Northeast of the Fourth Team, less than a kilometer southwest of Big Haizi, two combine harvesters rumbled forward.
A truck and two small four-wheel tractors shuttled back and forth, hauling the wheat grains discharged by the combines.
"Old Li, slow down a bit. There's lodged wheat up ahead. Harvest whatever you can..."
Old Wang walked alongside the machine, shouting.
In fact, he was very satisfied.
Last year, Old Wang had reclaimed eighty mu of wasteland and planted it all with wheat. Including the land reclaimed the year before, he now had over two hundred mu.
He planned to reclaim several dozen more mu this year, but there was little land left worth reclaiming. Most of what remained was saline-alkali flatland, with little value even after reclamation.
Last year, part of his wheat had been cut with the Li family's harvester, while most had been harvested by combine harvesters hired from the Corps.
There had been too much wheat. If it were all cut with a harvester and brought to the threshing ground, his family simply would not have had enough hands to handle it. Although Old Wang had people back in his hometown, he had no intention of bringing them over. With his three sons and one daughter and son-in-law, he thought they could manage.
At the time, he had figured he would make money either way. Reclaimed land required neither grain deliveries to the state nor management fees, so he had hired the combines.
But the young fellows operating them had just charged ahead, rushing to finish, and had flattened some of the lodged and partly lodged wheat without harvesting it.
They had hurried through the harvesting too, leaving plenty of wheat scattered on the ground after a single pass. The losses had been considerable.
So when they contacted