Chapter 427 Money, Who Takes It?
Zhou Erlang said, "Third uncle, in the county town, it takes 1,200 copper coins to exchange for silver. Some silver of good quality costs 1,300 copper coins to exchange for one ounce."
Uncle Qian San had also been around casinos before, so he understood immediately. He sighed and said, "I remember a long time ago, in the county town, you could exchange copper coins for silver for 900 coins. I didn't expect copper coins to be so worthless now."
Uncle Qian Da reached out to touch the shoulder pole. Uncle Qian San was startled when he saw it. He quickly jumped to the side and shouted, "Brother, brother, I know I was wrong. That's all I said. That's all I said."
Uncle Qian snorted coldly.
Uncle Qian San was sweating as he hid behind Manbao. Unfortunately, he was too wide and Manbao couldn't cover him. Uncle Qian San smiled at Old Zhou ingratiatingly and said, "Brother-in-law, look..."
Old Zhou said, "Silver coins need to be cut. I do have copper coins here, Manbao, count out your uncle's and second uncle's first."
Manbao calculated for a long time, then double-checked before saying, "Second uncle's is 12,150 wen, which converts to 10 liang of silver, leaving 150 wen over. Eldest uncle's is 16,900 wen, which converts to 14 liang of silver, leaving 100 wen over."
Uncle Qian's eyes were almost narrowed from laughing.
Uncle Qian couldn't help but feel sour, "Brother, your family picked out a lot of wheat seeds. If I had known earlier, I would have asked the child's mother and others to come as well."
Uncle Qian glanced at him and said, "Who told you not to have more sons? Both of our families have three sons."
"Does that mean I can have a baby if I want to?"
Old Zhou couldn't help but help his second uncle, "Third brother, didn't you say that if you had too many sons, you would have to spend money to marry them off, so why not have any?"
Obviously, everyone knew about this. Zhou Dalang and other younger generations turned their heads away, unable to bear to watch. Even Manbao kept nodding his head and holding Uncle Qian's hand, saying, "Uncle, it's not too late to realize it now. Later, you can ask your cousin to be nicer to your cousins-in-law and ask them to give you more grandchildren. It's the same, the same."
"You're so young, do you know what it means to have a grandson?"
"I know. My third and fourth sisters-in-law just gave me two nephews."
Uncle Qian San knew about this of course, but the two children's full-month celebrations coincided with the busy spring season, so they hadn't come to see them yet. They had originally planned to come and visit during the Dragon Boat Festival and give them a basket of eggs.
A few days ago, Uncle Qian was still worried about the eggs at home. He felt that his eldest brother-in-law was too inconsiderate. How many eggs had he given away in his life just because of the birth of a new baby in their family?
But at this moment, Uncle Qian San's heart was not so painful. He was too lazy to talk nonsense with the little kid Manbao anymore, and just looked at his brother-in-law with a smile.
Old Zhou knew why he did that and was not vague. He took out the silver and divided it among them.
As a result, he had just taken out a silver ingot when the door slammed open. In fact, the sound was not very loud, but everyone was quiet and not talking, and was concentrating on looking at the silver, so the sound seemed particularly loud.
Old Zhou's heart trembled, his hands shook, and he subconsciously clenched the silver tightly, as if he was afraid that someone would come to snatch it from him.
The others were also startled and turned around to look, only to find that it was Qian and the others who had returned.
Qian looked at them in confusion, "...What are you all doing together? I heard at Dayuan's house that Master Bai had passed away. His father, did you say something bad about me outside? Why..."
Qian had only said half of her words when she saw the silver among the crowd and lost her voice for a moment.
The people behind her naturally saw it as well, but they had never seen the scene of selling wheat seeds, so when they suddenly saw so much silver, no one thought that the money belonged to their family.
Until Old Zhou distributed the silver.
Uncle Qian's share was the easiest to divide, because Mr. Bai brought in silver ingots of ten taels each. He could just give him ten taels and then count out one hundred and fifty copper coins.
At Uncle Qian's place, Old Zhou gave him a silver ingot and a hundred coins. Then he took out another ingot and became worried. He asked Uncle Qian and Uncle Qian San, "Just cut it open?"
Uncle Qian nodded, but Uncle Qian San shouted, "No, I know this kind of silver ingot is more expensive to exchange for loose silver because loose silver has loss. Brother-in-law, just give it to me and I'll take it to the county town to exchange it. You can just give me one or two ounces of loose silver."
Old Zhou didn't listen to him and looked directly at Uncle Qian.
Uncle Qian nodded and said, "Don't listen to him. Just cut it open. If it's too small, we two families can just patch it up."
Uncle Qian couldn't help but shout, "Big Brother!"
Uncle Qian glanced at him and said, "Don't think I don't know. Last time you said you were going to the city to buy cloth, but you ended up wandering outside the gambling house. People in the village saw you. I'm telling you, you can't take this little money. Let Dalang take it."
After saying this, he turned to Uncle Qian's eldest son and said, "You should collect the money and bring it back. Your father won't give it to you even if he asks, and he won't give it to your mother either. When you get back, you brothers can discuss and divide it equally, or put it in the public treasury. The little wheat you have now can be saved until the summer harvest. If that doesn't work, just mix in some wheat bran."
Uncle Qian immediately arranged the money for the third room. "Don't worry about having a little money. Think about the children in your family. They will start looking for marriages in a few years. It will cost five taels of silver or more to marry a good wife. You have to prepare a dowry for your daughter, right? There are only a little over seven taels of money in total. How much will you two brothers have left?"
Dalang from the third room nodded in agreement. Uncle Qian San was so angry that his nose was about to smoke. As a result, his eyes turned sideways and met the gaze of Uncle Qian Da. He felt pain in his fingers and shrank his neck without saying a word.
Uncle Qian said, "If your mother asks about it later, just say that I allocated the money."
The two brothers from the third room nodded.
Uncle Qian said to Old Zhou, "Go ahead and cut it."
Old Zhou called Manbao over to draw a line. Manbao looked at the scissors they were holding and expressed doubt, "Dad, can these scissors cut silver?"
"You have to give it a try. If it doesn't work, just put it on the chopping board and chop it with a knife." Their family is not rich, so of course they would not buy scissors specifically for cutting silver.
Manbao finally understood why the silver would be damaged. She scratched her head and asked, "Don't we have silver bars at home? When we sold the ginger to the pharmacy last year, the settlement was all in silver bars, right?"
When the two sons of Qian's eldest and third uncles heard this, they quickly said, "Silver nuggets are good, silver nuggets are good. This way we don't have to cut them up again when we get home. If we cut them, the silver flakes will fall off, which is all waste."
Uncle Qian San was so angry that he pinched his waist and shouted, "That's why I asked you to go into the city to exchange silver bars. One ingot can be exchanged for ten taels of silver, and you can also get some extra copper coins. Do you understand?"
(End of this chapter)
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