The seven villages all bought large amounts of food from Li Mengyue. After the village heads announced that those who joined the patrol team would receive 20 kilograms of food from the village office every month, the villagers signed up enthusiastically.
Yes, that’s right, you can get 20 kilograms of food without having to pay for it with money.
Before this, Li Mengyue was thinking that she would buy a village office at the price of two grams per catty.
Anyone who joins the patrol team can buy it from the village office at the price of three kilograms per catty.
What I didn't expect was that the seven village chiefs all chose to give food to the patrol team for free without any discussion.
Li Mengyue did not expect this move.
However, even if Li Mengyue knew, she would not care. Her purpose was to let the patrol team know the situation of the village in time to prevent refugees from entering the village to steal food.
Whether the village chiefs sold food to the patrols at a low price or distributed it for free was none of her business.
Later, Li Mengyue learned about the behavior of the village heads and realized that some time ago, the villages had made a lot of money just by catching locusts.
After all, ten thousand catties of grain cost twenty taels of silver, and Xinghua Village, Lianhua Village, and Guihua Village each wanted twenty thousand catties, which would cost forty taels.
Compared to if she hadn't returned to Xinghua Village, forty taels of silver to the village office of Xinghua Village was definitely a huge sum of money. Now that Village Chief Li said he would take it out, how could she not be surprised?
In fact, what Li Mengyue didn’t know was that the seven village heads had already used more than 90% of the village’s money to buy food.
Because they have all experienced hunger, they know what it feels like to be hungry, and they also understand that their current life is not easy to come by, so they should cherish it.
Once the refugees arrive, even if the government imposes controls on them, the price of food will definitely rise to a sky-high level, and then it will be beyond the reach of peasants like them to buy.
I’m afraid that even if I have money, I won’t be able to buy food.
During years of famine, what is most important is not money, but life-saving food.
They now have the opportunity to buy food at a low price, so of course they will not be so foolish as to think that getting the silver is the safest thing.
Only by exchanging it for food and saving it can we survive.
They also knew that although the villagers' lives were better than before, they were not much better and they could barely get enough to eat.
Even if you make a lot of money from selling locusts, you have to save it for other things. Apart from anything else, repairing the house is very important.
Nowadays, the houses in the village are basically made of mud with straw roofs.
It would rain heavily outside and drizzle inside. Not to mention sleeping, you couldn't even find a place to stand in the house.
Especially in the cold winter, what they fear most is snow.
If it snows heavily at night and the snow on the roof is not cleared in time, you will fall asleep.
The roof can easily collapse under the weight of snow, and people sleeping in the house will be killed without knowing it.
This kind of thing happens every year, and they are really scared.
Now that the villagers have some extra money, they naturally want to repair their houses. Not to mention building brick and tile houses, but at least they want to make the roofs sturdier so that they can withstand the attacks of blizzards.
Someone is already working on this. They bought bricks and tiles from the town and started repairing the roof. They will build the house in the spring of next year.
In the seven villages, many young men like Li Dazhu and Li Yan had no money to build houses because their families were poor. When they reached marriageable age, they didn't even have a matchmaker.
Once the new house is built, I believe it will not be so difficult for these young men of marriageable age to find wives.
It was for these reasons that the seven village chiefs allowed the patrol team to receive 20 kilograms of food for free.
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