Lin Qiaozhi picked up her tools and began dismantling the diesel engine.
The three men gathered around it all looked nervous and uneasy.
Their lips moved as though they wanted to say something, but no words came out. They wanted to stop her, yet couldn’t think of a reason to.
She hadn’t even touched their village’s diesel engine before accurately identifying every one of its chronic problems!
“Um… Comrade,” the elderly village Party secretary of Tianjia Village, the man leading this trip, hesitated. No matter how he looked at it, this young comrade had such a youthful face. She seemed the youngest of the five of them. Watching her take apart the village’s most prized possession made his heart pound and his palms break into a sweat.
But she had been specially invited by the brigade and commune above them. She was a skilled technical worker. He couldn’t treat her the same way he treated the inexperienced youngsters in the village.
Summer hadn’t even arrived yet.
Yet sweat kept pouring down his forehead. Unable to contain his anxiety, he watched as Lin Qiaozhi quickly dismantled the diesel engine with a series of loud clanks. His heart ached. “Young comrade, this diesel engine is our village’s greatest treasure. Back then, the whole village tightened their belts and even sold off family belongings before we finally scraped together enough money to buy it.”
“Summer’s almost here. You know how hectic the early rice harvest is here in Hunan, right? This one diesel engine drives the iron rod rice mill. It alone can mill all the brown rice the whole village needs. Otherwise, people would have to turn the millstones by hand, and that’s backbreaking work…”
The more Village Secretary Tian talked, the more uneasy he became. In a low voice, he kept urging, “Slow down! Slow down! Don’t break it…” Thinking about what the village would do without this diesel engine, he regretted not asking the senior mechanic earlier to send someone older and more experienced instead.
Even at the clinic, they always made sure the new trainee didn’t give his grandson injections in the backside. How had he been intimidated into staying silent just now?
Wasn’t this diesel engine far more precious than his grandson’s backside?
Lin Qiaozhi tapped the middle of the cylinder with a long-handled screwdriver, listening to the sound as she said, “The problem isn’t complicated. I can fix it. Don’t worry, sir.”
The villager became even less reassured.
Just listen to that confidence. They had invited diesel engine mechanics from all over the surrounding villages to look at it. They had even taken it to the county for repairs, and nobody had managed to fix it. How could this problem be “not complicated”?
Village Secretary Tian looked toward their village’s diesel engine operator.
The operator hurriedly shook his head. The engine had already been dismantled into pieces, even the cylinder had been removed. He would never even have dared take it apart this thoroughly.
Then he looked at the dark-skinned, honest man who had driven the ox cart hauling the diesel engine over.
Sigh. He wasn’t much help either.
All he could do was keep pacing around in circles.
Seeing the pained expression on his face, Lin Qiaozhi knew how precious this diesel engine was to them. She decided to get him talking so he would have something to focus on besides worrying. “Looks like you’ve really put this diesel engine to work. You rely on it for quite a lot, don’t you?”
“Of course we do!”
Village Secretary Tian slapped his thigh. It was good that this young woman understood. Very good. She absolutely couldn’t damage it.
He hurriedly began explaining the farm work to the young comrade.
“Once the early rice harvest is over, we use it to plow the paddies. But the most important thing is after plowing, when we transplant the late rice seedlings, we need it to pump water. Rice can’t go without water in the summer, or the harvest will suffer! This diesel engine powers a water pump that draws water from Dawan Bay. It can irrigate several mu of fields in just one hour…”
The old man knew absolutely nothing about machinery, but when it came to farming, he could talk about it endlessly.
Once he started, he couldn’t stop. He talked about the torrential summer rains in Hunan the previous year, when flooding had struck their village. The villagers had ventured out into the pouring rain late at night to borrow several diesel engines, running them nonstop for twenty-four hours to drain the floodwater from fifty mu of rice fields.
It was a feat of tiny human beings, as insignificant as ants, challenging the forces of nature through sheer human effort.
And none of it could have happened without agricultural mechanization.
“If it’d been back in the old days, it would’ve turned into a disastrous harvest year!” Village Secretary Tian said with great emotion, practically on the verge of tears. He was trying to make this young city-born comrade understand just how important this diesel engine was to their village.
After dismantling the engine and confirming the exact problem, Lin Qiaozhi reassured the old man. “Find someone to borrow a basin of wood ash from a nearby household stove. Once the wood ash gets here, I guarantee this diesel engine will be fixed, and it’ll run even better than before.”
Village Secretary Tian froze.
He looked at the scattered parts all over the ground that made his heart clench, then at the youthful-faced Lin Qiaozhi. Wiping his face with a rough, weathered hand, he asked, “…You’re not pulling my leg, are you?”
Lin Qiaozhi took out the connecting rod bearing shell and began carefully scraping it by hand with a triangular scraper. “If I really wanted to fool you, I could simply tell you to start the engine, let it run until the coolant reached eighty degrees Celsius, then suddenly rev it to maximum speed. You’d immediately hear a loud boom, followed by a huge cloud of white smoke.”
The diesel engine operator squatting nearby stared in surprise before hurriedly saying, “That’s exactly how the guy in the county repaired it last time! He said once it broke loose inside, it wouldn’t make that knocking sound anymore. It worked for a while after we brought it back, but later it got even worse!”
Village Secretary Tian’s face flushed dark red with anger. Slapping his thigh, he cursed, “That bastard! I kept wondering why the diesel engine broke down again so quickly after we got it repaired, and why it came back even worse. Turns out he was fooling us! And he still had the nerve to charge our village a chicken for it!”
Lin Qiaozhi: “…”
So what her teacher had said in class about some places using crude, heavy-handed repair methods was actually true. Reality was even more absurd than the textbooks.
Still fuming, Village Secretary Tian nevertheless called out to the crowd gathered outside the courtyard and asked an acquaintance to fetch the wood ash.
Lin Qiaozhi focused on working on the connecting rod bearing shell in her hands.
At the same time, she explained things to the diesel engine operator squatting beside her. “Your diesel engine has two problems. First, the clearance in this connecting rod bearing shell is too large.”
She held up the bearing shell she had just hand-scraped with the triangular scraper for him to see. “The proper clearance should only be about this much. Judging from these wear marks, it was most likely caused by impurities in the engine oil.”
Actually, the diesel engine itself was of very good quality. With proper maintenance and clean engine oil, this problem should never have occurred. She wasn’t sure whether the oil had contained too many impurities or whether the village had been careless with maintenance.
The diesel engine operator nervously licked his lips and said awkwardly, “During the busy farming season, the village needs it running all the time. We can’t afford to stop it, so I can only do maintenance out by the fields.”
He had always thought the diesel engine itself was poorly made and had simply developed problems after long use. He never imagined the fault might lie with him.
He genuinely treated this diesel engine like an honored ancestor!
Lin Qiaozhi didn’t pursue the matter. She wasn’t really in a position to blame him anyway. She simply continued, “The second problem is that the bronze bushing has come loose, causing uneven wear on the piston. That’s also what causes the loud boom when you suddenly rev the engine like I mentioned earlier.”
After asking around, she found that they had no replacement parts. Remembering Wang Baiqiang’s advice about making use of local materials, she decided against telling them to wait until replacement parts could be purchased.
Rather than have them waiting around for nothing, she picked up her tools, adjusted the piston pin and bushing, then tightly secured them with a piece of thin iron wire.
“You should learn this,” Lin Qiaozhi told him while showing him how to fix the problem. “If it comes loose again, just tighten it yourself with wire. Just make sure the wire doesn’t touch the cylinder wall.”
“Once your brigade gets replacement parts, though, it’s still best to replace it.”
The diesel engine operator from Tianjia Village nodded repeatedly.
“The wood ash is here! Will this basin be enough?” Village Secretary Tian hurriedly took the full basin of wood ash from his acquaintance.
Lin Qiaozhi removed several components, including the exhaust pipe, and instructed them, “Wash these with the wood ash.”
This was routine work for them. The two men from Tianjia Village quickly squatted down and began scrubbing.
As she reassembled the engine, Lin Qiaozhi pointed at the opening of the dark blue exhaust pipe. “Here’s a trick. If you notice bluish-white smoke coming from the exhaust every now and then, you’ll know it’s time to tighten the wire again.”
Village Secretary Tian looked puzzled. “Our diesel engine has always given off a bit of bluish-white smoke. I never see that with other diesel engines!”
Lin Qiaozhi explained, “When the piston pin is loose, engine oil can leak into the combustion chamber.” She pointed at another diesel engine nearby. “Look at their exhaust. When diesel fuel burns properly, the smoke should be grayish white.”
That was how she had guessed the engine had a cylinder knock problem in the first place.
But she didn’t explain any further.
She might as well let them think she had spotted the problem at a glance.
It wasn’t a bad thing if people thought she was especially capable.
Village Secretary Tian hurriedly committed that to memory.
Once the diesel engine had been reassembled and filled with diesel fuel, its distinctive rumble quickly drew the attention of the brigade members waiting in line for repairs.
The engine was running without a load.
It produced a healthy, rhythmic three-beat cadence: thump… ta… hum…
The crowd had no idea that they were hearing the rhythm of the combustion, valves, and gears operating together.
But they knew one thing: the moment they heard that sound, they felt reassured!
“Whoa, the knocking sound is really gone!”
“That’s right! That’s exactly how it’s supposed to sound!”
Village Secretary Tian immediately shouted for the young diesel engine operator from their village to increase the throttle. Excitedly, he called out, “Give it more!”
The sound of combustion grew louder, and the mechanical noise increased as well.
But the alarming metallic knocking never returned.
“It’s fixed! It really is fixed! That cylinder knock is gone.” People from several surrounding villages watching the repair couldn’t hide their excitement as they stared at the diesel engine.
Even though the engine belonged to Tianjia Village, during the busy farming season, whenever emergency relief or disaster response was needed, it had worked hard in their villages too.
The people from Daniu Village, who had been watching from the side, immediately pushed their own diesel engine over.
“Make way, make way! Don’t crowd around here!”
Beaming at Lin Qiaozhi, they noticed she was talking with Village Secretary Tian. Without drawing attention to it, they edged him aside with their bodies.
“Master, your skills are really something. Our village’s diesel engine has a few problems too. We’d appreciate it if you could take a look.”
Village Secretary Tian, having been squeezed aside, immediately grew annoyed. “She’s still explaining how we’re supposed to maintain our diesel engine from now on. I still need to tell the master about how our village uses it.”
So there wouldn’t be any other problems they didn’t know about!
“It’s already fixed, so don’t push your luck! Let her repair ours first!” The one from Daniu Village was the village chief. He wasn’t intimidated in the slightest, speaking with complete confidence.
Lin Qiaozhi began working on the second diesel engine.
By now, quite a few villagers had gathered around her, forming a circle with her and the diesel engine at its center.
Most of them had diesel engines in their own villages that suffered from similar problems, like bluish-white smoke or unusual noises. Hearing that the problem here had been solved, they all hurried over to ask questions.
Nearby, Liu Guoyou had attracted a crowd of his own. Being older, he looked more trustworthy, and many people surrounded him asking about diesel engine problems.
The villagers weren’t fools. They had all been keeping an eye on repairs involving problems similar to those in their own villages. As soon as they saw one successfully fixed, they swarmed over like cats catching the scent of fish.
Meanwhile, Wang Baiqiang was repairing a tractor with Hu Qing and Fang Ziqin, and there were fewer people gathered around them. For one thing, only one tractor belonged to a local brigade, so there were far fewer of them. For another, tractors were much larger than diesel engines, so dismantling and repairing them took longer.
Looking at the circle of people surrounding her, all watching her expectantly, Lin Qiaozhi found the experience rather novel.
As she dismantled the second diesel engine and inspected it, she casually chatted with the people nearby to learn more about their situation.
The villagers answered enthusiastically.
“The harvest? Back before we had diesel engines, it took us nearly forty days to bring everything in. Now it only takes a little over twenty. With tractors, it’s even faster.”
“Tractors don’t work well in our village. Just look at the terraced fields behind Tianjia Village. Even small tractors can’t maneuver properly there. They’re awkward to use and can easily damage the paddies.”
“That’s right. They can’t make tight turns. Diesel engines are much more practical.”
The courtyard grew lively, and the villagers who had been watching from outside crowded in as well, standing on tiptoe around the outer edge of the gathering.
The children squeezed through the gaps between the adults’ legs to get a closer look.
Sometimes villagers really were that simple and approachable. If you could help them solve their problems, you were naturally one of the good guys, and they would bring out the best things they had at home to treat you.
Whatever troubles they had, whatever frustrations they encountered while using agricultural machinery, they chatted about them all as casually as everyday gossip.
After identifying the problem with this engine, Lin Qiaozhi found that Wang Baiqiang had been right again. There really was no rust-preventive grease. She looked around and asked, “Does anyone have tung oil or tea seed oil?”
“Yes, yes!”
“We produce that here. Comrade Lin, you seem pretty familiar with our area!” the villager said, his tone instantly becoming even warmer as he brought her some tea seed oil.
Lin Qiaozhi smiled. It wasn’t that she was familiar with the place. It was that she had been fortunate enough to meet a good teacher willing to pass on everything he knew. Though admittedly, his temper was a bit foul.
She said, “Mud and water have gotten into the governor gear housing on this one. That’s why you keep seeing the governor lever shake.”
She removed the gear housing cover and temporarily substituted a mixture of rapeseed oil and plant ash for rust-preventive grease, applying it to the governor sliding disc.
“The governor lever on the one in our village shakes too. What’s causing that? We took such good care of it. How could mud and water possibly get inside?!”
“Right, right! The one in our village shakes too. It’s really obvious.”
“If it hadn’t stayed steady when it was brand-new, I’d have thought the thing was just supposed to shake.”
This was a collective problem. Problems of this kind generally had little to do with the people using the machines and were instead related to the characteristics of the local area.
After thinking it over, Lin Qiaozhi came up with one possibility. “My guess is that Hunan has a muddy rainy season. Did the governor levers on your machines all start developing this shaking problem one after another around the beginning of the rainy season?”
The villagers from the different villages exchanged glances, trying hard to remember as they compared the timing.
It really did seem to be the case!
Everyone liked the feeling of getting to the root of the problem, and they all eagerly gathered around Lin Qiaozhi to talk about the diesel engines and farm work in their own villages.
The news spread throughout the surrounding villages that very same day. An exceptionally capable team had come from Jiangcheng, from Hongqi Agricultural Machinery Factory, to repair diesel engines and tractors!
There was even a young female factory worker among them. She might look young, but she was incredibly skilled!