Jiang Zhi returned to the village in a hired horse-drawn carriage, carrying not only some seasonal pears but also the promised pork, cooking oil, and various daily necessities for the villagers.
Xujia Village used to have pear trees, but they were cut down by the migrants who gathered there to build shacks long ago, so now there is naturally no food to eat.
Jiang Zhi delivered a pear to each household, and once the basket was full, the children were overjoyed.
That day, all the dozen or so workers received their wages. The first five days of rush work were paid at fifty coins a day, and the subsequent days were paid at thirty coins a day.
The atmosphere in Xujia Village changed the moment the money was put in his pocket.
Although every household had to save money to buy wood and bricks to repair their houses, some people still took out twenty coins to buy a pound of meat and treat their families to a feast.
Then, an enticing aroma of meat wafted from several thatched huts.
The smell filled Xu Changming's nose, and he immediately lost his appetite for the vegetable porridge he was holding.
"Eldest son, second son, you two will go work for the Jiang family from now on!" Xu Changming said to his two sons.
His two sons are both honest, but they listen to their father in everything. Their only resistance is probably raising their hands to agree when electing the village chief.
However, his father and the village chief, Jiang, didn't get along, so his family didn't go to work at Jiang's house.
Seeing that everyone else was eating meat while his family was still drinking coarse grain and bean porridge that would get stuck in his teeth, Xu Changming really couldn't take it anymore.
If you want to save face, you have to risk your life first.
Upon returning from the county town, everyone noticed that Village Chief Jiang had become exceptionally proactive.
In addition to having the villagers continue collecting various medicinal herbs and tree leaves, they also started using techniques for planting crops, saying that they had learned these techniques by traveling around outside.
No one objected to the new demands that Village Chief Jiang made unexpectedly each time.
The villagers of Xujiaben knew that although Granny Jiang was vicious and shrewish in the past, she was a skilled farmer who could grow enough grain from a few acres of land to feed her family.
But she didn't get close to people before, so no one knew what skills she had.
Tian Gui and his group had been to the county government office and saw that Village Chief Jiang was close to the officials and yamen runners inside, so they naturally assumed that it must have been a message from the government.
In any case, as long as Village Chief Jiang could provide everyone with food and money, no one dared to say anything more, lest they be scolded and beaten for angering her.
The second crop of corn that had been sold as tender corn was only about half a person tall, while the villagers' corn had already reached the tasseling and flowering stage, and they would be able to harvest the grain in another month.
Because of differences in terrain, sunlight, wind direction, and geology, the corn grown in each field will also grow differently.
Some are in the flowering stage, while others are still green leaves, which greatly reduces the chances of them needing to be pollinated by the wind.
Therefore, in order to increase the yield, it is necessary to manually shake the flowers for pollination, and this is how the first batch of tender corn was done.
This time, Jiang Zhi didn't just shake the flowers; she had the villagers go to their fields and shake the pollen from each corn plant, while also collecting it in wooden basins.
After the pollen from a plot of land has been shaken out, the collected pollen is put into a section of bamboo tube, and the opening of the tube is covered with a layer of mesh gauze.
Through the gauze, like sprinkling pepper, the pollen is evenly sprinkled onto the pistils of the corn, that is, the corn silk, ensuring that each tender silk is covered with pollen.
This is more meticulous than simply shaking the corn kernels, ensuring that no corn silks are missed or missing.
All pollination needs to be completed in the morning before the sun is too strong, and it should only end after the pollinated pistils have withered.
This job is not easy; when shaking the flowers, pollen falls all over your head and face.
Walking through cornfields taller than a person, the long leaves cut my skin painfully, and when soaked with sweat, it was both painful and itchy.
Every household did it diligently, for this was the food that would fill their stomachs. They wanted to harvest as much as possible, because laziness would only harm themselves.
Two calves were grazing on the grass by the edge of the field, while Tian Xiaoquan, Lin Xiaohu, and a few others were herding them.
The boy, who used to be as mischievous as a monkey, now holds the rope tightly and dares not play anymore.
Although the two cows were bought by Village Chief Jiang, the cow-raising is done by each household in turn, with each household taking turns by drawing lots, and each household raising the cows for ten days.
The whole village watches whose ox is in whose possession. Anyone who dares to be negligent or lazy will not only be criticized behind their back, but will also be stripped of their right to use oxen in the future.
On Laoyun Cliff, Qiaoyun was distilling mosquito repellent again.
With her mother-in-law not home, and to prevent Caixia from getting burned, the child was sent down the cliff early to be looked after by Xiaoman's grandparents and Xu Dazhu.
Meanwhile, Jiang Zhi was picking honeysuckle with Er Rui, Chun Feng, and Xiao Man.
The wild honeysuckle on the mountain has been left unattended, growing wildly and rampantly, with long vines covering half of the small slope.
These wild honeysuckle flowers are difficult to pick.
Normally, Jiang Zhi can only pick some buds from the lower parts of the plant, but now that she's making mosquito repellent, she plans to harvest all the honeysuckle flowers.
honeysuckle
Honeysuckle appears to be two colors, but in reality, it is white on the first day it blooms and turns yellow on the second day. Due to the different times, both colors appear on the same stem, with the gold and silver flowers being different.
The vines of honeysuckle are called Lonicera japonica vines, and when boiled in water, they can be used as a wash for eczema.
Honeysuckle, used for its heat-clearing and detoxifying properties, is typically made from only the flower buds. However, when extracting mosquito repellent from river twigs, this is not the case; all flowers, whether open or not, are harvested.
Several people frantically picked the vines around the small slope, but they still dared not approach the steep parts.
Jiang Zhi looked at the honeysuckle that was going to go to waste and said, "When December comes, transplant these honeysuckle seedlings to various hillsides, especially the areas that have been burned by wildfires."
Honeysuckle is not picky about soil or terrain, it is drought-tolerant and shade-tolerant, and it is very easy to grow. I will need honeysuckle many times in the future, so I need to plant a large number of plants to control costs.
The four of them spent two days collecting various herbs, and the appointed time to deliver the medicine to Pear Blossom Town arrived.
Since the medicine now needs to be delivered every three days, Jiang Zhi can no longer deliver it to Pingchuan County every time. Instead, she delivers it to Baicaotang in the town so that Huo Yanjie can take it with him when he returns to the city from the market.
Tomorrow is market day in Pear Blossom Town, and it will also be the first time we deliver medicine.
In the past two days, Qiaoyun has prepared hydrosols of several medicinal herbs.
Jiang Zhi mixed the various hydrosols in the correct proportions, and then distilled and purified the wine she bought from the county town again to obtain a small amount of high-proof alcohol, which she then mixed into the mosquito repellent.
The next day, Errui filled an earthenware jar with the liquid of medicine, sprayed with high-proof alcohol, and put it into a bamboo basket lined with dry grass. He then carried it down the mountain.
During these business meetings with the Huo family, Jiang Zhi intentionally had Xu Errui listen in on the conversations, intending to have him take over the delivery business in the future.
He used to be a country boy who only knew how to obey orders and work, and rarely even went to town. To gradually become a businessman, he needs a long time and comprehensive learning.
After all, geniuses are too few and far between; everyone is just an ordinary person.
Anyone who can learn diligently and avoid making mistakes is a talented person.
Xu Errui went with Wu Yang from the village to deliver medicine, while Jiang Zhi stayed on the mountain; she had other things to do.
In a few days, the rice on the mountain will bloom. The hybrid rice varieties cultivated last year by "demasking" will have to wait until this autumn harvest to see the results.
This year, Jiangzhi will continue to cultivate hybrid rice using traditional methods.
She wasn't an agricultural major and had only heard that wild rice and "sterile" rice varieties were important in improving rice varieties, but she didn't know the specifics.
Therefore, the only method that can be used is the simplest, most cumbersome, and unsuitable for large-scale seed production: "emasculation".
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