Chapter 442 Family Heirloom
Xiao Qian went to meet her parents and brought them in, saying with a smile, "They are going to take it to the county town to sell it tomorrow."
Uncle Qian was stunned and asked doubtfully, "Can this thing be sold? Isn't it available everywhere outside?"
"Erlang took it. He said it was okay, and Manbao also said it was okay, so it should be okay." Xiao Qian smiled and said, "They are more familiar with family business."
"Erlang is more clever," Uncle Qian glanced at the pile of mugwort in the yard, not taking it seriously. He smiled and asked his daughter, "Where is your father-in-law?"
"I'm going to check on the wheat. Mom is in the chicken coop at the back. I'll go get her."
Santou immediately volunteered, "Mom, I'll go, I'll go."
"Okay, go ahead."
Uncle Qian San was looking for Zhou Erlang everywhere, and found a pile of mugwort in the yard. Zhou Erlang and others were sorting it out, so he immediately walked forward with a chuckle.
When the brothers saw their third uncle, they immediately moved to make room for him. "Third uncle, why are you here so early? Fifth brother, sixth brother, hurry over and greet the uncles."
When Zhou Wulang and Zhou Liulang heard this, they dropped the mugwort and ran away. They didn't like doing this job.
Uncle Qian San asked Zhou Erlang, "How can this thing be sold? Can it really be sold?"
Zhou Erlang laughed and said, "I've never sold it before, but I think it should be possible. There's not much mugwort in the city, but with so many people in the city, not everyone is willing to go out to harvest it."
Zhou Erlang made his plan and said, "I'll divide the mugwort into small handfuls, each one costing two cents. If you want one, just pay and choose one. If you don't, I won't lose anything. It's just a little effort anyway."
Zhou Sanlang nodded in agreement. Unlike before, his family had started to get involved in various businesses in recent years, and his perspective had also changed. "It's not the busy farming season now, and I have nothing to do anyway, so I might as well give it a try."
Uncle Qian thought what they said made sense, so he rolled up his sleeves and helped them tie the mugwort.
Zhou Silang went to the woodshed and pulled out two bundles of straw, which were left over from last year. He tied a bundle of mugwort with two bundles of straw and placed them aside. He would then carry them to a shade and put them away. Tomorrow he would just put them on the car and take them away. This kind of business is easy and not difficult, how great.
Yes, Old Zhou agreed that they should go out with a bullock cart tomorrow, mainly because there would be a lot of people going, including a bunch of wives and children.
Of course, the more important thing is that Old Zhou really wants to enjoy the feeling of driving a ox cart to the market.
As soon as the sun rose to halfway up in the sky, Old Zhou came back from the field wearing a straw hat and carrying a hoe.
Uncle Qian asked him, "Are you going to check on the wheat?"
"Well, two plots of land are a little late in earing. I'll go take a look." Old Zhou said, "I was just thinking that if the sisters-in-law come today, I'll have to ask my eldest sister-in-law to pass on a message. Do you have enough food at home?"
Uncle Qian coughed and said, "It's a little short. Mainly because we only planted a little over five acres last year. As soon as the wheat was harvested the other day, we ran out of food, so we dried the wheat and ground it into flour early. What's left at home now is the flour we rubbed out later. There are about three bags."
Old Zhou said, "That's enough to eat. The summer grain will be harvested soon."
Uncle Qian said helplessly, "It was enough originally, but when I went home yesterday, I remembered that my uncle had agreed with me a while ago to borrow two bags this year. He only planted two acres of winter wheat last year and has been borrowing grain from others since February. Now he has to pay it back as soon as the wheat is harvested, and there is not enough at home."
Old Zhou couldn't help but mutter, "They have quite a large family, so why are they only planting two acres?"
What can Uncle Qian do?
He sighed and said, "Last year, his family had really bad luck. The river directly broke through the river bank, and his large wheat field and rice paddy were all flooded. He couldn't harvest a single grain of wheat, let alone the rice that hadn't yet filled with grain. The borrowed food didn't last long, and the children at home didn't know better and stole some wheat seeds..."
In order to maintain the fertility of the soil and because they have enough land, they seldom plant winter wheat. They are not sure about the harvest of winter wheat, so after saving enough seeds for spring wheat, the remaining seeds are only enough to plant two acres.
The ordinary wheat seeds were not like their new wheat seeds. One acre of land only yielded two sacks of wheat, and they were the smaller sacks that their farmers usually used.
Uncle Qian said, "His two little grandsons are only three or two years old. We can't just watch them starve to death."
Old Zhou asked, "What about the second and third brothers?"
"They are better. We have enough to eat at home."
Because of limited manpower, they wanted to bring more wheat, but didn’t they bring any?
So what was left was barely enough for food, but it was impossible for my uncle to lend money to the Yue family.
Uncle Qian also had some other ideas. He wanted to keep the existing wheat at home and lend it to relatives as wheat seeds so that they could also try to grow the new wheat seeds.
At least the harvest will be better next year.
Old Zhou had no objection and said, "Master Bai's family previously exchanged wheat for wheat seeds with our villagers. They still have nine bags left. I plan to buy three bags, which will be enough for the family to eat until the summer harvest. If you want some, I'll buy some more later."
"How much is a bushel?"
"Thirty cents."
Uncle Qian nodded. "That's much cheaper than in the county town. My uncle said that wheat in the county town grain store costs 40 wen a dou, but the grain merchants in the village only charge 28 wen a dou."
"What?" Old Zhou couldn't help but shout.
Uncle Qian laughed and said, "That's fine. We can't buy any grain either. The grain merchants who came to our village to buy grain didn't buy a single pound. Every family is in trouble now. We have relatives outside our family, and any extra grain we have is lent to relatives who need to survive. How many families are willing to sell grain?"
There are occasionally a few such families in other villages, but they are not very brave to buy from them for fear of disputes in the future.
Old Zhou touched his pipe, but didn't dare to smoke in front of his uncle. "Are you borrowing money or grain? If you're borrowing grain, your family doesn't lack food now, so it's not a loss."
"It's okay to lose some money. Suffering some loss is also a blessing." On this point, Uncle Qian and Mrs. Qian surprisingly agreed. He smiled and said, "We are all relatives. Are we going to quarrel over such a small amount of food?"
My uncle is close to me, he's close to me. His children are grown up now, and his wife's family has helped him a lot in the past. And he had already agreed to borrow grain, so how could he change it to borrowing money midway?
Uncle Qian said, "Please buy three bags for me too. I'll have Dalang and the others come over tomorrow to pick them up."
"No need," said Old Zhou. "Let's wait a while and have Dalang bring it over directly to you in an oxcart."
Old Zhou didn't expect that his uncle would buy three bags of wheat. You know, he still has wheat at home. Is he planning to buy two bags and lend them to his wife's family, and then exchange them for a bag of wheat seeds to distribute to relatives?
Old Zhou was shocked and thought to himself: Fortunately, his wife listened to her, otherwise if this family was as poor as his uncle, they would definitely be penniless.
Uncle Qian suddenly asked about the cow, "I heard you bought the cow on credit?"
"Yes, I owed him three ounces of silver."
"It was good to be able to buy a cow for three taels, and I bought it on credit. Unfortunately, the village head came to our village and said that the family didn't have much money or grain saved. If I had known that winter wheat could be sold as wheat seed, I would have bought one on credit. I don't know if the county government still sells cows on credit now."
Old Zhou: ...
Uncle Qian felt a little regretful. He had to see how much it would cost to buy three bags of wheat. In fact, he also wanted to buy a cow so that he could work much faster.
(End of this chapter)
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