Ancient Imperial Examination Daily

Chapter 130 Liang Xiankuan Visits

Seeing that Du Fangling was still a little unhappy, Du Jinning analyzed the situation for her.

Du Fangling was taken aback immediately, nodded quickly and said, "Okay, let's not sell dried tofu, we will wholesale it to Aunt Xie."

Du Jinning said again: "When we have money, we can also buy a small donkey to pull the mill, so that we can make more dried tofu. Not only can it be wholesaled to Xie's, but it can also be sold to other places, such as restaurants. To At that time, the teahouse we opened also sold this kind of snacks, and the demand was quite high, how can you do this with just the two of you?"

The idea of ​​selling to a restaurant, Du Jinning came up with this idea after hearing Guan Jiaze say that the largest restaurant in the city, Zuixianlou, belongs to the Guan family.It's just that she didn't know whether this dried tofu was a rare item at the time, so she didn't dare to speak rashly.Knowing that there is no such thing as dried tofu here, she naturally made up her mind.

"Really?" Listening to Du Jinning's description of Qian Jing, Du Fangling became excited again, forgot the fear in his heart just now, and said with a smile, "If that's the case, don't we want to earn a lot of money?"

The money she earned from selling dried tofu in the past two days has already made her and Du Fanghui so excited that they can't talk from ear to ear.When they were grinding beans just now, the two sisters couldn't help but took out copper coins and counted them over and over again. After counting, they smiled at each other, looking forward to a bright future.

Now that Du Jinning told her that she could still earn a lot of money, her eyes were so bright that she was almost starry-eyed.

"Isn't it? So, work hard." Du Jinning encouraged her.

"I'm going to make dried tofu." Du Fangling ran out as quickly as if he had been spat out.

"Hello..." Du Jinning still had something to say, but before she could speak, Du Fangling was no longer in the room, so she could only smile and shook her head.

Putting the things away, Du Jinning went out to the kitchen, and said to the two who were busy: "Sister San, Sister Fourth, I'll go to the back mountain."

"What are you doing in the back mountain?" Du Fangling asked without looking back while busy with the matter in hand, "You don't write the script anymore?"

"Well, I have something I want to see." Du Jinning said and planned to go out.

"Brother Ning, be careful, don't go too far, there are wild beasts on the mountain." Du Fanghui was worried, and chased her out and shouted at her back.

"Sister, don't worry, I won't go far, just look at the place where you mow the grass." Du Jinning said, smiling and waving.

Although Du Jinning has never been to the mountain, the road from Zhuangzi to the mountain is near Du's house, and you can see it as soon as you go out.

Du Jinning walked up the mountain road, and saw that both sides of the foot of the mountain were opened up by people from the village.It was winter, and no crops were planted in the field, only corn stalks remained.Going a little further up, these reclaimed lands are gone, replaced by various weeds and weeds.People who want to come to Zhuangzi are here to cut firewood. Some of the lower trees have half of their branches cut down, and half of them are left to continue to grow.

"Ah, Young Master Du, what are you doing up the mountain?" A voice came from the path ahead, and then Dong Dacheng came over carrying a load of firewood.

"Uncle Dong." Du Jinning cupped his hands, "You went up the mountain to cut firewood?"

"Yes." Dong Dacheng put the firewood aside, took a breath, wiped his sweat with a cloth towel hanging around his neck, and asked again, "What are you doing here? Although there are no large beasts on this mountain, it is still very dangerous." It's dangerous. Go back quickly, there will be no adults to take you with you, so don't run up the mountain alone."

It was almost here, but Du Jinning didn't insist, and asked him, "How high is this mountain?"

"How high is it?" Dong Dacheng thought for a while, "I can't say how high it is, but the place where we are standing now is less than one-fifth of the top of the mountain."

Du Jinning nodded, grabbed a handful of soil under the tree next to him, and wrapped it with a leaf.Turning back, seeing Dong Dacheng gasping for breath, he said, "Let's go down the mountain."

Dong Dacheng was worried that Du Jinning would be stubborn and refused to listen to persuasion. He was very happy to hear this, and he carried the firewood on his shoulder again, and said, "Let's go."

Walking down the mountain behind Dong Dacheng, Du Jinning asked, "This mountain belongs to the academy?"

Dong Dacheng shook his head: "This mountain is just a barren mountain, and nothing can be grown. How could the academy buy it? This mountain belongs to the yamen, so we open up wasteland and plant corn at the foot of the mountain, so no one will take care of it. After all Our academy still has some face in the county."

Du Jinning nodded slightly, frowning slightly.

Drinking tea at Yuan's house today, she came up with the idea of ​​growing tea on the back mountain.But instead of planting it herself, Guan Lehe asked Dong Dacheng to organize the villagers to plant it.

Although the academy charges 20 taels of silver per year for each student to repair, but the academy needs to hire a gentleman and repair the house, and the annual expenses are not small.Once she was practicing calligraphy at Guan Lehe, and she heard him talk to Yuan Xiuzhu, saying that as the academy became more and more famous and accepted more and more students, the income from Zhuangzi’s production could no longer cover the expenses of the academy. , It is necessary to raise some silver taels every year.At that time, Guan Lehe still sighed, saying that the wealthy households in the county were not willing to raise donations, and no one could afford to rely on the supplies of a few officials for many years.

If tea trees can be planted on this mountain to make fried green tea, it may be able to solve Guan Lehe's problem.

Guan Lehe treated her like a loving father, always thought of her and protected her, and she wanted to repay him in this way.

But this mountain is not from the academy, so it is very troublesome.People like them need to spend more money to buy mountain land. This expense will give Guan Lehe a headache for a while.

She asked again: "Can the land at the foot of the mountain be reclaimed as much as it can be reclaimed? The grain that everyone grows is not enough to eat. Do you want to use corn to supplement it?"

Dong Dacheng shook his head: "No. In the beginning, everyone quietly ran to this mountain to open up wasteland without saying hello, and the academy didn't care; later, there were strong laborers at home, and a large area was opened; those with orphans and widows, needed Only by going further up the mountain can a small area be reclaimed, and there is even no suitable place to reclaim. In order to grab the land, there have been many disputes in the Zhuangzi. In the end, the Academy stipulated that each family is only allowed to reclaim [-]% of the land, and no more is allowed. In fact, if there are ninety percent of the land planted with corn, that's enough."

"As for the food, the Academy is charitable, and the rent paid is not high. As long as you are willing to work hard to take care of the fields and don't encounter a famine year, the food harvested in the fields is enough to eat. After all, the size of the fields is based on the number of people in the family. Yes, if you have a lot of labor, you will naturally have more tenants, and you will naturally have more harvests. The bracts planted on the mountain are used by everyone to raise pigs, but there are few people who eat them. If there is rice to eat, who will eat it?"

Du Jinning nodded.

If this is the case, the acquisition of barren hills by the academy to grow tea would have little impact on Master Zhuangzi's livelihood.

At this time they had already descended to the foot of the mountain, and Du Jinning was about to ask Dong Dacheng if he wanted to take a rest, when he saw Du Fanghui running over panting.She was startled, and quickly greeted her and asked, "What's the matter? What happened at home?"

"Yes... a classmate of yours is here." Du Fanghui panted, and managed to utter a word.

"Classmate? Is that the one who came yesterday?" Du Jinning asked, "Go slowly, what's the point of making him wait a little longer? Run like this."

Du Fanghui waved her hand: "It's not the one from yesterday, it's a..." She thought about it, but she didn't know how to describe it.

Du Jinning stopped asking, and said to Dong Dacheng, "Uncle Dong, then I'll take a step first."

"Go, go." Dong Dacheng said with a smile.

Du Jinning asked Du Fanghui to walk slowly, and walked home quickly, and saw a man in a blue gown standing at the door of her house. Because his back was turned to her and he was looking into the distance, Du Jinning couldn't recognize him for a while. Who is it? Behind him, there is a man dressed as a servant, who looks strange, and is not someone Du Jinning knows.

She walked closer and said loudly: "Dare to ask brother, may I ask if you are..."

The man turned around and said with a smile: "I haven't seen you for a few days, Junior Brother Du doesn't recognize me?"

Du Jinning was taken aback for a moment, and exclaimed in great surprise, "Brother Liang?"

This person was Liang Xiankuan who had competed with her once in the academy.

Liang Xiankuan nodded lightly, and said with a smile, "Fortunately, he still recognizes me."

"Brother Liang was joking, his back was turned just now, so naturally he didn't recognize it." Du Jinning pointed at the door of the house, "Brother Liang, please sit at home."

As she spoke, she felt very emotional.Also coming to the door, Liang Xiankuan saw that there were only female relatives in the house, so he avoided suspicion and just stood at the door instead of going in. He was very polite and thoughtful; Xu Chengyuan was not as good in this respect.

(End of this chapter)