Wang Zhong has always been a resolute person, and he never delays the decisions he has made.
Ten days later, the work of plowing, topdressing, planting and transplanting seedlings was basically completed, and the work of preparing to build an oil-pressing workshop and a grain depot officially began.
Time is precious, and there is no room for any delay. After all, Wang Zhong is a person who has led a large group of tens of thousands of people. In the past, when he was not showing off, he was kind to others and easy to talk to. But once he became serious, he would fight with the general who led the troops to fight. Likewise, when he opened his mouth, there was a majesty that could not be resisted and followed subconsciously.
Niu Dadan and Zhao Youtian took people into the mountains to cut trees. After repeated surveys and comparisons, Wang Zhong and Ma Renli decided on the location of the oil mill about 500 meters west of the village.
Since Wang Zhong planned to use water power to reduce some manpower input, the choice of this location had to be carefully considered.
Wang Zhong specially chose the perfect location to connect to the irrigation system of Maixiang Village, using water power to create power and drive some equipment.
However, after the wood is chopped back, it cannot be used immediately. It must be left for a while to dry in the shade before processing.
Wang Zhong first led his people to renovate the warehouse that was originally left by the Ma family, and also dug a cellar under the grain warehouse.
The time passed by in a tense and busy manner. Wang Zhong had no intention of letting the villagers work in vain. How much work each person did every day was calculated in the form of points. He only waited for the residual oil workshop to be officially built. After the oil is extracted and profits are made, material subsidies are given to the villagers based on these points.
Although they were just making big cakes like the so-called "entrepreneurs" with evil intentions in later generations, the villagers of Maixiang Village ate the big cakes drawn by Wang Zhong very happily, and they still believed in Wang Zhong deeply.
There is no shortage of craftsmen in the village. There are three monkeys and others who make clay tiles, there are several carpenters such as Lao Ganbang, and the blacksmith Blind Lao Yin is also good at his craftsmanship.
Midsummer is the hottest time of the year, but none of the villagers seem to know what it means to be hot or what it means to be tired. They dig foundations, dig ditches, build brick walls, build stoves, and forge iron hoops.
If you speed up the flow of time, you can see the same house-building videos that people see in the short video app on their mobile phones in the real world.
An oil-pressing workshop in the shape of a triple courtyard was built covering an area of several hundred square meters, with several warehouses and firewood sheds on the east and west sides, as well as a front and back yard and a large pool.
Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, it is the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, the Mid-Autumn Festival.
"Master, today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, should we make some mooncakes to eat?" Jiang Hongguo stood in front of the eucalyptus board, rolling out noodles, while Wang Zhongli played with his two sons on the Kang in the house.
"Steam a pot of steamed buns! Didn't you buy mutton yesterday? Just steam a drawer of big steamed buns stuffed with mutton. Our son likes to eat them." Wang Zhong's voice came from the back room.
"steamed stuffed bun!"
"steamed stuffed bun!"
"Eat buns!"
As soon as Wang Zhong finished speaking, two immature voices followed.
"Can you let me make mutton buns for you?"
Ziping and Zi'an were just one year old and could walk. Now they are able to walk steadily on their own. The two brothers were playing on the kang in ecstasy. As soon as they heard the steamed buns, they sat up holding on to the kang table. Wang Zhong came forward to ask for buns.
"In a few days, the sweet potatoes in the fields will be harvested!" Jiang Hongguo skillfully cut the rolled noodles into thin strips with a big knife.
"It's time to harvest. We have planted a lot of sweet potatoes this year, so we should have a lot of harvest!" Wang Zhong sighed and said: "It's a pity that sweet potatoes can only be stored for half a year at most. Otherwise, we can expand the scale of planting."
"It's not enough to save it for half a year!" Jiang Hongguo said: "Besides, didn't you say it's bad to eat too many sweet potatoes?"
"When the sweet potatoes are almost harvested, the corn and soybeans in the fields will be almost ripe." Wang Zhong said: "I've been very busy recently!"
"When the time comes, we will bring Zi Ping and Zi An over and let them experience the joy of harvest."
Jiang Hongguo smiled and said, "Aren't you afraid that they will cause trouble for us?"
"How can you cause trouble!" Wang Zhong picked up Ziping, stretched his son's armpits, and held him in front of him: "Daping, your mother said you are causing trouble!"
"Dad! Hug!" Seeing his brother being hugged by his father, Zian next to him crawled over, grabbed Wang Zhong's clothes and stood up.
"Okay! Daddy hugs me!"
"By the way, the oil pressing workshop has been completed for several days. Have you agreed on when the work will officially start?" Jiang Hongguo's voice came from outside again.
"There's no hurry about this. The autumn harvest and autumn sowing are the most important things right now. We can start work after the autumn sowing is over."
Jiang Hongguo said with some anticipation: "I really want to see how the oil extraction machine extracts oil."
"We'll know then!"
After eating, Wang Zhong went out carrying the hatchet.
At the entrance of the village, Niu Dadan, Zhao Youtian, Lao Ganbang, Three Monkeys, Blind Lao Yin, Ma Renli and others had just arrived.
"The Party Secretary 'Brother Big Chong' is here!"
Seeing Wang Zhong coming, everyone who was squatting or sitting stood up one after another and greeted Wang Zhong. After a while, people became angry, and everyone went into the mountains in groups.
Chopping firewood, harvesting, plowing, and topdressing, the entire Maixiang Village is like a continuously running machine, and the villagers are the various parts of the machine, working non-stop day in and day out.
In a blink of an eye, it was late September of the lunar calendar, and it was almost November of the solar calendar. The autumn sowing was over. Wang Zhong led seven strong men to the oil pressing workshop. There were seven junior cooperatives, one person from each cooperative, plus Wang Zhong. , a total of eight people, ready to officially start pressing oil.
The villagers who had nothing to do came to watch, and the oil mill was almost full of people.
"Brother! What should we do?" He was talking about the Three Monkeys. Apart from Wang Zhong, he was the only one in the Second Society who was suitable.
"Expressing oil consists of five steps: frying, grinding, steaming, stamping, and pounding. Since this is our first time to extract oil, we will use my peanuts to test it first!" Wang Zhong said: "Let's fry the peanuts first to remove the moisture in them. .”
Niu Dandao had already led the people to bring in firewood and lit a fire, and everyone worked together to pour the peanuts into several custom-made large pots for frying.
After frying, the fried peanuts are crushed with a large roller driven by water power. After grinding, they are steamed in a pot, and then the cake base is made. Finally, a thick wooden stake suspended in mid-air is used to hit the wooden wedge and squeeze it. Press the cake base to squeeze out the oil contained in the cake base.
The difficulty of extracting the oil lies in the making of the cake base and the preliminary processing of the raw materials. As for the final extraction of the oil, it is just physical work.
"It's all taken care of!" Wang Zhong, only wearing a sleeveless coarse cloth vest, pulled up the wooden block, and the people moved along with it: "This oil extraction requires skill, not brute force. Let's lift the wooden block first. High, and then use the force of the falling wood and our thrust."
While speaking, Wang Zhong had already let go of Chuangmu, and he also followed Chuangmu forward.
Just listen to a violent impact sound of "Bang!", the wooden block hit the wooden wedge, and the cake base was squeezed tighter.
While banging, Wang Zhong explained the essentials to Niu DaDang and others, and then stepped aside to let Niu DaDang and others try it themselves. Wang Zhong stood aside and gave guidance.
"Slow down, don't be anxious, stability is the most important thing, don't be anxious! Otherwise you can easily hurt yourself!"
Wang Zhong had a straight face and stared at him very seriously.
There are three large wooden oil presses, which are made from three huge hardwoods. Just processing these three oil presses took Wang Zhong and his carpenters more than ten days of work. Six people pressed oil at the same time.
Those wooden wedges are also carefully crafted from hardwood to uniform sizes.
Hitting wooden wedges is not a difficult job in the first place. Niu Dangdao is a good farmer. If you ask them to read and write, they may have a headache, but if you ask them to work, each one of them will get started quickly.
After only five or six impacts, grease seeped out from the cake base.
After a while, the grease flowed along the wooden groove into the bucket under the oil outlet.
"It's oily!"
"It's oily!"
"It's really oily!"
Watching the oil being squeezed out of the cake base bit by bit, from a little to a lot, amidst the shouts and banging sounds, the speed of the oil coming out gradually accelerated, and the faces of the villagers who were watching were also excited. They couldn't hide their shock and joy. Although they all believed in Wang Zhong, they still couldn't help but feel excited when they actually saw the oil coming out.
Fortunately, Wang Zhong had already told him before that no one was allowed to make loud noises. Although the villagers were excited, they suppressed their excitement and lowered their voices to share the joy with the people next to them. Their eyes did not move. Staring at the oil outlet, some looked at the cake base, and some stared at the oil outlet of the wooden trough, their eyes were shining brightly.
Niu DaDang and others were not blind either. Seeing the oil being squeezed out gradually by their own hands, smiles appeared on their faces and they worked harder and harder.
"Please concentrate, don't get distracted, or you may hurt yourself!"
"You must be steady and don't be anxious!"
Wang Zhong shouted loudly, his expression became more serious and his tone became more severe.
Seeing that the oil coming out of the cake dough was getting less and less, Wang Zhong called everyone to stop one after another. Niu Dangdang and the others were already sweating from exhaustion, and their clothes were soaked with sweat.
"Ma Renli!" Wang Zhong shouted.
"Here it is!" Ma Renli immediately rushed out with a smile.
"Calculate the oil production rate immediately."
"okay!"
Ma Renli hurriedly led the people to put the oil on the scale. Watching the buckets of peanut oil being poured into the big bucket, the eyes of the villagers were straightened. There were also peanut residues left after squeezing the oil. They also collected them one by one and agreed. Superior.
Everyone worked together and the data was compiled in less than a moment.
"How much?" Wang Zhong asked impatiently.
"Five hundred kilograms of peanuts produce 88 kilograms of oil and 321 kilograms of residual oil residue. The oil yield rate is about 17% to 18%, and the loss is also about 17%." Ma Renli said.
Wang Zhong nodded slightly, with a smile on his face: "It's normal if there is loss. Besides, the loss is not lost. There is still water in the peanuts. There is some in our cake base and oil tank, and in the oil barrel. Residue.”
"This is our first time to press oil, and the oil yield rate is 17%, which is beyond my expectation." Wang Zhong said happily: "And although these oil residues are a bit rough, they have high nutritional value, not only It can be used as rations and is also excellent for feeding livestock. This is a rare good thing."
"Brother Big Chong, how much can you sell for eighty-eight pounds of oil?" Three Monkeys asked Wang Zhong eagerly.
"If we sell oil, we will either sell it to the supply and marketing cooperative, or the canteen of some unit will come to us to purchase it. The price will definitely be lower than the price sold by the supply and marketing cooperative, but not much lower."
"Brother Big Chong!" The man who had not eaten enough came over with a smile on his face and gave a thumbs up: "It's amazing!"
"Ahem! Folks, let me say a few words!" Wang Zhong coughed a few times and said loudly.
As Wang Zhong spoke, the noisy crowd who had been whispering to each other instantly fell silent.
"Starting from tomorrow, each of our groups will nominate one person to enter the oil pressing workshop. I suggest that this time we don't just select gay men. We also select a few female comrades. After all, the work on the stove has always been We female comrades are in charge, and their control of the heat is much finer than us rough old men."
"Brother Big Chong, how are we, female comrades, treated?" Xiao Zhuan asked impatiently.
"Comrade Xiaozhuan, didn't you read carefully the notice posted on the bulletin board a few days ago?" Wang Zhong said.
"Look!" Xiao Zhuan said.
"Now that you have read it, why don't you know that it is clearly written in the notice? After the oil pressing workshop is officially put into operation, it will be the same as during the preparation period. Work points will be determined according to the position, and work points will be used in exchange for treatment."
"What if everyone wants to work in an oil pressing workshop?" Zhao Youtian asked this question.
"I have discussed this matter with several presidents!" Wang Zhong said: "We can take turns."
"It's our turn?" He asked curiously, not having enough to eat, "How come it's his turn?"
"For example, let's take Brother Bold's first community. We divide it according to households. This time Brother Bold came here. Next time, he can be replaced by Erlangzi. The next time, he can be replaced by people who don't have enough to eat. We will do it every time. It’s limited to five days. After five days, a new group of people will come. Don’t we need to add more people? Each time two people come to each community, that’s two households. There are only a few households in a community, so basically everyone If you can take turns, everyone can earn work points."
"This is a good idea!" Yang Deng'er nodded with deep approval.
Wang Zhong said again: "There is one more thing. I would like to suggest that if we should visit relatives in the past few days, we should visit relatives. If we should go to visit our friends, we should go to visit our friends. We should tell them about our oil pressing workshop as soon as possible. He spread the word and let the villagers from ten miles and eight villages know that we have an oil-pressing workshop in Maixiang Village, and let the name of our oil-pressing workshop be known!"
"Yes! Let the name of our oil mill be known, and let folks from villages all over the country come to our oil mill to squeeze oil!" The villagers responded one after another.
Thanks to the active publicity of the villagers, the name of Maixiang Village Oil Pressing Workshop gradually spread throughout Maixiangling District. Many people who were related to Maixiang Village brought peanuts and soybeans to try to come to Maixiang Village. Xiangcun oil pressing.
Once oil is pressed in rural areas, it is basically enough for one's family to eat for a year. The fees of the oil pressing workshop in Maixiang Village are not high, and the oil yield rate is not low. After the folks from nearby villages came here, they spontaneously helped spread the word when they returned. In winter, the signboard of Maixiangcun Oil Pressing Workshop was erected throughout the Maixiangling area, and its reputation was very good.
