“No, you don’t understand,” Old Man Huang said with a headache. “In previous years, the government didn’t care. They’ve gotten used to being free and might not take it seriously.”
The original plan was for mid-March, and I'm sure many people were thinking of playing dumb to get through it.
February is more than halfway over, and it's the most crucial time in the fields. Asking them all to put down their work and go to work is simply impossible.
“How about this, let’s take down a big flag,” Village Chief Huang suggested, “and say that we dare to build a school before spring plowing after the official road is repaired.”
“That’s a good idea,” Old Man Huang slammed his hand on the table excitedly. “Building a school is a big deal, and no one will object. But we can’t just talk about it; we have to show them something promising. We need to buy the bricks and tiles first.”
Old Man Huang looked at Jiang Nuan and asked in a low voice, "Ya Ya, how much silver do you have? Let's pool our money together."
He hadn't intended for Jiang Nuan to contribute all her money, but right now, the family could only scrape together ten taels, which wasn't enough to solve their immediate crisis.
“Father,” Jiang Nuan took out a fifty-tael silver note, “you can use these, and use the rest to repair the roads in the village.”
Old Man Huang took the silver note and examined it thoroughly, inside and out. "This is a silver note?"
This was the first time he had ever seen anything like it in his entire life.
It all feels so unreal.
How can a piece of paper, so light and flimsy, be exchanged for silver?
"This is a fifty-tael silver note. You can exchange it directly at the money exchange in the county town."
"Fifty taels?" Village Chief Huang had just received the silver note from Old Man Huang when he heard this, and his hands trembled. "Ya Ya, this is too much."
The clan chief's magnificent house only cost fifty taels.
Building a school, even with just blue bricks and gray tiles, would cost at most twenty taels of silver.
“I want to repair the roads in the village as well,” Jiang Nuan said, explaining her plan. “The village is full of potholes, making it inconvenient for the elderly and children to walk around. Since we’re going to build a school anyway, we might as well repair them at the same time.”
"Road repair?" Old Huang's face flushed with excitement. "Thirty taels for road repair, that's enough, that's enough."
If I can see a school built and roads repaired in my village during my lifetime, I can die in peace.
Suddenly, even the pain of spending money was ignored.
"Yaya, leave this to me. Don't worry, I'll handle it perfectly for you."
Their second branch is really going to be in trouble. No matter what happens in the future, their achievements will be recorded in the family genealogy.
He would risk his life to get these two things done.
“Father,” Old Man Huang pulled back his father, who was about to jump up excitedly, “Fifty taels is too much. Yaya’s savings are hard-earned. How can you give it all away at once?”
"Oh, right," Old Man Huang immediately calmed down after being splashed with cold water, awkwardly touching his nose, "Let's forget about it, we can repair the road later, let's build the school first."
Fifty taels of silver—that's all he could earn in his entire life.
It's really too impulsive to spend money like that and not even hear a sound!
“It’s alright,” Jiang Nuan shook her head. “Money is meant to be spent, and it’s only worth it if it’s spent wisely. With the roads repaired in our village, we won’t have to walk through muddy water on rainy days, and harvesting grain will be easier, saving us the trouble of having to build drying grounds.”
Thirty taels of silver is neither a small nor a large sum. Jiang Nuan plans to pave the main road in the village with blue bricks, and repair all the others according to the official road standards.
It's laborious, but you only need to buy some glutinous rice and lime, which can save you a lot of money and is also durable.
The official road only needs major repairs every five years. In a small village like Huangjiakou, with few people and little road maintenance, it can last for about seven or eight years, which is very cost-effective.
"This..." Old Man Huang was very tempted. "Boss, what do you think?"
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