After picking up the daughter of the lucky star, the whole village prospered

Chapter 53 Cotton

The few seeds I bought from the shopkeeper before have germinated and grown up.

A piece of leek grows, and a dozen Chinese cabbages that can be cored.

Core-wrapped Chinese cabbage belongs to the northern vegetables and is resistant to storage. It is also a rare vegetable in small mountain villages, and no one has grown it here.

These vegetables were transplanted by Yingbao when they first sprouted in the past few months, and planted in the small vegetable field in their own yard.

The leeks have been cut twice when they grow up, and they are used to scramble eggs. The taste is very delicious.

Now the Chinese cabbage grows more than two feet high. In the past, each tree was spread out in a large piece. Later, Chunniang wrapped them one by one with straw ropes so that they could better wrap the core.

It's snowing these days, and Chunniang has already chopped off all the Chinese cabbages and piled them up in the house.

The other two packs of Fanbang seeds have also grown.

It turned out to be more than a dozen cotton trees, and a few unknown small vines.

The first time Yingbao saw cotton in her previous life was in the garden of the Dudu Mansion, where it was regarded as an ornamental flower and tree.

The flowers of the cotton tree are beautiful, and the color is bright pink. Because it is a Fanbang variety, a large area was planted in Fuzhong Garden.

It's a pity that the growth period of these flowers and trees is only one year. After the flowers fail and bear fruit, their branches and leaves will wither.

At that time, Yingbao was still free in the mansion. Because he was interested in the cotton wool of cotton trees, he often went to pick it.

In the end, I picked a small basket, pulled out the cotton seeds in it, and used this basket of cotton wool to make a padded jacket for myself.

It was only later that I found out that many noble farms also planted this kind of cotton tree, and the cotton wool picked is very precious and can be used for spinning and weaving.

Now her dozens of cotton trees have blossomed and bear fruit, and the fruit burst open, revealing large snow-white cotton fluff.

Yingbao picked all the cotton wool and piled it in a basket, a small basket full.

She dug out the withered cotton stalks by their roots and piled them aside for burning the kang.

The cottonseeds were stripped out and planted again, all planted in black soil, and it is estimated that they will germinate in a short time.

By next spring, her family should have a large number of cotton seeds.

Cotton planting in the Great Guizhou Dynasty has not yet been popularized, and even after more than ten years, it is still concentrated in the manors of a few noble families.

At the moment, it is estimated that even the nobles have few plants.So she must seize the opportunity and let her family grow cotton first.

You must know that most of the cloth on the market today is linen and Gebu, a small part is silk and silk cloth that can only be used by aristocrats, and there are thick velvet blankets woven from wool, rabbit hair and other miscellaneous plush fibers.

Even though the Jiang family already had a lot of money, the quilts and mattresses were only stuffed with some reeds or straw and hemp silk that had been loosened by beating, which could barely keep out the cold.

As for the cotton clothes, rich people stuffed them with animal hair and duck feathers, or made cloaks directly from animal fur.

Most of the poor are just filling with burrs and burrs of reeds and velvet straws.

Now I am lucky to get Fanbang's cotton seeds, if I don't plant them, I am really sorry for God's favor for her.

"Dang! Dang! Dang! Dang!"

"Listen, every household! The imperial court has ordered that each household pay two liters of rice for top-grade fields and one liter for low-grade fields. The full payment must be made within seven days. Violators will be punished as criminals!"

The villager wearing a bamboo hat knocked on the gong and shouted again and again, walking past all the villagers' houses before turning to the next village.

After Xiang Ding left, the villagers walked out of the house one after another, complaining.

"Sure enough, we have to requisition food again, and let people live?"

"My God, our family only has two or three hundred catties of grain left. If we hand over all of this, our family will die."

"I'm going to ask Muramasa how we can live with this."

Several villagers even covered their faces and wept bitterly.

"Let's go, let's all go to Chen Sanyou to ask. It's only been a few days, and we're collecting food again."

So, dozens of villagers came to Chen Sanyou's house and complained.

"His third uncle, how can there be any food in our family? Last time we paid taxes, we sold most of the food, and now there is only a little more than two stones left. Our family of seven or eight people is relying on this little food for the winter." , can you go and talk to Li Zheng, can't we make it up next year?"

"Yes, Sanyou, just go and talk about it."

"We really can't get through the day."

Chen Sanyou was dizzy from the noise, and said impatiently: "Okay, okay, listen to me, this is a decree issued by the imperial court, what can I, a small village, say?"

"But you are also working for the court, Uncle Chen, you can't leave us alone."

"Yeah, Sanyou, go to Lizheng and ask. Let's hand over all the food, and the whole family will starve to death..."

"Muramasa, you can't ignore us."

"Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..."

"Uncle Chen, you are the only one who can talk to Li Zheng, why don't you discuss it with him..."

Chen Sanyou, who was arguing with everyone, was upset.He said with a sullen face: "Since you are not satisfied with me as the village official, it happens that my term of office will expire next year, so you can choose whoever you like."

He had had enough of this torture.After coming here several times a year, Chen Sanyou has already been physically and mentally exhausted.

He was reprimanded by Lizheng for failing to pay taxes and food, and scolded by villagers for pressing too hard. Hey, he was half buried in the ground, why bother to suffer this crime.

The Jiang family brothers also heard the sound of the township urging food, calculated the amount that they should pay, and reluctantly measured the full amount of food, and sent it to the town on a cart.

Jiang Sanlang has a total of [-] acres of land, [-] acres of high-grade fields, and [-] acres of low-grade fields, including the mulberry and elm fields in the north and the dry land in the Nanshan Mountains.

But regardless of whether these fields are for growing grain or not, as long as you have so much land in your property register, you must pay taxes per mu.

For this supplementary levy, Jiang Sanlang had to hand over a total of [-] liters of grain, which was a small two hundred catties.

Two big sacks of rice went out of storage in the house at once, and he was heartbroken to the point of bleeding, but he couldn't refuse to pay.

In the past few days, the villagers who collect food have been beating the gong to shout every day. After five or six days of shouting, many villagers in the village still cannot pay the grain.

In the early morning of the next day, Sun Lizheng started door-to-door confiscation with a dozen or so townspeople.

In the cold winter, the villagers who had their food taken away wailed and cried bitterly on the snow.

Some people beat their chests and stamped their feet in grief, and the children beside them also cried loudly, which was really miserable.

Yingbao held Yoyo and watched this scene, feeling heavy in her heart.

The remaining rations of these villagers were taken away, and they didn't know how to live in the future, how the whole family would survive the cold winter.

One of the families is the most miserable. There are several children in the family, the oldest is no more than twelve or three years old, and the youngest is only three or four years old.

In his previous life, the man from this family was forced to go out to cut firewood and sell it for money in heavy snow. As a result, when he was carrying firewood down the mountain, he accidentally fell down the slope and was stabbed in the thigh by the firewood. He was found frozen to death on the mountain a few days later.

Later, the woman of this family also hanged herself, leaving four helpless children wandering in the village. The owner begged for a piece and the west gave a scoop, and only the two older children survived.

Seeing the tragedy happening again, Ying Bao felt her heart was blocked and panicked.

Rueling back home, she locks Yoyo into the deer shed, Yingbao goes back to the house and puts on the kang, and enters the Dongfu to re-plant grain.

Originally, she didn't want to plant it because she was too tired, but today's scene made her palpitate, and she realized the importance of rice grain.

No matter when, there is no shortage of food.

From now on, she must store a large amount of rice noodles in the cave, so that she can feel at ease.

...

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(End of this chapter)