Spring returns to the earth, full of greenery and vitality.
The good time of the year lies in spring, and the good times of the year lie in spring plowing.
At this time, the wheat in Yongcheng was still in the green stage, and Afu and his wife were busy watering, topdressing, and weeding every day. His brother Agui, his father-in-law, his twelfth uncle's family, and other families helped together during the busy farming period. The men got up early and stayed late.
When going to the fields, young women are also in the fields all day long. The elderly are at home taking care of their children to cook and feed the pigs, and the younger ones also have to help.
"You've lost a lot of weight."
Chen Twelve, who was wearing a scarlet official robe with a bear painted on the front and back patches, looked at his family and was very happy. "Is there water to irrigate the ground?"
"There is a bit of drought this spring, and there is not enough water. Everyone is competing for water."
"Don't you care about the countryside?"
"No matter what, there is no way to ignore it. No matter what, you have to get crazy. But there is little drought and water, and the wheat seedlings in the fields are waiting for water. Everyone wants to water first, but they are afraid that there will be no water behind them, and no one can control it. It happens every day.
Fighting over water." Ah Fu now has ten acres of land, one for mulberry and one for cotton, and the remaining eight acres are for grain.
The land is divided into three batches of land for rotational cultivation, and the staple food is wheat.
"The wheat in Huainan has begun to enter the jointing stage and is about to start earing. It won't rain even if it rains. I'll be worried to death."
Spring rain is as precious as oil, but I haven’t seen any rain this spring.
Chen Twelve also lamented, "In these years of turmoil, water conservancy has been abandoned, and it will not be fully restored in a while."
God is like this, everyone has no choice but to carry water on their shoulders from far away places. Only the big landowners can dig wells, or use donkeys to draw water, or use large water trucks.
When I got home, I took out the good things I brought back from Tokyo. My family was very happy.
"Agui, tell the people in the village for me to finish work early in the evening. You don't have to cook. Come to our house for dinner. I'll treat everyone to eight large bowls."
This time I accompanied Master Guo to Tokyo. It was his second time there, but this time he stayed for a long time. He stayed for three full months. Master Guo even specially arranged for him to get a job as an officer from Fengtian Lecture Hall.
The training course is short-term, just three months.
After studying in the martial arts hall for three months, I not only got to know many guards, military attachés and other military officers, but also many famous generals took classes, and even the emperor came to give two classes in person.
When I graduated, the emperor even came again.
Each of them was given a telescope, a royal horse, a suit of armor, a pair of self-generated fire guns, and a short sword.
The hilt of the sword is engraved with the characters "Zhu Wu Presents", and the blade is engraved with the characters "Soldier Soul".
Zhu Yihai presented the Soldier's Soul Dagger, also known as the Officer's Sword, to all officers who graduated from the Jiangwu Hall. Although there were many officer training classes, swords engraved with the emperor's personal inscriptions were still very precious.
This means that they have become the emperor's disciples.
In the past, Chen Twelve was just a maike, a day laborer without his own land. Later, he joined the Red Spear Club, joined the regiment training, and then received training in the martial arts hall. He officially became an admiral of the Chinese army garrison in the imperial camp and obtained the fifth-grade official rank.
It also officially became the imperial camp and the direct lineage of the emperor.
Eating eight large bowls is a very grand banquet. Especially in these years, who can still set up a banquet and eat eight large bowls.
Zhu Twelve's mother is a shrewd woman who is used to calculating carefully, which may be said to be the helplessness of the poor, but today she is extra happy and unexpectedly agrees to her son's expense.
When Chen Twelve came back this time, he not only conferred the fifth rank of the Central Military Guard himself, but also received a special decree from the imperial court to bestow a special gift to his parents. The Zhongshu Department directly drafted the imperial edict, without the need for a unified declaration at the end of the year.
Chen's mother was awarded the title of Taiyiren.
Chen Twelve's father passed away, so he gave it to General Wude.
Originally, even though Zhu Twelve was promoted to the fifth rank, according to common practice, he had to pass the examination for three years before he could be given a gift. But now, as a favor, he can be given a gift directly to his wife and parents.
Chen's mother now has a title. Although she is not enough to be called Tai Madam, she can still be called Tai Yiren.
The armor was led by sunflowers, and the imperial edict on a golden scroll was written in willow-leaf seal script. The beginning of the imperial edict was the imperial edict from heaven. Mother Chen held the imperial edict in her hand and touched it with tears.
Mother Chen had suffered all her life. She had only had a few good days before, and had more than a dozen children. She had endured all the hardships in her life. She was even forced to leave her hometown several times, taking her children on her back to escape famine.
Now that her son has become successful, not only has he obtained a fifth-grade official rank, a scarlet robe and a silver fish, he has even earned her a very pleasant life, how could she not be happy about it.
"Please, please, please. We are going to do a big event. Not only do we have to collect eight bowls, but we also have to have hard dishes." Chen's mother said that she had saved all the money Chen Twelve gave her before and did not deposit it in the bank.
If you can't believe it, just believe that you have gold and silver in your hands. Now she said that Chen Twelve would use it to buy food and invite people, so it would be a feast and a lively event.
For a family, especially people from the bottom of the family, they basically had no chance of getting ahead in the past.
They can't afford to take the imperial examination, so at least a small landowner must be able to afford it.
But now that the Chen family has a fifth-grade official, smoke is rising from the ancestral grave.
Even Chen Twelve’s deceased father was awarded a fifth-grade general of martial virtue.
Small landowners and rich peasants who have talented people in their homes are worthy of treating them. If they win a prize, they will beat gongs, drums and set off firecrackers. Even the local magistrates and gentry will send people to send gifts to celebrate.
Now the twelfth rank is directly the fifth rank garrison, or the fifth rank garrison of the imperial camp. Of course, this must be handled well, so that everyone from all over the country knows that the Chen family is promising.
"Mom, I have money in my hand."
Ah Fu was also happy for his 'uncle', "I still feed a few pigs at home, and two of them weigh nearly two hundred pounds. I will go with A Gui to catch the pigs and kill them."
My wife worked hard to feed this pig. She had to cook a large pot of pig food every day and pull pig grass. The sweet potatoes and radish grown at home last year made the pig very fat. I originally planned to fatten it up and sell it to make money.
To repair the house, the plan is to leave the thatched house alone and build a stone and adobe house.
But now he had no hesitation in planning to bring the two pigs as a treat.
Chen Twelve smiled and patted him on the shoulder, "Okay." As he said that, he asked the soldiers to get the silver. "You can take these ten silver coins first. If you don't have enough, you can make up for it."
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Uncle Twelve, why do you still get money when your own family does things?" Ah Fu blushed anxiously.
Twelve smiled and said, "It's not easy to raise a pig. It's not cheap to catch the piglets. It takes more than a year to raise them. They have to eat a lot of grass and have to eat a lot of grains, not to mention waste."
It takes so much time and energy to cook the pigs’ food every day and carry water.”
The price of pork is not cheap. Although the price varies from place to place, pork is not salty meat. It is slaughtered and sold locally. Even when there is not enough food to eat, there is still a good demand for pork, which is mainly supplied to cities and towns.
Even because there are many people who don't have enough to eat, it is difficult to raise pigs. The supply is small but the price is high.
A pound of pork in Yongcheng generally costs about 30 yuan, which is roughly the same as a day's wages for a strong laborer working in the city. Most people really can't afford it.
The main people who eat pork are cities and towns, especially those big industrial and commercial cities, and even the capital, which is the economic and political center. In the late Ming Dynasty, every Spring Festival, the capital slaughtered 100,000 pigs, and the palace consumed 18,900 pigs a year, and sheep
Ten thousand, seven hundred and fifty, fewer than pigs.
Nowadays, the Shao Tian Dynasty encourages everyone to engage in family breeding, which can not only increase family income, but also enrich the vegetable basket. Even because of the shortage of commodities, the imperial court even implements a policy of unified purchasing and marketing of grain. Even pork, half is kept and half is collected.
It is stipulated that half of the pigs raised by farmers' families must be sold to the government for purchase, and the other half can be freely disposed of.
The price is still in line with the market. The purpose of this is to ensure the supply of pork. After all, pork is in short supply everywhere.
Also, after the new tax law, pig raising will have to pay taxes, livestock transaction tax, and slaughter tax.
The livestock transaction tax is levied on the price, 5%, and the buyer pays the tax. The slaughter tax is 5%, which is levied on the price.
When Chen Twelve bought the piglets, he had already paid the livestock transaction tax once.
Now even if he kills the pigs himself, he still has to pay the slaughter tax.
This is actually quite small. Although the imperial court did not have such a regular tax in the past, it was collected by local governments, and the tax rate was still high, and there were even surcharges. Now surcharges are prohibited. Livestock transaction tax and slaughter tax are both shared taxes. Local six
Court IV.
A pig can cost more than 200 kilograms a year. If you kill it and sell it for more than 100 kilograms of meat, you can probably get about four and a half taels of silver. Two pigs cost nine taels of silver, and you have to pay a slaughter tax of four cents and five cents.
The regulations stipulate that you have to sell one pig to the official for purchase. If you sell all of them yourself, you will have to pay a fine. The rich family also has two smaller pigs. You can sell them all to the purchase station to replace them in the future.
The piglets Chen Twelve bought weighed about twenty kilograms each. They were very expensive. The market price was about one kilogram of piglets for three kilograms of raw pigs. Woolly pigs are cheaper than pork, but in exchange, a kilogram of raw pigs would cost more than twenty.
Wen, so buying a piglet costs 1,200 to 300 yuan, and the transaction tax is 60 to 70 yuan.
I raised two pigs for more than a year and sold them for 9 yuan. The cost of the piglets was 2,256, and I had to pay another 4,500 yuan for the slaughter tax, so it was only 3 liang.
There are six taels left, which seems like a lot, but in fact there are still many costs that have not been taken into account. For example, last year, Ah Fu planted sweet potatoes and radishes on the land that was on rotation to feed the pigs. This is his own land, otherwise he would not be able to feed a few pigs.
If the grains are sold, they are actually valuable.
If there is no land at home, it will be difficult to raise pigs. Just eating grass is not enough, especially in winter and spring when there is no grass to eat. The piglets also have to eat rice bran and corn flour.
Chen Twelve was also born into a poor family, so how could he not know this.
The family just hopes to raise pigs to get some cash.
"Three hundred pounds of meat from two pigs should be enough. Go and buy me some sheep, some chickens, ducks and geese. Then go to the market street to buy some sugar, tea, soy sauce, vinegar, oil and wine. Remember to buy more."
Some cigarettes, buy something better."
Agui said with a smile, "Uncle Twelve is really extravagant. Pork is now thirty cents per catty, large carp is more than twenty cents per catty, mutton is seventy or eighty cents per catty, and occasionally beef is sold, but it is also very expensive.
Sugar, tea, tobacco, and wine are more expensive. They are all specialty stores, but salt is cheaper.
The cheapest brown sugar costs more than fifty yuan per pound, but the soy sauce and vinegar are quite cheap, costing four yuan a bowl."
Chen Twelve smiled and called two soldiers, "Take them shopping. I have money. If you want to do something, make it more lively. Do you have rice and noodles at home? If not, go to the market to buy some."
Ah Fu hurriedly said, "We who farm our own land, how can we buy rice from the grain shop? We have to use food stamps to buy rice in the shop. It is very valuable to buy commercial grain without food stamps. It costs one or two and one stone to buy it with tickets. Without tickets, it is
I just looked through it. I have all the food rations left at home, so I don’t need to buy them.”
Chen Twelve had a small fortune. He was rewarded for his meritorious service in battles, and received salary subsidies. He even received rewards from the capture of bandits during the training of the Guide Regiment.
"Uncle has money, just go ahead and do it."
Chen's mother also called Agui and their adoptive father Chen Da to come over and said, "Your brother has made a fortune. Don't be reluctant to give up money. He must be in a lively place. You hurry up and gather the villagers, help borrow tables and benches, and remember to prepare tea, water, and cigarettes."
Everyone nodded excitedly and went off to do their work with glowing faces.
