After the Mid-Autumn Festival, before Li Qingxia returned, Li Long went back to the team and finally heard some good news he had been hoping for:
The higher-ups were going to build a road-the dirt road from the Fourth Team to the township would be turned into a gravel road.
The Fourth Team was the farthest village team to the east in the entire township. Farther northeast was a company of the Corps. To reach the county seat, people there also had to pass through the Fourth Team; only a donkey-cart track connected them to the other companies.
In later years, another road southeast of the Fourth Team led straight to Wuyi Highway, forming part of Ma County's outer ring road. But that road would not be built for another thirty years.
Having a gravel road built now was already excellent. After all, the dirt road was usually dusty and turned into muddy slop when it rained, making travel terribly difficult.
According to the notice Xu Chengjun brought back from a meeting at the township, the state was funding road construction in the towns and townships. It was an early precursor to the program to connect every village by road.
What surprised Li Jianguo was that road construction no longer required each village to supply labor for communal work, as digging the Big Canal once had. Nor did villagers have to contribute money. Everyone simply had to wait until the road was finished and use it.
When Li Jianguo told Li Long the news, he said with feeling:
"Back when we dug the Big Canal and built roads, we took our own food and worked all day. We'd be so tired we didn't even want supper, just sleep, and all that earned us one work point a day. Back then,