Chapter 46 Encouraging Agriculture and Sericulture (2)
Upon hearing this, Chen Lao Er became very excited: "Sir, will we really be given these seeds to grow?"
Magistrate Meng smiled and said, "Of course, Tian Lizheng is doing his duty. These few acres of land will be your rice seedlings for next year. Your land is adjacent to his, old man, so please take good care of it."
Chen Lao Er nodded hurriedly: "Definitely, definitely. I'll tell everyone in the village right away, and everyone can come and help with weeding, fertilizing, and watering whenever they have time. We'll take good care of it."
While they were talking, a lot of people cautiously gathered around to watch the spectacle. Even if Chen Lao Er hadn't said it in the village, these onlookers had heard it and immediately became excited: "With such robust seedlings, the yield must exceed two hundred catties per mu, right?"
"I think it's more than that, maybe even 300 pounds!"
"If we can produce 300 jin (150 kg) of cornbread, then we can mix it with beans and wild vegetables and make it into steamed buns. We shouldn't have to go hungry next winter, right?"
"That's about right. I think it's enough. I'll be satisfied if I can eat until I'm half full."
"This is all thanks to the county magistrate; we should thank him properly."
"Thank you, sir. I have nothing to give you, so I'll just kowtow to you."
"Yes, yes, I'll do one too!"
A group of people immediately knelt down on the spot. Magistrate Meng hurriedly went up to help them up: "Fellow villagers, please rise. I was just doing my duty. The rice has not yet been harvested, and I do not know the yield. I dare not accept your great courtesy."
The leader shouted, "Nobody knows if the future yield will be good or not, but the county magistrate has the heart to come to the countryside to care about our production. That's already... that's already..." He suddenly choked up. He had been farming for decades, and he had never seen a county magistrate come to the fields to care about their yield and even give them seeds.
The others chimed in, "Yes, yes, we can't speak, but we're content that the adults remember us."
Magistrate Meng had never expected that the simple farmers would be so grateful to him for just a few words of greeting. This was a feeling he had never experienced in his many years as an official. After a long while, he said, "I only wish for favorable weather and abundant harvests in the future, so that the people can live and work in peace and contentment. That is enough for me."
Having spent some time in the fields, the people were being dispersed, and their attitude towards Magistrate Meng became much more respectful: "Sir, please go this way. After crossing the river to Hedong Village, go north for about an incense stick's time. The thirty-three newly assigned refugee households will be settled over there."
These thirty-three households were the focus of Magistrate Meng's trip to the countryside, and upon hearing this, he quickened his pace.
Sure enough, after crossing the river, we arrived at Hedong Village. After walking north for almost the time it takes to burn an incense stick, the fields gradually became barren, and a small patch of thatched huts appeared on the mountainside. This was the newly settled village of refugees.
It's no wonder that Tian Lizheng settled the refugees so far away from the two villages. In this era, the local villagers were very resistant to outsiders and would not change because of government orders. For safety reasons, each village would settle the refugee villages far away from the village center to prevent any conflicts from causing riots.
However, these refugees were all assigned to various villages by the county magistrate. The villagers not only had to provide manpower and labor to build houses and clear land for them, but also had to squeeze out their own food to lend to them so that they would not starve to death. Although the county town provided them with subsidies after receiving disaster relief grain, these were all one-time subsidies. They couldn't support them forever, could they? So after the refugees settled down, they still had to find their own ways to survive.
When Magistrate Meng and his party arrived at the place where the refugees were being resettled, they could see the thatched huts scattered at the foot of the mountain from afar, with most of the doors closed.
Tian Lizheng said, "Sir, they are all busy clearing land at this time, trying to plant some beans. They should be able to get a harvest before the first frost."
After the refugees settled down, Tian Lizheng asked each family in Hedong and Hexi villages to send one person to help them build thatched huts. He also allocated wasteland to them, and each family helped to reclaim one acre of wasteland so that they could plant beans. The task assigned to him by Magistrate Meng was completed. The rest was up to the refugees themselves.
The land had all become wasteland, so it couldn't be good land. These lands were mostly near the mountains, at high altitudes, far from water sources, making irrigation very inconvenient; otherwise, they wouldn't have become wasteland. The refugees planted beans, and apart from rain, they had to fetch water from the river to irrigate the land, otherwise the beans would die from the sun.
Moreover, these lands have been uncultivated for generations, and are basically covered with small trees and weeds with extensive root systems, as well as a lot of gravel, making them very inconvenient to clear. The fact that the villagers were able to clear one acre of land for them to plant beans was already a great help, at least they could harvest a crop in the fall and not be completely without food.
But even if the beans are planted, the yield is very limited because they don't have fertilizer.
The only usable farmyard manure is the excrement collected from their own family members, but because they are so hungry, they are lucky if they can defecate once every three days, so they can't accumulate much at all.
Therefore, the tax policy of Dawu for wasteland is to exempt it from taxes for the first three years, pay half tax from the third to the fifth year, and start to collect taxes normally from the sixth year. It takes a full six years for the reclaimed land to be properly maintained before it can barely meet the rating standards and pay taxes normally, which shows how difficult it is to maintain the land.
Magistrate Meng walked into one of the newly cleared acre of wasteland, bent down, picked up a handful of soil, and casually rubbed it, letting it slip through his fingers like sand.
This is soil with absolutely no fertility.
How can crops be expected to yield a good harvest in such land?
Magistrate Meng sighed.
The owner of the wasteland recognized Magistrate Meng and quickly brought his wife over to pay their respects: "Your Excellency!"
Magistrate Meng hurriedly said, "Please get up, sir. I came to see how you are doing now."
The owner was an old man in his fifties, his skin gleaming from the sun, but his face was full of satisfaction: "Very good. The village helped us clear an acre of land, and we've already planted the beans. My two sons are cutting grass over there. After they finish cutting, they'll turn the soil over with hoes, dry the grass, burn it all for wood ash, and let it grow for another winter. Next year, when we plant beans, it will be even better than this year."
Magistrate Meng asked, "How much wasteland did you receive?"
The old man said, “We were allocated five mu, but the village head said that if we are capable, we can continue to cultivate it. Anyway, there is plenty of land here. It’s just that watering is not very convenient, but it’s okay. My family has four strong laborers, including me. We can take turns carrying water to irrigate slowly. Anyway, the river is just ahead.”
Despite the barren land and the distant river, the old man and woman looked completely content, as if none of this was a problem.
The old man grinned, his expression incredibly optimistic: "We're near the mountains here, so we don't have to worry about firewood. We can just cut some wild branches, dry them, and burn them. After we harvest the beans in October, we can trade them with the villagers for some brown rice to get through the winter. If we can survive this year, we can plant more other crops on the land we cultivate next year, and we'll be able to make a living!"
Magistrate Meng suppressed his heartache and visited each household. Most of them shared similar views with the old man. One old farmer, who had lost all his front teeth, spoke incoherently, saying, "Having land means we have nothing to fear. Having land means we can survive. It's better than being a refugee, where we never know when we'll starve or die of illness on the road."
After walking around, when it was lunchtime, almost none of the farmers went home. Instead, they took out their lunch from the leaves they were wrapped in and ate it right there in the fields.
Meng Guanqi glanced at them and saw that they were eating all dark green dumplings, and he didn't know what they were made of. Seeing his curiosity, a woman carefully offered him a leaf and asked, "Young master, would you like to try one?"
How could the magistrate's son eat such a thing? Tian Li was shocked and was about to scold the woman when Meng Guanqi reached out and took a dumpling.
The woman was surprised that he would actually take it. She was so happy that she kept saying, "Eat up, eat up! The wild vegetables I picked are tender and not hard to eat." She was very pleased that the young master didn't mind her food.
Looking at her delighted face, Meng Guanqi carefully took a bite of the dumpling in her hand.
He almost spat it out after just one bite. It was bitter, astringent, and had a rough texture, as if it contained wild vegetables, grass roots, and bran.
He had never eaten anything so disgusting before. He couldn't swallow or spit out what was in his mouth, and he just stood there frozen.
Magistrate Meng saw his actions and also saw the woman wrapping the leaves up and placing them aside, clearly saving them for her husband and daughter's lunch. He immediately guessed that the dumplings in Meng Guanqi's hand were the woman's lunch. If she gave them to Meng Guanqi, she would go hungry. If Meng Guanqi vomited the dumplings, it would be an insult to the woman.
He said softly, "Swallow it."
Meng Guanqi dared not disobey his father's wishes, so he forced himself to chew a few mouthfuls and swallow them. However, the coarse bran got stuck in his throat, and he could neither swallow nor spit it out.
Seeing this, Ah Sheng quickly handed him water. He took two sips before finally swallowing the bran in his mouth, his fair face turning bright red.
He felt extremely rude and didn't dare to look up at his father or the woman.
He only took one bite of the rice ball, but he really couldn't swallow a second bite. He forced down the crumbs, and his throat felt a little strained.
Meng Guanqi looked around and saw that almost everyone's eyes were on the dumpling in his hand. Magistrate Meng's gaze was even more profound. His hand trembled slightly, and he slowly brought the dumpling back to his mouth.
A hand reached out and snatched the dumpling from his hand. He was startled, and upon closer inspection, he saw it was Li Xiaoxiao.
Li Xiaoxiao took a bite with a calm expression, chewed it a few times and ate it. Then she finished the rest in a few bites and said without changing her expression, "Not bad, it's just that there's no salt."
Upon hearing this, the woman immediately said apologetically, "We were out of salt at home, so we didn't put any in the dumplings."
Li Xiaoxiao hummed in agreement: "It's fine to skip salt for one meal now and then, but since you all have to work hard, you should eat salt once a day."
The woman knew perfectly well that people couldn't live without salt, but her family had just settled in Biyang County and had no money to buy it.
Li Xiaoxiao took out two large steamed buns from her crossbody bag and handed them to the woman: "Auntie, I ate your lunch, so you can have mine too."
The woman stared in shock at the two white steamed buns in her hands. They were snow-white, with smooth skin, made of the finest white flour, and very solid. They felt heavy in her hands. How could her wild vegetable dumplings be exchanged for such expensive white steamed buns!
She said in a panic, "No, my dumplings aren't worth that much—"
Li Xiaoxiao disagreed: "It's all lunch, what's the big deal? If you have any extra dumplings, you can give me two. One isn't enough for me."
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