North and South groceries

Luo Yong felt that he was a hard worker, and he had just been free for two days, and the village was going to start another big project.

Of course, building an irrigation system is a good thing, and he has to support it. In addition to the money and food that each household in the village needs to apportion, Luo Yong donated an additional [-] loads of cement. A load of cement is worth five cents. It's one hundred pennies.

The money is not much, but everyone knows that Luo Sanlang is very poor now, and they don't want him to spend the money. If the one hundred Wen money is apportioned by the villagers, each household will have less than ten Wen. Nowadays, almost every household in Po Village is earning money, and this money can still be used, but Luo Yong wants to give it himself, which is also his wish.

The matter of building water canals and water trucks was quickly settled. Every household has money to contribute money, and food to produce, but they really can’t get it out. Like Feng Gou’er’s family, everyone doesn’t say anything up.

Tian Sheng and his wife did not hold back this time, because Tian Chonghu took a lot of money from his family before, but now he is relatively rich, and he is very straightforward when taking the money.

Taking advantage of the less busy period before the autumn harvest, the villagers quickly started working. In addition to the manpower in their own village, there were also a few craftsmen invited from Luoyong's threshing machine workshop to make waterwheels.

In fact, as long as the principle of the water wheel is understood, it is not difficult to make it. The villagers can do it themselves, but these craftsmen are still relatively experienced after all, and their tools are also relatively professional. Well, it looks better too.

The real trouble is the ditches, which require digging and plastering, and they have to plan and calculate. They are in a mountainous area, and the water flow in those small ditches is usually not large, but when it rains, the rainwater on the mountain gathers. , the water flow in the creek will skyrocket, and it is likely that the waterwheel will be washed away.

So they had to divert the stream water to other places first, and then arrange the irrigation system according to the terrain. The low places can be directly diverted with canals, and in some places where water needs to be diverted to high places, water trucks are used.

In the past few days, people in the village often meet to discuss how to dig the next ditch, where to dig it, where and how big a water truck is needed, and so on.

Speaking of it, Luo Yong still took advantage of it, because his family has a lot of land, even if the large area over the sheep house is excluded, just at the entrance of the village, his family has a lot of sloping land, except for Eucommia trees, It is mainly used to grow beans. Because the land is relatively dry and not fertile, the beans don’t grow very well. Anyway, Luo Yong doesn’t worry about how much he can harvest.

But when the irrigation system is in place this time, the sloping fields of his family will be very good for growing crops, and it is not impossible to build some terraced fields when they have time, put more fertilizers on them, and turn them into good fields.

Because of this, he couldn't hide his laziness even more. In this hot day, he ran on the hillside all day long, digging ditches and picking mud for everything.

"Hey, Sanlang, it's heavy, you can't lift it, I'll do it." At noon that day, Luo Yong was about to bend down to pick up a load of mud, but a villager next to him gave the load to him. Robbed.

In their minds, Luo Sanlang is a serious mental worker who has nothing to do with these physical labors. It is quite worrying to see him working with everyone all day these two days. His small body had been injured before, so it would be good to be exhausted again.

"It's okay, I can pick it up." Everyone is working together, and Luo Yong doesn't want to be special.

"You're still tall, don't pick such a heavy one." As the living sign of Xipo Village, everyone also hoped that Luo Sanlang would look handsome and extraordinary, but in fact he was really good looking, Just a little bit shorter.

In fact, the villagers also discussed in private, saying that even if our Luo Sanlang can’t grow as tall as Du Langjun, he should be about the same height as the relative of the Lin family, right? That’s right, it’s that Qiao Junlin. It's a little higher.

I don't know what the kid ate after he went to Chang'an City. When he was in the village, he was just a little black guy with a stubborn temper like a donkey, but now he has changed a lot. The little daughter-in-law squatted by the ditch with him to wash clothes for a while, and blushed for a long time.

"Sanlang, you'd better come here and dig the soil with us."

"Let their men do the heavy lifting."

"You scholar, how can you take such a burden?"

"..."

The villagers greeted Luo Yong enthusiastically, and instead of asking him to carry burdens, they chose some light jobs for him to do.

Lin Chunqiu, who also considers himself a scholar, has a dark face at this time, and walks past them with a load of mud. Some people don't notice him at all, but some people do. Zhang Heimian didn't take it seriously, as for the sixth son of the Lin family, if he was Luo Sanlang these days, he would be designated to rest at home, how could he be expected to come to work on the slope?

I heard that old man Lin has recently started to take care of his son. These days, he was called to come to build a canal on the slope.

I don't know if the old man really wants to understand whether he should take care of this young son, or show it to the other sons in the family. Who in the village doesn't know about their family, Mr. Lin, Mr. Lin Second, because of this Lin Chunqiu, I don't know how much dissatisfaction has accumulated in my heart.

"I heard that Lin Chunqiu's daughter-in-law came back two days ago?" Several women gossiped while digging.

"I came back, it was only two or three days ago, when it was delivered, it was almost dark, and I haven't seen her go out for these two days." Anyone who knew the situation said it at this time.

"About panicking with embarrassment." The new daughter-in-law was driven back to her mother's house by her parents-in-law not long after she entered the house, saying that she couldn't do housework, and everyone would be ashamed to panic about this matter.

"We should also tell her that she knows how powerful she is. I heard that she is not at ease. She dared to be uncomfortable with Wu Lang within two days after entering the door." Someone snorted.

"Who did you hear?"

"Who else, her sister-in-law."

"Hey, I heard that now she..."

"It's not wrong, my belly is big."

"She can give birth. Look at Lin Erlang's family. After giving birth to a girl, there is no movement."

"No, I heard that Lin Chunqiu dare not take Joe in front of her now."

"If you get angry at her for good or bad, can Lin Dalang agree?"

"The family will definitely be separated by then."

"It's like their family, it's good to divide up..."

"..."

Several major events have happened in the Lin family recently. Mrs. Lin became pregnant again, Father Lin started to take care of his son, and Lin Chunqiu's daughter-in-law came back again.

Luo used to work on the slope for the past few days, and he often heard people talking about their family. He listened to everything that sounded good or bad. It is best to find a quiet family with little right and wrong, so as not to be gossiped every day.

Speaking of Erniang, Erniang and the others have already arrived in Liangzhou City.

This Liangzhou City is really different from their Lishi County. The poor here are very poor, and the rich are very rich. Every day, many merchants come and go in and out of this city. Many people from the West gather here. Gems and spices from the Central Plains, silk and porcelain from the Central Plains, and all kinds of rare and fresh things. Of course, there are also many slaves.

Zhao Chen's guest house hasn't been built yet, they just negotiated an old house. Before the house is demolished and a guest house is built, Erniang and the others have nothing to do.

She saw someone selling unpicked wool on the street, and the price was much lower than that in Lishi County, so she bought some and came back to pick, planning to do some cashmere picking, spinning and knitting sweaters in the next few days. After weaving a set of cashmere sweaters and trousers and selling them to the merchants who come and go, they can earn a lot of money.

As for the residence, Zhao Chen and the others rented several houses in a row in a residential area. These houses were bought by some wealthy locals from the poor and poor, and then resold for rent and sale. That's why Zhao Chen and the others were able to rent so much at once. Multiple linked yards.

This house is not very dilapidated. The owners of those houses were not very poor and destitute. They must have lost money in business. In Liangzhou City, many people in the city are doing business. People are broke.

Erniang and the others lived in a small courtyard with some female relatives of the Zhao family. A group of women sat together all day sorting cashmere and gossiping, and the time was not difficult to pass.

After a while, Erniang and the others discovered that some poor people in the local area were really poor. They only needed to pay a small amount of food, and they could find some women and children to help pick cashmere.

Erniang thought that if she could hand over the work of picking cashmere and spinning woolen yarn to others, wouldn't she and Peng Er be able to devote a lot of energy to knitting sweaters, and naturally earn more, so they In the nearby residential area, after being introduced by someone, I found a few women to come over to help sort cashmere.

The cashmere resources here are quite rich. Although it is summer, there are still a lot of cashmere wool on the market.

A lot of wool among them has just been transported from the depths of the grassland recently. It takes several months to go back and forth from here to the depths of the grassland. The wool collected in the spring has been put until now. It's not surprising to be transported to Liangzhou City.

Just after Erniang and the others hired people to pick cashmere for a while, a group of cashmere merchants came from Chang'an City. For long-term residents, the cashmere resources in this place are so rich, so I simply sell the cashmere on hand first, and then continue to search for wool with a suitable price and come back to pick it myself.

After this batch of cashmere was resold, after deducting the cost of the original purchase and the cost of hiring workers, they still made a lot of money.

After tasting the taste of making money, Erniang Luo continued to buy wool and hired people to sort it. She also treated those poor Liangzhou people generously. Erniang still insisted on improving the food for these people.

At the beginning, everything was fine, but gradually, Erniang and the others realized that something was wrong. It was Peng Er who first discovered the problem. The cashmere picked out for several days was relatively small, and she suspected that someone had stolen it.

Erniang thought about it, and it might also be because the batch of wool they bought recently was not of good quality and the cashmere content was relatively low.

As a result, for a period of time after that, the cashmere they received every day became less and less, while the amount of unsorted wool consumed did not decrease much.

Now even Luo Erniang felt that there might be thieves among the workers.

Erniang and the others told Zhao Chen about this, and then Zhao Chen gave them an idea to catch the thief.

On the second day, those people came to work, and Erniang and the others were as usual, they didn't mention the cashmere shortage at all, and didn't say anything superfluous, until after work, everyone went out of the yard, Only then did Erniang stop them in a hurry, saying that everyone had worked hard during this time, and she wanted to invite them to eat outside today.

During the meal, Er Niang and the others even persuaded these people to drink some wine, and when they were full, they said they would take them to the public bath to take a bath.

At this time, these people had no vigilance at all, and a group of people happily went to the bathhouse, and while they were taking a bath, Er Niang and Peng Er went to the front hall, and talked about it with the bathhouse owner, After successfully getting the clothes of the hired workers at home, Er Niang felt as if she had been hit on the head by someone after searching through them.

There were a total of ten hired workers, and seven of them hid cashmere in their clothes.