Since the problem of food and accommodation was solved, the two had no more worries. Under the guidance of the village director, Xie Sanping, they began to conduct field research in the village.
This was literally measuring every inch of land in the mountain village with his feet, discovering the poverty of each household with his eyes, and remembering the poverty of each household with his hands. He couldn't be lazy, nor could he play any tricks. The three of them walked into the households to understand the basic situation of Little Dragon King Village and the production and living conditions of the villagers.
Little Dragon King Village was located in the southern foot of the central part of the Taihang Mountains, in the suburbs north of Hanshui County, 45 kilometers away from the county. There were 412 people in 95 households in the village, 209 people in the labor force, and 64 people in 17 low-income households. The target of poverty alleviation was basically all the households in the village, with only a few dozen households that weren't poor. There were two monks and nuns, 23 elderly people who were older than 80 years old, 330 people who participated in the new medical cooperative insurance, 215 people who participated in the old-age insurance, 17 people who were disabled, two retired soldiers, and one elderly person. The area of farmland was extremely small, with a total of 196 mu. On average, each household had less than two mu of land, and all of them were barren mountainous areas. The village had water, electricity, mobile signals, and television coverage was 100 percent. At the end of last year, the average annual net income of the village was 1,240 yuan, which was far below the national poverty line. The number of livestock at the end of the year was 263 yuan.
Li Rui and Ling Shuyao went into 95 households in the village and had a long talk with the villagers. They had a detailed understanding of the population, age structure, labor force situation, education, farming and animal husbandry production, going out to work, economic net income, and so on. They seriously asked the villagers about the outstanding difficulties and problems in production and living, and Ling Shuyao recorded everything on her laptop. During this process, Li Rui and the two village committee cadres encouraged the villagers to liberate their minds and renew their ideas. While focusing on farming and animal husbandry production, they also went out to work to increase their net income.
Originally, Li Rui and Ling Shuyao only needed to visit the more than 80 poor households. However, Li Rui didn't even let go of the more than 10 non-poor households. He also went to their homes to have a discussion with the head of the family, to understand in detail the reason why they escaped poverty and became rich, and to promote it as an advanced experience in poverty alleviation.
95 households, of course, couldn't be visited in a day. It took Li Rui and Ling Shuyao five days to complete their visit.
During this period, Ai Guowei and the others from the Municipal Transportation Bureau had already found a strategy to help the village renovate more than a dozen old classrooms in the primary school. At the same time, they would help to harden the entire primary school field. The total investment was about 200,000 yuan. This amount of money was nothing compared to the rich and powerful Municipal Transportation Bureau. Li Rui felt that even if they invested two million yuan, it would be a piece of cake.
It didn't matter how much money was spent. The key was that the money was invested in the renovation of the village primary school's old houses. There was almost no obvious help. At least, no family could escape poverty and become rich. Even if the city's transportation bureau built a new teaching building for the village's primary school, there wouldn't be any effect in a short period of time. At best, it would just be "planting trees for the future generation to enjoy the shade". Therefore, Li Rui was skeptical of Ai Guowei's decision.
He found Ai Guowei and expressed his opinion. Ai Guowei asked, "Then, does Director Li have a better way to help?" Li Rui already had a plan in mind. He replied, "Why don't your bureau learn from Hanshui County's practice and use this 200,000 yuan to set up a special poverty alleviation fund for the city's transportation bureau. There will be someone to manage it. As for its use, the poor families can apply for loans to develop agriculture, animal husbandry, and other small businesses. When they earn money, they can return the money back." Ai Guowei asked, "What if they lose money?" Li Rui was speechless.
Ai Guowei sighed, "Of course, Director Li's idea is good. However, we are usually so busy with work. Where would we find the time to set up someone to manage this fund? We also don't have time to deal with the poor families who apply for loans. Moreover, will we be able to see any obvious poverty alleviation effect by lending money to the poor families to develop businesses? I don't think so. We might as well spend the money to renovate the primary school's classrooms and field. When outsiders walk by, they will know that this is our city's poverty alleviation achievement. "
When Li Rui heard this, he understood that what he wanted was not a real poverty alleviation effect, but a political achievement project and a face project. In other words, the city's transportation bureau intended to use this 200,000 yuan to buy a tall hat of "mutual assistance, solidarity, and friendship." In the future, the city's transportation bureau could be said to have helped the poor and contributed to the development of the poor villages.
Of course, if they really wanted to talk about it in detail, their thinking was not wrong. After all, the city's transportation bureau was not a professional poverty alleviation organization. It was already not easy for them to take time out to take a look at the poor villages and spend money to do something for the local people. It was unrealistic for them to wholeheartedly devote themselves to the economic development of the poor villages. Would they still be able to do their job?
If they did not agree, half a sentence would be too much! Then there was no need to continue the discussion.
During the visit, Li Rui also discovered a problem. There were a total of 13 households in Little Dragon King Village that were not poor, but these 13 households were basically all cadres of the village's two committees. Although the 13 households were not very rich, they were still a sharp contrast to the poor families in the village. Their houses were basically tall and bright brick houses with branded appliances and decent decorations. There were all kinds of farm vehicles, and some of them even had a van. What was strange was that although these cadres were rich, when Li Rui asked them how they became rich, not many of them could say anything. They all used bureaucratic phrases like "the party's policies are good," or "don't wait, don't rely on, don't want, get rich through hard work." However, when asked how they became rich through hard work, they could not say anything.
This made Li Rui deeply suspicious, but they did not want to tell the truth. He had no choice but to take the opportunity to ask a few knowledgeable people to completely solve the mystery.
That night, Li Rui was in charge of cooking. He bought vegetables and meat steamed buns from a small store. After returning to the old house, he used an induction cooker and a steamer to steam the steamed buns. Then, he cut the meat and washed the vegetables. He used an earthen stove to burn firewood and stir-fry the vegetables in a big iron pot.
During the days he and Ling Shuyao lived in the old house, they had basically reached a consensus. Each of them was responsible for cooking lunch and dinner. As for breakfast, they would eat at the breakfast stall in front of the village's primary school. After this rule was established, the two of them took turns to cook and rest. Such a clear division of labor proved that the two of them were clearly colleagues. In fact, there was even coldness in this relationship.
Li Rui did not care about this at all. The education he had received since childhood made him know that there was no free meal in the world. If he wanted to eat and drink well, he had to do it himself. It was impossible to completely rely on others. Not to mention that Ling Shuyao was his colleague, even if she was his dear wife, he could not always let her cook. Wouldn't that make her old and haggard prematurely?
At this moment, he skillfully cut the shredded scallions and ginger. Then, he cut the meat into strips. After washing the garlic, he cut them into pieces and put them on a plate. This was a dish, Shredded Meat Stir-Fried Garlic. Then, he washed two tomatoes, cut them into pieces and put them on the plate. Then, he cracked two eggs. This was another dish, Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes. Two dishes for two people was enough.
After finishing all this, he turned around to wash the pot and stir-fry the vegetables. However, he felt something crawling over his shoes. When he looked down, he was so scared that he jumped up and took advantage of the situation to throw that thing away.
That thing was thrown to the bottom of the stove. It got up, raised its tail high, and held two big iron pincers. It crawled forward aggressively. If it was not an adult scorpion, then what was it?
Li Rui was so scared that his back was covered in a layer of cold sweat. He thought to himself that it was lucky that he reacted in time and threw it away in advance. If it had crawled into his trousers and attacked him, he would have suffered. He stared blankly as it crawled. Suddenly, he realized that he could not let it live in the house. Otherwise, he would be stung by it sooner or later. He raised his foot and wanted to stomp it to death. Seeing that it had crawled to the mouth of the stove, he had an idea. He sneered, picked up a branch, and pushed it into the stove. Then, he immediately lit up a pile of dry grass and pushed it into the stove. Then, he quickly stuffed in some dry grass and leaves. Since he was going to stir-fry the vegetables, he might as well light the fire in advance. First, he would eliminate this dangerous assassin in the stove.
Ling Shuyao, who came out of the west house, saw all this and sighed faintly. "Why are there so many scorpions in this village? Is it still habitable? " Li Rui frowned and said, "If it can crawl on the ground, then it can also crawl on the stove. You have to be careful when you sleep at night." Ling Shuyao raised her eyebrows and said, "What do you mean? What do you mean I have to be careful when I sleep? You don't have to be careful? " Li Rui smiled and said, "My bed is a single person steel wire bed. The four bed legs are made of iron pipes. They are round and slippery. Scorpions can't climb up at all." Ling Shuyao frowned after hearing this. She was stunned for a while and said, "No, let's switch. From tonight onwards, you sleep on the stove and I sleep on the steel wire bed."
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