Chapter 323 324. The Ruinous Small Village
Gu Benluo straightened his face and said, "Mom, I will definitely follow you closely and won't let the beagle take me away."
Jin Qianqian touched his head and ordered someone to go down and call a few more guards, so that she would feel more at ease.
"Mom, where are we going?" Gu Benluo saw people coming and going on the street and had long wanted to run downstairs, but the carriage never stopped.
Jin Qianqian handed the already asleep Gu Bencan to the nurse beside her, and accompanied Gu Benluo to see the scenery outside, "Mother just bought a farm yesterday, so I happened to have some free time today, so I went to take a look."
Gu Benluo looked a little disappointed. "What's fun in the farm? We can't buy anything."
Jin Qianqian bent down to look him in the eye, "Is shopping the fun part?"
"Well, we can buy things that we don't have at home."
Jin Qianqian, "Does Luo Luo know what I need to buy things?"
"Pay the silver," Gu Benluo blurted out without thinking, and looked at Jin Qianqian with a smug look on his face. This question was too simple.
Jin Qianqian, "Then where does this silver come from?"
Gu Benluo paused for a moment, "Both father and mother have it."
Jin Qianqian then asked, "Does Luo Luo have any money?"
Gu Benluo scratched his head, and finally pointed at Jin Qianqian, "Give it to me, mother."
Jin Qianqian, "Where did the mother's money come from?"
Gu Benluo was anxious now. He shook his head. This question really stumped him.
Jin Qianqian happened to see a porter carrying vegetables and walking forward with difficulty. "Lolo, look at that grandfather. Do you think he is having a hard time now?"
Gu Benluo looked at the sweat dripping down his face and said, "It must be very hard, but, mother, why does he have to pick so many?"
Jin Qianqian helped him straighten his collar, "To make a living, look at this full load of vegetables, it might be the only thing their family can exchange for copper coins."
As Jin Qianqian spoke, she asked Liqiu for her purse and took out two copper coins from it. "These two copper coins can buy two bunches of vegetables. Think about how many copper coins you can get with one tael of silver?"
"I know this. My mother taught me before. One thousand coins," Gu Benluo covered his mouth after counting on his fingers. "That can be exchanged for a lot of vegetables."
Jin Qianqian pointed at the vendors outside and said, "Every penny they earn from hard work has to support their families. So how much does Luo Luo earn? Will he be able to support his parents in the future?"
Gu Benluo looked at his little hands, his expression a little depressed, "Mom, Luoluo is still young and can't earn money yet."
"Then do you have money to buy it?" Jin Qianqian tested again.
Gu Benluo pursed his lips and said, "But I don't want my parents to work so hard. I don't want to buy things anymore."
Jin Qianqian kissed his little face, "Mom is not saying that you can't buy things, but some things can be bought or not. Like the last time you went out with your father and bought a lot of things, what happened afterwards?"
"Then..." Gu Benluo thought of the melted sugar figures, and the kites and lanterns that he had destroyed... He lowered his head and secretly glanced at Jin Qianqian.
Jin Qianqian patted his back and said, "Do you feel that you bought too much last time and a lot of it was wasted?"
Gu Benluo nodded. Because of his greed, he bought several copies of many things and ended up not being able to keep any of them.
Jin Qianqian knew that the child had already shown his intelligence in many areas, and that some things needed to be guided slowly so that he could see the many facets of the world.
Even if he doesn't fully understand it now, he will slowly come to understand if I tell him more often.
The carriage had already driven out of the city gate. Jin Qianqian lifted the curtain and pointed at the mountains and rivers not far away. "Do you feel that it is much cooler here than in the city?"
The heat of early summer also dissipated a lot under the blowing of the mountain breeze, and Gu Benluo's originally tense face relaxed, "Comfortable."
Jin Qianqian, "Wait a minute, when you get to the farm, I'll show you how they live. It was the same for my parents before."
"Just like our hometown?" Gu Benluo still remembered Gaoling Village. Although his uncles no longer farmed, he saw other elders in the village busy working on that piece of farmland.
Jin Qianqian didn't expect that this child had such a good memory and could still remember everything about Gaoling Village. "Well, in Rong Dynasty, 60 to 70 percent of the people are farmers, and they all make a living by farming.
They also lead the hardest and most tiring lives, relying on the weather for food, and not always being able to fill their stomachs.”
Gu Benluo, "Don't they have enough to eat?"
Jin Qianqian patiently helped him explain the current harvests and taxes of various crops. Sometimes, God was not on his side, and after paying the taxes, the family could only rely on a little meager food and wild vegetables to survive.
The carriage finally arrived at the small farm. This farm was truly small, with forty or fifty acres of paddy fields, divided into upper, middle and lower grades.
A two-story house that is already crumbling and dozens of acres of barren hills behind it are all that this farm has.
"This place is too shabby," Jin Qianqian said with some disgust as she stood in the yard. Other people's yards were planted with flowers and plants to show off their elegance, but there were also a lot of flowers and plants growing here, but unfortunately, they were full of wild flowers and weeds.
Not long after entering the yard, the flying mosquitoes almost surrounded people. Jin Qianqian could only ask the wet nurse to take the two children back to the carriage first.
"The owner hasn't been here for a long time," the village head who rushed over after receiving the notice said with a smile, "The original owner of this yard didn't give us the key, so we can't come in to take care of it. I'll call a few people to clean it up."
When Jin Qianqian entered the door and saw the rusty lock handle, she knew that what the village head said was true. "Then can you please clean this place up first, and I will send someone to repair it later."
Looking up at the roof that already had holes everywhere, she was already wondering whether it should be demolished and rebuilt or renovated?
I thought that even if the house was small and shabby here near the outskirts of Beijing, it shouldn't be that bad. I didn't expect it to be so unexpected.
"What did the original owner do? Even if this farm is small, it can't be left in such a state of disuse."
Li Zhuangtou, "This manor was bought by the youngest son of the Liu family, a wealthy merchant in the north, by chance, but he was a playful person and didn't think about it for a long time.
It was not until a few years ago, when the new wife came into the family, that the owner remembered these deeds.
Unfortunately, the new wife sent someone to take a look and was very disgusted with this place, so she sold it. "
Li Zhuangtou added anxiously that he must not let the new owner misunderstand him. "The tenant farmers here are all honest and send their harvest to the Liu family every year, but they are a wealthy family and do not take this as a big deal.
Besides, the land here is also very good. Every year, in addition to paying taxes, we can also make some income from the harvest."
(End of this chapter)
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