Chapter 215 Speculation
The next day, Jiang Sanlang purchased many New Year items in the county town and prepared to take them back to his hometown.
He quietly told his daughter that he had sold all the looms at the price of fifty taels each.
"This time I earned a total of more than 1,800 taels of silver."
Jiang Sanlang smiled and said: "Our family has bought a large piece of wasteland on the south slope, and when next spring we will hire someone to open up the wasteland and build a pepper garden there.
When there is more pepper in the future, I won’t soak the white pepper anymore. I asked someone that as long as the half-ripe pepper berries are picked and dried directly, the black pepper produced will have a more fragrant flavor. "
If white pepper is made, the pepper fruit will have a peculiar smell if soaked in water for a long time. If not handled properly, it will smell faintly and is not as spicy as black pepper.
So Jiang Sanlang decided to make black pepper from now on.
Yingbao: "That's not bad, it saves a lot of work."
Jiang Sanlang nodded and said: "My family has bought a lot of good paddy fields and a lot of low-grade dry fields. I plan to use those low-grade fields to grow cotton."
He bought it just in time, as it was the end of the year. Many poor farmers in the village were unable to make ends meet, so they sold their fields and took their children to Dongchen Village to work as farm laborers.
Because Dongchen Village has become rich now, the villagers all bought fields after they had savings.
There was so much land that I couldn't plant it with just my own labor, so I hired people to do it.
As time went by, the employed poor farmers felt that it was good to be a farmhand in Dongchen Village. At least they did not have to worry about how to pay the two seasons' land tax every year. They could also secretly learn the art of growing golden fungus and snow fungus in Dongchen Village, etc. After saving some money, I also bought some strains of bacteria.
The villagers of Dongchen Village have freed up their hands to plant more golden fungus, snow fungus, pepper, cotton, etc. In this way, everyone feels that making money and farming can be done at the same time.
Jiang Sanlang continued: "I am going to build a few tile houses in the open space outside the yard. Your mother said that she would build a textile workshop there, and buy ten looms and twenty spinning wheels. In the future, we will invite the weaver to come back to spin and weave cloth. .”
"Okay!" Ying Bao raised her hands in agreement.
In this way, no matter how much cotton you grow at home, you don’t have to worry about not being able to sell it, and ultimately being priced down by wealthy merchants.
Speaking of paddy fields, Ying Bao suddenly remembered something.
I will be six years old after the Chinese New Year, and in May or June of my sixth year, the villages along the Chuanhe River will suffer from a major flood.
Although this flood is not as destructive as the one a few years later, people will definitely die in the flood.
Farmland including coastal areas will also be washed away by floods, and all seeds and seedlings in the farmland will be destroyed.
After hesitating for a moment, Ying Bao decided to tell her father about this now so that he could think of countermeasures earlier.
"Dad, I want to tell you something very important."
Ying Bao said with a serious face: "I've been dreaming about flooding again in the past few days."
Jiang Sanlang was stunned: "Dream again?"
He almost forgot that the original intention of moving his family to the south slope was to prevent floods.
"When will it happen?" Jiang Sanlang did not doubt the authenticity of his daughter's words.
Because it turns out that the little girl is like a goddess...ah! Like a little fairy, every word she speaks is as precise as an oracle.
"Probably in May or June." She really forgot the specific day.
All I know is that those days were extremely hot and muggy, and then there were lightning, thunder, and heavy rains that lasted for several days.
"I dreamed that the farmland around the Chuanhe River was flooded. Not only our village, but all the villages and farmland near the Chuanhe River were washed away by the flood."
The next few sentences were made up by Ying Bao.
According to her speculation, this will most likely be the case.
There is a big river upstream of the Chuan River, and what they have here is just a tributary of that big river.
If the water level of the upstream river surges, it will naturally affect the water level of the downstream tributaries. The strength of a few small towns alone will not be able to stop the flood from the upstream. The only way is to evacuate the villagers in advance to reduce the casualties of people and livestock.
Jiang Sanlang looked solemn and said, "Wait until I go back to discuss with Sun Lizheng and see what we can do."
This matter is no small matter.
It is not only necessary to prevent casualties, but also to discuss how to prevent the surrounding people from taking all the seeds.
Once floods hit and the fields fail to harvest, and the people lose a lot of grain, and then face the pressure of summer tax, it may be difficult to survive in the future.
The imperial court will not pay any attention to such small-scale disasters. Taxes will not be reduced at all. In the end, the people will have to drag their families and families to flee the fields.
If you think it has nothing to do with you that your fellow villagers are fleeing their fields, you are totally wrong.
Because the taxes they did not pay will be shared equally among the rest of the population.
The more people fled, the more taxes were spread among the remaining people.
This caused one family to flee, followed by ten families under the joint protection, even though they did not lose much.
If ten families flee, dozens of families related to them must also flee.
In the end, it may cause the whole town to flee.
Although the people in Dongchen Village are wealthy, no matter how wealthy they are, they cannot afford the taxes of the entire township.
Therefore, we must not cause the people to suffer too much loss, let alone make them feel that they must escape.
This matter must be communicated to Li Zheng, who will then come forward to prepare the villagers for floods.
Later, Jiang Sanlang hurried back to his hometown with his two nieces, a pair of twin sons, and a bunch of things.
Ying Bao and Jiang Quan and Jiang Cheng will not go back for the time being.
Because they still want to make more money during the end of the year.
In the past few days, the shop's business has been getting better and better, and the chestnut cakes and persimmon cookies in the warehouse are almost sold out.
Not only that, the golden fungus and snow fungus were declared sold out, and the gourd only had two samples left at the door, one with a sticker to attract wealth and the other with a sticker of "making money every day."
This is because Jiang Quan refused to sell them, otherwise even these two would be bought.
"People in the county are really rich." Jiang Quan sighed and turned to ask his elder brother: "Have you settled the accounts? How much money can we earn this month and last month?"
Jiang Cheng buried his head in figuring out the abacus and ignored him.
However, Ying Bao had a rough estimate in her mind that she would have enough money to build a few large houses.
When spring comes, she will build three, no, five large tile-roofed houses, as well as a large fireproof and waterproof warehouse.
Then use precious wood to build a row of tables and chairs, so that you can receive guests decently in the future.
Most of the people who come from home shops to buy things have some wealth, but they can't let people think that their shops are not worthy of the publicity.
She wants to build a specialty store unique to the Jiang family in the county. Even if someone follows suit in the future, she will not be afraid of competing with her family's store.
She has rootless water and special medicine pills at her house. No matter how bad she is, she sells medicines to treat people and specializes in treating difficult and complicated diseases, which always attracts a lot of customers.
Seeing that his eldest brother ignored him, Jiang Quan spoke to his younger cousin again: "If we earn more this time, let's buy another carriage."
It is too inconvenient to only use one car inside and outside.
Hearing this, Jiang Cheng raised his head and said, "You're right. Why don't you get a hundred taels of silver from me first? You and Ying Bao can go to Luo Ma Market to buy a carriage and come back. It will be convenient for us to come and go during the New Year."
Ying Bao clapped her hands in agreement: "That's right! Just buy a carriage and let's go now."
It was late and the mule and horse market was not open. They all went home to be busy during the New Year.