Great Warriors of Sui and Tang Dynasties

Chapter 1222 Saint Mercy
"Excuse me, Village Chief Ding, go to the village and bring two scales."

Zhang Zuoshi is in the county yamen, and his official position is actually the scribe of Hu Cao. He is neither Zuo nor Shi. Zuo is the chief official of Hu Cao, and Shi is the second official. He is an ordinary household Cao scribe, but usually, everyone is used to addressing him as Zuo Shi respectfully.

This Zhang Zuoshi is quite serious in his work. Although he brought the scales himself, he still asked the village to bring two scales and compare them together first.

"Is this scale safe for everyone?"

"Zhang Zuoshi is doing business, we don't worry." The villagers laughed when they saw that the three scales were all the same.

"Okay, then start weighing and changing the grain now."

The villagers in Dingjiatai dug for a day, and the harvest was not much different. Most of them were about ten catties, and some people dug 21 catties in a day with a lot of people. Some people dug with a small number of people, and the whole family dug seven or eight catties in a day. catty.

The village head's family brought a table for eating, and several subordinate officials of the county government weighed and registered there.

"Sixteen catties and two taels." Zhang Zuoshi reported.

The weight was almost unable to hang on the beam. Zhang Zuoshi specially gave some to the villagers, and he would never take a catty.

"Ding Laosan, sixteen catties and two taels." A subordinate servant over there put notes on the tent under the lamp, and then another subordinate servant began to move a bag of millet from the cart. "Forty-eight catties and six taels of food."

The grain bag was opened, and there was millet inside.

The villagers who have already exchanged their hands have looked at it carefully. They are all millet from last year, not old moldy millet like a warehouse. They are well stored. One bite, you can feel the pure sweetness of the millet. .

Ding Laosan took the cloth bag from his wife Li Shi and handed it to the subordinate staff weighing grain.

The subordinate staff weighed the cloth bag first, and then withheld two or two scales.

48 catties and 48 taels, except for two taels of cloth bags, it was exactly [-] catties and six taels, the tail of the scale was raised high, and the servant Xu gave at least half of the taels to the third child.

The third child joyfully brought the bag of millet grains over, stretched out his hand to copy it carefully a few times, feeling the millet grains flowing through his hands, he showed his missing teeth.

"Thanks."

The third daughter-in-law took a rope and handed it to him, "Tie it up quickly, don't spill it later."

"No, no." The third child was as happy as a child.

Hei Wa took her younger brother to jump around and was even happier.

In fact, in a normal year, as long as there is no flood or drought, Ding and Lao San’s family will no longer suffer from famine and starvation. The family’s dozens of acres of land, except for the mulberry, jujube and hemp, the rest are used to grow grain and irrigate the land. Wheat and millet are planted on the mountain, and the harvest of millet is lower, but after a year, after deducting the money for buying fertilizer and then digging up to pay the emperor's grain, there is still a lot left. In addition to keeping rations, the family can sell a lot every year .

Moreover, the two daughters work in the silk workshop in Luoyang, which can bring a lot of income to the family after a year. The eldest son works as a clerk in the county government. .

The biggest expenses of the family are Heiwa's reading, paper, ink, brush and inkstone, and gifts for the teachers during the New Year and holidays, but in short, life is still okay.

But those who came hungry during the famine felt unusually about food.

Every year when the family sells grain, the third child always keeps some more.

The daughter-in-law tied the bag herself with a rope, and Ding's mother ignored the third child and said to the daughter-in-law, "Bride, let's take this food home and put it in the barn, so that the mice don't eat it."

The two women went back first. There was a small kiln in the house, which was built with stones and a wooden cover was added to prevent rats. They even raised a cat to watch the food.

The third child still stayed at the head of the village, and he was very happy to watch others weigh the locust eggs and weigh the grain.

Many people who have already changed their food were even more delighted when they got the food, and began to talk about how much your family has and how much my family has.

"On the first day of digging, I was still a little slow, and I can dig more tomorrow."

"This is the sage who gave us food. The useless locust eggs were exchanged for us with food. It not only eliminated the locust damage for us, but also gave us food. Good sage."

Ding Laosan didn't know what words to use to thank the emperor, so he had to repeat those few words.

Everyone is very grateful to the saint, thinking that the locust eggs are of no use, but now they are exchanged for real food, it is indeed the saint who sympathizes with them.

Others said that we just took advantage of this river beach. In the past, when we were close to the Yellow River, we always suffered from floods. Unexpectedly, this river beach is still a treasure now.

"No!"

In the past, in the autumn, the villagers would also plant some beans on the Yellow River beach. Taking advantage of the lack of water in the Yellow River in autumn, they could also use the river beach to increase their income. However, when they grow grain on the river beach, sometimes they may not even be able to harvest the seeds when they encounter autumn floods.

Now I can't imagine that digging locust eggs on this river beach can exchange so much food.

"That's right, there must not be such a good place to dig locust eggs in Shannan, our hometown."

Some people wondered, would someone come to us to dig locust eggs? We have a lot of locust eggs on the river beach, and we can exchange forty to fifty catties of grain a day.

"Village chief, do we have to organize it so that no one can come to our village's riverbank to dig eggs?"

Some people were also curiously asking Zhang Zuoshi, asking him where to send the locust eggs, and they must not be thrown away.

"Feed the chickens, the ducks, the geese."

"Can this work?"

"I don't know if it will work or not, but I heard from the people above that the emperor is going to use these to feed chickens and ducks, and they also said that chickens and ducks fed with these locust eggs grow faster."

After hearing this, Ding Laosan said, "This catty of eggs is worth three catties of millet. Isn't it too extravagant to feed chickens and ducks?"

"So, this is our saint's compassion for the people. Of course it is not worthwhile to feed the chickens and ducks with food, but the saint asks everyone to dig eggs, and does not let everyone work in vain. Although digging up the locust eggs to avoid locust plagues is actually good for us. thing."

"Yes, the saint is kind."

Everyone believes that it is a loss-making business to exchange three catties of grain for one catty of locust eggs, but finally feed the locust eggs to chickens and ducks.Not to mention the preciousness of food, the cost of transporting food to transport eggs is not small.

Zhang Zuoshi picked up the ledger and double-checked it carefully, "Major Ding, I still have some grain left here, so I won't take it back today, I'll save it to your house first, and I'll bring the grain over early tomorrow. It's getting late, I pulled the locust eggs back first."

The village chief said, "Why don't Zhang Zuoshi rest at this time tonight."

"These locust eggs have to be sent back to the county government. Now these are the top priority. Li Xiancheng said that all the locust eggs must be transported back today. There must be no mistakes on the way. My account, I still have to pay attention." It has to be handed over to Li Xiancheng for verification."

"It's too much trouble for Zhang Zuoshi to come at night, or you can come in the morning the day after tomorrow. Everyone is very active in digging locust eggs, and I'm afraid it will be too late when you come back."

"I'll ask the county magistrate again when I go back. If the magistrate is willing, that's the best. If not, we have to work harder. We have no choice but to serve this public bowl and eat this meal, and we have to obey orders."

The village head looked at the bags of locust eggs, "It's so dark, why don't I bring some militiamen and send Zuo Shi back, so the road will be safer."

"Alright, I will trouble you, the village chief, today."

"We are the ones who troubled Zhang Zuoshi."

The village chief yelled, and the militia captain came over immediately, and ordered Ding Laosan and other villagers, "Everyone, work hard, send Zhang Zuoshi back to the county government, and make sure to send these locust eggs to the county safely. error."

The third child smiled and said, "Don't worry, it won't take much time to go all the way."

(End of this chapter)