As we all know, buying and selling materials before the change was a crime, which was called speculation at the time, but what kind of punishment this behavior would be received is a matter of opinion. Both those who witnessed it and young people today generally say that the punishment for this crime is very heavy. There are also some big Vs who don't know where to find some photos from time to time, saying that someone was sentenced to death for committing speculation, month, and day before the change. Although those photos were carefully analyzed and there were many loopholes, they scared countless people.
Glass king Cao Dewang
It just so happens that Cao Dewang also had speculative experience before becoming a fruit seedling salesman in the seventies, so you might as well gossip.
Cao Dewang's father was a shrewd businessman before liberation, and after liberation, he usually worked in the Gaoshan Commune, but in his spare time, he secretly bought cigarettes and tobacco from Fuzhou and sold them back to the Gaoshan Commune to earn the difference. This kind of behavior was illegal under the law at the time (it was also illegal to resell cigarettes under the current law), and as for the punishment, Cao Dewang made it clear in the book:
At that time, it was not allowed to buy and sell goods freely, and if they were caught, they would be punished as speculators, confiscated at light, taken into custody at worst, and paraded through the streets.
Cao's father's method is very clever, bringing cigarettes with Cao Dewang, who is not yet an adult, and putting the cigarettes in Cao Dewang's school bag, no one will suspect that a minor student is participating in speculation, which is very successful.
Soon after, Cao Dewang switched to the fruit business, and every time he carried two or three hundred pounds of fruit from Fuqing County back to Gaoshan Town to sell, he could earn more than 3 yuan a day.
This incident shows three points: 1. At that time, many cash crops such as trees had been planted in the countryside, otherwise Cao Dewang would not have been able to buy so many fruits; 2, Cao Dewang bought and sold fruits at least semi-publicly, everyone saw it when they were selling, and everyone saw it on the road, after all, two or three hundred pounds of fruit cannot be stuffed into a school bag. 3. At that time, the town already had a certain consumption power. Otherwise, to whom is his fruit sold?
The fruit business can be semi-public or even public, but because tobacco is a monopoly, it cannot be done in this way. However, because of the tobacco monopoly, the profit is much higher than that of the fruit business. Later, Cao's father returned to the tobacco business.
The following text is quoted from the Heart of Bodhi:
Cao Dewang's autobiography "Heart Ruo Bodhi"
The goods and tools of the crime were confiscated, and it seems that the punishment of Cao's father ended there, and Cao Dewang was not punished separately for insulting law enforcement officers. In fact, this time it was Cao Dewang who ignored it, this female law enforcement officer's mother was in business, but others did not resell and sell monopoly materials. Not to mention that back then, even now, it is not surprising that such penalties were received for reselling cigarettes and tobacco across regions.
Soon after, around 1970, Cao Dewang bought and sold the higher-value white fungus to Jiangxi, earning thousands of yuan at a time, and at most 3,000 yuan at a time. When a cadre of the commune saw that Cao Dewang was making a lot of money, he did not come to catch speculators, but to buy dry shares. With the support of the commune cadres and the villagers' willingness to pay on credit, Cao Dewang's business has done more, buying thousands of yuan in goods at a time. This time, Cao Dewang, as a suspect of speculation, almost confiscated the goods at the Yingtan Railway Station in Jiangxi, but fortunately he said that the goods were collective and not his own, so he detained the goods instead and let him return to his hometown to issue a certificate.
Cao Dewang went to the commune cadre who had entered the cadre to open a certificate, after all, this is an illegal act, where does this person dare to open it? As a result, Cao Dewang owed a debt during that incident, which was the darkest day of his life.
Famous entrepreneur Cao Dewang
A few months later, Cao Dewang helped repair the scooter at the construction site, impressed the instructor who was a commune cadre, and helped to get a real fake certificate. Cao Dewang took this certificate to Jiangxi and asked for the payment for the white fungus at a purchase price that was one-third cheaper than the market price, and the business not only did not suffer a loss, but also made a slight surplus.
In the seventies, both father and son of the Cao family had speculated and been arrested, and the policies of the time and the general handling of speculation can be roughly understood from their experience.