Chapter 391 Going to the County
Although Yang Heshu had only been in office for about a month, he had already visited all the villages in Luojiang County and had a general understanding of the conditions in each village.
He finally understood why Luojiang County was just a lower-level county.
Because it is really poor!
In Yang Heshu's opinion, not to mention the private cows of each household, there must be at least ten cows within a mile, right?
Ten households share one cow, which can greatly alleviate the pressure of spring plowing.
But taking Qili Village as an example, they only have one cow in each village, and only 33 households take turns to cultivate the land every year. They only take turns to cultivate three acres at a time, and after three acres, it is the next household's turn.
There are hundreds of households in one li, which means that a family may have to wait two years before it is possible for them to use their own oxen to plow three acres of land at a time.
This time, among the remaining cows, we should be able to get one for every mile, so the efficiency of plowing with cows will at least double.
After Yang Heshu did the math, he finally felt better.
He gave up his bright future in the capital and came to this small county to be the county magistrate, of course not only to accumulate political capital, but also to do some practical work.
He wanted to know whether he had to be an official as his father said?
Although Old Zhou's family had a cow, they were still very concerned about the cow in the county government's cowshed, so they knew about it as soon as the cow was distributed.
The next day, when Old Zhou was leading the ox to plow the fields, someone asked him if he regretted it. "If I had known not to buy the ox, the county government would have given it to us for free. Who would have bought it then?"
Old Zhou touched his favorite cow with pity, put a rope on it, and said, "How can it be the same? The one given to the village head will have a turn when it comes to you. Besides, you can only plow six acres at most. My cow can plow as long as I want."
The other party choked when he heard this and was speechless.
Looking up, I saw Old Zhou looking so disgusted, and couldn't help asking, "Are you attracted to it? Why do you look so creepy? It's even more disgusting than when you first became a father and looked at your son."
Old Zhou said, "My Niu Niu is much better than Da Lang and his friends."
Now, Niu's position in his heart has long surpassed that of his sons and is almost as high as Manbao's.
There's nothing we can do about it. This cow is so easy to use and requires so little effort.
But it is still young, so Old Zhou doesn't dare to use it too hard, so he lets it rest after each period of farming.
Old Zhou, who feeds it, is also very attentive. In addition to letting it freely nibble on the tender grass that has just sprouted in the fields, he also asks several children to go to the ridges of the fields to cut all kinds of lush green grass. He even mixes the bean dregs left over from making tofu at home and feeds it.
Tofu making requires bean dregs. Before May last year, if you made a lot of tofu, there would be a lot of bean dregs as well. Old Zhou and his family would eat some of it themselves and feed the rest to the chickens. But since the flood, the bean dregs have been collected and not wasted at all. They were all made into various shapes by Xiao Qian and eaten.
Or they can be fried or steamed dry and then dried in the sun and stored.
Now, a small portion of the bean dregs left over from making tofu goes into the Zhou family's stomachs, while most of it is kept for the cows.
Old Zhou had gone to ask Bai Zhuangtou for advice on this. He said that during the busy farming season, cows have to do a lot of work, and in order not to hurt them, they have to cook bean rice for them.
Only because it eats as much as humans can it do more work than humans.
Old Zhou was actually reluctant to give bean rice or something like that, but he had no problem giving bean dregs.
Of course, he was reluctant to use his beloved cow so harshly.
After being reminded by Old Zhou every day to be nice to the cows, Manbao started to pay close attention to the three cows on the small farm. One day, she even went to the farm to take a look at the three cows, touched them, and was relieved only after confirming that they were very strong.
The spring rain was falling gently, then stopped intermittently, and then started falling again without knowing when.
But the villagers of Qili Village do not have to wait until the rain stops before working. The time for spring planting is very limited. If they miss it, the impact on the crops will be great.
So no one except lazy people will delay farming.
But with Old Zhou and Mrs. Qian in the Zhou family, the Zhou brothers couldn't be lazy even if they wanted to.
After the Zhou family had cleared a piece of land, spread fertilizer and sowed rice seeds, other families in the village began to go to the fields one after another, also following in the footsteps of the Zhou family and rushing forward to start spring planting.
Then the Zhou family started plowing the land and planting beans.
With the cows, they were much faster, but not as fast as Manbao and his men.
After Old Zhou said that they wanted to start planting beans, Manbao informed her two friends that they could plant beans. Then Baizhuangtou just spread the word, and the peasant women who had planted wheat for them last time came before the male laborers.
Bai Zhuangtou still likes to use them, mainly because they are fast and do their work meticulously, no worse than men.
The only thing is that she is not as strong as men.
But there were oxen to plow the fields, and the three farmhands in the village each had one ox to plow, so Bai Zhuangtou took them in and started the vigorous plan of planting beans.
By the time the male laborers arrived looking for work, the beans in the small farm had almost been planted, but the head of the village still left a few people behind to plow the fields.
The peasant women went to plant ginger.
The location where Manbao and Bai Shanbao chose to plant ginger was not far from the earthen house at the foot of the mountain, and a little further ahead was the big ditch.
They enclosed a piece of land of nearly two acres to grow ginger. Manbao and Bai Shanbao, who made a lot of money from selling ginger every year, hoped to sell it at a high price in winter.
Only Bai Erlang was bored, squatting by the canal, teasing the little bugs in the water. He thought they were fish fry, but Manbao insisted, "These are tadpoles, which are frogs."
Bai Erlang still didn't believe it, "Frogs have legs, so they must be fish."
But Manbao felt that Keke would not lie to her, so she insisted, "This is a frog. If you don't believe me, let's take it home and raise it and see for ourselves."
In fact, she was also curious about how this thing turned into a frog.
"Okay."
So the three of them went from watching people planting ginger to catching tadpoles. When County Magistrate Yang came to the field again accompanied by everyone, he saw the three children squatting by the canal catching tadpoles.
Their movements were obviously unskilled and poorly coordinated, and they always splashed water on themselves or others, causing each other to scream.
Yang Heshu stopped everyone from reminding him and gathered around to watch curiously.
They didn't have a net with them, so they used a large leaf to catch the tadpoles. However, their hands were always unsteady when holding the leaf, and their hands would shake after catching them, and the water and the tadpoles would fall back into the water.
After doing this a few times, Man Bao was full of energy and shouted at Bai Erlang who was squatting in the most advantageous position, "Why are you so stupid? Stop shaking."
Bai Erlang yelled back, "It's obviously Bai Shan who's shaking."
Bai Shan said, "I'm holding a wooden barrel, how can I shake it?"
"It was because you were shaking the bucket that you didn't catch the fish I pulled out, so it fell into the river."
(End of this chapter)
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