After passing by the dock construction site, Shen Hua didn't stop and pulled Zhu Li and Song Xiaojuan to squeeze into his car, continuing to drive inward. The spring rain was continuous, and the road leading to Lishan and Caijiaqiao Village had not been hardened, absorbing enough rainwater, making it soft and soggy, and as the car drove over it, the entire road surface began to churn up mud.

  Compared to Li She, Caijiagou Village is more inward and the whole village is also the poorest. Along the way, six or seven out of ten houses are made of earth walls with thatched roofs, and few families have rebuilt their houses into buildings.

  The car stopped in front of Caijiaqiao Village Primary School and parked on the side of the bumpy village road.

  During the Spring Festival, a small school building in Caijiawan Village collapsed, fortunately, students and teachers were already on holiday at that time, and no serious casualties occurred.

  Heheng Town and Meixi Town are still under Xiapu County, the county originally planned to allocate 50,000 yuan for the renovation of Caijiaqiao Village School. Later, the two towns were merged into Tangqu District, and the county's funds did not come down, while the district required Meixi and Heheng Towns to be financially independent, ignoring the difficulties in education in Heheng. This problem has not been solved until recently when Lishan and Caijiaqiao villages were merged into Meixi Town.

  After the administrative division adjustment of the two towns, Li She and Cai Jiaqiao immediately brought up the most serious problems existing in the two villages to the town government. On one hand, the problem was indeed severe, on the other hand, it was also a probe into the town's attitude towards the two villages.

  Shen Huai was well aware that after Mei Xi and He Tang two towns were required to be financially independent, the resistant mentality of the district would be alleviated. Although the town's finances were still not relaxed, he thought that Li She and Cai Jiaqiao two villages could be integrated into Mei Xi Town, and the problems of these two villages could be ignored.

  Caijiabridge Village reflected the problem of village primary school buildings, Shen Hua looked at the dock construction site and saw that it was still early, so he hurried over to take a look at the severity of the situation without having time to notify the village.

  No one answered the phone call to the village committee, so Shen Hua asked Shao Zheng to ask someone to find a village cadre. He and Huang Xinliang, Zhu Li, Song Xiaojun walked towards the school.

  The village school didn't have a regular playground, the empty space between two rows of Chinese fir trees was where students did physical activities. It had already passed dismissal time, but there were still some little kids who didn't care about the water accumulated on the ground and continued to play wildly in the field.

  On one side of the corner was a simple sandbox and on the other side was a ping-pong table made of brick and cement.

  On the north side of the playground, there are two rows of bungalows that serve as classrooms and offices. The bungalows are old and dilapidated, with lime plaster applied decades ago now almost completely peeled off, revealing weathered and rusted red bricks underneath.

  The collapsed school building is in the second row, and two classrooms on the entire left side have fallen down. The ruins have been cleaned up, but half of the remaining walls are still there, about waist-high, with no signs of rebuilding.

  Shen Huai didn't care about the collapsed school building, and walked to the right. According to the information sent from Caijiabridge village to the town, this should be the teacher's office of the village elementary school. At this time, it was still early, and the students had already been dismissed. He thought he could go ask the teachers about the situation.

  However, the two flat houses on the right were filled with desks and chairs, a gray-haired female teacher sat in front of the lectern correcting homework, and two 11- or 12-year-old students were sweeping the floor in the classroom...

  The female teacher raised her head and saw Shen Hua and others standing outside the door. She asked, "Who are you looking for?"

  "Is Principal Zhao in?" Huang Xinliang asked.

  "Director Huang, I saw a car coming from afar and thought it was you coming down for an inspection..."

  Before the female teacher could answer, a loud voice from afar greeted them. Shen Hui turned around to see a dark and thin middle-aged man walking towards them with a big stride, holding a basketball. He shook hands with Huang Xinliang enthusiastically: "I just went to the town two days ago to report on the school building repairs, Director Huang you personally came down to inspect the situation. It seems that what I heard in Meixi Town about you being an honest official who wholeheartedly serves the people is true, not a single word of exaggeration!"

  Huang Xinliang awkwardly introduced the middle-aged man beside him to Shen Hua: "Principal Zhao, this is Secretary Shen. After learning about the situation in Caijiawan Village, he came down to investigate at the first opportunity."

  "Ah." The dark and thin middle-aged man stared blankly at Shen Hua, half dazed and still not coming back to his senses.

  Shen Huai looked at the dark and thin man in front of him, standing next to Zhu Li, they were two extremes in terms of physique.

  He just spoke to Huang Xinliang with a sugarcoated but actually sarcastic tone, mainly because he and Caijiqiao Village Director went to the town yesterday to find Shen Hua to reflect on the school's housing issues, but was blocked by Huang Xinliang and couldn't see Shen Hua, so he has been holding a grudge.

  "Are you Principal Zhao Liang? I'm Shen Hua..." Shen Hua extended his hand towards Zhao Liang.

  Zhao Liang was stunned for half a day before he remembered to shake hands and said: "I didn't know Secretary Shen was coming over, I'm really sorry..."

  "The day before yesterday when you came to the town to find me, I happened to be out. But Director Huang reacted to the situation of the village primary school in time, so I came down to take a look and didn't mention it in advance." Shen Hua said, the sky was almost dark, he said directly entering the topic, "The materials you sent over, say that the first and second grades, third and fourth grades are merged into one classroom for classes. This side should be the teacher's office, how did this side become a classroom?"

  "Yes, originally this side was the office," Zhao Liang introduced, "last year's heavy snow not only collapsed the classrooms of grades 5 and 6, but also made the classrooms of grades 1 and 2 into dangerous houses. The dangerous house was repaired a bit, barely usable, but we didn't dare let students have class inside, so we swapped with the office, this side became a classroom, and the office is just in front..."

  "......" Shen Huai let out a light breath and couldn't say anything, saying "Take us to see..."

  At this moment, Shao Zheng rushed over with the village director and village branch secretary of Caijiagou Village.

  Entering the front teacher's office, looking at the walls that are obviously tilted, the beams also have a displacement, but in the place against the wall, temporarily reinforced with wood, and there are still traces of rainwater seeping in all around.

  Don't even mention doing homework in there, just standing inside makes me feel unsafe.

  Shen Hua didn't make a sound, and after looking at the other two flat-roofed classrooms, he summoned everyone to the cement ping-pong table. On one side, there was only a basketball hoop frame, and the wooden board had been weathered by wind and rain, revealing strips of gaps that could let light through, and it was unknown how many years it had been used.

  "This office can't be used anymore, immediately remove the office desk and other things, dismantle it," Shen Hua said with his hands clasped behind his back, stroking the stubble on his chin that hadn't been shaved for two days, to Zhu Li, "Zhujiang Construction will send people over tomorrow to build two simple houses as temporary offices, can't delay classes..."

  It's easy to build two simple houses with light steel keel and color steel tile, the materials will be transported here tomorrow, and it can be built after leveling the ground.

  Shen Huai said to Song Xiaojun from Lishacun Village and the village director of Caijiagou Village: "Originally, I wouldn't have talked about merging administrative villages with you. The situation in Lishacun is small, and I haven't had time to look at it yet. Even if I came, it wouldn't be too optimistic. The town's resources are limited, and only one household can be supported. Whether it's for Lishacun or Caijiagou Village, the other household will definitely have opinions. Now the town is requisitioning land in Lishacun, but the situation of the village school is more severe in Caijiagou Village, so I suggest that the two villages merge and run a school together, and the town's financial subsidies are concentrated for use. You two villages, if you have no opinions, discuss with Director Huang Xiangliang within these two days to come up with a plan for merging schools. When you come up with a feasible plan, I will allocate funds to you at that time. I give you a bottom line, the most can be allocated is 400,000 yuan..."

  The two villages' primary schools merged, naturally there will be some differences, but compared to four...

  "Forty......" Song Xiaojun's tongue was tied as he stared at Shen Huai, thinking he had misheard, "Four hundred thousand? Not four hundred?"

  The village director of Caijiabridge Village and Principal Zhao Liang were stunned, unable to believe that Shen Hua's words were true.

  Previously under the administration of Hehutang Town, Caijiabridge Village had about 240 students, plus those who came to substitute teach, there were nine teachers. The annual allocation for school funds and student tuition fees was around 200,000 yuan.

  The classrooms for the fifth and sixth grades collapsed half a year ago. They ran back and forth, visiting the county and town governments countless times, but only managed to get 2,000 yuan in repair fees. This time, Caijia Bridge and Li She villages were merged into Meixi Town, and they all had psychological preparation for being suppressed by outsiders. They gritted their teeth and went to the town government to ask for money, hoping that the town would allocate at least 10,000 or 20,000 yuan to repair the two most dangerous rooms first. They never dreamed of getting 400,000 yuan...

  "It's 400,000, you didn't hear wrong..." Shen Huai was about to discuss the town's education plan with Song Xiaojun and Cai Jiaqiao Village Director Zhao Liang, when a phone call came in. He took out his mobile phone, saw that it was Zhou Yu's call, gestured for them to continue talking, and walked aside to answer the phone.

  "Director Huang, isn't the town just talking nonsense to fool us? Can you really give us 400,000 yuan for the two villages to merge and run a school?" Seeing Shen Hui walk aside to answer the phone, in front of Huang Xinliang, Song Xiaojuan and Zhao Liang spoke without restraint.

  They usually spend 300-500 yuan and have to calculate for half a day, so it's hard to grasp what the concept of 400,000 is.

  The town's fiscal revenue has tripled in the first half of this year compared to last year, Secretary Shen said that if he promised to give you 400,000, he would definitely keep his promise. You should come up with a plan as soon as possible..." Huang Xinliang said.

  "Hmm", Song Xiaojun heard that Meixi Town's fiscal revenue in the first half of this year can triple, apart from whistling, what else can be expressed.

  As the village director, he naturally knew the financial self-management situation after Meixi and Hetang were merged into Tangzhai District.

  The local financial revenue of Hetang Town is just over 40 million yuan a year, so all aspects of expenditure are very tight.

  Meixi Town, as the central town, has a slightly better financial situation than Hetang, but it is still limited. He knew that Meixi Town's annual revenue in previous years had been stagnant at around 6 million yuan, and unexpectedly, Meixi Town's fiscal revenue in the first half of this year tripled.

  The past two days they worried that after being assigned to Mei Xi Town, the two villages would be treated as stepchildren. Now thinking about it, even if Mei Xi Town is a stepmother, she's a rich stepmother, and life will still be better than following He Tang Town, this poor father.

  Since Meixi Town has this financial strength, when Shen Huai said that he wants to allocate 400,000 yuan for the two villages to build schools, it is naturally not an empty boast.