Hearing Ding Yun's words, both the villagers and the village chief were surprised, as they truly didn't think their village's work points could be directly used as currency.
And doing so seemed to have no benefit, right?
It even felt like a loss.
Village Chief Wang asked with great concern, "Well, if we do this, will you have enough money? After all, these bicycles and sewing machines can't really be free, and we can't let you lose too much. We're already getting the better deal."
The village chief genuinely couldn't understand why Ding Yun wanted to do this. It wasn't a matter of accepting losses for blessings, and he found it difficult to assess the value of work points.
Wasn't this making things difficult for him?
But some people nearby thought Village Chief Wang was being ungenerous. Now that his own family had exchanged for a bicycle, he was playing the good guy. If the other person was willing, why interfere?
If they had to pay in cash, they might not have that much money, or they might be unwilling to part with it. But if they could exchange with work points, families with more members could pool together and possibly make enough, with less pressure.
As for those who couldn't afford to exchange even with work points, they generally had fewer family members. Such families struggled to even eat enough, let alone have spare cash or work points to exchange for bicycles.
They were not within the scope of consideration to begin with.
"It's alright, Village Chief. I won't necessarily lose out too much. At the end of the year, aren't the village's work points used for both grain distribution and profit sharing? This even offers the option of grain in addition to direct cash. Moreover, everyone in the city has a fixed grain ration. While it's enough to survive, there's no way to eat your fill.
Going to the black market to exchange requires luck.
So, if I get more grain by using work points to send back, my relatives, especially those with growing teenagers who eat like bottomless pits, will be extremely happy.
Also, I know what else you're worried about, which is the difficulty in measuring the value of work points, right!"
"That's also easy to solve. The specific value of work points is mainly determined by the distributed grain and the year-end profit sharing. With a little division, we can determine how much a work point is worth in terms of cash, along with a certain amount of grain.
Convert the grain to money, and add it to the money that can be obtained directly, and that's the value of a work point. As long as you can accumulate one hundred, it's enough."
To reassure the village chief and to give her actions a reason, so they wouldn't seem too unusual, Ding Yun specifically explained the purpose of exchanging for work points and then using them to acquire grain.
At the same time, she proposed how to measure the value of work points.
Everyone found it reasonable upon hearing it. The grain ration for each person in the city was indeed fixed. While it might be enough for the elderly and children, it was truly insufficient for children in their developmental stage and adults doing physical labor. They could only rely on others to spare some for them.
Or find ways to buy some through other channels.
For families with relatives in the city, those relatives sometimes brought industrial goods in exchange for grain.
However, Village Chief Wang still looked a bit troubled and hesitantly asked again, "Well, Xiao Huang!
There's another issue, which is grain. You know the price of grain isn't very stable. When we send grain to the purchasing station, they buy it at one price, which is quite low. The grain sold on the market requiring grain coupons is another price, and finally, there's the grain the black market sells without coupons, at yet another price.
Which price are you referring to?
If it's the purchasing station price, wouldn't it be a bit low? You know everyone's having a hard time..."
"Oh, so that's what you're worried about.
It's definitely not going to be the purchasing station price, but it's also not likely to be the black market price. If it were the black market price, I might as well let my relatives buy it themselves from the black market.
After all, if it's the same price as the black market, I'd still have to add postage for mailing it back through the parcel service, right!
It can be slightly higher than the normal selling price.
But the increase can't be too much, at most one or two tenths. How about that? Is it acceptable for everyone?"
Considering that she couldn't always be too accommodating and that black market prices were unstable, sometimes outrageously high, Ding Yun immediately felt that a compromise was necessary, and calculating based on the market price was better.
A slight increase would be considered as compensation for the grain coupons.
Village Chief Wang hadn't expected to settle based on black market grain prices anyway. Having a standard price was already very satisfying, and now with a slight increase, how could he refuse?
So, he immediately nodded and agreed.
Next, the scorekeeper and the person in charge of accounting from last year were called over. They collectively calculated how much grain and money an average work point was worth last year, then estimated how much grain and money this year's work points would be worth, and finally converted the grain price to the current general market price for the final calculation.
After a lengthy calculation, the final result was that one work point was worth approximately seven cents.
A normal person with full work points actually only had ten work points. For tasks like cutting pig grass, which Ding Yun and her group did, they could only get three to four work points. Generally, except during peak farming seasons, few people could achieve full work points.
It had to be said that even with the inclusion of grain prices, work points weren't very valuable.
It would take over fourteen hundred work points to equal one hundred yuan.
Before the calculation, everyone thought it was quite a good deal. Now that it had been calculated, many were surprised and even reluctant to exchange anymore, because over fourteen hundred work points represented the yearly earnings of an adult.
And that's for an adult who wasn't particularly lazy.
Last year, the person in their village who earned the most work points only had one thousand nine hundred and eighty-seven work points, not significantly more than this amount.
Of course, most of those who had second thoughts were families with fewer members or fewer strong laborers. Families with seven or eight adult sons, or those who hadn't split up and had many strong laborers, mostly decided to exchange immediately for a bicycle.
Some even wanted to exchange for two or three.
As for worrying about not having enough grain to eat, there was no need to worry. Grain distribution in rural areas wasn't purely based on the number of work points. The general principle followed was seven parts based on population and three parts based on labor. That is, seventy percent of the grain was distributed purely by household size, regardless of work points, and the remaining thirty percent was allocated based on the amount of work points. Generally, as long as it wasn't a year of famine, even if a family had zero work points, the grain allocated from the seven-person portion would be enough to sustain them if eaten sparingly.
This was also why the value of work points wasn't very high.
As the specific number of work points required for exchange was announced, some people soon backed out, while others quickly stepped forward to express their family's desire to exchange. Ding Yun then began to register them, stating that she could only accept reservations for now, and the actual exchange would occur when the goods arrived and were sent by her relatives.
The exchanges would proceed in the order of reservation.
Everyone agreed to this point, as it was common knowledge that bicycles and sewing machines without coupons were extremely difficult to obtain. A delay was acceptable, as everyone could wait.
At most, two families with upcoming weddings would specially plead to move up their appointments, hoping the bicycles would arrive before their weddings so they could be used for the procession.
In addition to this, there were villagers who worried about not getting theirs in time.
And those who had no intention of exchanging.
They directly discussed with Village Chief Wang and Ding Yun about borrowing their bicycles and tricycles for wedding processions. A procession of three to four bicycles leading the way, followed by tricycles carrying betrothal gifts, would be unparalleled in the surrounding ten villages, and would certainly bring them immense face.
Being able to borrow something that wasn't their own was also a testament to their capability and brought them prestige.
As they spoke, many villagers began to envision when their ordered bicycles would arrive. If their village were to hold weddings then, with all the village's bicycles mobilized to help with the wedding procession, how grand and enviable would that be?
Girls from neighboring villages would undoubtedly want to marry into their village.
Just thinking about it made them feel very pleased.