Hearing the words, the old woman agreed happily: "Then why can't you meet people? You guys look like nobles at first glance. It is my family's blessing to come to my house. Please come in quickly, please come in quickly. Look at this On a rainy day, it’s good to sit indoors and drink a cup of hot tea to get rid of the dampness and coldness.”
Holding the child in his arms, he happily invited the two of them into the yard.
Li Jing stood at the door with his hands behind his hands, looked at the courtyards in the drizzle, and exclaimed: "Even if it is the imperial capital of Chang'an, how can it come to such a neat, refreshing and comfortable place? This Huating Town deserves to be the best in the world. The town is breathtaking everywhere.”
The old woman was confused. She didn't know why the old man with a white beard who looked older than her was so emotional, but she didn't dare to ask. Although she didn't know the identities of the two people in front of her, Fang Xuanling had the magnanimity to dominate the world in a high position. Li Jing's invincible momentum of commanding thousands of armies made her feel unreasonable heart palpitations. These two people did not look like ordinary merchants...
However, I couldn't see any ill intentions between the two of them, and the old woman felt at ease.
He led the two of them to the main hall and entered the house. They took off their bamboo hats and the old woman greeted her while shouting: "Old man, we have a guest!"
Fang Xuanling hurriedly said: "Sister-in-law, you don't have to be polite. Just let us see the woven blanket. I really don't dare to bother you too much."
The old woman was very cheerful, showing no trace of the usual cautiousness, embarrassment or stinginess of the ordinary old farm woman. She spoke openly and openly: "No noble man can be as stupid as my father. Although I am old, I am not blind yet. Are you officials of the imperial court? Again. Are you here to investigate our weavers?"
Fang Xuanling and Li Jing were both stunned. They thought they were pretending well, but unexpectedly, their identities had already been discovered...
Li Jing smiled and said: "They are just two old men who have retired from their careers. But what happened to the so-called investigation of the weavers just now?"
Compared to Fang Xuanling's kindness, the old woman was obviously more afraid of Li Jing, who was as powerful as a Yuan Ting Yue Zhi. However, as people live older, they will always have some experience. This has nothing to do with their origin and culture, it is purely It is the experience accumulated from long-term life experience. It is these experiences that make her believe that although the two people in front of her must have noble status, they do not have evil intentions...
But even so, the old woman still asked cautiously: "Isn't it true that he is not the censor?"
Fang Xuanling smiled bitterly and said, "It's really not true."
The old woman breathed a sigh of relief, and then babbled: "You don't know something. A while ago, there were always so-called imperial censors coming. You said that you are an official of the imperial court, and if you have anything to do, you can come and ask me in an open and honest manner. How about you? No, I was always sneaky and afraid of being discovered, and then I asked about the source of wool, the output of weaving, sales channels, etc. At the beginning, we were all confused, but later the town office heard about this. After hearing the news, they sent someone down to remind us that someone in the court wanted to do harm to Fang Erlang, and wanted to use our official papers as articles, and told us not to talk nonsense..."
Fang Xuanling's heart sank. Is there such a thing?
The old woman was very talkative, so she invited the two of them to sit down, took down the kettle from a small burning stove in the back room, made tea for them, and said, "Do you think these censors have nothing to do?" We, the common people who live without land and food, would have died of hunger long ago if we didn't have Fang Erlang to make a living by weaving and weaving carpets. How can we still live in such a house and live such a life? In my opinion Look, someone is simply jealous of Fang Erlang’s ability and wants to frame Zhongliang!”
Fang Xuanling and Li Jing both laughed. This old woman was really extraordinary. It was really impressive that a country villager could say such words.
Seeing the expressions on the two people's faces, the old woman felt a little shy and said with a smile: "I have never seen the real world. I heard these words from the merchants who came to receive the goods. Don't be surprised. Don't be surprised."
At this time, an old man walked out of the back room. He was a lean old man. He was casually wearing kudzu clothes and cloth shoes. He looked neat and energetic.
"You old woman is talking nonsense again. You can't change your habit of talking nonsense even if you die."
The old man complained, saluted Fang Xuanling and Li Jing, and said respectfully: "Young man, I have met these two noble men."
The old woman complained: "Why are you so talkative? Am I wrong? The whole town was built by Fang Erlang. Without Fang Erlang, you would still be cultivating the two acres of mountain land at home in the Jiangbei Mountains, and your children would whine all day long because of hunger.
Call out, someone is trying to frame Fang Erlang now, so naturally we have to stand up!"
The old man said helplessly: "Don't you know that trouble comes from words? Just do some things. There is no need to talk about it everywhere."
The old woman snorted twice, obviously dissatisfied, but it was probably because there were outsiders around, and she had to give the old man some face. She complained to Fang Li and the other two, and carried the child into the back room.
The old man said: "You two want to see the woven blanket? That's no problem. Please come with me."
After that, he took Fang Li and the two of them out of the main hall and went to the wing on the east side.
As soon as they entered the wing, both Fang and Li were startled. They saw a huge loom placed in Nuo Da's room. Several women were busy, and the crisscrossed wool on the loom was moving rapidly.
, the sound of "ka ka" is endless.
Seeing that Fang and Li were stunned and puzzled, the old man explained: "There has been a shortage of wool recently, and the weaving of blankets has stopped. They are weaving cotton cloth. However, the output of cotton is limited now, and it is all spun into cotton threads from Guanzhong and shipped here.
If there is no more cotton thread shipped in a few days, we may have to stop work."
As he said that, he went to the pile of goods in the corner, opened an oilcloth covering the outside, and revealed a large pile of blankets and cloths covered underneath.
Fang Xuanling stepped forward to take a closer look and found that the quality of this blanket was not very good. The patterns were simple symmetrical textures, which were far from as delicate and gorgeous as Persian blankets.
The old man said: "Your Majesty, do you think this blanket is not good? Haha, compared with the blankets passed down from the Western Regions, we have indeed checked a lot. It's not that we can't weave it, it's just that we don't weave it."
Fang Xuanling asked curiously: "Why is this?"
The old man said: "The blankets in the Western Regions are of course gorgeous and expensive, but they must be woven by hand. They cannot be woven by machine. Even the best weavers have to be able to weave one piece a year. But there are so many people in the family who have practiced good skills for many years.
Manpower? Our kind of blanket looks simple, but it is better because of its simple craftsmanship. Use this kind of loom to weave patterns, and you can weave one piece in a day and sell it to merchants. After excluding the material cost, each piece can make a profit.
With thirty pennies, we can earn ten thousand dollars a year. Not to mention that we can't weave such exquisite and gorgeous blankets. Even if we can weave them, the whole family will work hard for only two or three dollars a year. Each piece can be sold.
You can't make as much money as this if you only get three or two hits."
The accountant here, Fang Xuanling, naturally did the calculations. What surprised him even more was the annual income: "Ten dollars a year?"
A family in Guanzhong with 20 acres of high-quality fertile farmland may not have a consistent annual income, because the price of food in Taiping is now low, coupled with the continuous influx of rice from Linyi State, the price of food has been at three or four cents for a long time.
low level.
In this way, the advantage is that everyone can have enough to eat, but the disadvantage is that everyone has no money...
It is not just a matter of words that cheap grain hurts farmers.
Even though the imperial court mobilized a large amount of grain in preparation for the Eastern Expedition, and even gradually relaxed controls on industries such as brewing, the water conservancy facilities in Guanzhong have developed rapidly in the past two years, and the weather has been good, and the grain harvest has been bumper every year, but the price cannot be raised...
However, even so, Fang Xuanling did not expect that in the small town of Huating, a farmer only hired a few women weavers, and the money he earned in a year was ten times that of the rich farmers in Guanzhong.
This impact is really too big...
The old man was very arrogant and said: "It's true. There are too few people in the little old man's family. Both of his sons are in charge of the salt fields, so no one is doing anything. The family with the most looms in the town has eight looms, which are used all day long.
It employs dozens of weavers and can earn hundreds of dollars a year."
A farmer can earn hundreds of guan by weaving. Huating Town has the highest commercial tax in the world, reaching one of five taxes, which means it has to pay a tax of 20 guan. There are more than a thousand such farmers in the town? Just for weaving.
It is a commercial tax, and Huating Town must collect at least 10,000 yuan every year.
No wonder there are words such as "you can buy a warship for the navy every year".
You need to know that compared with the large business transactions on the dock, this is not even a drop in the bucket...
This is a place that has never appeared before in the past. The people do not cultivate the land, but only rely on the unscrupulous methods of buying and selling merchants, but they have amassed a staggering amount of wealth!
Fang Xuanling naturally knew his son's bastard theory of "liberating farmers from the land". However, what worried him deeply was that if farmers left the land to work and go into business, who would farm the land?
Is it possible that the Tang Dynasty will create countless wastelands like no other before and eventually collapse and perish?