The wooden carts sold very well. After the wooden carts were sold in Sui Xin's shop, other carpenters started making wooden carts.

A carpenter couldn't make many wooden carts in a day, so the price of wooden carts remained high. Many wealthy families bought wooden carts. If a slightly more affluent family didn't have a wooden cart, people would think they had financial problems or were just not presentable.

The first carpenter to make a wooden cart made money!

The second carpenter who made the wooden cart also made money!

The third carpenter who made a wooden cart also made money!

…

Over time, there were many carpenters making wooden carts. They no longer had to wait for others to buy them before they could start making wooden carts. They just made the wooden carts first and then put them out for sale.

I don’t know which family bought a wooden cart for their wedding, but the bride didn’t have to walk back with the groom, so she just sat on the cart and went back with the groom.

Poor families don’t have that much money, but since they spend a lot of money on getting married, they will grit their teeth and spend a little more to buy things.

Well, a village that was a bit more affluent bought a wooden cart. They used it to transport things and even used it to marry. This was considered quite prestigious, and as a result, more and more people began to discover the benefits of wooden carts.

In Shiyuan Village, Widow Zhang's family wasn't in a rush to buy a wooden cart. She figured the distance to town wasn't far, and a quick walk would be enough. They could wait until the price of wooden carts dropped, and then buy one.

A wooden cart costs one or two taels of silver, that much money.

Widow Zhang was reluctant to spend the money, as she wanted to save it.

"Did the village chief really buy a wooden cart?" When Widow Zhang returned to the village earlier, she seemed to have heard someone say that the village chief's family had bought a wooden cart. She didn't know whether it was true or not, so she asked the granddaughter-in-law who had some relationship with the village chief's family.

"Yes," Shi replied, "I just bought it this morning."

"Just bought it, and you're riding it already?" Widow Zhang saw quite a few people in the village gathered around watching.

"We're just going to learn something on the road," Shi said. "Everyone's curious, so they all went over to take a look."

"That's right, you can use it right away after you buy it." Widow Zhang said, "It's really good. If you live far from town, you can buy it and it's convenient for commuting."

"That's right." Shi envied those people for having wooden carts, but she hadn't considered buying one herself. She believed Widow Zhang must have some plans, and as a granddaughter-in-law, she didn't need to say anything. "See them using them, they're very useful. After a while, when there are more wooden carts, they should be a little cheaper. I wonder how much cheaper."

"No matter how cheap it is, it can't be just two or three hundred wen." Widow Zhang thought about it and thought, even if the bicycle is a little cheaper, it will still cost five or six hundred wen. If she wanted to wait for the price of bicycles to drop further, she wouldn't be able to wait any longer.

There weren't many carpenters in the town, and there were many villages under the town. Those carpenters could still take their wooden carts to the capital to sell, so there was absolutely no way they could get a big discount.

"Put more rice in your cooking and more oil in your dishes lately," Widow Zhang said. "It's time to put them to work."

The crops in the fields are almost ready to be harvested. People have to work in the fields, so they can't eat too little.

Some new daughters-in-law have just started to take charge of the household and do not know how to do anything except saving money. As a result, the whole family is starving and they cannot work at all.

Liu Yulian, the eldest wife of the Liu family, received a lot of money, and the wooden carts were even more popular than Liu Yulian had imagined. Sometimes they would see people riding wooden carts on the street. Wooden carts were convenient, but they couldn't be left lying around, as it would be bad if they were stolen.

Fortunately, the wooden cart can be placed in the house and locked up, which is much better.

"If there were other materials that could be used as substitutes and soaked in water, that would be much better." Liu Yulian was thinking about rubber. Rubber trees were not something she could plant just because she wanted to.

Rubber trees are not suitable for planting in the northwest this generation and must be planted in the south.

Liu Yulian thought there was no need to rush. She could just wait and see if someone else could bring back the rubber. She could just ask for it and have someone go find it.

She checked the game system again. The game store didn't sell rubber tree seeds. Game developers didn't import every seed in the world into the game, so inevitably, a game wouldn't need that many seeds, and players couldn't actually make rubber in the game.

This also made Liu Yulian realize that she couldn't rely entirely on the game system; the game system wasn't omnipotent. She took advantage of the space to extract as much as she could, and she copied some of the content into a book. However, she was alone, and it was impossible for her to hide in the room and copy books all the time.

She planned to copy out the most important contents first, which were some medical books and culture medium. She could come up with the other things later, there was no need to rush.

"Take your time and see." The word Father Liu used most often now was 'take your time'. Otherwise, what else could he say? His daughter was always tossing around, tossing around this and that.

Father Liu told himself that his daughter's actions would bring a lot of benefits to the family. He should not interfere too much. If his daughter didn't have enough money, he would add more.

"We need to see if there are materials elsewhere," Liu Yulian said. "They say there's a tree called the rubber tree that produces rubber. Rubber can be used to make tires, and it's also very useful. We only know that this tree is suitable for production in the south, but we don't know if there are any in the south. We still have to look further south."

Liu Yulian didn't know the origin of the rubber tree, nor did she know if there were any in Daliang. She just said that, hoping others could find it.

In the barracks, He Xiyuan learned to ride a wooden cart. This cart was quite good, but it made some noise. They couldn't get too close to the enemy camp on it, but it was also convenient. They couldn't ride horses too close to the enemy camp.

Wooden carts are mainly used in other places, for people's daily travel.

Many people wanted to ride a wooden cart. Some people had saved several taels of silver and were thinking of buying a wooden cart after they retired from the army.

"Come on, come down, it's my turn to try."

Several people were waiting to ride the wooden carts, which were very useful.

Some people didn't know Liu Yanjing was from the Marquis of Jingning's mansion, but after seeing the woolen sweater and the wooden cart, some people knew Liu Yanjing's identity. They thought it was quite good that the son of the Marquis of Jingning was serving in the army with them.

Liu Yanjing sat next to He Xiyuan, "Just sit here?"

"Yeah." He Xiyuan nodded slightly. He was holding a knife in his hand and carving.

"I heard this year is better than last year, with fewer enemy attacks." Liu Yanjing said, "and far fewer villagers have been robbed."

In previous years, when the weather got cold, those tribes became restless and the number of sneak attacks increased.

Liu Yanjing had heard this from other veterans. He thought this was fine. In any battle, no matter how large or small, there would always be casualties. It would be better if those tribes could conduct fewer surprise attacks. Liu Yanjing couldn't possibly want them to conduct more surprise attacks just for the sake of so-called military merit. That would be wrong.

"They exchanged a lot of food for it." He Xiyuan knew that his uncle had mentioned this before. "They also exchanged a lot of cotton for it."

Daliang did not stop the people from selling wool, so they used the money to buy other things. The tribes exchanged so many things for other things, so that they could have a better winter.

No one wanted to fight, not even the people of Daliang, and not even the tribesmen. If they could trade wool for more, they would certainly be willing to trade it for more, rather than going to war.

"It's less frequent, but not nonexistent." Liu Yanjing said, "Not all tribes exchange so many things."

Some tribes had no idea that wool could be sold for so much money, and they didn't sell wool in exchange for food.

Liu Yanjing thought that if they launched fewer sneak attacks, they would have more time to rest. Liu Yanjing had never expected that the tribes would launch fewer sneak attacks just because they had sold their wool. But even if they had thought of it earlier, they would not have been able to buy wool because they did not know how to make wool yarn.

Nowadays, there are more wool workshops making wool yarn and more wool merchants buying wool, and some wool is sold at high prices. Some tribes suddenly became rich overnight, suddenly having a lot of money and buying a lot of food.

The court was willing to let them buy so much grain mainly because the dynasty could harvest a lot of grain this year.

"It's really cold here." Liu Yanjing said, "especially at night."

It was getting dark, and they were still a little warmer sitting by the fire. In ten days or half a month, the weather would get even colder.

"Sister Lian said she wanted to collect duck feathers to make clothes." He Xiyuan believed that Liu Yulian would be able to make very good clothes.

"Then do you know she will do it for you?" Liu Yanjing asked.

"You have it, and I have it too." He Xiyuan knew that if Sister Lian didn't make it for him, how could she tell him? Sister Lian has always been very good, and at most she would just give Liu Yanjing more things.

"..." When Liu Yanjing heard this, he really didn't know how to complain. His sister was just so nice to He Xiyuan.

In the county town, Su Qiuya specially asked someone to write a piece of paper and post it at the door, and also asked someone to go to the door and shout that the clear soup noodles were on sale.

Some scholars came from poor families and lived frugally. They even copied books to earn money. If they could spend a few cents less, they would do so.

As a result, the business in Su Qiuya's shop gradually improved, and more scholars came to eat noodles.

"It's still not as good as before." After a busy day, Su Qiuya was counting the money and found that the money she earned now was still not as much as she had earned before.

"The Xu family incident is just over." Aunt Qing said, "You too, don't know how to be more cautious in doing things. Whether you said it or not, you went to inquire about it, and others know that you knew it, so it's hard to explain."

Aunt Qing has been in the harem for many years and understands that some things can be done by taking advantage of the situation, and it doesn't matter whether it was done by this person or not.

Those people didn't care whether Su Qiuya had spread bad news about Miss Xu or not, they just thought it was better to be more cautious. Scholars were more arrogant, so it was normal for some people not to come to Su Qiuya's shop to eat.

"With this little money... we'll have to go to the city in the future. Shops there are more expensive." Su Qiuya planned to buy a shop there. She didn't want to just rent one. If she did, she'd be easily kicked out. "My husband should go to the city next year or the year after."

"There's still time," Aunt Qing said, "If your dowry is still there..."

At the beginning, when the Marquis of Jingning came to the Su family to propose marriage, they also gave a lot of gifts. The Su family was a merchant and was afraid of offending the Marquis. Even though the Su family saw that the Marquis's Mansion was crumbling, they did not dare to take more of the betrothal gifts and let Su Qiuya take those betrothal gifts as a dowry.

Even if the betrothal gift for a concubine's son and his wife is not that much, it is still a lot of money for them now.

"As long as you have hands, you can earn it." Su Qiuya didn't think about the previous dowry. They couldn't get it back at all. Didn't you see that the royal family didn't give the things that were confiscated to the Jingning Marquis' Mansion? If the royal family didn't give them to Liu's father, it would be even less likely to give them to the other houses.

"Well, then wait for you to earn it with your own hands." Aunt Qing said.

In Shiyuan Village, Lin Xiaowan saw someone riding a wooden car outside with metal accessories on it.

You should know that wheels made of ordinary wood will easily fall apart on the road. They must be made of relatively strong wood. Even if it is a whole piece of wood, there must be something supporting the edge. This way, it will not wear out so easily and can be used longer.

Lin Xiaowan didn't know how to make a wooden cart for people to ride, but she had seen horse-drawn carriages and other vehicles, and the wheels of those vehicles were specially made.

No one else had thought of using two wheels to make a rideable bicycle, but Liu Yulian had. Lin Xiaowan thought it was probably not Liu Yulian's idea, but probably something written in the books Liu Yulian had read.

"Can I buy a car?" Liu Yanqing envied. His family didn't have an ox cart or a horse carriage, so it was hard for him to go out. He wanted a bicycle. "My little sister made it for sale. Let's just patronize her business."

"My business is booming, why do I need you to come?" Lin Xiaowan rolled her eyes. "You just want to ride around? Do you want to go somewhere farther to gamble?"

Lin Xiaowan stared at Liu Yanqing. He wasn't one to work quietly. She had taken him up the mountain several times, but he'd been lazy. If it weren't for the fact that he hadn't just run home, Lin Xiaowan would have kicked him off the mountain.

If Liu Yanqing had a bicycle, who knows where he would go for fun.

Lin Xiaowan was a little worried. Did she have to run after the bicycle then?

"Stop talking. I went to the county town, but those people wouldn't let me in." Liu Yanqing felt very aggrieved. Those gambling houses wouldn't let him in because they were all worried that he would gamble without paying.

Even though he rarely went to the county town, the people in the gambling house still knew him.

Liu Yanqing suspected that someone had sent his portrait to those places to prevent him from entering. He was so miserable. He had not committed any crime, so why was he treated like this?

Liu Yanqing feels that life has lost its fun. "Even with a bicycle, I can't go far. I have to come back to eat."

"Are you the one who supports the family?" Lin Xiaowan asked.

“…” Liu Yanqing didn’t dare to say that he supported his family, and indeed he did not.

"You're not the one supporting this family, so why are you talking about buying this and that?" Lin Xiaowan said, "If you really want to buy something, find a job. If you earn a few ounces of silver, then go ahead and buy it."

"Can I buy on credit?" Liu Yanqing asked.

"Don't even think about it!" Lin Xiaowan said, "You have no shame, but I still have some. Go, feed the chickens."

Lin Xiaowan handed the dustpan in her hand to Liu Yanqing and asked Liu Yanqing to work more.

"If you work hard by the New Year, I'll buy you a bicycle." Lin Xiaowan gave Liu Yanqing hope, so that he wouldn't always drool over other people's bicycles. "Really? Why don't you practice your handwriting to be more beautiful? You can earn some money by copying books for others."

Liu Yanqing wondered how he could have known he would end up like this. If he had known he would end up like this, he would have practiced writing better. Without good handwriting, people wouldn't let him make money copying books.

As for taking part in the imperial examination, Liu Yanqing had never thought about it because he was not cut out for studying.

He feeds chickens every day, and the sound of chickens crowing, cock-a-doodle-doo, is always in his ears.

Liu Yanqing hadn't known what a hen's sound was like when she laid an egg before, but now he knew a lot. He sometimes wondered if he could secretly hide an egg and sell it, but Lin Xiaowan was always watching him, and he was afraid of breaking the egg, so he didn't dare to do anything.

Once, Liu Yanqing wanted to take action, but was chased by the chicken and ran everywhere. In the end, he didn't pick up any eggs.

"That's what you said. We must buy it before the New Year," said Liu Yanqing.

If possible, Liu Yanqing wanted to run to Liu Yulian and ask for credit, but Lin Xiaowan wouldn't let him. He could only stay at home obediently. He still had to save some money.

Liu Yulian didn't know that Liu Yanqing wanted to buy a bicycle, so she asked someone to process the duck feathers she had brought in. She wanted to make down jackets and down pants, so she had to collect a lot of duck feathers.

Duck feathers are not like wool. They can only be obtained when the duck is killed. After all, people cannot shave the ducks directly. Duck feathers from a duck are worth two cents. Many people are willing to sell duck feathers. Even if there are no duck feathers to sell before the duck is killed, they will not kill the duck just to sell the feathers.

Fortunately, there were many people nearby, so Liu Yulian asked people to visit several villages and collected a lot of duck feathers.

The weather was getting cold, so Liu Yulian put on a woolen sweater, which was so long that it reached her knees. If Liu Yulian wore other clothes outside, it would look a bit out of place.

Liu Yulian didn't care how bad this style was. As long as it kept her warm, she thought, it was fine. She would dress better when she went out. But once people outside discovered the benefits of woolen sweaters, they wouldn't think wearing them was so bad. Over time, they would start to think woolen sweaters looked good.

"She looks pretty dressed like this." Liu Yulian looked at her little niece. She was wearing a pink cotton-padded jacket and a small sweater. She looked no different from children in later generations. She was so adorable.

"It's warm." Xiao Liujia said, "Brother too."

Liu Qingyun wore the sweater inside and other clothes outside, which was fine. The color was blue, and this combination was also good.

"Aunt." Liu Qingyun was on vacation, and some students from the private school went back home to help with farm work.

During the busy farming season, the teacher would take a few days off.

When Liu Qingyun returned home, he of course didn't have to do any other farm work and could just study peacefully.

"Are you hungry? Have some cakes." Liu Yulian always likes to ask her nephews and nieces if they want to eat cakes. Children are growing and tend to get hungry easily.

As time went by, Princess Zhaoyang and her group were about to reach the northwest. They had no intention of going to the city, but rather to the town where the Liu family's eldest branch was located. Princess Zhaoyang understood the emperor's intentions, so she naturally could not stay in the city. If she did, it would be difficult to have much contact with the Liu family.