Chapter 37: Market Exchange
Liu Yinyin's family received a total of 305 kilograms of food.
Fifteen pounds of wheat, twenty pounds of rice, one hundred and four pounds of corn with cobs, ten pounds of millet, five pounds of soybeans, four pounds of mung beans, four pounds of red beans, three pounds of peanuts, and one hundred and forty pounds of sweet potatoes.
At first glance it seems like a lot, but don't forget that in the countryside only a certain amount of food is distributed each year. If nothing unexpected happens, the food distributed this time will be the villagers' food for the next year.
Liu Yinyin was allocated 305 kilograms of food, which means she ate less than one kilogram a day on average, not to mention that some of the food was in shells.
People at this time don't have any messy snacks and fruits to eat.
The food is nutritionally simple, and people do a lot of work, so they generally eat a lot.
The cellar has just been dug and needs to be air-dried for a few more days.
Liu Yinyin looked at the mountain of food in the kitchen, and her heart was filled with a sense of security.
There are too many sweet potatoes at home, including those from the private plot, there are almost one thousand kilograms. Liu Yinyin plans to divide these sweet potatoes into three parts.
One third is used to make sweet potato vermicelli, one third is used to dry the sweet potatoes, and the remaining one third is kept for eating directly.
In fact, she still likes eating sweet potatoes very much.
The next morning, Liu Yinyin's family had sweet potato porridge, sweet potato and cornmeal dumplings, two poached eggs, and a plate of stir-fried mustard greens for breakfast.
Her family still eats six eggs a day, but they have to feed two families and don't save many.
Gu Cheng was eating when he suddenly thought of something and told her, "Oh, I've got the bicycle ticket. I asked a former comrade-in-arms and he happened to have one, so he sent it to me. It should arrive in the next two days."
Bicycle tickets are very hard to come by at this time, but the situation in the army is better.
Sometimes there were bicycle tickets available in the factory, but since he had just started working there, it was difficult for him to compete with others for a spot.
Liu Yinyin was surprised when she heard this and asked, "Did you exchange it for money?"
It's not nice to take something so valuable for free.
Gu Cheng shook his head: "He doesn't charge money."
Liu Yinyin thought for a moment and said, "How about we send him some food?"
Perhaps because she knew what would happen in the next few years, in her eyes, nothing was more important than food.
"Okay." Gu Cheng actually thought so too.
At that time, when supplies were scarce, no one would complain about having too much food.
Gu Cheng said that the bicycle ticket would arrive in the next two days, but that afternoon, he came back riding a brand new 28-bar bicycle.
In those days, owning a bicycle was more desirable than buying a luxury car in later generations.
When Gu Cheng rode his bicycle back after this trip, the villagers looked at him with such a daze that their eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
There were also naughty children who excitedly followed the bicycles to the end of the village.
Even people from the Liu family came to see.
Jiang Cuihua chased away the crowd of onlookers and said curiously, "Mom, how much does this cost? You guys really don't know how to live."
Of course, these words were directed at Liu Yinyin. If the young lady had not insisted on living in the village, there would be no need to buy a bicycle.
Liu Yinyin: “…”
"Mom, buying a bicycle will make it convenient for us to go anywhere." Gu Cheng explained.
"It's convenient, but too expensive." Jiang Cuihua clicked her tongue twice. With the money she spent on a bicycle, she could build several brick and tile houses in the countryside.
However, it is indeed convenient for my son-in-law to go to work and go home after he has a bicycle.
Jiang Cuihua, as a mother-in-law, could not say much, so she just said, "Including the village chief's family, you two are the only families in the village that have bicycles. In the future, there will definitely be people who will come to borrow bicycles. You have to be careful and don't lend them to everyone."
It would be so painful if it got bumped into.
Liu Yinyin said nonchalantly, "Why borrow? Gu Cheng has to ride a bicycle to work every day, so he doesn't have the chance to lend it to others."
"That's right." The worry on Jiang Cuihua's face immediately disappeared.
Gu Cheng went out early and came back late every day. After a few days, the villagers' enthusiasm for bicycles gradually waned.
The busy farming season is over, and the big fair held on the first and fifteenth day of every lunar month begins again.
That afternoon, Jiang Cuihua came to Liu Yinyin to talk about this matter.
"This is the first big market after the autumn harvest, so it must be very lively. Most villages have distributed grain by now, so there must be many people exchanging grain at the market."
The exchange of food mentioned here does not refer to buying and selling food, but to exchanging coarse grains and fine grains.
Just like the Liu family, there are ten people in total. More people means more food, so it is better to exchange for more coarse grains.
"Mom, what are you going to exchange?" Liu Yinyin's eyes lit up when she heard Jiang Cuihua say that she could exchange food at the market.
Jiang Cuihua sighed and said, "I took 100 catties of millet and 100 catties of wheat to exchange for coarse grains."
One pound of rice or wheat can be exchanged for three pounds of other coarse grains. Of course, sweet potatoes are the least valuable and can be exchanged for six pounds.
But she had no plans to exchange for sweet potatoes. In total, her family received more than 1,000 kilograms of sweet potatoes, which was enough for them to eat.
Liu Yinyin said hurriedly: "Then I will also take some food to trade tomorrow."
It would be a pity not to take advantage of such a good opportunity.
Jiang Cuihua sighed and said, "Okay, I'll come see you tomorrow morning."
Liu Yinyin thought that since Gu Cheng would be at work tomorrow and couldn't go to the market, it would be a rare opportunity for her to smuggle some food out of the system since she was busy alone.
But on the surface, we still have to take some food to trade.
After much thought, Liu Yinyin decided to take six kilograms of rice, six kilograms of flour, thirty-six kilograms of corn grits and thirty kilograms of dried sweet potatoes to the market to exchange for other things.
These are mostly the food I exchanged for wild goat meat last time. They are all old food, so I don’t feel bad about exchanging them.
Liu Yinyin was reluctant to give up the soybeans and mung beans. She thought that if she had no vegetables to eat in the future, the soybeans and mung beans could be used to grow bean sprouts.
That night, many people in the village were thinking about exchanging food the next day.
The next day, just as Gu Cheng left for work, Jiang Cuihua and her youngest son Liu Mingyuan arrived at her doorstep pulling a cart.
Liu Mingyuan helped carry the food.
Jiang Cuihua took a look and quickly muttered, "Child, you have both fine grains and coarse grains. What do you want to change?"
Other people either bring coarse grains to exchange for fine grains, or bring fine grains to exchange for coarse grains. People like Liu Yinyin are just wasting their time.
Liu Yinyin laughed and said, "These are all old food. Let me see if I can replace them with some new food."
"It's the same if you eat old food first." Jiang Cuihua felt that the lady was quite particular.
Fortunately, the food was not much, so she could just do whatever she wanted.
Now that the weather is not so hot, Liu Yinyin followed him to the market.
Considering that she was pregnant, several people stopped to rest on the way.
When we arrived at the market, it was indeed very lively.
After the autumn harvest, many villagers came with food to trade.
This time, the people who came to the market were not only villagers from nearby villages, but also some people from the city.
The supply of fine grains in the city was limited, and they all wanted to take this opportunity to exchange for some fine grains to eat.