Chapter 74: Frost is Coming
When the villagers who were watching the fun heard that the grain on Chen Youtian and his companions' shoulders was not their own, but the grain that Sang had saved up to buy to pay rent and taxes, they were shocked.
Moreover, when they took a closer look, they found that the amount of grain purchased by the Sang family was still far from the amount of tax they had to pay. It was worse than theirs, but at least they could pay it.
That sense of superiority swelled in an instant.
Looking at what Chen Youtian and his men were carrying, it was probably just ten kilograms of millet at most. That was probably the so-called high-priced grain they bought and stockpiled. Tsk, not much. They ran to the county every day as if they were doing something big, haha.
The jealousy in the eyes of this group of people suddenly lessened a lot, and they turned to watching the fun and chatting happily.
However, Li saw from afar that Sang Luo was following a group of men in and out. Some of them even asked to lend her grain to pay taxes. She gritted her teeth, but finally couldn't help but spit.
She wanted to curse something, but then she remembered the time when Sang Luo had quarreled with her before, and she forced herself to hold it back.
When Sang Luo became powerful, she would not give her any face. Li could only grit her teeth and curse her in her heart, calling her a foxy girl.
Sang Luo didn't know that Li would have such dirty thoughts when she saw her walking with Chen Youtian and other people who could be considered her uncles. She had hardly any contact with Chen San and his wife since she came here, and they didn't even greet each other when they met on the road, so they didn't even give her a glance, and naturally didn't notice Li's gritting of teeth at this moment.
She led a few people to carry the food back, thanked them, and saw them off. Then she combined the three half-full bags of food into two bags, tied them up tightly, and took the two children to carry the food into the house.
Chen An saw that two more bags of food were brought back, and he knew that the crystal jerky was profitable again. He was as happy as a squirrel that had stockpiled food for the winter: "Sister-in-law, have all the crystal jerky we brought today been sold out?"
"It's sold out. From now on, our family will regularly cooperate with Yongfengzhai. When we make the crystal jerky, we will send it to their shop to sell."
"Do you know Yongfengzhai? It's the best dim sum shop in the county."
The brother and sister were very happy. Chen Ning asked, "How much do they sell our crystal jerky for?"
Sang Luo shook her head: "I don't know about that. It will definitely be much more expensive than what we sold it to her."
The things in Yongfengzhai are all exquisitely packaged and sold by the box. None of them are cheap, so they have to make the money.
Chen An: "It's good to make money if we can sell that piece for a penny, sister-in-law, shall we go into the mountain later?"
Sang Luo nodded: "Yes, we have to go into the mountains. We promised to deliver the goods in about four days, but first we have to cut some bamboo to make three simple drying mats."
With the twenty molds provided by Yongfengzhai, Sangluo can save four winnowing baskets, and the konjac can be cut into thick slices, dried and stored for use in the future when there is no konjac.
Sang Luo prepared to make four simple drying boards to hold the molds of Yongfengzhai. She didn't need to weave them carefully with thin bamboo strips like a winnowing basket. She only needed to weave them into a large, relatively flat board with relatively wide bamboo strips, just like making a chicken coop. The board could be placed in the drying rack and the mold could be placed flat on top.
The saved winnowing basket is intended to be used to dry konjac slices, because konjac also has a harvesting period. If she wants to continue selling vegetarian tripe after the harvesting period, she can only desperately save up the raw materials now.
Sang Luo was already very familiar with cutting bamboo and making things. Even Chen Youtian's tools were all beside her. This simple drying mat was not difficult to make, and she finished it in the afternoon.
Needless to say, there was a lot of hustle and bustle afterwards.
…
In a blink of an eye, it was the seventh day of September, the day when clerks came to Shili Village to collect taxes.
Every family started preparing early in the morning and transported their own food to the village drying yard to wait.
Sang Luo naturally did not go. There was no man in her family and she did not want to attract the attention of the villagers, so she pretended to be poor. She would buy two more batches of grain, around September 13th or 14th, and then she would go to the county to pay the taxes, which would not attract attention.
Although they didn't hand over the grain, it didn't stop Sang Luo from going to the scene to take a look.
This glance made it even more clear how bad the clerks were and how difficult it was for the people. It turned out that when paying taxes, they had to put on a smile to the clerks and secretly give them some money as a bonus.
The clerks who collected grain brought a measuring instrument called a dou to weigh grain. How much grain was collected depended on the clerk's mood. If he gave gifts to those who were filial, the dou would be given as the equal amount. If he did not give gifts, the clerk would kick the clerk several times for every dou of grain he weighed.
That's right, after kicking the wooden bucket used to weigh grain, the grain, which had already been piled high, became much shallower after a few kicks.
At this time, even if you offer more tribute, the clerks will not accept it. It is not enough, so just add more food. There is no point in crying.
There was only one person like this, and everyone in the village was watching. No one was ungrateful anymore, but everyone looked unhappy. But they had to put on a smiling face and be careful in front of the clerk.
Sang Luo felt very aggrieved and took Shen Ning, who had followed her, home.
On the ninth day of the ninth month, Sang Luo went to the county again and delivered the first batch of crystal preserved meat made with molds to Yongfengzhai. The goods were really good. After inspecting the goods, Manager Yan smiled so hard that his teeth were showing. He happily paid Sang Luo for four hundred coins.
This time, Chen Youtian, Zhou Cunzheng and others came to buy grain again. The price of grain in the county had risen to ninety-two wen per dou.
Really, seeing that the grain price has soared by several cents in just a few days, the pedestrians on the main street of the county town have a sense of panic on their faces. There is a longer queue outside the grain shop. Chen Youtian and his team have to enter the city as soon as the city gate opens, otherwise if they rush in at the same time as before, the grain shop will have sold out the day's grain before it's their turn.
If we say that the Chen, Shi and Lu families initially went out to buy grain because they listened to the advice of Sang Luo and Zhou Cunzheng and stockpiled grain, then seeing the way grain prices have been rising in the past few days, listening to the various concerns and discussions of people queuing up to buy grain in the county, and their various views on preventing problems before they occur, their determination to stockpile grain has become even stronger.
In fact, time is wasted here day by day. How much can you save by buying one or two buckets a day?
There was nothing they could do. Even if they wanted to buy more, they couldn't afford it. The grain price was getting more expensive every day. After they bought it, they could only buy seven or eight liters at a time. They had to queue up every day. They didn't even dare to save their energy for a few days, for fear that the price of grain would become more expensive again a few days later.
This time, Sang Luo brought out most of the money she had saved from selling tofu in the past few days, and even if they put it all together, they could only afford one stone and four dou.
However, thinking that the weather might turn cold at any time, Sang Luo still held some money in her hand and only bought one stone.
As for Zhou Cunzheng's family, it was not only Zhou Cunzheng who came. His two sons had also completed their procedures and came out with Zhou Cunzheng to buy grain. There were also two other young men accompanying them, who were said to be Zhou Lizheng's sons.
The real-time grain prices gradually spread to the villages surrounding Shili Village. In Shili Village, people who had originally not taken it seriously gradually began to become anxious and nervous.
Those who had connections with the Chen, Lu, and Shi families went to ask about the situation of these three families, and most people started to run to Zhou Cunzheng's house.
"Isn't it just a disaster? We are such a big country, there will always be one or two places affected by disasters every year, right? Food prices have risen in the past, but not to this extent."
What can Zhoucun say? In this era, the farthest place most people have ever been is the county seat of their own county. Some people have never been to the county seat in their entire lives because of the long distance, because it costs money to go everywhere in the city, and because of various regulations.
Because of this, it was not easy for news to spread even across a state or county, let alone to places further away. He had told everyone what he knew.
That night, nearly half of the families in Shili Village could not sleep well.
Sang Luo, on the other hand, had already stockpiled grain until next autumn with the money borrowed from Shopkeeper Xu, and the subsequent stockpiling had been proceeding in an orderly manner. She felt at ease. After making date cakes and magic tofu for the day, she took her two children to wash up and go to bed early.
She was woken up by the cold in the middle of the night. She curled up into a ball and was cold for a long time before she finally woke up. She sat up, rubbed her frozen arms and body, and with the help of the moonlight coming in from outside, she found that the little brother and sister were also curled up like shrimps, huddled together.
Without thinking, Sang Luo picked up her thin quilt and squeezed onto Chen An's new bed. The three of them squeezed together, covered with two thin quilts, which felt better.
Sang Luo pinched the quilt. It was a thin quilt in summer, really just two layers of linen, at most a sheet. She was glad that she had left more than 400 coins in the county during the day, and received more than 260 coins this afternoon. She now had 700 coins in her hand.
Sang Luo thought that the money she would get from selling tofu and jujube cakes would not be used to buy food, but had to be saved to buy clothes and quilts. After September and October, it would be winter.
Although it is in the south, it is in the mountains after all, and the temperature is lower than outside.
I got up at four o'clock in the morning to make tofu, and it was indeed much colder than usual.
She didn't notice it at that time, but when Chen Youtian and others came with torches to get the tofu, Sang Luo saw with the light of the torches that the weeds outside her yard were covered with a layer of white frost.
"It turns out that frost has already fallen."
Qin Fangniang nodded: "That's right, the mountain road has become slippery."
Then he asked Sang Luo, "You haven't prepared clothes and quilts yet, right?"
Sang Luo nodded. Whenever she earned some money, she would race with grain merchants to buy grain. The clothes worn by people in her countryside were not much different between summer and autumn. They only started to wear thicker clothes when winter came.
"If you have cloth at home, please use it to pay for the tofu order this afternoon. If not, I will go to the county again."
Qin Fangniang said repeatedly: "Yes, yes."
Gan and Feng Liuniang, who came with them, also said yes. Gan said, "Don't wait until we come back to get it. If you need it, just come to our house and get it. You need to get tofu every day anyway. When you come back to order tofu, just convert it directly."
Sang Luoyuan also planned so and nodded with a smile.
After sending the people away and having breakfast with the two children, when it was light in the sky, Sang Luo led Chen An directly down the mountain to three houses to get cloth.
I heard that it was used to make autumn and winter clothes, so the three families all found some thick autumn cloth. Sang Luo took Chen An and brought enough cloth to make three sets of autumn clothes for each of the three people in their family, and then went home.
It is already late autumn and winter will come in the blink of an eye. Why is it said that the cloth is enough for three sets of autumn clothes?
Because of poverty.
At that time, most people would make a set of cotton-padded clothes or a lining made of willow catkins or reed fluff, and then wear an autumn coat that was deliberately enlarged in size to cover the outside. When changing clothes, they would only change the two sets of outer clothes. The cotton-padded clothes or the jacket with a lining made of willow catkins or reed fluff were actually the only ones they would wear over and over again, because no matter whether it was cloth or cotton, they were not cheap, so they would naturally try to save as much as possible.
The same was true for Sang Luo. She saved all the money she earned for household items and food, and was not much richer than other families in the village. They also prepared winter clothes, including a coat and two single clothes.
Of course, she did not plan to let herself and her two children wear linings made of willow catkins or reed fluff during the winter. No matter how expensive cotton is, she had to save up for cotton clothes, cotton pants and cotton quilts.
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