Villager of Daming

Chapter 1009: Passing by Kumaibi and being poor

The procession walked down the street, and there were people setting up stalls on both sides of the road, selling vegetables from the fields, wild fruits from the mountains, and fruits from fruit trees grown at home, such as cherries.

The old woman selling cherries squatted there with a basket in front of her. There were cherries in the basket and a pile of reed leaves and bamboo leaves beside it.

"Auntie, how do you sell cherries?" Zhu Zhu, the fifth child, frowned after seeing the cherries and simply asked.

The old woman looked nervous. Someone came over and told her to do whatever she had to do. She didn’t need to kneel down or run away.

Now she knew the reason. The prince came out for a walk. She looked at the basket in front of her: "Return...ask! I looked at the things I was given. In exchange, I wanted some worthless money from Beiyuan. There were so many coppers and tins. There were treasures." Money is better, a dime for a big bamboo tube.”

Zhu Tie knelt down and picked up the bamboo tube placed in the basket. He estimated that one bamboo tube could hold more than a pound of cherries, and they only sold for a dime, ten pounds for a penny?
"Auntie, did you sell it cheaply when you saw us?" Zhu Di didn't understand the price of cherries.

"No way! When there are cherries, everyone has them, and there is no shortage of fruits on the mountains. If they are expensive, no one will buy them. Expensive grain hurts the people, while cheap grain hurts farmers. Too many things are worthless." The old woman shook her head.

"Auntie still knows this!"

"The sergeant in the village taught us that if we can't sell the millet, don't sell it. If all the millet comes out this month, we won't raise the price.

Let’s give you this basket of cherries! I don’t know who His Highness the King of Jin is. Here it is for you. Take it. There are still some on the trees in my yard. "

"They all live a long life." The old woman smiled sheepishly.

When it was time to give money, Zhu Di was worried again. He didn't know how much it would be.

"No, I, you, this..." Zhu Di put his hands in front of him, neither receiving nor pushing.

The girl took money out of her bag. She knew what money the other party needed, and it was difficult to spend it after giving him a five-cent treasure note.

When the price is high and you don't have enough money, you can sell it. Usually there is no shortage of money and you can still wear the clothes.

"Then... let's take it. We... won't let you kneel down. Your Highness, Prince Jin, will live a long life." The old woman said to Zhu Di.

"That's just right. I'm going to make cherry cake, which is more delicious than hawthorn cake." Ling'er asked, and she could eat it.

The basket can hold more than 20 kilograms. Everyone bought it, and the other party agreed to it for two cents. The basket was finely woven and made of fine willow, not wattle. It is better to weave earthen baskets from wattle, the kind that picks up the earth. This will delay a day's work, and I will give you three coins.

The local labor is not valuable. The old woman can weave one basket a day. If she can sell it for three cents, she will speed up and work hard to weave two baskets a day.

A girl from Xiaqiu Village next to me came over and handed over money, five cents, including buying the basket and the cherries inside.

"Mom, I'll give you some change, fifty one-cent banknotes, so you can take it out and spend it."

"Auntie, remember to dry the fruits in the shade when you go back. We will collect all kinds of dried fruits. Cherries are not easy to dry in the shade. There are not many things to make preserved fruits, so you should pick them and sell them to us.

"Here, five cents. If I don't take it, I will harm His Highness the King of Jin. His Highness the King of Jin loves the people like a son and will not take things from the people in vain."

"I am King Yan, King Jin is our elder brother, Qian..." Zhu Di held the basket in his hand and looked around while explaining.

Hello sergeants, Xiaohu is right, first think of a way to sell something, replace it with salt, don't throw away the millet easily.

"Okay!" Zhu Di was relieved. He looked at the basket and took it in his hand: "Buy the basket together. Madam, you can weave it when you get home. Here..."

Thanks to His Highness the King of Jin, he exempted me from the land tax. If I don’t pay the land tax and keep it for myself, I won’t be afraid of the recession next year.

The old woman said she wanted to give away a basket of cherries, but judging from her expression, it didn't look like she was cheating.

There are other people's cherry trees in the village. Let's tell them and we can pick them together. We will drive over and pick them up. If there is a boat by the river, there will be boats.

I have copper coins, silver, and gold at home. If I want to exchange them for precious notes, we can exchange them for them. The sergeants who came to the village didn't bring much with them. "

Ling'er took the money and helped count it again before giving it to the old woman. "Hey~~ Got it, yes, there are still some red ones on the cherry tree, I'll pick out the red ones."

The old woman happily took the money, her face turned into a flower with a smile. Obviously cash was better than exchange for other things.

After speaking, she stood there motionless and looked at the people in the team.

It was impossible for Zhu Di to carry the basket by himself. The people next to him helped take it away and went back to wait for the cherry cake.

Then I would go shopping all the way and buy whatever was for sale, including dustpans made by others.

"Sister Ling'er, we have craftsmen in our team, why do we still buy things made by others?"

Xie Qiaoer is worried about money. She believes that craftsmen are better at weaving baskets than ordinary people and should use them.

“Craftsmen are busy with other things, so they should rest when not working, and good steel should be used on the blade.

Others weave one big basket a day, but our good craftsmen weave five baskets a day, which does not reflect their value and is a loss-making business.

They have to design construction drawings, supervise work, and manufacture machine parts.

Unless we now need to use woven things as mats for mechanical joints, ordinary people can't do it, so craftsmen have to do it. "

Ling'er said, can you ask Wang Yiqian to push the sand? Even if you take a break, you can't do rough work. You may think about other skills while you take a break.

Most of the craftsmen who came were apprentices, and their skills were already very high, but they were not up to the level of the previous batch of craftsmen.

At the same time, because I was young, the skills I learned were relatively single, so I had to learn other things and work hard to become a generalist.

……

"I'm tired from shopping! I feel uncomfortable, ugh!"

When the team came back at noon, Zhu Fan hesitated whether to take a shower and wiped his sweat with emotion.

Zhu Xi looked around, probably wanting to take a shower as well: "Everything he saw was poor. The children's hands and feet had long nails, and they wore straw sandals made of millet straw and reeds. If they were broken, no one would care. Their hands and feet were all black, and they were prone to illness. "

"That can't be helped." Zhu Ru, the fifth child, spread his hands and said, "We can't always compare the prosperity of a street in Xiaqiu Village, Nanjing. We also want to call everything the same as there."

"Let's take a shower?" Zhu Di didn't want to think about anything else at all, he was sweating all over.

So the four of them went back to their own places to take a shower, and the others who had enough status also took a shower.

For example, Xie Qiaoer and her mother, her personal maid and her mother's personal maid, her mother's personal maid is her personal maid's mother.

The girls from Xiaqiu Village went to take a bath with them, and Xie Cheng took a bath with his wife and his wife's personal maid.

People who exercise a lot in daily life sweat less when they are not working. Some children run wildly since childhood and do not sweat much at all before they are ten years old.

Zhu Wentian was like this, but he still followed the boy's friend and the groom to wash it all over again. He didn't even use soap, let alone wash his hair.

When lunch is ready, and the thin kelp shreds are cut and mixed with minced garlic, some people come out and blow their hair with a hair dryer while holding a wire.

Zhu Wentian looked at Xie Cheng. Fortunately, he didn't take the opportunity to do anything extra while taking a bath. The four princes knew the rules.

"These are kelp shreds. After being dried and soaked, they can be used to make many dishes, such as steaming, porridge, soup, stir-frying, cold salad, etc. They started to be cultivated on the seaside. They used cotton and linen mixed ropes and tied them to large wooden blocks. "

The head of the village told local officials that pearls, kelp, Gelidium, and seaweed must all be cultivated, and picking them from the wild is troublesome.

(End of this chapter)