Lin Rui let out a sigh silently, feeling lucky that he asked for his own merchant qualification instead of his entire family.

One man's meat may be another man's poison. My parents, uncles, and cousins ​​have spent almost half their lives working in the fields, digging for food in the land. For them, the land is their root and their life. No matter how much money they make, having land to cultivate and crops to grow is what they pursue throughout their lives.

"Dad and Mom, don't worry, I know what's going on."

The uncles tried to persuade him again, but he said, "Uncle Eldest, Uncle Third, Uncle Changtai Changshou, let me ask you, do you want your descendants to be peasants their whole lives?"

This question made Lin Changtai and others speechless. Of course they didn't want to do that. Farming was just a means of making a living for them. If their children and grandchildren had a better place to go, they certainly didn't want to let them waste their lives in the fields with their backs to the earth and their faces to the sky.

"I'm the clan leader, and I've done business before. I know what I can and can't do. If we can make this business work, the Lin family will have better prospects besides farming. We can send our children to private schools, saving them from being illiterate their entire lives. The last successful member of our Lin family was thirty years ago. Don't you really want to change the family lintel?"

Lin Pingmao banged his cane loudly. "I think about it, even in my dreams. Rui Ge'er, you are our clan leader. If you go into business first, the entire Lin family will be looked down upon in the future!"

Lin Rui felt even more helpless, not knowing what the village head's train of thought was. "Grandpa, no matter what era it is, people laugh at poverty but not at prostitutes. A child's education, from elementary school to the imperial examination, costs so much money. My family has to save every penny to support him. I'm the head of the Lin family. If I don't work hard, the lives of our children will still be worthless in the future. They will be beaten to death by the sons of officials."

"Uncles, now is the time of chaos. It is both the worst and the best time. We in the Lin family must unite as one and work hard to climb up. We must be the ones who decide the fate of others, rather than having our fate decided by others!"

"Look at those managers, look at those adults, they can be so respectable just because they are one level higher in position, but we, on the other hand, work hard in the fields all day and still don't have respectability. As the patriarch, if I don't work hard to make money and build a good foundation for our Lin family's children to study, how can we compete with other children in the future!" Sometimes he doesn't want to compete, but the social environment forces you to do so.

Water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it. However, most of the time, the people were enslaved. The laws of the feudal dynasty only bound the poor people of the same class, not the high-ranking officials, princes, and wealthy people. Money can do anything, but if it doesn't, it means you haven't spent enough.

Lin Rui's words made Lin Changshou and others look serious. Lin Zijun, Lin Zicheng and others were also silent. If their lives were already fixed, they still had children, Douzi, Dunzi, Xiaozhan, Xiangxiang... They would be poor people all their lives. Daughters would be tortured if they married into poor families, and would be looked down upon if they married into rich families. If their parents' family was not powerful, they would be inferior to others wherever they went.

Our children and grandchildren have no wealth or official positions to support them, and they spend their days surrounded by the earth. How can they have any future?

Lin Zicheng from the Third Uncle's family was the first to step forward. "The clan leader is right. We've been busy in the fields all day and haven't achieved great wealth. We might as well give it a try. Clan leader, if you have any instructions, just let me know. You've got the oxen here, so you're faster than others at clearing wasteland. We're also much more relaxed than others, so we're sure they can all help."

"Yes, yes, yes."

"Clan leader, if you have anything to say, just give me your instructions! You have dedicated yourself to our Lin family, and we cannot hold you back."

From today on, Lin Rui was completely free from the task of land reclamation. Since he had decided to go into business, he had to first figure out what kind of business he could start. Well, it also had to suit the market conditions in Huangmo Pass.

There are many things in his house that can be used for cheating. The first one is the braised food he ate along the way. He is really tired of it. Although the people in the Lin family miss this food every meal, he can't serve it to them every day, otherwise he can't explain it.

Having a plowing ox meant that labor was liberated. Feng Zhenniang and Lin Changxi were afraid that it would be unsafe for their son to walk alone outside, so they specially asked Sanliang to accompany him.

Two or three ox carts travel back and forth between the planned housing construction site and the border market. The border market is very large, covering an area of ​​about 1,000 square meters. However, due to the hostile relationship between the two ethnic groups, many areas have been forcibly closed.

The once bustling market was now much quieter, but where there were stalls, there were people. The people of Huangmo Pass mostly displayed vegetables grown in their own gardens, which they were selling at the market. These were quickly swept away by the foreigners. The people of the grasslands were accustomed to eating beef and mutton, but a single meat diet depleted them of trace elements and dietary fiber. Therefore, Linchao's tea played a vital role for them.

Selling vegetables? That’s not possible, don’t we still need to reclaim the land?

Selling meat? It was even more impossible. He only had four cows, two of which were large blue oxen with deep ties to their famine escape, so they couldn't be killed. The other two were from other tribes and were used for plowing. Their daily schedules were even busier than his, so killing them for meat was definitely not an option.

Since none of them work, we can only think of other ways. What can we do?

After walking around, Lin Rui still had no idea what to do, so he simply found a shady place in the market to hide. In fact, he went into the house. After the house was upgraded, his computer and mobile phone could be turned on and connected to the Internet normally.

He searched what he could do after traveling back to ancient times, and the first page that popped up was the three-piece skill set for travelers: soap, glass, and cement.

What's the point of making soap when you can't even get enough to eat? Of course, not all time travelers start as miserably as him, with troubled times, natural disasters, wars, and famine. It's just that he really doesn't have the conditions. These can be arranged later when conditions are better. With the help of modern knowledge and the Internet, there is really nothing that cannot be solved.

Until I saw the following post: On the wonderful uses of soybeans in ancient times!

Soybeans? Yeah, why didn't he think of it? Soybeans are a good thing. They can be used to make bean sprouts, tofu, and fermented bean curd.

During the reign of the Qing Dynasty, soybeans were either cooked or used as a side dish, primarily as a supplement. The first person to make tofu and let it sprout hadn't appeared yet. Lin Rui recalled that in his time, tofu originated from the Western Han Dynasty, when Liu An, the King of Huainan, accidentally used gypsum to make soy milk while refining elixir. Thus, tofu was created.

At this time, tofu hadn't yet become a food, and the only way to eat soybeans was with rice or boiled water. Doesn't this make him a bit of a catch-up? He could temporarily build his first pot of gold with tofu.