Hewan Brigade.
Several nearby communes and production brigades heard the news, and before long, people, donkey carts, and ox carts were all hurrying over as fast as they could.
“They’re incredibly good. Every machine they touch gets fixed! Everything they say is spot-on!”
“It’s true, I’m not lying to you.”
“If your village wants to go, you’d better hurry. I don’t know how much longer they’ll be staying.”
“Oh, and let me give you a tip. That young girl in there is especially good. She fixed Tianjia Village’s long-standing problem and even found the root cause. If you want someone reliable, ask for her.”
As the news spread farther and farther, the nearby brigades and communes all raced toward Hewan Brigade without stopping, tractors rattling along with broken diesel engines in tow.
Hewan Brigade: “…”
Shameless!
Absolutely shameless!!
“Oh, Hewan Brigade really got ahead of everyone else. You actually managed to invite technical workers from the famous Hongqi Agricultural Machinery Factory. Secretary Zhang, the higher-ups ought to give you credit for this!” Zhao Fang, the brigade leader from neighboring Hongshan Brigade, beamed warmly.
Brigade Leader Zhao spoke cheerfully, practically overflowing with joy, as if all the water in Dashui Bay couldn’t contain it.
“Secretary Zhang, introduce them to me. Which one is in charge? That young lady over there repairing the diesel engine is the female technician everyone’s been talking about, the one who’s especially skilled, right?” asked another brigade secretary, craning his neck toward the group surrounding Lin Qiaozhi.
His curiosity and excitement were so obvious that even a blind man could have seen them.
Secretary Zhang felt his heart ache just looking at them.
What was this supposed to be?
It was just like back when tractors were in short supply. Their brigade had worked tirelessly to make contacts, paid out of pocket for the diesel to invite both the operators and the tractors over, treated them to meals, and supplied the fuel, manpower, and equipment.
The tractor had barely spent half a day rattling through the fields, finishing work that would have taken people half a month to plow by hand, when all the neighboring villages suddenly appeared, smiling as they said, “Since the tractor’s already here, how about lending it to us for a while?”
The smiles on Brigade Leader Zhao and the others’ faces looked exactly the same!
Listening to their flattering words and seeing those beaming, eager smiles, Secretary Zhang knew without guessing that there would be no reasoning with these shameless freeloaders. His teeth itched, and so did his fists.
“Liu Guoyou, you take these machines. Lin Qiaozhi, you handle the ones over by the haystacks.” Wang Baiqiang reassigned the work before turning to Secretary Zhang. “That’s all we can take today. Secretary Zhang, please make the arrangements. Tell everyone after this not to keep bringing more machines over.”
Secretary Zhang naturally agreed at once.
When Brigade Leader Zhao saw that his brigade’s diesel engine had been assigned to Lin Qiaozhi, an even happier, sweeter smile spread across his face. Even though he was a big, burly man, it did nothing to diminish how sweet that smile looked.
To build a solid rapport with the villagers, Lin Qiaozhi’s group had genuinely devoted themselves to repairing everyone’s tractors and diesel engines from the very afternoon they arrived.
Only after earning the people’s trust could they carry out the rest of their work!
Lin Qiaozhi repaired six or seven machines by herself.
She discovered that the diesel engines used in the countryside suffered from every problem imaginable, and nearly every single one had one issue or another.
It wasn’t because the engines themselves were poorly made, but because every village was using its agricultural machinery under excessive, high-intensity conditions. During the busy double harvest season, some machines ran continuously for twenty-four hours without stopping, and the operating conditions were extremely demanding.
Far beyond what the designers had originally anticipated.
If they were so useful, why not just buy more diesel engines and tractors?
That was like asking why people didn’t just eat meat instead of gruel.
In short, the situation was complicated. Repairing them made Lin Qiaozhi feel as though she were clearing one difficult stage after another, until her head ached.
“Lin Qiaozhi.”
For a moment, Lin Qiaozhi thought she was hearing things. Since when did diesel engines start calling people’s names?
Then she saw Liu Guoyou walking over, holding a spring in his hand. He looked helplessly at the villager following beside him. “Junior Sister, can you help me explain this?”
Lin Qiaozhi quickly got to her feet. “What’s wrong?”
If nothing else, Liu Guoyou really had looked after them throughout the trip. Besides, they were all from Hongqi Factory.
Liu Guoyou explained, “This village’s engine also has a vibrating governor rod. I opened it up and checked. It’s not because mud and water got into the governor gear chamber. The problem is the governor spring.”
The moment Lin Qiaozhi saw the spring in his hand, she understood. “Long-term overload operation caused the governor spring to fatigue and deform, right?”
Springs had their limits too!!
After working under overload conditions for so long, the spring had gradually stretched out of shape and lost its tension.
Liu Guoyou nodded. “Exactly.”
The dark-skinned villager listened to the exchange between them without understanding a word. To him, it sounded as though they had already decided together that the engine couldn’t be repaired. Panicked and anxious, he hurriedly said, “Master Lin, they all had the same governor rod shaking. You fixed theirs, so why can’t you fix ours?”
Looking flustered, with the expression of someone afraid he had somehow offended them, he reached into the cloth pocket sewn onto his clothes, pulled out a handful of money and ration coupons, and tried to force them into their hands. “Please help us. Please.”
Thinking he had angered Liu Guoyou by saying something like, “Why can’t you fix it?” he repeatedly apologized, “I’m really sorry. I don’t know how to talk properly. Please be magnanimous, Master. Don’t take it to heart.”
Liu Guoyou was so startled his face stiffened. He quickly raised both hands in front of himself and hurriedly helped the man straighten up from his bow. “Comrade, you’ve misunderstood!”
He immediately turned to look for Wang Baiqiang in the distance. If Engineer Wang saw this, how was he supposed to explain it? Engineer Wang might think he was extorting villagers and accepting bribes!
Then it would be like mud falling into his trousers. There’d be no explaining it away!
Fortunately, more people had arrived later, and the brigade courtyard wasn’t large enough, so everyone had spread out into different areas.
Lin Qiaozhi couldn’t help baring her teeth.
Just imagining Wang Baiqiang’s dark expression and the tongue-lashing that would follow made her break out in a cold sweat for Liu Guoyou.
This really was a disaster out of nowhere.
Lin Qiaozhi helped explain, “Comrade, it’s really not what you think. Think about farming. Poor harvests happen for all kinds of reasons. Some fields don’t get enough water, while others aren’t weeded often enough. Machines are the same. Your machine’s problem isn’t the same as the others’.”
The villager’s facial muscles trembled, and his eyes glistened with tears. Stubbornly refusing to let go of the point, he insisted, “They’re all shaking the same way. Why can’t ours be fixed?” His voice began to choke with sobs. “The rods are all shaking the same way. They’re exactly the same.”
Even when Liu Guoyou told him, “It’s not that it can’t be fixed. Your brigade just needs to purchase a replacement spring and install it,” it was no use.
The man simply slumped down onto the ground.
The Party secretary from Tianjia Village, who had not yet left, couldn’t bear to watch and walked over. “Don’t blame him. He’s not upset with you. Their village’s diesel engine hasn’t been pulling its weight. It broke down some time ago, and the whole village had to rely on manual labor. Then they had a run of bad weather. This year, they don’t even know if they’ll be able to produce enough grain to meet their state quota.”
If it was only for an emergency lasting a day or two, villages could still lend machinery to one another. But when a village needed to borrow one long-term like this, no one could help.
Seeing the sorrow trembling across his face, Lin Qiaozhi realized that deep down, he probably already knew that the governor rod on his village’s diesel engine wasn’t shaking for the same reason as everyone else’s. Otherwise, why could everyone else’s machine still run while theirs couldn’t?
The moment it was started, it stalled, burning diesel without doing any work.
She still didn’t understand. “Wouldn’t waiting for a replacement spring be fast enough?”
Village Secretary Tian sighed as he looked at her. Knowing this little girl who had never farmed hadn’t understood what he meant earlier, he said, “Master Lin, didn’t I just tell you? The early rice harvest is about to begin. Around this time last year, our village’s diesel engine ran close to eighteen hours a day. Do you think a machine that guzzles that much fuel is running just for fun?”
It was all because there was work to do!
He gave this city girl, who had never farmed, an example.
Hunan’s summers brought frequent rain. If a heavy downpour came in a couple of days and the fields flooded, failing to drain the water in time would reduce yields again.
How could people carrying water by hand or operating waterwheels possibly match the speed of a diesel-powered drainage pump?
As the village Party secretary responsible for agricultural work, he counted on his fingers. “The diesel generator has to keep the grain depot’s dryers running during the rainy season. The electricity it produces also has to provide lighting so everyone can keep harvesting and planting through the night…”
After listening to his long explanation, all Lin Qiaozhi could hear in her head was the repeated phrase, “diesel engine, diesel engine.”
Eighteen hours of work a day really wasn’t something that could be summed up in a few sentences.
The longer they listened, the quieter both she and Liu Guoyou became.
To them, it had seemed like nothing more than waiting for a replacement part and changing a spring. But for the villagers, even losing a single day could mean running into an unavoidable disaster that would deal another devastating blow to an already reduced harvest.
Lin Qiaozhi pressed her lips together, took a deep breath, then turned to Liu Guoyou and raised an eyebrow at him. “Let’s think of another way.”
Liu Guoyou’s face was full of difficulty. Unable to bear refusing them outright, he could only say helplessly, “Let’s see if we can come up with something.”
The overloaded, weakened, misshapen spring had both of them stumped.
Without anti-rust grease, oil could be used instead.
Loose parts could be secured with thin iron wire.
If parts had been worn too smooth, fine strands of grass could be wrapped around them to increase friction. Fortunately, there was no shortage of grass fibers in the mountains, and the villagers didn’t mind the extra effort.
But what could they do about a spring that was already ruined?
Or was there something else that could take the place of a spring?
Lin Qiaozhi scratched her head.
Liu Guoyou said, “If only we’d brought a spring with us.”
Lin Qiaozhi shook her head. “A tractor and a diesel engine together have thousands of parts. Are we supposed to bring every single one?”
How could anyone have known in advance?
She felt as though she had wracked her brain to the breaking point. Then, at last, a spark of inspiration flashed through that overworked mind. She sucked in a sharp breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and tried desperately to grasp that elusive memory. “Brother Liu! Do you remember when we studied the section on rolled steel and steelmaking? Didn’t they mention a process called… called…”
Her eyes flew open.
“I remember! It’s called tempering!”
Liu Guoyou: “…”
There had been no “when we studied.” He had never studied it.
Still, he knew the term. “You mean… try tempering this spring?”
Lin Qiaozhi nodded. Picking up the spring, she said, “It should work. Tempering can adjust steel’s hardness, strength, plasticity, and toughness.”
She muttered that they’d also have to control the temperature carefully. If the tempering temperature was wrong, many kinds of steel and iron would become brittle.
She asked Secretary Zhang for some charcoal and wood ash.
She heated the spring in the charcoal until it glowed a dull red, then, with a swift whoosh, plunged it into the wood ash to cool.
The ash gave off a muffled hissing sound. The heat from the spring even caused parts of the ash to glow faintly red as wisps of ash floated into the air.
“Will it work?” Village Secretary Tian craned his neck to peer inside.
“We’ll have to wait and see. You can’t let it cool too quickly after tempering. It has to cool slowly,” Lin Qiaozhi replied.
Quite a few people had gathered around. They all knew about the condition of the diesel engine, and none of them wanted to cut in line ahead of the others, so they could only wait.
After a while, it was ready.
Lin Qiaozhi lifted the tongs.
The weakened, deformed spring had contracted back into shape.
The villager sitting on the ground lit up with joy. He leaped to his feet, casually lifted the hem of his coarse shirt to wipe away his tears, and asked excitedly, “It’s fixed?”
Lin Qiaozhi handed the spring to Liu Guoyou. “Brother Liu, I’ll leave the rest to you.”
Liu Guoyou gave the spring a tug, let out a sigh of relief, and gave Lin Qiaozhi a thumbs-up. “Thanks.”
The villager thanked them over and over.
Once Liu Guoyou reinstalled the spring, the diesel engine no longer started only to have the crank suddenly shake violently twice with a clack-clack before stalling.
Village Secretary Tian, who had been standing nearby watching, strolled back over with his hands clasped behind his back and said to Lin Qiaozhi with admiration, “No wonder you’re so capable at such a young age. You’ve got a quick mind.”
Lin Qiaozhi thought he was simply complimenting her.
She hadn’t expected that Village Secretary Tian was the one with the truly quick mind.
He stayed behind at the commune brigade and successfully arranged for their group to head to Tianjia Village next.
The diesel engine was loaded onto an ox cart that took the lead, while the five of them rode in another cart provided by the commune, following behind.
The narrow mountain road wound steadily uphill.
Carrying with them the goodwill of the surrounding villages and the warm welcome of the locals, they were about to enter the hilly countryside. Tianjia Village was known for its distinctive landscape of rolling hills.
As the ox cart slowly climbed higher, the view gradually opened before them. Lin Qiaozhi gazed out at a breathtaking landscape unlike anything she had seen in Jiangcheng.
Jiangcheng was a land of great rivers and vast plains. Here, however, terraces stepped across the hillsides one after another. The dramatic changes in elevation divided the broad fields into countless smaller plots.
Hewan Brigade bordered a great bend in the river. Looking down from above, the terraced fields at varying elevations hugged the curve of the riverbank. Footpaths branched out in every direction, tracing the river’s winding course. Villages, too, seemed drawn by some invisible force, scattered across both banks at different heights.
This was a branch of the Xiang River, nurturing the land around it.
Lin Qiaozhi could almost picture it. When irrigation was needed, diesel engines connected to water pumps would draw water from every direction along the river bend, sending an endless flow into the villages and fields.
She could hardly imagine how spectacular such a sight would be.
“We’re here! We’re here!” Village Secretary Tian jumped down from the ox cart in front.
The moment he returned to his own village, he became a completely different person. Bursting with energy, he shouted, “Daniu! Go get the village chief, quick! Tell him I’ve brought some distinguished guests!”
Then he called out, “Third Girl! Run over and tell Aunt Tao to get the Flower Drum Opera troupe ready. Bring out the barrel drum, the suona, the gongs, and the cymbals!”
Without missing a beat, he continued giving orders. “Tiezhu! Go catch one of the fat chickens from the coop and slaughter it for dinner. Don’t be stingy. Secretary Zhang from the commune said we’d be reimbursed!”
Lin Qiaozhi: “…”
You didn’t seem like this before.
Wang Baiqiang: “…”
When the old man had introduced Tianjia Village to him before, he hadn’t seemed like this either.
Wang Baiqiang looked at Lin Qiaozhi, who had recommended Village Secretary Tian to him.
Lin Qiaozhi gave an awkward smile. “You also think it’s like he’s become a completely different person… don’t you?”
You can’t blame me, Engineer Wang. You didn’t see it either!
The more restrained and reserved Village Secretary Tian had been at the commune brigade, the more warm and outgoing he was in his own village.
He even gathered a group of villagers who had apparently rehearsed Flower Drum Opera. They welcomed everyone with gongs and drums.
As the cymbals rang out with a loud, crisp clang, the enthusiastic villagers sang and danced all around them.
Even Wang Baiqiang’s expression stiffened.
Lin Qiaozhi wasn’t faring much better. She was completely unaccustomed to this!
When she saw someone dancing toward her, she couldn’t help taking two quick little steps backward, shrinking further into the group.
They were just too enthusiastic!
So enthusiastic it was almost impossible to handle.
In the end, they pushed Hu Qing forward and let the gossip-loving chatterbox deal with the situation.
That evening brought another lavishly warm meal, complete with a freshly slaughtered chicken.
Lin Qiaozhi felt a little embarrassed. It wasn’t as though they had made any great contribution to Tianjia Village.
By the time she’d finished her chicken drumstick, she couldn’t help wondering if there was some way they could repay even a little of all this kindness. Otherwise, she was going to blush from embarrassment.
After dinner, Village Secretary Tian cheerfully arranged for everyone to stay overnight in villagers’ homes.
Lin Qiaozhi stayed at Village Secretary Tian’s house.
When she stepped outside to use the toilet, she faintly heard the familiar old man’s voice, sounding rather pleased with himself. “Heh, I’ve got a good eye for people. Those youngsters are all thin-skinned. Just wait. They’ll teach us everything they’ve got.”
“Especially the one leading them. He may always wear a stern expression, but he’s exactly the kind of person who’s genuinely committed to getting things done.”
His voice gradually faded in and out amid the old woman’s laughter and praise.
Early the next morning, there was yet another warm and generous breakfast.
After breakfast, when no one else was around, Wang Baiqiang turned to Lin Qiaozhi and the other three with a serious expression. “Help them inspect the village’s water pumps, generator sets, threshers, rice mills, and the like.” He cleared his throat twice. “And that diesel engine too. Lin Qiaozhi, you’re familiar with it. Teach them how to maintain it.”
Keeping a straight face, he added, “We can’t take advantage of the villagers.”
Lin Qiaozhi fell silent.
He shouldn’t be called Village Secretary Tian.
He should be called Fox Tian.
Lesson learned!
She made a mental note of Fox Tian’s words.
Then she suddenly remembered. The reason she’d gone to Engineer Wang to ask about graduating early in the first place was because, during the school’s entrance assessment, he had been sitting in the center as the chief examiner.
Even after becoming a senior engineer, he was still willing to concern himself with such small matters, do practical work, and take responsibility.
Had Village Secretary Tian seen through him the moment they met?
The realization dawned on Lin Qiaozhi a little belatedly.
She quietly resolved that while they stayed here, she would spend more time observing Village Secretary Tian.
There was much to learn from him!
And so their group settled into Tianjia Village.
More diesel engines and tractors continued to be brought in, and once they were repaired, they could immediately be tested in the hilly terrain.
She repaired diesel engines and tractors, measured plots of farmland carved apart by the varying elevations, and tried test-driving tractors on the surrounding hillsides outside the cultivated fields.
Lin Qiaozhi immersed herself in learning as quickly as she could.
Every evening, Wang Baiqiang would quiz them. “Lin Qiaozhi.”
Lin Qiaozhi straightened in her seat, unconsciously sitting even straighter, her scalp tingling slightly as she wondered what question she would be asked today.
“You’ve been learning on-site for several days now. Tell me your impressions.”
She considered her answer carefully before replying, “The biggest problem in hilly and mountainous regions is the unique terrain. The differences in elevation break the farmland into small, scattered plots.”
Unlike the vast, open plains, tractors couldn’t simply rumble straight across the fields here without obstruction.
“At present, the tractors produced by our factory… actually, all the tractors in China have difficulty turning around in these narrow hillside plots. Secondly, tractors are heavy, so there’s a risk of them tipping over on sloping hillsides.”
“Also, their maximum tractive force isn’t sufficient, which limits their climbing ability and leaves them lacking the power needed for cultivation.”
She concluded, “Those are the three biggest problems I see, and the ones that most urgently need to be solved.”
But Wang Baiqiang was still not satisfied. He insisted that Lin Qiaozhi explain her own ideas for improving them.
Lin Qiaozhi felt a twinge in her teeth as she struggled to put her thoughts into words.
“Not bad. You put some thought into it. Take this back and read it.” Wang Baiqiang handed her a thick, sturdy notebook bound in high-quality kraft paper.
Lin Qiaozhi: !
She recognized it immediately. This was the notebook that recorded Wang Baiqiang’s design ideas, the one he always carried with him!
And he was just giving it to her?
Seeing the astonishment on her face, Wang Baiqiang snorted. “What, you think I’m worried you’ll run off with it?”
This was one of the advantages of the factory technical school recruiting the children of factory workers.
They had all watched these children grow up. They knew them inside and out. They were one of their own, with roots firmly planted in Hongqi Factory.
If they had recruited students from outside instead, even after three years of training, they would never dare so casually let someone read a notebook that could shape the future direction of Hongqi Factory’s development.
Clutching the kraft-paper notebook, Lin Qiaozhi returned to Village Secretary Tian’s house.
Grandma Tian was sitting in the courtyard with her daughter-in-law, shelling beans.
When she saw Lin Qiaozhi come back, she smiled. “Qiaozhi’s back.”
Recently, while helping out around the village, Lin Qiaozhi had overhauled that diesel engine until it looked as good as new, and had also helped solve several problems the villagers had encountered while using their diesel engines.
The aunties in the courtyard couldn’t stop praising her.
One praised her for being clever, another praised her for being meticulous.
For a moment, Lin Qiaozhi couldn’t tell whether they were genuinely complimenting her or whether this was all part of Village Secretary Tian’s fox-like scheme.
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen a girl who’s such a good technician. She’s so skillful with her hands too, don’t you think, Second Sister-in-law?”
Now they were praising her nimble hands too.
Lin Qiaozhi coughed twice. “Actually, girls are even better suited to being technicians.”
The chorus of praise abruptly stopped.
She understood now. It really was a fox-like scheme.
Lin Qiaozhi simply decided to keep going. Copying the shameless confidence of Sister Salted Fish Fairy and Village Secretary Tian, she launched into a stream of outrageous claims, saying there were lots of people like her at Hongqi Factory, that girls could master in eight months what boys took three years to learn.
She spoke with absolute conviction.
Which was true, after all. The first referred to Director Meng, A Shui, and the others. As for the second, she’d merely left out the subject that it applied only to herself. Everything she said was technically true, so she wasn’t lying!
She left everyone thoroughly bewildered.
“R-Really?” The grandmothers and aunties in the courtyard were astonished. Were girls in the big cities really all this capable?
Lin Qiaozhi smiled. “Of course it’s true!”
Amid their dazed, bewildered stares, she hurried into the house with the notebook hugged tightly in her arms.
Unable to help herself, she flopped onto the bed and covered her mouth as she laughed. Hahaha~
After laughing for a while, she quickly took advantage of the remaining daylight to start reading Engineer Wang’s notebook.
Tianjia Village didn’t have electricity.
Only on especially important occasions, such as the double harvest season, would they use a diesel engine to power a generator.
If she didn’t make good use of the time now, she’d have to read by oil lamp later, and she felt embarrassed about using too much of someone else’s lamp oil.
Lin Qiaozhi gradually became immersed in Wang Baiqiang’s notebook.
The more she read, the more astonished she became.
No wonder there would be results so soon in her dream.
Engineer Wang had already thought things through to such a profound level.
He wanted to improve the cylinder bore-to-stroke ratio to increase torque output.
He wanted to solve the problem of insufficient hill-climbing capability by installing a transfer case.
He wanted to widen the tractor’s track width to improve lateral stability and reduce the risk of rollovers.
She carefully studied each idea and every design detail.
On scratch paper beside her, she tried calculating and making projections. If the maximum tractive force could be increased to 1.5 tons, the tractor should be able to operate steadily on a fifteen-degree slope…
The more Lin Qiaozhi read, the more absorbed she became.
The more she read, the more excited she grew.
Soon!
Just by reading the notebook and following the train of thought, she could almost feel Engineer Wang’s ideas and designs about to leap off the page, so tangible, with every possibility of becoming reality.
It was incredible!
Filled with excitement and exhilaration, she drifted off to sleep, her mind full of blueprints and data for a hill-country tractor.
In her dream, she opened her eyes and saw an unbelievable hill-country tractor.
The metal plate bore the words “Made in China,” and the production date showed that it had actually been manufactured several decades in the future!
Driven by someone, it articulated smoothly through turns, featured bidirectional driving, and maneuvered effortlessly through the narrow terraced fields of the hills, fulfilling practically every hope and dream of farmers in hilly regions.
Lin Qiaozhi let out a slow breath, easing the surge of awe welling up in her chest.