Male Lead's Canon Fodder Wife - Chapter 323

Chapter 323: Fake Tax
Comrade Jiang quickly filled out half of the form, then handed it to Li Chenmo and said, “Comrade Li, please fill in the information on this form.”

Li Chenmo nodded and filled out the form. While he was filling out the form, Comrade Jiang said, “Comrade Li, under normal circumstances, the brigade will receive some fertilizer from the production teams every year. In exchange for the fertilizer, the quantity of food and meat they need to send to the capital will be reduced by 5% to 15% based on the fertilizer they transport.”

Hearing his words, Li Chenmo nodded. Although the extra 15% of meat is not a large amount, it is a huge amount of food during the summer harvest.

Seeing how calm Li Chenmo was, Comrade Jiang added, “Comrade Li, normally, tax cuts are a reward for the production team. But the pig manure belongs to you. If you are willing, we can give you a personal tax cut instead.”

This time, after hearing Comrade Jiang’s words, Li Chenmo stopped writing and raised his head. At first, he wanted to ask them to reduce his family’s house taxes. But after thinking about it, he changed his mind and said, “No need. Just give a tax cut for the production team. Last year’s harvest was not good and many elderly people and children did not have enough food.”

Comrade Jiang was stunned for a moment before he understood what he meant. He looked at him with admiration in his eyes. Few people can refuse such benefits and choose to share them with others. No wonder the brigade secretary said he is a rare person with a generous and kind heart.

Comrade Jiang thinks he is being generous, but Li Chenmo is avoiding trouble. In this day and age, owning a home is prohibited. However due to Han Yuheng’s greed, he took advantage of his position as the team leader to let the villagers privately own the house. In return, they pay taxes every year.

While the villagers thought this was a government regulation, in fact, it was all Han Yuheng’s personal decision. The so-called tax was never given to the government, but he took it himself. If the higher-ups find out about this, Han Yuheng may face the death penalty, because accepting bribes is a serious crime.

But if he is punished, so will everyone involved including the Li family. According to his recollection, a severe drought occurred in 1978. To solve this problem, some villagers proposed an arrangement in which each household is responsible for its own production.

Farm tools and land were distributed equally to households in exchange for fixed output quotas. Each member has free will to decide which crops to grow and has the right to sell excess production on the free market. They also need to cope alone with any losses they suffer.

This is the prototype of the household responsibility system. This arrangement is completely contrary to the values ​​of the Communist Party and the villagers may be prosecuted due to this. Because of this, the arrangement has been kept secret and unknown to senior officials. It was not until 1980 that Comrade Deng Xiaoping publicly announced his approval of this policy, and rural reform officially began.

This will happen in 4 years. Before that, he could not remove Han Yuheng from his post. Since they have already paid a lot of hush money, he would just use him as a shield for the time being. When other villages were engaged in rural reform, he would find ways to incite Han Yuheng to participate. After that, what happened to Han Yuheng had nothing to do with him or his family.

After making the decision, Li Chenmo quickly filled out the form and returned it to Comrade Jiang.

After checking the information, Comrade Jiang said, “Comrade Li, I will inform the brigade secretary and we can go get the pig manure. Please wait a moment.”

“Alright.”

Comrade Jiang left the room in a happy mood and came back soon. Since Li Chenmo rode his bicycle to the brigade office, Comrade Jiang put the bicycle in the trunk, and they drove back in the truck. In addition to Comrade Jiang, there were also several people following him.

As before, the truck was parked by the river. After getting out of the truck, Li Chenmo said, “I’ll inform my wife first. Please wait for a moment.”

When they unloaded the buckets to store the pig manure and the wooden cart from the trunk, Li Chenmo returned home. As soon as he opened the door, he smelled the aroma of biscuits and meat jars. He parked his bicycle and went to the kitchen to find his wife. Seeing his wife filling the jar with meat sauce, he walked over with a smile.

Hearing the familiar footsteps, Lu Jueyu raised her head, saw her husband, and smiled, “Husband, you are back.”

Li Chenmo leaned over and kissed her forehead out of habit, forgetting that there were other people in the kitchen at the moment, and said, “Mhmm. Comrade Jiang and the others are waiting for me. The brigade secretary sent them to get pig manure.”

Lu Jueyu was a little embarrassed so she nodded and said nothing more. After rubbing his wife’s head a few times, he left with a smile.

Not long after he left, Lu Jueyu saw Pan Meijia peeking from the kitchen door and grinning at her. After being glared at by her, Pan Meijia, instead of feeling sorry, burst out laughing and continued working as if nothing had happened.

At the same time, Li Chenmo was leading Comrade Jiang and others towards the foot of the mountain. They were all shocked when they saw the size of the pit. They thought the pit was small, but unexpectedly, the pit was larger than they imagined and was almost full.

Since there was still a lot of pig manure to transport, they stopped wasting time and got to work. As a veteran soldier, Li Chenmo has become accustomed to the stench and filth due to his many years of battlefield experience. So, he helped them shovel the pig manure from the pit into the bucket. Those with weaker stomachs were responsible for carrying the barrels to the trucks.