Chapter 484: A Good Harvest and Low Food Prices
There are many villagers who have the same idea as the Zhou family.
From May last year to now, basically everyone's nerves are tense and everyone's stomach is tight.
Not only the children, but also the adults themselves, couldn't help but feel greedy after the summer harvest and autumn harvest.
It is impossible to spend money to buy cakes or something, but you can make some delicious food at home.
So when Zhou Dalang and Zhou Sanlang were almost done grinding the things in the mill, people from the village began to come over one after another.
Seeing that the Zhou family had already polished so many things, the visitors could not help but exclaim, "You guys are really early."
The two brothers smiled innocently. How could this be considered early? They had already ground the soy milk for making tofu a long time ago. Xiao Qianshi must have made the tofu by now.
Mrs. Qian had indeed made the tofu, and was now pressing it with a specially made wooden board. Mrs. Feng poured sugar water on the tender tofu pudding in the wooden barrel and served it to the family as breakfast.
Manbao ate a whole bowl, put it down contentedly, and waited to eat the pancakes.
Today's pancakes were made by my third sister-in-law. After Manbao got them, he broke off half and handed it to Datou. Datou broke off a small piece and gave it to Daya.
Daya ate them all.
She didn't mind at all that it was done by her third aunt.
Not only Feng and He, but even Fang, who had been married for just over a year, had become accustomed to the reactions of these children in the family.
When the family has enough food and drink, the children are a bit picky with their mouths. But if the father-in-law controls the food a little and only lets everyone eat liquidy food, then no matter who cooks, they will all rush to eat it up with relish.
After eating and drinking, Manbao went to put on the pearl flower given yesterday on his head, and Daya and the others followed closely behind.
They also have their own bronze mirrors now, so they don’t have to use their mother’s bronze mirror anymore. They can look in the mirror as long as they want.
By the time Old Zhou discovered the pearl flowers on the heads of the girls in his family, it was already time for everyone to gather together to eat dumplings.
After Xiao Qian made the tofu, she personally took her sister-in-law and sisters-in-law to roll glutinous rice balls and made rice cakes. The children of Old Zhou's family were so happy that they almost went crazy.
After eating a small bowl of glutinous rice balls, he ran out to show off to his friends. After calling his friends for a while, he smelled the fragrance and ran home to eat rice cakes.
The children in the village ran in behind them, ate several pieces of rice cakes with them, and then ran away again.
Of course, Datou and the others also followed those children to their homes to ask for food...
This Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone in Qili Village was immersed in the beauty of food.
Manbao even packed two portions of his favorite rice cake to share with his two friends, but was told that they had both gone to Yizhou.
Manbao felt sorry for a moment, then decided to help them eat both portions of rice cakes.
Manbao, who was full, touched his round belly and thought: What a good harvest! Dad actually made so many rice cakes at home.
Manbao, who was full, didn't know that not everyone was happy about the harvest.
At this time, County Magistrate Yang was not very happy because the autumn harvest was over and the price of grain in the county town had dropped, which made him very happy. However, he had nothing to do these two days, and after the Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone would come to pay taxes one after another, so he had an idea and took his servants to go back to the countryside.
The first places we went to, of course, were a few wealthy villages with abundant and fertile farmland. We found out that the price of grain in the county town had dropped, and the price of rice had dropped to 17 wen per dou. However, the grain merchants in the countryside set the price of grain at 8 wen per dou, and in two villages the price had even been reduced to 7 wen per dou.
While complaining, the villagers still had to take out the extra food from their homes and sell it.
Because the family needs money, and this is the only way they can make money.
County Magistrate Yang was already filled with anger before the holiday was over.
Then, in a fit of rage, he ordered the chief clerk to take the yamen runners to these villages and directly quoted a price of ten cents per dou for the purchase of millet. He also raised the price of wheat from twelve cents per dou to fifteen cents per dou.
Grain merchants waiting to receive grain in various villages: ...
In the countryside, there are generally only two pieces of news that will spread the fastest: one is changes in taxes; the other is food prices.
Although those wealthy villages were far away from Dali Village and Qili Village, the news still spread at the speed of a hurricane.
County Magistrate Yang had just set up preparations to collect grain in the village, but in just a moment, the news spread to the county town and the local market, and then from the county town and the market to the markets and villages in various towns.
In the afternoon, someone who had bought meat at the market came back and said, "I heard the county magistrate is harvesting grain, and it's ten cents a bushel."
"Hey, isn't that two cents more than what Dali Village is offering?"
Qili Village is a bit remote, and there are only about sixty households here, not even a mile away, so they are not willing to come to Qili Village to collect grain.
The main reason was that Mr. Bai never sold his grain to them. His grain had always been purchased by fixed grain merchants, and he also had his own grain shop. He rarely cooperated with local grain merchants in Luojiang County.
So if the villagers of Qili Village want to sell grain, they have to transport it to Dali Village.
Basically, several small villages nearby would gather their grain there and sell it.
The price offered there now is eight cents. Some people have also asked at the grain shop in the county town, and they also offered eight cents.
So the villagers always thought that since they only cost eight cents, it would be better to sell them at the market instead of taking the time and effort to transport them to the county town.
Many families in Qili Village plan to send the gifts after the Mid-Autumn Festival, and some have even made an appointment with Lao Zhoutou.
Old Zhou felt that his family was not short of money and had just experienced a wave of natural disasters, so he valued food very much and decided not to sell the food this year and keep it for his family.
If you can’t finish it, it’s good to eat old grain next year.
In Old Zhou's opinion, a year's old grain tastes better than new grain.
"I heard that Jiangding Village is also doing this. A yamen runner has already gone to notify them today. Why don't we go to Jiangding Village to take a look? If it's true, we can transport it to Jiangding Village and sell it there."
"The county government collected it. Then, can you give me the money?"
"Don't worry, I heard the County Magistrate had baskets of copper coins transported to the village," the villager said, his eyes shining. "People in the county town have been saying that our County Magistrate is different from County Magistrate Fu. His family is very rich and has no shortage of money!"
The reason for saying this is naturally because Yang Heshu has been particularly generous since he moved into the county government office.
This generosity does not mean that he spends money like water, but that he eats out every now and then.
Whether he was eating alone or with others, he was the one who paid the bill; when he went out to buy something, he paid for it himself; even if he hailed a donkey cart on the road and rode for a while, he would take out copper coins to pay the bill.
All of this, in the eyes of the ignorant country people, meant that the new county magistrate was not short of money!
The eyes of those who heard about it lit up, and they all said, "Then let's go to Jiangding Village tomorrow to see. If the county magistrate is really collecting grain there, we will sell it to him."
I'm a bit stuck, so even though I got up very early, I still haven't updated it until now.
(End of this chapter)
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