166, Propose to raise rabbits
166, Propose to raise rabbits
At noon, the fried dishes began to be served.
The villagers who came to eat had already borrowed their own tables, chairs, and bowls and chopsticks and placed them under the row of large trees at the entrance of the ancestral hall, where they could enjoy the shade and avoid the sun. When it was time to eat, many of them came with their families and sat down to eat at their own tables.
However, there are also some men in the village who like to drink and set up a few tables alone to drink, not sitting at the same table with the women and children.
"Wow, that's a lot of meat!"
The first dish served was the main course, a large plate of fried pork slices. Someone shouted, and as soon as the dish was placed on the table, the people around reached out with their chopsticks to grab the food.
In almost the blink of an eye, the dishes on many tables had been snatched away.
At this time, Lu Mingfei, his father, his younger brother, the old clan leader, the village chief and the headmen were sitting at the table in the ancestral hall to eat.
Most of the people eating at the tables in the ancestral hall are the older male elders in the village. They are all people who care about face, so no one will rush to eat the dishes on the table.
So Lu Mingfei and his brother sat at the main table to eat, and they didn't have to go through the horrible experience of fighting for food with a group of people.
Before eating, Lu Mingfei stood up with the tea in front of him and toasted the elders present: "Today, I will use tea instead of wine to toast everyone. Thank you, village chief, village head, and clan leader for taking care of me and our family over the years. Thank you for giving me face and allowing us to come here for dinner today."
"It is a blessing for our village to have a scholar like you. I hope that our village will have more young people like you in the future. Our Shihua Village will get better and better in the future." The village chief stood up with a wine glass in his hand and responded.
The village head, old clan leader Lu, and everyone else at the same table stood up with their glasses of wine.
The village head and the old clan leader Lu also raised their glasses and said a few polite words.
Although they were older, the young man toasting them was a newly minted scholar who had won the imperial examination. Their village hadn't produced such a scholar in a hundred years.
Among them, only the grandson of the old patriarch passed the examination for the title of scholar, while the descendants of other families were all unsuccessful. However, even the eldest grandson of the patriarch and the eldest son of Lu Youtian's family had a huge gap in their ranking in several examinations.
Many people here speculated that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, this child might even make further progress on the imperial examination path in three years. If so, he would become a successful juren. Not only the Lu family, but even the entire village had never produced a successful juren in all those years.
It is precisely because of this that all the old men who came today showed a little more respect for the younger generation on their faces.
Even the youngest son, who was eating, was picked up by Lu Youtian and made to stand. How could he let a younger person sit down when all the elders had stood up? Otherwise, people would say that this second son of theirs was ill-mannered.
Although Lu Mingrui was ignorant and didn't know why his father asked him to stand, he still stood obediently with everyone when his father picked him up.
The following dishes came up one after another.
Today they prepared ten dishes and a soup. The ten dishes consisted of five meat dishes and five vegetarian dishes. The meat dishes ranged from pure meat to semi-meat dishes, while the vegetarian dishes included stir-fries with tofu, fruits, and vegetables. However, even the vegetarian dishes today were stir-fried with meat and generously seasoned with oil and salt, creating a completely different flavor from those cooked in plain water without oil or salt.
Another staple food is steamed corn bread made from coarse grains. There is a long table and a large bowl of it. Each steamed corn bread is the size of an adult's fist.
The tables outside were all empty, with only one plate of food on each. Many people couldn't even eat such good food during the Chinese New Year or other festivals. Everyone was scrambling for it, and some even quarreled and fought over a bite of food.
However, the people sitting in the ancestral hall eating were not affected by the outside world, and many of the dishes were still left on the table and not finished.
"More?"
"More."
While eating, Lu Mingfei also had to take care of his younger brother who was sitting next to him, and from time to time he put some food into his brother's bowl. While he was doing that, he heard the old patriarch suggest that he and his father go outside to greet everyone.
Hearing this, Lu Youtian smiled and replied, "Yes, we do. Since everyone is so kind to come here, we want to go out and say hello to everyone."
Seeing his father looking at him, Lu Mingfei understood what was going on and stood up. He also invited the village chief, the head of the village, and the old clan leader to go out with them to toast everyone.
But when they came out to toast the guests, Lu Mingfei felt very uncomfortable when he saw that most of the plates on the tables were empty, and there were even children crying because they didn't get any meat.
When they came back after so many years away, the village seemed to be still the same as before, poor and backward, and many families could not even eat a bite of meat all year round.
Even though the people in their tribe had made a little money from growing bean sprouts over the years, they were frugal and didn't spend money on food and clothing. There were so many people in the village, and at first glance, many of them were pale and thin, with not a single fat person to be found.
Perhaps it is because people rarely eat meat that people rush to grab it as soon as they see it.
There's no way. I'm hungry. How can I talk about propriety, righteousness, integrity and shame when I can't even fill my stomach?
…
After walking around outside, Lu Mingfei saw the living conditions of the villagers.
Originally, he planned to return to the village to worship his ancestors, have a meal with everyone and then leave. However, after walking around outside, he suddenly had a feeling that if he came here and did not do something for the villagers, young and old, it would seem that he would be letting down everyone's expectations of him and his own journey to this world.
So when he returned to the ancestral hall and sat down to eat with everyone, he chatted with the village chief who was eating at the same table about the current life of the villagers. He learned that most families had no special skills besides farming, and could only farm here for generations.
Moreover, since no one here has land, they can only rent land from landlords to farm. Many families have been tenant farmers of landlords for generations.
Farming depends on the weather. Years with good weather yield good harvests. Droughts, lack of rain, or frequent rain can lead to poor harvests. Farmers here pay not only grain taxes but also rent. This is fine if the harvest is good, but if it's bad, they might not even be able to pay the rent or grain taxes.
So this is why the villagers in their village have been working hard on the farm for generations and have lived a difficult life.
The village chief knew that the Lu family was growing bean sprouts and that the recipe was given by Lu Youtian. However, he later suspected that the recipe might have come from the child before him. He knew that the Lu family had made a lot of money from growing bean sprouts over the years and had even bought land not far from their village. Life was clearly improving for most of the family.
However, the Wang family and many other families in the village have no other livelihoods except farming.
However, they couldn't possibly try to steal the Lu family's bean sprout business, so when Lu Mingfei and his son returned to the village today, the village chief mentioned the second and fourth branches of the Lu family setting up barbecue stalls in the city. "I heard that this idea came from you, Brother Fei?"
"How about you give us all an idea, let us all come up with an idea, and see if we can do something else to make a living besides farming?"
Ever since the second and fourth sons of the Lu family came to the city to set up a stall, the aroma of meat often wafted from the Lu family's old house. This showed that they had made money from setting up stalls in the city, and their lives were getting better and better. Therefore, seeing that the second and fourth branches of the Lu family were living better and better, many people were jealous.
Today, when they heard the village chief ask their newly-appointed scholar to give them some advice and help them find a way to make money, everyone at the table asked Lu Mingfei to help them come up with an idea.
As soon as this topic started, the people at the neighboring tables could no longer sit still. They stood up one after another and came to the main table, wanting to hear if their scholar had any good ideas for them.
Even Lu Lao Er and Lu Lao Si, who were sitting next to the main table, couldn't help but follow everyone and stand at the main table.
The only one who didn't stand up and go over was his grandfather, Old Man Lu.
Seeing everyone gathered around them, Lu Mingfei hugged his shy brother, looked up at the people around him, and said, "I do have an idea, but I don't know if you want to do it."
"You said, as long as it's a business that can make money, none of us would not want to do it." The village chief said on the spot.
"Most people in our village don't own land. It's very difficult to earn money by farming and selling crops." After Lu Mingfei pointed out the current situation of their village and saw everyone nodding, he continued, "My idea is to get everyone to raise rabbits together."
"Rabbits have a strong reproductive capacity... meaning they can give birth to several litters a year. Plus, rabbits are vegetarians, so you don't need to waste food to feed them."
"In addition, after the rabbits are raised, their meat can be sold and eaten, and their skins can also be sold for money, so it's like killing two birds with one stone."
"Rabbits, rabbits like to dig holes everywhere, and then they run away after digging a hole." Someone nearby couldn't help shaking his head when he heard about raising rabbits.
This statement has been recognized by many people.
However, Lu Mingfei didn't think this was a big problem. "If we build cages for them, wouldn't that prevent them from escaping?"
"That's true." The person who just said that raising rabbits can run replied. Author's words: Thank you Bole 9492239 (9492239) for your support, mua! To know more exciting content, please leave me a message on Liancheng Reading.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
