After the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the festive atmosphere slowly faded. Word had already spread through the village that land would be contracted out at Start of Spring, when the Snowmelt came. The specific policies had yet to be announced, but thanks to Li Long, the Li family already knew most of the details.
The village actually did not have much land at present, compared with later years. With over two hundred villagers receiving five mu of ration land apiece, more than a thousand mu had already been allocated. Another thousand-odd mu remained, which the whole village had farmed together last year. But the team could clearly tell that the villagers showed very different levels of enthusiasm when working their own land and the team's land.
Now that the higher authorities had issued a policy, all the remaining land would be contracted out, apart from the Ration Fields allocated to each household. The village would no longer be responsible for farming, and communal labor would be limited to infrastructure work such as clearing irrigation channels, planting trees, and repairing roads. There would be far less to worry about, which made the team's cadres happy too.
After all, overseeing so many people farming while also tending their own family plots was exhausting. There were hidden benefits, of course, but who would not want an easier time?
Li Long took Tao Daqiang, Yang Yongqiang, and Li Junshan out to scoop up fish a few more times, then stopped. The ice along the edge of Little Haizi had begun to melt, and they could no longer catch fish by opening holes in it. They therefore made only one trip to Stone City to sell their catch, and earned little that time, since there were fewer rabbits too. In the end,