Chapter 19
Chen Youtian's intuition was correct.
Sang Luo and the two kids sold out the thirty-two pieces of magic tofu in less than an hour. Sang Luo also introduced Chen Youtian's eggs to buyers. Three or five people were willing to buy them, each of them buying a few, and they were all sold out.
It was the first time for an honest man to see such a noisy sale. One adult and two children almost set up a gong and drum band. The scene was so lively and cheerful that it was almost worse than a big opera.
He looked at his empty basket. Who would take care of whom?
"Uncle Youtian, we still have to go to the market to buy some things. Can you wait for us? We can go back together later." Sang Luo asked Chen Youtian while packing her things.
Chen Youtian nodded: "Okay."
He didn't say much. He went to Sang Luo and the others, picked up the carrying pole, stuffed the clay basins, bamboo tubes, wooden spoons and his own basket that Sang Luo and the others brought into the two buckets, and started carrying the water himself.
All that was left for Sang Luo were two backpacks, one with some of the things she had exchanged and the other empty.
Chen Youtian took a look at the things he had exchanged in the backpack: a small piece of linen, some vegetables, radish, sunflower, eggplant, cucumber, and two eggs.
The linen and eggs were fine, as were the vegetables that could be grown wherever there was land. To Chen Youtian, a farmer, it felt like a huge waste to exchange them for these when selling things.
He moved his mouth several times, but he was not a talkative person normally, so when he arrived he still didn't say a word and just waited on the side.
Sang Luo and Shen An had already put on their backpacks, and Shen An handed all the copper coins that he had been carefully holding in his two pockets to Sang Luo.
Women's clothes did not have pockets like children's clothes. Sang Luo did not have a purse, so she divided the money into two and stuffed them in her sleeve pocket.
Of the thirty-two pieces of magic tofu, three were exchanged for other things, one for eggs, one for four kinds of vegetables, and the other was exchanged for a foot and a half of linen cloth by the old woman who was selling cloth next door, whom Sang Luo saw was the one who came to buy things.
Her handkerchief was too small for filtering, making the magic tofu was time-consuming and laborious, and the earthen linen sold by the old woman was coarsely woven, and was certainly not qualified for use as a tax, but it was suitable for poor families to use for making summer clothes or for patching something.
The mulberry leaf is very suitable for making filter cloth.
Of course, a piece of magical tofu worth two cents could not be exchanged for a foot and a half of linen. After Sang Luo asked the price, she gave the old woman seven cents and added a relatively large piece of leftover tofu as a bargain. Only then was the price negotiated.
The other twenty-nine pieces of magic tofu were all bought with copper coins, which made fifty-eight coins. The last few small pieces were given to a young woman with a child for one cent. After deducting the seven cents given when exchanging for linen, Sang Luo now had a huge sum of fifty-two coins in her sleeves.
Yes, it is a huge amount.
At this time, a copper coin was not considered heavy, but if more than fifty copper coins were put together...
When Sang Luo took the money from Chen An, she weighed it and roughly estimated that it would be about four taels according to modern weight.
Just imagine the heavy feeling of having half a box of Yili milk in your sleeve pocket. It is definitely not a pleasant feeling.
On the importance of having a purse.
Of course, with a ruler of one and a half feet, in addition to being able to cut a square filter cloth, there should be enough space for a small piece of extra cloth. However, this cloth is too rough and the copper coins are heavy, so it is not suitable for making a purse.
Sang Luo thought that if she ever went to the county, she would go to the cloth shop to see if there was any cheap cloth to buy, and then buy a piece of cloth to sew a purse for herself.
Of course, the most important thing right now is to buy two ceramic basins. This business needs to be done regularly, and she can't keep borrowing things from the Chen family. It's okay once or twice, but if it becomes inconvenient for the Chen family's life over time, then she is being immature.
Sang Luo looked around, and when Chen Youtian saw her, he asked her what she was looking for.
Sang Luo: "I want to find a pottery basin and buy some rice."
Chen Youtian understood and said, "Then you don't have to look for it at the stall. The government here collected taxes for this year in advance at the beginning of the year. The rice hasn't been harvested yet, and every family is tightening their belts to make ends meet. No one will come out to sell grain. You can only buy it at the grocery store at the entrance of Sanli Village. You can also buy it at Tao Pen."
Speaking of this, Chen Youtian was visibly depressed. He led the way with his load on his shoulder, taking Sang Luo and the others towards the grocery store.
In the original body's memory, there were no such grocery stores in small villages. They were only found in large villages with markets like Sanli Village. The things sold there were usually a variety of items that were durable, so it was convenient for people who were in a hurry to buy things on non-market days without having to rush to the county.
When Sang Luo and the others followed Chen Youtian to the door of the grocery store, they saw all kinds of things inside. When they asked about the price of grain, the store owner said, "Rice is 70 wen per dou."
Yes, rice. The county will have rice for sale at this time, but most people in the countryside buy rice directly and pound it themselves at home because it is relatively more cost-effective.
Generally speaking, 70% or a little more than 70% of a dou of grain is rice. The price of rice in the county grain shop is not much different from the price of grain, except for the labor cost.
At first glance, there is no difference. Pounding rice is also hard work, right?
But who in the countryside would spare their labor? Besides, the difference between buying grain and buying rice may sound like the difference is only the labor cost, but in fact it is a huge difference, because pounding rice will produce 30% more bran.
Farmers also see this as food. It is their staple food during lean times, and it is also the best food to feed chickens, ducks and pigs when times are better.
Bran is also a treasure!
Chen Youtian's attention was all on the price of grain, which was seventy cents per dou!
"Why has the price increased again? Wasn't it still sixty cents a while ago?"
The grocery store owner looked at him and said, "You haven't paid attention to food prices for a few months, have you? Prices have gone up twice."
"This year, the imperial court has collected taxes in advance, and food is in short supply. In addition, several states in the north have suffered from floods. Many merchants have purchased large quantities of food from our south, and many refugees have fled to the south. The food gap is huge. I am following the pricing of the county grain store. If you don't believe me, go to the county and ask. I guarantee that the price will be the same."
Chen Youtian was stunned and speechless.
Sang Luo pursed her lips. In fact, in her original memory, when she fled all the way from the north, the price of food here was already very low. In the states where her original hometown was hit by disaster, a dou of rice was already sold for hundreds of coins.
As the original body had been raised in seclusion, she had no idea what the normal price of grain was. So based on her original body's memory, Sang Luo initially thought that sixty-five coins for a dou of grain in Qiyang County was the normal price. Yes, when she first fled to Qiyang County to escape famine, the price of a dou of grain was sixty-five coins.
Sang Luo’s pricing for the Shenxian Tofu is also based on this.
So, when she heard the shopkeeper quote the price of seventy wen for a dou of grain, her reaction was not as great as Chen Youtian's. It was only when she saw Chen Youtian getting anxious and heard his conversation with the shopkeeper that Sang Luo realized that seventy wen for a dou of grain should be a high price in the south.
Sang Luo felt a little heavy in her heart.
In fact, with the memories of her original body, it was not difficult for her to infer that the people in this time and space she traveled to had a hard life, with wars, famines, heavy labor and taxes. They just had to survive and had no time to think about it, nor did they dare to think about it.
Until now, because of the price of food, this problem was laid nakedly before her and she had no way to avoid it.
But what can we do?
It was impossible for her to manipulate fate and the power of gods and demons to allow her to travel to a better place, nor was she able to overthrow those in power and become an empress to create a peaceful and prosperous era.
All she could do was to try a little harder to stay alive as long as possible and live a better life, that's all.
The shopkeeper saw that Chen Youtian was silent, so he asked, "Do you still want to buy?"
Sang Luo took over the conversation: "Buy it, but let me take a look at the pottery basin first."
The author has something to say:
This is a fictional dynasty, but the grain prices here refer to some historical records. In times of chaos or famine, the grain prices could be as high as several thousand coins per dou of rice.
The price of grain varied from dynasty to dynasty and was affected by factors such as the harvest of the year, the state of the world, and the value of the currency at the time.
The dynasty here is on the decline, and there are natural disasters in the north, but the world has not yet begun to fall into chaos, especially in the south where the heroine is. This price was set after weighing the pros and cons.
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