Chapter 250
Manbao said this, and naturally it was her brothers and sisters-in-law who ran themselves ragged. However, there was no rush, as the summer harvest had not yet begun. The most urgent task was to repair the roof.
The next day, Zhou Erlang and his friends went to the village chief's house to borrow a cart.
When the villagers knew that they were going to the city to buy tiles to repair their houses, several families who had previously taken money, rice and eggs from them followed them.
If there is no cart, they can carry large bamboo baskets on their backs. Then they can carry them back directly and avoid making several trips back and forth.
Old Zhou went to talk to the village chief and the elderly people in the village about planting winter wheat.
Although it is still early, things like this still need to be prepared in advance, such as fertilizer, so we should start thinking about preparing it now.
Farming is different from other things. The more people who plant the land, the better, and the larger the area, the better.
In fact, there are quite a few people who have this idea, but they have not made up their minds yet, so no one in the village has mentioned it yet.
Since the Zhou family was the first to bring it up, many people were tempted, but some also had concerns. "If we don't grow winter wheat this way, will the soil still be fertile enough for rice next year?"
The yield of rice has always been slightly higher than that of wheat, so if you can only grow one crop out of the two, people will naturally choose to grow rice.
"At worst, everyone can just put in a little more effort and apply more fertilizer," Old Zhou said. "But what else can we do? Although the rice and wheat haven't been harvested yet this year, the harvest is already visible. I'm afraid there won't be much left after paying the autumn tax. Then we'll have to eat beans until next summer's harvest."
The village chief said, "We still don't know what the situation will be like next year. If it's the same as this year, will we still be alive?"
Everyone murmured and finally decided, "Okay, let's plant a season of winter wheat."
After the matter was settled, everyone was no longer so entangled. They talked about other things, "How is Dazhu's injury?"
"I went to get two more prescriptions yesterday. The doctor said I should be fine after taking them." Then he turned to look at Old Zhou and asked, "How is Dalang?"
"Almost recovered, but still can't do heavy work."
"We can't see any bleeding in his stomach, so we have to be cautious. I'd let him rest at home for six months and wait until spring before going back to the fields."
Old Zhou also thought so. He didn't know any medical skills, but he thought that internal bleeding must be caused by something inside being broken. What if the fatigue caused it to be pulled and the wound to open again? They were in the stomach, so they couldn't see the bleeding.
People in the countryside basically rely on rest and endurance to recover from illness.
Zhou Dalang is only in his twenties, and Old Zhou is still very worried that he will develop a chronic illness. His family lacks everything except people, so he plans to let him rest at home for a while, and when he feels better, do some light work at home.
For example, you can do work like harvesting wheat, beans, and rice, but you cannot do heavy work like carrying wheat, loosening the soil, and making compost.
Old Zhou then asked about the injuries of the others. Fortunately, except for Zhou Dalang, the injuries of the others were all visible. Basically, they would be fine once their injuries healed.
In fact, the doctor really wanted to tell them that Zhou Dalang's internal injuries had healed and he was fine.
But people are frightened by their own imagination, and most people trust their own judgment more.
Those who can easily accept other people's suggestions and think about them are usually either soft-hearted or very powerful people.
For example, the current emperor.
Before Wei Zhiren returned, the memorial arrived first.
This was a very long memorial, so long that it took the emperor an hour to read it.
It not only records matters related to disaster relief, but also includes data on casualties in the disaster area, data on the money and food consumed for relief, and the disaster situation in various places, most of which are accompanied by data.
It can be seen that Wei Zhi was very dedicated in his disaster relief efforts this time.
Of course, his purpose in submitting the memorial was not just this. He wrote so much also to apply for tax reduction or exemption for the disaster-stricken areas.
Originally, the imperial court planned to exempt the counties under Yizhou from taxation, and gave them ample time, two years.
But this time, Wei Zhi proposed that the counties under Yizhou be exempted from tax for three years in order to attract refugees who were stranded outside to return home and also to attract refugees from outside to enter Yizhou.
Because the casualties from the Yizhou flood were so severe and the population loss was serious, if the population could not be attracted here, they would have to be forcibly relocated from other places, otherwise the thousands of acres of fertile land under the Jianwei Weir might be abandoned.
Except for Yizhou, the entire Jiannan Road will be exempted from taxes for one year.
The scope of Jiannan Road is too wide, which means that the court will not only lose part of the tax revenue, but also have to provide support to the lower levels.
After all, in addition to handing over a portion of local taxes to the court, they also had to keep some for their own financial expenditures.
If there is no tax revenue, the court can only allocate funds to lower levels.
Tax-free or not...
Looking at the data submitted by Wei Zhi and the conditions in the disaster areas across the country, the emperor couldn't help but sigh.
If there is no tax exemption, after a winter, I am afraid that more people will die and go into exile in Jiannan Road.
Collecting taxes may feel good for a while, but it will take ten or even a hundred times more effort to bring in refugees in the future.
Once refugees become bandits, the losses will only be greater.
The emperor put down the memorial and said, "Come here, please invite the six ministers."
He pondered and asked, "Where is Wei Zhi?"
The messenger said, "When I returned to the capital, Lord Wei was on an inspection tour in Luojiang County. He should have been on his way by now and will arrive in the capital soon."
The emperor nodded slightly and waved his hand to let the other party leave.
Meanwhile, Wei Zhi showed no sign of returning to Beijing. He was pruning flowers for the Bai family in the yard with a pair of scissors. As he was pruning, he felt something was wrong. He looked curiously at the row of plants in the flower bed and asked, "Isn't this ginger?"
Daji, who was standing by, smiled and said, "My Lord, it is Jiang."
Wei Zhi smiled and said, "Your crops are really well-planted. How does your gardener take care of them?"
Wei Zhi's family also grows vegetables. As a necessity of life, they have naturally grown ginger, but it doesn't grow as well as here. Moreover, he can see that the ginger buried underneath seems to be bigger than what he usually eats.
Daji smiled and said, "This wasn't planted by the gardener. It was planted by my young master. He usually does the weeding and fertilizing himself."
"Oh?" Wei Zhi smiled slightly, thinking of the child he saw at the banquet yesterday. "Your young master has such hobbies?"
"Yes," Daji paused and smiled, thinking of his young master's hobby, "My young master likes to grow things."
I especially like to grow things that can be sold for money.
"Then I'll have to have a good chat with him later," Wei Zhi said with a smile, "I like to grow things, too."
After a year of development, Bai Shanbao left a lot of ginger blocks for seeds last year. This year, he not only planted ginger blocks in all the flower beds in his yard, but also requisitioned a piece of land in front of the study, and then expanded to occupy the flower beds in the garden.
Mrs. Liu was very indulgent towards him in this regard. She let him plant whatever he wanted, even if it made the house smell a little smelly.
(End of this chapter)
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