“Uncle Village Head, don’t worry, I have a way to help the villagers get through this difficult time.”
"What good idea do you have? Tell me," the village headman's eyes lit up, revealing a look of delight.
“Uncle Village Head knows that there are thousands of acres of wasteland north of the village, which are covered with barnyard grass, and some of the barnyard grass has already ripened.”
"Of course I know that. Millet is inedible; it won't soften when cooked and can easily upset your stomach." The village head was a little disappointed.
"Uncle Village Head is joking. How could I possibly let the villagers eat barnyard grass? I plan to have the villagers collect barnyard grass and sell it to me. With money, the villagers can buy grain, and no one will starve to death."
"Why are you buying those weeds? They're no good for feeding chickens or pigs. Isn't this a waste of money?" The village head was very puzzled.
"Uncle Village Head, how was the wine I gave you last time?" Zhao Xian asked with a smile.
"That's good wine, I can't bear to drink it, I only drink a little bit a day, why are you bringing that up?" The village head was even more puzzled.
"That wine is made from millet. Last time I went to Xinkou County, I met the wine seller and spent fifty taels of silver to buy the secret recipe for that wine."
Zhao Xian discovered that he no longer needed to prepare a draft when he lied.
"Ah." The village head instantly understood why Zhao Xian wanted to buy up the barnyard grass.
"Can barnyard grass really be used to brew wine?" Li Zheng asked with delight.
"Grain is also a grain, but people don't like to eat it. Like rice, it can be used to brew wine."
"So how do you plan to collect the millet? What do you need me to do?" the village head asked eagerly.
"At present, I do not want to purchase barnyard grass on a large scale. For the time being, I will only purchase it on a small scale. Each household is limited to purchasing ten catties per day. The purchase price of each catty of barnyard grass is ten coins, which is enough to buy five catties of brown rice. With this brown rice, there will be no more starvation."
Another advantage of doing this is that it protects the weeds from being looted.
The village head nodded approvingly. Zhao Xian's idea was good. In this way, they not only harvested the millet, but also provided money for villagers who had run out of food to buy grain.
"This is a great idea! You saved our entire village. What should we do now?" the village head asked eagerly.
"Notify all villagers that starting tomorrow, we will purchase dried millet. Each household will be limited to ten jin per day, and payment will be made on the spot. We will not accept any more than ten jin," Zhao Xian said.
“Okay, it’s not dark yet. I’ll go and notify all the villagers to come to the threshing ground for a village meeting,” the village head said excitedly.
"Okay, Uncle Zheng will go and inform them. I'll be there in a bit."
In his haste, the village head forgot to put on his shoes and started running barefoot through the village:
"Attention all villagers, gather immediately at the threshing ground for a general meeting." After making his rounds, the village headman found the village night watchman.
He had the night watchman ring the gong and announce it throughout the village.
It was getting dark, and the village head was in a hurry to notify the whole village to hold a meeting. There must be something important to announce. Soon, the whole village came to the threshing ground.
Shuixian Village has more than 160 households and more than 800 people. Except for those who were bedridden and unable to move, even the children rushed over, and the threshing ground was packed with people.
The village head arrived early and stood on the large millstone in the middle of the threshing ground, his emotions running high.
People were talking amongst themselves, asking each other what had happened, but no one knew. The villagers looked at the village head on the millstone and saw that he was very excited, so they knew it must be something good.
"Everyone, please be quiet." The village head finally spoke, and the surroundings immediately fell silent.
"Although there have been no natural disasters this year, it has been a severe famine. Currently, many families in the village have run out of food, and people have starved to death."
The rice won't ripen for about twenty days. During this time, we can't expect any relief from the government, so the whole village must help themselves.
Before the village head could finish speaking, someone started shouting.
"How to save ourselves? In previous years of famine, after we finished eating winter wheat, the new rice would be on the market soon. Even if there was a gap between harvests, the time was short and we got through it quickly."
This year's winter wheat harvest was poor, and there simply wasn't enough to eat. Our family has been eating wild vegetables for over ten days now, and the wild vegetables in the fields are dwindling. In a few more days, there won't be any left to eat.
"Yes, there aren't even any wild vegetables to eat, so how can we save ourselves?"
"Although the grain store has rice, the price changes every day, so who has the money to buy rice to eat?"
"..."
The villagers started discussing it amongst themselves.
"Stop shouting, I haven't finished speaking yet, listen to me!" the village headman shouted.
The crowd stopped talking; they wanted to hear what the village head had to say and how to save themselves.
"Now, Zhao Xiucai wants to help the villagers get through this difficult time. For those villagers who have run out of food and can't afford to eat, you can collect some barnyard grass from the wasteland, dry it, and send it to Zhao Xiucai's workshop. They will buy the barnyard grass."
Please note that each household can only deliver a maximum of ten catties per day, at ten coins per catty, for a total of one hundred coins per delivery.
"What? The scholar's family is buying up barnyard grass? You can't eat barnyard grass, what can you do with it?"
"No one can say for sure what's going on with the scholar's family. Just a couple of days ago, he bought dried mushrooms for 120 coins a pound. He's rich and can do whatever he wants."
"Getting barnyard grass is not difficult. There are thousands of acres of wasteland full of barnyard grass. It is not difficult to collect hundreds of kilograms a day."
“As the village head just said, each household can only sell ten catties of barnyard grass a day. You’ve collected so much barnyard grass, but you can’t eat it as a meal.”
"Why can we only sell ten jin? Can't we sell more?"
"The scholar's purchase of millet is to help the villagers get through their difficulties, not to make you rich. You can earn a hundred coins a day. Although rice is expensive, you can still buy some."
"In any case, the scholar is doing a good deed by paying to buy barnyard grass. Barnyard grass costs ten coins a pound, which is practically giving you money. It won't take much time to pick ten pounds of barnyard grass."
The villagers below discussed it for a long time before stopping, and then the village head spoke again.
"The scholar is trying to help everyone, so let's stop gossiping. If anyone has enough food and money, please feel free to do as you please."
One more thing, when you take the millet to sell tomorrow, make sure to take plump, dried millet.
"Don't worry, village head, the scholar is helping us. We can't go against our conscience, so we must send the best quality millet over."
Zhao Xian stood under the big locust tree next to the threshing ground, watching the villagers exchanging barnyard grass for money, which had already caused a strong reaction in the village.
"How did Zhao Xiucai suddenly become so rich? What is he doing collecting so much millet? Even if you have a lot of money, you can't just waste it like this."
“If you don’t understand, don’t talk nonsense. Zhao Xiucai is a scholar with great wisdom. Haven’t you heard that the prefect and the county magistrate have both visited him?”
"Yes, yes, I heard that Zhang the wealthy man was trying to take over the scholar's old house, but the prefect caught him and punished him on the spot."
"Ha, ha, I've heard about it too. This rich man Zhang is really unlucky. He always boasted that he had connections in the county, but he never expected that Scholar Zhao had connections in his household, and that he was the prefect."
Zhao Xian was speechless. It seemed that he had become famous now.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
