasn't fixed in the first place, so of course we have to adapt to the situation."

He couldn't help but find it a little funny. Captain Yang had previously said that the recruitment ratio for outsiders was too high, but he didn't expect that they hadn't even recruited enough people…

Thinking of this, his eyes rolled slightly, and he asked in confusion, "The people in the town look down on it, so why aren't the people from other production teams willing to come either?"

Xiao Liewen, who hadn't spoken for a long time, chuckled twice and said, "That's not surprising. If it were a year ago, these factories openly recruiting workers would have caused them to fight tooth and nail."

This year, didn't we help them set up the breeding farm? Every household is engaged in breeding, sitting at home, and earning one or two thousand yuan a year. Who would still look at the factory's meager wages?

Unless there are too many people in the family and surplus labor, or some young people are looking for novelty, they will come over to try.

To be honest, it's already beyond our expectations that more than 600 people have come to apply.”

Chen Fan scratched his forehead, so that's how it is?

Secretary Yang looked at Chen Fan and, seeing that he didn't mean to speak, smiled and said, "It's okay. You're worried that there won't be enough people in Lujiawan in the future, but there are still enough now. When the factory develops prosperously in the future, the workers will have high wages, and all kinds of benefits will be the same as in the town, won't many people come over then?"

Chen Fan looked up and smiled, and said, “I’m not worried about this. I was thinking that Lujiawan is not like a regular unit, let alone a state-owned enterprise backed by the Industrial Bureau, the Commercial Bureau, or the Supply and Marketing Cooperative. Every year, college and technical school students graduate, and they can get graduates assigned to them.

We are different, we can't rely on anyone, and even the people in the town look down on us.

Even if we develop well in the future, outstanding talents will definitely want to run to good units, who would come to our team-run unit?”

He glanced around, saw that everyone was staring at him, and chuckled, “We are not Huaxi Village either, able to ask for resources from above, and still have college students willing to go. We are just a production team with a slight improvement. If we want talent, I'm afraid we can only 'rely on ourselves.'”

When Secretary Yang heard this, his face became much more serious.

No matter how ignorant he was, there was a living example in front of him!

No one can prove better than Chen Fan what the impetus of outstanding talent means to the development of the production team, and naturally no one knows better than Secretary Yang and the others.

So he took a deep breath, looked at Chen Fan, and said without hesitation, “What do you say we should do?”

Chen Fan smiled and said, “This time, Liu Lu’s running a clothing training class is the best example.”

Secretary Yang was slightly stunned, his brow furrowed slightly, “You mean, we train them ourselves?”

Ye Shubao widened his eyes, “Train them ourselves? Can we also run a training school?”

Xiao Liewen and Team Leader Zhang also looked at each other in dismay.

Even with Liu Lu's example, it was just a small-scale, closed-door emergency measure where their own people taught and their own people learned. They had never thought of connecting it with a professional training school.

For decades, from the early 1950s, when technicians were sent to reside in villages, to later when middle school textbooks listed 《Industrial Basics》 and 《Agricultural Basics》 as regular courses, the countryside has always been the object of training. When will it be our turn to run training classes and give lectures to others?

Chen Fan looked at the few people, smiled, and spread his hands, “Why can’t we?”

He turned to look at Secretary Yang and smiled, “Isn’t this large-scale recruitment also to train them? A regular training school is nothing more than solidifying and retaining this training method.

Lujiawan needs a lot of types of work and a lot of workers, but we can't rely on anyone, we can only rely on ourselves. Instead of recruiting and training people intermittently, it's better to directly run a training school and continuously cultivate qualified talents for ourselves.”

After a few seconds of pause to give them time to think, Chen Fan threw away the burnt cigarette butt, took out another cigarette and lit it, exhaled a puff of smoke, and continued, “Simple jobs don't count, like slaughtering and plucking feathers, you don't even need to learn, it's perfect for people who don't like to study.

But for more complicated jobs, such as design, pattern making, tailoring, and sewing in the clothing factory, each item can actually be very professional, and this requires special training.

The inspection of the food factory is also the same. It concerns food safety. The position is not high, but the responsibility is very heavy. It also requires people who are flexible and have undergone professional study.”

Chen Fan flicked the ash from his cigarette and smiled, “According to the plan I talked about last time, Lujiawan's sideline company will embark on the road to regularization, and the scale will become larger and larger.

A 'Luwan Industrial Park' in Nanhug Commune is not our end point, but our starting point. In this development process, there is also a constant need for professional talents.

So I just thought about it carefully, it is very necessary to run a professional training school.”

After he finished speaking, Secretary Yang exhaled a long breath and was about to speak.

At this time, Xiao Liewen next to him suddenly chuckled, “Isn’t this the 'indigenous university' we ran 20 years ago?”

Hearing this, Secretary Yang and the others, who were still a little nervous, couldn't help but feel relieved and laughed.

The so-called “indigenous university” does not refer to the professional colleges related to “civil engineering”, “archaeology” or “agriculture” in later generations, but a teaching method that existed in most parts of the country during the Great Leap Forward 20 years ago.

Indigenous universities are generally transformed or supported by high schools or even junior high schools. The founders are mainly communes or production teams, and the campus is in the factory workshop and the fields of the production team.

The content of the courses is also closely linked to production.

For example, the “XX Machinery Factory University” run by a machinery factory teaches fitter, blacksmith, lathe worker, and other content. There are two types of teachers, one is the original subject teacher in the middle school, who mainly teaches cultural classes, known as the “Professor of Culture”.

The other type is the master craftsman in the factory, who is responsible for teaching professional skills and is called the “Professor of Indigenous Knowledge”.

The production team is the same.

In those years, various “production team universities” were also common.

“Professors of Culture” were also those cultural class teachers in middle schools and elementary schools, while “Professors of Indigenous Knowledge” were experienced old farmers, or agricultural machinery operators, breeding experts, and planting experts.

Although it was only a gust of wind, these indigenous universities, which have no definite number recorded in history, still trained many “professional talents” for factories and rural areas.

Don't laugh. Before this wave of “indigenous universities”, many old farmers in many places across the country did not actually know how to farm scientifically. Many of them were still using old methods, farming based on "ancestral experience", and the efficiency was pitifully low.

The simplest example is spring plowing. Before the indigenous universities, many places did not understand the skills and reasons for plowing. They did not know how to plow when planting rice, or how to plow when planting wheat and corn, but followed the experience passed down by the older generation.

It was the emergence of indigenous universities that the “intensive cultivation” method written by agricultural experts was popularized for the first time throughout the country.

There was also seedling cultivation, which was also promoted by indigenous universities, which led to more and more scientific seedling cultivation methods, shortening the seedling cultivation period and making the survival rate of seedlings higher.

Therefore, although the indigenous universities quickly faded away as quickly as they came after only a year or two, many older farmers still remember it very clearly.

After all, that was the farming skill that farmers relied on to save their lives, and it was taught without asking for a penny, so it was hard not to remember.

As a result, as soon as Chen Fan said this, Xiao Liewen immediately thought of the indigenous universities of that year.

After the laughter stopped, Secretary Yang deliberated for a while, his brow furrowed slightly, and said, “The method of indigenous universities is good, and several 'Professors of Indigenous Knowledge' can also come out of the sideline company.”

As he said that, he raised his head, looked left and right, his face a little embarrassed, “It's just that this indigenous university was confirmed to be wrong back then. If we run it again?”

Chen Fan immediately said, “We are not running indigenous universities, we are just running a skills training class. We don't even mention the word 'school', let alone 'university'.

When the time comes, we will just say that it is a technical training class, specializing in training workers for Lujiawan factories, running the school openly, not charging tuition fees, only charging accommodation and living expenses, and selecting the best for admission after training.

I don't believe it, who would associate it with indigenous universities.”

Hearing this, Zhang Changjiang, Xiao Liewen and the others all turned to look at Secretary Yang, after all, he was the helmsman of Lujiawan.

Secretary Yang bit his lip, “Okay, let’s do it this way!”

Even the sideline company has been set up, what's the big deal about an “indigenous university”?

If anyone says that Lujiawan can't run this school, then Old Yang is not a vegetarian either. If you don't run it, then you are responsible for solving the manpower problem for me, otherwise you are destroying the rural development of the sideline economy!

Isn't it just putting labels on people, who doesn't know how to do it!