Song Liyun was taken aback and quickly put away the account book on the table. Yunniang, who was in the next room, came out when she heard the noise: "Zhenping, the young lady is doing the accounts!"
Yunniang considered herself a servant in the Song family. Originally, she was supposed to call Song Zhenping "Young Master" and "Young Master Xiao'an," but after just one sentence, Song Zhenping was so embarrassed that he blushed and only allowed her to call him by his name.
Seeing Song Liyun counting silver, I took Xiao An and the healed Hei Jin to another room to play.
Hearing Song Zhenping calling, she quickly went out to greet him.
Hearing Yun'er doing the accounts, Song Zhenping slowed down and turned into the room next door where he lived.
At this moment, Hei Jin was wearing a red koi fish-patterned bib and was lying sprawled on the kang (a heated brick bed).
Its wounds had healed, but the fur hadn't grown back. The wound on its chest was covered by a bib, and only a ring of white fur could be seen on its arms.
When Hei Jin heard someone enter the room, he thought it was Song Liyun and quickly sat up.
But when I looked back, I saw that I had already gotten up, but I lay down again and writhed like a slug.
Shortly after, Song Liyun entered the room.
"Yun'er, hurry up and come with me to the backyard!" Song Zhenping had been standing at the door. When he saw her come in, he pulled her and led her to the backyard.
"What's wrong? Why are you in such a hurry!" Song Zhenping staggered, and Song Liyun was pulled unsteadily by him.
The once spacious backyard is now quite crowded, with a vegetable greenhouse in the middle and a horse stable and a rabbit hutch in the two corners.
Chrysanthemum Green Horse remained aloof, casually munching on hay.
The rabbit hutch is already very lively. The three baby rabbits have become ten, and the second litter of baby rabbits is already in the burrow.
Song Zhenping pulled her into the greenhouse, stopped at a separate earthen mound, and pointed to several tiny seedlings as thin as hair, saying, "Look, these magical seeds have sprouted!"
Immortal Seed?
Song Liyun tried hard to recall, and then remembered that she had taken out some of the good seeds of the apocalypse from her suitcase and asked Song Zhenping to mix them with other seeds and sow them together.
At first, Song Liyun came to visit every day, but as time went by, the soil showed no reaction whatsoever.
A month later, Song Liyun gave up on the idea.
Given suitable water and temperature, native Chinese cabbage can sprout and break through the skin in three days. These "superior" varieties from the apocalypse not only failed to sprout, but also quickly turned black and rotted.
Even seeds that have shown signs of germination will eventually wither.
no way.
Song Liyun still needs her original body to get here. These foreign objects need to overcome a series of problems such as the ten-year storage expiration and traversing different dimensions. The difficulty of survival is greater than that of humans.
Song Liyun had long since given up, but Song Zhenping still took care of her every day, ensuring she received all the water she was entitled to.
Persistence pays off, and it finally sprouted.
Song Liyun peered over the thin threads and carefully observed them. With great difficulty, she finally spotted two leaf embryos on the thread-like stem.
"What kind of seed is this?" Song Liyun asked. She had given several kinds of seeds to Song Zhenping.
Song Zhenping affirmed, "It's rapeseed!"
He didn't know what rapeseed was, but when Yun'er said so, he remembered it.
Song Liyun's face twitched. She looked at Xiaobaicai next to her, wondering if there was a mistake.
Rapeseed and Chinese cabbage both belong to the Brassicaceae family. Rapeseed is a hybrid of Chinese cabbage and Chinese cabbage in Europe and is a major source of vegetable oil.
She suspected that all the other seeds had died, and only the rapeseed was growing. Could it be that the rapeseed had accidentally flown over when the bok choy was planted nearby?
Song Zhenping shook his head repeatedly: "No, no, I have memorized every single one of these divine seeds, they are rapeseed."
"Alright!" Song Zhenping said, "It's fine then."
However, this reminded Song Liyun that cabbage seeds should also be able to be pressed for oil!
The oils consumed during the Wu Dynasty, apart from animal fats, were mainly sesame oil. Families who couldn't afford to buy oil would find some grass seeds, roast them, and press them into oil themselves.
With new hope emerging in the greenhouse, Song Zhenping devoted himself wholeheartedly to it.
He also wanted to know what the rapeseed Yun'er was talking about looked like, and whether it could produce oil like sesame seeds and peanuts.
With the rapeseed seedlings sprouting, Song Liyun was motivated. She first went to the garrison to ask for Di ethnic goods.
Luo Baihu had previously said that she could use Di tribe goods to pay off the debt.
This time, Wang Junxu took out a carpet, two cowhides, and a set of twelve horn cups for her to choose from.
The carpet was valued at one hundred taels of silver, and the cowhide and horn cup were valued at thirty taels in total.
Song Liyun was speechless. She only had a little over twenty taels of silver in her account, and the garrison was no longer giving it away for free.
She said with distress, "Uncle Wang, I haven't received the money yet. If I make this selection, won't I end up owing the garrison money?"
Wang Zhong ignored her complaints about being poor, and instead stroked the cowhide and sighed, "The Wu Dynasty forbids killing cows without cause. These two cowhides alone would be worth ten taels on the market. How about I give you five taels in total?"
That would be great!
However, there were some things that Song Liyun just couldn't understand.
"Since there are markets on both sides of the Wu Dynasty and the Di Lu grasslands where goods are exchanged, why doesn't the Zhenbei Army sell these goods directly in the markets? These are spoils of war, why?"
She had thought about this question since she returned from Qili County.
It is indeed easy to resell and make money on your own, so why doesn't the Zhenbei Army do something so easy?
And why doesn't Wan Chun's leather goods store, which has been waiting patiently in Qili County for so many years, directly source its goods from the grasslands and towns?
Is it because of the monopoly of imperial merchants?
Wang Zhong smiled wryly when he heard the question. He couldn't offer any further explanation and could only say calmly, "There are regulations in the army that forbid competing with the people for profit."
Why not sell directly to the city? He, a mere supply officer in a small garrison, was indeed not quite sure.
All he knew was that the market in Hecheng was mainly operated and managed by three imperial merchants.
These three families are the Hua family, the Liu family, and the Yang family. The fact that these three families were able to become imperial merchants means that they all had powerful backers in the imperial court.
The Zhenbei Army once exchanged furs for silver, but the imperial merchants complained to the emperor that the border troops were colluding with foreign enemies.
The Marquis of Zhenbei once submitted a memorial to defend himself, saying that these Di goods were spoils of war, but the Ministry of Revenue immediately demanded that the spoils of war be handed over to the national treasury.
The soldiers of the Zhenbei Army were furious. They had fought to the death in this harsh land and hadn't even gotten a single thing.
So when war broke out again, everyone would secretly sell the spoils of war.
However, the local government officials arbitrarily blocked and inspected the roads, making small caravans dare not buy goods from the Zhenbei Army.
Anyone with eyes to see can see that behind this blatant, all-encompassing encirclement of the Zhenbei Army by the imperial court and local officials, there must be a powerful force exerting pressure.
Moreover, even the Marquis of Zhenbei could not resist.
There was no large-scale market for these products, and they couldn't be eaten. Even private individuals couldn't use them all, so they could be processed internally, which was exactly what each garrison wanted.
Upon hearing Wang Zhong say that the army should not compete with the people for profit, Song Liyun was speechless. This reason was so good that it was impossible to refute it.
This time she didn't choose a carpet, only a leather bag and a horn cup.
If I take on goods myself, I'll have to pay in advance, so I'd better be more cautious.
After all, they had only dealt with Wan Chun's leather goods store once. If the other party couldn't keep what they said, they would lose money by taking the carpet.
Right now, enjoying life is less important than Song Zhenping's leg; money is more important.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
