The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 387 - 376: A Loan?

Chapter 387: Chapter 376: A Loan?

Manbao asked Yang Heshu curiously, "Aren’t the family-allotted fields in your area divided from the mountains?"

"...No," he replied carefully, "the division is of wasteland."

Manbao then expressed sympathy, "Wasteland is even worse than the mountains. Look at the stretch of wasteland at the foot of this mountain, which was also assigned to my brother. It’s nothing but a swath of rocks and a jumble of weeds and bushes. The trees on the mountain can be used for firewood; good trees can be used for building houses, making furniture, and making farming tools, but this wasteland is basically useless."

Yang Heshu opened his mouth, wanting to say that the wasteland he spoke of was not like this and could actually be cultivated.

But as the newly appointed prefect, he felt he couldn’t incite dissatisfaction among the subjects under his rule, so he kept silent.

He adjusted his emotion and asked, "Where do you plant mulberry and sesame then?"

Generally speaking, family-allotted lands tend to be infertile. If there is enough labor, beans would be planted; if not, mostly mulberry and sesame.

Bai Shanbao said, "We don’t plant mulberry here, just sesame."

Manbao nodded, "At the edge of the fields, planting sesame at the foot of the mountain is just about enough for our own use."

"Sesame isn’t valuable, why don’t you plant mulberry?"

Manbao’s eyes spun around. She hadn’t collected mulberry trees, nor had she even seen silkworms; she had only read about them in agricultural books. The teacher had also said that the people in Yizhou commonly planted mulberry trees.

Shu brocade was famous throughout the land.

But in their remote area, only individual landlords would raise silkworms, primarily for their own needs.

Ultimately, it came down to having more mountains than farmable land.

That was what the teacher said.

However, Yang Heshu, being new here, was not aware of this. He only felt that the former prefect and the local land officers were acting foolishly, never having heard of mountains being divided among the people for family-allotted fields.

Weren’t they property of the state?

But that was not the most important thing at the moment. Yang Heshu asked, "If you don’t raise silkworms, where does the silk you submit annually come from?"

"We don’t submit silk; we submit cloth and sesame." Manbao had to calculate the household quota for her father every year, so she was very familiar with these matters, "Each person must submit two and a half zhang of cloth and three jin of sesame."

Yang Heshu rubbed his forehead and asked, "Then if you need silk, you can only buy it from other places?"

"Why would we need silk?" Manbao looked at him with curiosity, "We only use cotton. Like my clothes, they’re made by weaving cotton and sesame together, making them very soft and light."

Yang Heshu then looked toward Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang.

Bai Shanbao said, "My family’s main properties are in Longzhou, where we plant cotton, hemp, and mulberry."

Bai Erlang added, "All my clothes are made by my mother, she has."

Yang Heshu frowned and said, "Still, you should plant some mulberry trees. Shu brocade is very famous; if you touched on it just a bit, you could make quite a bit of money."

Upon hearing about making money, Manbao perked up and asked, "How is Shu brocade made?"

"First you have to plant mulberry trees, then raise silkworms. Once the worms have spun their silk, it is woven into damask. A length of Shu brocade can sell for over three thousand coins, and for the best, it’s hard to put a price on."

Manbao exclaimed, "Wow, a length of Shu brocade can be traded for an ox!"

This conversion confused Yang Heshu for a moment; once he grasped it, he asked, "Do you want to buy an ox?"

Manbao nodded repeatedly, "Our neighborhood only has one ox. By the time it’s our turn, spring plowing would almost be over. If only my family could buy an ox outright. Unfortunately, we suffered a disaster last year, and now that it’s early spring, the yield of the winter wheat isn’t yet determined; my father dares not to spend our household money. He’s so stingy; even though we’re so busy, he won’t allow us to buy meat, only chicken eggs."

Yang Heshu: "...Didn’t the government exempt the taxes last year?"

"Yes, but there’s still not much surplus grain at home."

Yang Heshu said hesitantly, "But by the sound of it, doesn’t your family’s situation seem to be not bad compared to the rest of the village?"

"Yes, our wheat yield was decent last year, so our harvest was slightly better than other families."

Yang Heshu then became silent. If Manbao’s family was considered doing well, then it went without saying for the other families.

As he traveled, Yang Heshu also learned about last year’s yield, which was said to be poor, and now people had started to mix husk in their food.

But now, as spring farming was only beginning, after the wheat was sown and one cold wave passed, it would be time to plant beans and also to scatter rice seeds. Once the beans were planted, it would be time to harvest the winter wheat, and then prepare for rice transplantation.

With each task dependent on the previous one, if people were only eating husk and swallowing vegetables, even the strongest body couldn’t withstand it.

Yang Heshu smiled at Manbao and asked, "Can you show me around the village?" It was almost time for lunch, and he wanted to see what the villagers were eating.

Manbao waved her hand, "No use going back to the village now; everyone is out in the fields. If you’re looking for people, you’d only find children and the elderly. I’ll take you to the fields."

"They don’t go home for lunch?"

"No," Manbao said, "they just take their food to the fields, it’s more time and energy efficient, no point in going home."

Bai Shanbao also jumped down from the wooden board, wanting to follow along.

Seeing this, Bai Erlang quickly shouldered his own basket and followed; he wanted to go play instead of staying behind to supervise the work.

Not too many people worked this patch, most of them were in Big Bay and Little Bay, where the land was the best.

Due to the poor rice crop last year, this year everyone subconsciously planted more wheat and reduced the rice planting.

Heading toward Qili Village, they approached Big Bay and saw people working in the fields, scattered like stars across the landscape.

Unable to resist, Yang Heshu stopped. The people here were different from those he had seen working earlier, closer to what he had observed in the past couple of days.

They were all using humans to pull the plow, with at least two laborers taken up just to handle the plow.

If a household had two adults, it wouldn’t be a problem—one to pull the plow and the other to handle it; otherwise, it would be women handling the plow, with a group of children working behind them, not a very efficient setup.

If there were an ox...

Yang Heshu asked Manbao, "Does an ox cost three thousand coins?"

"A bit more, but they’re not easy to buy," Manbao, having considered buying an ox, naturally inquired about it from Ms. Liu, "There are few oxen at the cow market, and not many are distributed by the government office. Only Grandma Liu is impressive enough to buy three oxen at a time."

Yang Heshu nodded.

He asked, "If there were oxen available, would your family buy one?"

Manbao was conflicted, "My father is reluctant to spend money at this time."

Yang Heshu knew what her father was worrying about, and after a moment’s thought he said, "What if the government office was willing to extend credit first?"

Manbao’s eyes lit up and she asked, "Can you really do that? Will there be interest?"

"You know about interest?"

"Of course, I even know about usury. The people at the gambling house love to lend money at high interest rates; they’re all bad people!"

Yang Heshu nodded, "Lending money for profit is illegal. However, if no one reports it, the officials won’t investigate. The government office isn’t like a gambling house, naturally it wouldn’t charge high interest. But there still has to be some; otherwise, wouldn’t everyone be fighting over it? At that time, who would get it and who wouldn’t?"

Manbao began to rummage through her own savings, asking, "When do we have to repay it, and what will the interest be?"