vrcanaries Chapter 943: Food from Our Own Fields
Chapter 943: Food from Our Own Fields
Zhou Guo hadn't eaten it for a long time. He picked up a piece from the shrimp and it still tasted the same. It was delicious just with salt, even better than shrimp.
Li gave her some food and said, "Eat more. We have already eaten several this year, and you haven't even taken a single bite. This fish is big, you can eat as much as you want. At worst, you can just go up the mountain and catch more tomorrow."
For Zhou Guo now, going up the mountain to catch fish, pick mushrooms and hunt is just fun. It not only relaxes the body, but also relaxes the mind.
Zhou Mai said: "Mom, Guoguo just came back, why don't you rest at home for a while, why go to the mountains?"
Li said, "I asked her to work. I wanted her to play. She has been busy outside and has not had time to go to the mountains. Isn't it her favorite to go to the mountains? Now there are many people in the mountains. It is so lively, just like working in the fields."
Zhou Guo hadn't eaten at home for a long time. He had no time to talk to them and just kept eating fish.
The old man also gave her a big piece.
Zhou Su and the others didn't eat a single bite. They knew how life was like outside. They couldn't eat or sleep well, and it was far from being as comfortable as when they were at home.
Zhou Guo ate half of the fish by himself.
By the time everyone had left the table, half of the fish was still left. Everyone took a few symbolic bites and then left it alone.
Zhou Guo slowly ate the remaining half in one go. The taste was no worse than that of crab, and it even had a different flavor.
After dinner, the family talked until late at night before going to bed.
Zhou Guo lay on his warm bed, found a comfortable position in the quilt and closed his eyes. It was still more comfortable to sleep in the bed at home.
After breakfast early the next morning, she went to the study to summarize this year's grain.
Now, all the food has been harvested, and the food outside has also been collected.
However, this year, because of the Nanhe River, there is not a single grain of food there, so she has asked Mo Da and Mo Er to take a large amount of food south.
The grain has to be transported three more times before winter. This grain must ensure that the shops on the south river have grain to sell this winter and that the people on the farm have food to eat.
This time we directly transported 100,000 stones over there, which should be enough to last until next year.
This year, the best rice fields in Song County's more than 400 hectares of land are from seeds to be harvested from last year's experimental fields. The highest yield was three shi, but such fields are few after all, and the seeds are not many, with most of them still around two shi and one or two dou.
Most of the wheat was given to her by the Wang family, and the yield was about two stones.
From more than 400 hectares of land, we harvested nearly 90,000 dan of grain. Together with Huayuan County and other places, this year in Yunzhou alone, the amount of grain harvested from the land planted by our own farmers was nearly 300,000 dan!
The harvest from these lands will surely be higher next year. Together with the few plots that have been secured, the grain harvest is estimated to reach 700,000 to 800,000 dan. However, the grain that was exchanged for fertilizer this year, for the entire northern region, was only over 1.2 million dan.
She looked at the number in the account book and sighed. After all, it is better to have your own land. Look, if you have your own land, your income can be compared with the income from selling fertilizer in the whole north.
However, after two years, if these lands are rented out, the income will not be that high. When the harvest is high, it will be good to have 700,000 to 800,000 shi per year.
But there are also advantages. She doesn't have to pay everyone wages. At most, she can give out some gifts during festivals, which can save a lot.
The new wheat seeds she collected this year, plus those collected from various villages in her own county, totaled nearly 80,000 shi.
In addition, more than 9,000 stones were harvested from Mr. Wu's land. Although Mr. Wu was given seeds for 1,000 acres of land, that amount of seeds was nothing.
She had already asked Mo Da and Mo Er to transport these seeds to Nanhe.
Hundreds of thousands of people who delivered grain returned, and most of them settled in Nanhe and were allocated land to settle down.
The Nanhe government didn't have a single grain of food and could only ask the North to share some with them.
In recent days, many refugees from the front have flocked to Nanhe, and some of the refugees who had left before have returned. Now Nanhe is not as short of people as before.
Not to mention the wages, just having food and something to eat is enough to attract a lot of people.
Wu Jiang wrote to me a few months ago, complaining about the shortage of people. But now he no longer mentions the shortage of people. Instead, he starts by asking for money and food, especially food, which is in great short supply!
She calculated that 100,000 stones might not be enough, and estimated that another 100,000 stones would have to be transported over.
As for other seeds, they are available in all the warehouses, and now we are just waiting for the big players to come.
Zhou Guo stayed in the study for half a day, handed out letters one after another, and asked Dashu to send people to deliver them to various provincial capitals.
I was busy until noon, and finally finished the remaining tasks.
During lunch, Li asked, "Didn't you say you would leave in a few days? When?"
Zhou Guo said, "Wait a couple more days. I have to wait until all the crabs are sold out and I have the money in my hand before I can leave."
You need money everywhere you go when you go out. Even going to the temple to bring back the golden Buddha will cost several thousand taels, not to mention going south to pay workers and buying land and shops in the territory conquered by the general.
Can you go out without money?
Li said, "You said you would let us spend as we please, but don't you think we need money now? Even though these small amounts of money may not seem like much, if we are really short of one or two strings of silver, it would be hard to find them in a short time."
Wu Ya nodded. Yes, she felt it deeply. Let alone one or two coins, from childhood to adulthood, it was not easy for her to earn even a few cents.
Zhou Gu didn't say anything and glanced at Zhou Guo. In fact, he felt that for Zhou Guo now, it was just a matter of a few taels of silver. He could just stretch out his hand and get it.
Zhou Guo said, "Then there's no need to save money on food and clothes. After all, we have money for the writing brushes, inkstones, and writing instruments for my brothers, and there's not much to spend. We don't have any money at home, so why should we live so hard?"
Speaking of studies, Zhou Gu suddenly remembered something and said, "Next year Zhou Mai and Zhou Mi will go to Yunzhou's Yunzhong Academy. The academy can no longer teach them. Zhou Su and Li Lai also want to go with them."
Li said, "My idea is that the two younger ones are still young and can stay in the academy for two years. There is no need for them to go with their elder brother."
Yunzhong College is the best college in Yunzhou, and there is only one such college. Students from the county schools and private schools who want to go there have to be selected from thousands of candidates, and they have to perform well in their studies and pass the exams before they can get in.
Zhou Guo said: "This academy is good, but there are also thresholds for entering. You have to pass their exams before you can enter. Otherwise, can they let you in just because you say you want to go?
So, mother, you don't have to worry. If they want to go, let them take the exam. If they pass and are on the list, it means they have enough knowledge and can go. If they don't have enough knowledge, they won't want to go even if I spend a lot of money."
Yunzhong Academy was only moved here in recent years. There were no academies in the north before. They were all private and official schools, and they were not large in scale. The teachers here all came from the south.