"Is the famine in Huangzhou so serious?"
Dong Da and Liu Quan, who were squatting beside the carriage and repairing the wheel, were shocked when they heard this.
"You are not from Huangzhou, are you?" The square-faced man glanced at the horse-drawn carriages behind. Although they were covered in dust, the carriages and horses did not look like something that ordinary people could afford. They were even more luxurious than those of the landlords in the nearby town.
I couldn't help but kindly advise, "If you're going to the Dan River, I advise you to turn around here. That's where I said you've run out of food. If your convoy passes by there, it will definitely be robbed."
"Thank you for your advice, sir."
Wei Maolin got off the carriage and bowed to the square-faced man, thanking him. "We are indeed from other states. We are new to Huangzhou. Thank you for telling us this."
"Hey, you don't have to be so polite..."
"Master, the wheel is stuck. It will probably take more than half an hour to remove it and reinstall it." Liu Quan turned around and reported.
"Then tell everyone to rest where they are first." Wei Maolin asked Manager Wang to inform the carriages behind.
"If you don't mind, why don't you come to the village and sit for a while? My home is in the third yard at the entrance of the village, just a few steps away."
Wei Yunlan got off the carriage and just happened to hear the square-faced man's invitation.
The father and daughter looked at each other from a distance, and Wei Maolin bowed to the square-faced man and said, "Then I'm sorry to bother you."
The Wei family followed the square-faced man into the village.
It turned out that the man's surname was Han, and he was the new village chief of Hanjia Village who had been in office for two months. The old village chief was his father, who died more than a month ago when the village was hit by a food robbery.
"Didn't you report to the police?" Wei Mingxuan asked.
"What's the point of reporting it to the authorities? There are more than a dozen villages nearby that have been affected. How can the authorities take care of it?"
Village Chief Han sighed and said, "We are under the jurisdiction of Xiakou County. I heard that a few days ago, even the granary of the county government was robbed..."
The Wei family was surprised to hear this.
"Who is so arrogant?" They even dared to rob the county government's granary. It seems that the current situation in the north is even more chaotic than they imagined!
"Hey, even the county government hasn't found the robbers yet, how can we ordinary people know?"
Speaking of this, Village Chief Han had a worried look on his face. "I heard that the grain that was robbed from the county government was the tax grain that was just collected this fall. I'm afraid that the county government won't be able to pay back the tax and will have to come to our villages to collect grain again... Then we won't be able to live like this."
"Old Han, please don't scare the guests. The county knows that our villages have been robbed. There is no way they will really collect grain taxes again and force everyone to die."
The village chief's wife came out with a few large coarse porcelain bowls filled with tea brewed from tree leaves. "Don't listen to what my old Han says. He just likes to make random assumptions and scare himself."
As he spoke, he handed the large coarse porcelain bowl to Wei Maolin, Gao and the others, "I don't have anything good to offer you, so please have a sip of tea to moisten your throats. This is our specialty bitter leaf tea. I wonder if you are used to it?"
Gao picked up the big bowl and took two sips. The bitterness was mixed with a hint of sweetness. After the two sips, her originally dry throat felt much smoother.
After drinking it, Dr. Yu praised it, “This tea is good.”
The village chief's wife introduced: "This is made from the leaves of the bitterleaf tree, which are dried and soaked. There are many bitterleaf trees growing in the forest west of our village. If you like, I will ask the children in the village to take you there to pick them. You can take them back and dry them, then soak them in water to drink."
Doctor Yu immediately expressed his desire to go over and take a look.
The village chief's wife waved and called two children who were standing at the gate of the yard and peeking out, asking them to lead people to find the bitter-leaf tree.
In addition to Doctor Yu, Wei Yunlan and Wei Mingxuan also followed.
The yard was full of people, but half of it was empty. The child who was helping to boil water in the kitchen looked up at the village head's wife in confusion, "Mom, when did you become so generous?"
"Look at what you said. It seems that mom is always so stingy in your eyes, right?" The village chief's wife patted the child on the head in annoyance.
It's not that she is stingy, it's just that life is too hard and she has to be frugal.
This time it wasn't that she was being generous. If the leaves of the bitterleaf tree weren't too bitter to eat directly and had only one use, soaking them in water, she wouldn't have been willing to let others pick them.
I hope that these people from other states will come here, see the kind and polite people, and after receiving the bitter leaf tea from their village, they can also give back something they can use...
"The tree in front with long flat leaves is the bitterleaf tree. The leaves are very bitter if you eat them directly! But adults like to dry them and soak them in water to drink." The child leading the way frowned and pointed to the woods west of the village.
Wei Yunlan was walking at the end, and along the way he noticed that many villagers from Hanjia Village were sitting in groups of three or four outside the yard weaving bamboo strips.
These bamboo strips seemed to be played with in various ways in their hands. Some were woven into bamboo baskets, some into bamboo curtains, and some into animal-shaped ornaments.
"Is everyone in your village good at handicrafts?" Wei Yunlan asked casually.
The child who led the way didn't understand what Wei Yunlan was asking at first, but when he followed her line of sight, he suddenly realized and nodded, "That can be sold for money. My grandma said that one of the bamboo baskets he made can be sold for five copper coins! If you make ten, you can buy a piece of pork!"
"Mingxuan, you follow Doctor Yu to see the bitter-leaf tree. I'll take a walk around the village." Wei Yunlan was obviously more interested in the bamboo weaving than the bitter-leaf tree and bitter-leaf tea.
"Big sister, you should be careful too. Suihe, you must protect big sister."
"Don't worry, Master Mingxuan."
After Suihe responded, Heiyun, who was walking beside Wei Yunlan, also shouted "Woof" at the top of his voice.
Wei Mingxuan reached out and rubbed Heiyun's head, "Yes, and our Heiyun, you have to protect your elder sister too."
"Woof!"
In fact, there is nothing to protect, and Hanjia Village is a relatively peaceful village.
Wei Yunlan led Suihe and Heiyun towards the villagers. Many villagers stopped what they were doing and looked at them curiously.
"Uncle, how much is this bamboo puppy for?"
"ah?"
The old man sitting on the mat swayed and raised the half-woven thing in his hand in a daze, "Girl, are you talking about this?"
Wei Yunlan nodded, and Heiyun leaned forward and sniffed the bamboo puppy in the old man's hand.
The old man looked at the well-dressed Wei Yunlan, hesitated for a moment, and said truthfully: "This sells for eight cents each in the town."
Only three cents more expensive than a bamboo basket.
The amount of paper strips needed is less than for weaving baskets, but the weaving process is much more complicated.
The reason why it can't be sold at a high price is that few people in the town are willing to spend the money to buy an object that can only be played with and has no practical use.
Wei Yunlan glanced at the basket next to the old man, which contained about eight or nine such bamboo-woven puppies, rabbits or birds.
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