Chapter 1046: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 1046: Merger of Villages and Towns

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

The merger of villages and towns is an inevitable development accompanying the changes of urbanization.

The countryside has no people left.

According to investigation reports, the nation's rural areas are disappearing at a rate of dozens per day.

Under such a tide of development, streamlining township institutions is certainly an unstoppable trend.

In many northern places, the merger of villages and towns directly drove villagers to cluster in one location; this method was very crude, causing massive resource waste and negative effects.

The south, by contrast, adapts measures to local conditions and gives more consideration to the masses' feelings.

Merge the village committee institutions, but do not merge the villages themselves.

Merge the town government leadership teams, but do not merge the town's market streets.

After the village committee institutions are streamlined, one set of village cadre leadership must manage the affairs of several or even over a dozen villages; the workload will increase, but they will naturally adapt slowly, because the countryside now has very few people, and there are actually not many daily affairs needing processing.

At an internal deliberation meeting of the town government, Zhong Hongtao indeed proposed making Wang Erhai a streamlined village committee cadre, but encountered many opposing voices.

It wasn't that they doubted Wang Erhai's ability.

The most important thing was that Wang Erhai was still a temporary cadre and had not been made permanent; with so many hardworking village cadres not chosen, picking a single temporary cadre would easily invite gossip.

It would make outsiders think the town government took a bribe from Wang Erhai to let him become a village cadre.

Not wanting to earn a bad reputation, they naturally all opposed it.

"After this village committee merger, Shanggou Village and eleven other villages will all fall under the management of the Changjiang Village Committee. As for the Changjiang Village Committee's village cadres, our internal side has already decided on the candidates; we'll just go through the motions in a moment. Erhai, I'm truly sorry. I feel you are the most suitable, but there are many irresistible reasons that caused my proposal to meet much opposition."

Zhong Hongtao was frank with Wang Erhai; it was clear he genuinely wanted to promote Wang Erhai.

He thought Wang Erhai would be very disappointed upon hearing this news.

Unexpectedly, Wang Erhai not only showed not a trace of disappointment, but even revealed a smile:

"This matter comes at just the right time!"

Wang Erhai exclaimed from the bottom of his heart:

"This is wonderful!"

Zhong Hongtao couldn't help but stare blankly:

"Wonderful? What do you mean?"

Wang Erhai just said with a smile:

"To be honest, I originally didn't plan to continue as this village cadre. I have too much work on hand and simply can't keep up; continuing as a village cadre would likely delay the village's affairs, so I've long wanted to resign, but never knew how to bring it up to you, Mayor Zhong, because I knew you surely hoped I would keep going."

Hearing this, Zhong Hongtao couldn't help but smile wryly:

"So that's how it is. That works too..."

He had gone to such lengths to fight for Wang Erhai, yet Wang Erhai didn't want to continue.

This inevitably left him feeling a bit lost inside.

Good thing he didn't succeed in getting the opportunity.

If he had secured the opportunity only for Wang Erhai to refuse, how embarrassing would that be for him.

"Mayor Zhong, you are a good person. This kindness of yours, I will remember in my heart for a lifetime! If you ever have anything you need my help with in the future, just tell me, and I will certainly do my utmost to help!"

Wang Erhai said this one sentence to Zhong Hongtao.

It finally made Zhong Hongtao's disappointed mood improve slightly.

Soon the village cadres had all assembled.

At ten o'clock in the morning the meeting commenced as scheduled.

This meeting was personally presided over by Town Party Secretary He Gaofeng, who expounded on the general trend of the merger of villages and towns and explained the specific plan for the merger.

Finally came the anonymous voting election segment.

This segment was just going through the motions.

The town government side nominated several outstanding village cadres as candidates, and then everyone voted together.

The person with the highest vote count would become the merged village committee cadre.

Not until the next election would a full vote of the entire merged large village be held.

Because it was anonymous voting, naturally everything was under control.

This meeting had no troublemakers, no unexpected complications, unlike last time when the discordant scene of Wang Erhai personally questioning the Town Party Secretary occurred.

So the voting election segment ultimately achieved a satisfactory result.

After the new village committee cadres were elected, the original village cadres of each village had to conduct handover work with the new village cadres.

The so-called handover work was actually just handing over the keys to each village's village committee office.

When the time came, the new village cadres would go to each village's village committee office, take away the materials, and that would count as completing the handover.

As for the original small villages' village committee offices, they temporarily had no use and could only be left vacant for now.

If they are useful later they can be used again; if not, they will just remain in their original state.

The Changjiang Village Committee that Shanggou Village merged into elected He Zhixiong as the new village committee secretary, Guo Dafu as the new village chief, and Li Jiandi as the liaison officer.

Wang Erhai went and greeted them, exchanged polite congratulations, handed the Shanggou Village committee office keys to He Zhixiong, then they exchanged contact numbers, saying they could call anytime if there were any problems, and then parted ways.

Walking out of the town government, Wang Erhai let out a long, heavy breath of relief.

He felt the burden on his shoulders had been set down once more.

At noon, after Liang Xinghua got off work from the construction site, he called him; Wang Erhai said he was already in town and told Liang Xinghua to come over himself.

Liang Xinghua agreed, then drove back himself.

Around 12:30 noon, Wang Erhai and Liang Xinghua met at New Era Restaurant.

Wang Erhai and Liang Xinghua went over some restaurant matters, then introduced the new boss to the employees, which counted as simply handing the restaurant over to Liang Xinghua.

As for the business license transfer and such, they would need to find another time to handle it.

After finishing these matters, Liang Xinghua returned to County Town.

Wang Erhai, on the other hand, was not in a hurry; he first went back to Shanggou Village to tell his parents about his plan to hand the farm over to them to manage.

Wang Zhanggen and Li Xiulan were both very surprised to hear this.

Li Xiulan said:

"Erhai, just afraid we won't know how to manage and run the farm at a loss!"

Wang Erhai laughed and said:

"No problem, if there's anything you don't understand, just call and ask me; a little loss doesn't matter, mainly it's to give you and Dad something to do, so you won't be too idle."

Wang Zhanggen said:

"Just managing a farm, what difficulty is there? Rest assured, I guarantee I'll manage it properly for you!"

Li Xiulan couldn't help but scold:

"You have the nerve to say that; you can't even handle the housework at home, yet you talk about such a big farm!"

Wang Zhanggen, however, said:

"How can that be the same? Housework isn't what men should do, okay! That farm is just raising some chickens, planting some fruit trees, raising some fish in the pond — very simple!"

Wang Zhanggen could be described as mysteriously confident.

He spoke as if everything were that simple.

But in reality, in this life of his, he had never raised chickens, never planted fruit trees, never raised fish!

He was completely clueless about all of it!