Traveling through ancient times: daily life on the run

It's not yet dawn.

Luo Yu led Bai Lingyi and Qin Bingrui to the wheat field. In the endless wheat field, there was already a group of villagers bending over to cut wheat.

Face the loess and turn your back to the sky.

Zhang handed the breakfast to Uncle Zeng. Uncle Zeng finished the porridge in a few mouthfuls, licked his lips and said, "Today's white rice porridge is quite thick and looks like refined rice. It's quite expensive, isn't it?"

"These are all given to us by Miss Bai. There's also meat. Look, I've picked up a small bowl for you."

Uncle Zeng looked at the bowl of meat and was stunned for a moment. It wasn't a festival, so why would he eat meat?

"Uncle, you should eat more meat so that you can have the strength to work."

It took several hours just to drink a bowl of porridge. Luo Yu felt indescribable in his heart.

Old man Zhou, who invented the time-space machine in the present world, once said that human society is complex, but farmers have suffered from ancient times to the present. If high technology can be brought back to change the past and society as a whole progresses, perhaps the chances of human survival will be greatly improved.

Technology changes our destiny, but nowadays, even having enough food to eat is a problem.

Under the gaze of everyone, Uncle Zeng picked up the smallest piece of meat and put it into his mouth.

"Dad, we have all eaten, please eat quickly."

If he doesn't eat now, the eldest son of the Zeng family will start drooling.

Luo Yu looked at the dozens of acres of land and asked, "Uncle, how much wheat can you harvest from this acre of land? How much wheat can you and Aunt Zhang harvest in a day?"

"The wheat is growing well this year, but it rained a couple of days ago, so I'm afraid the harvest will be affected. My mother and I, plus our two children who can help a little, can harvest six or seven acres a day."

He paused and continued, "It would be fine if it doesn't rain these two days, but if it does, we'll have to speed up the harvest at night. We've been working for three or four days straight and haven't had a good rest. We only slept for a few hours last night.

We harvested the wheat for Mr. Li's family before the rains. The best acre of land probably yielded 150 dan (130 jin) of wheat. We would be thankful if we could get more than dan ( jin) of wheat for our own farm."

Luo Yu and Qin Bingrui looked at each other. It was unimaginable that one acre of land only produced more than 100 kilograms.

"Sister, is the harvest a lot or a little?" Bai Lingyi has been accustomed to a life of wealth and luxury since childhood, and has no idea of the hardship of working in the fields.

Luo Yu did some calculations in his mind and said to Bai Lingyi word by word: "If we assume that the average yield per mu of land is one dan, then twenty mu of land can only produce 20 dan of wheat. Twenty dan of wheat can only be ground into 20% white flour, and one liter of white flour is about 10 wen. So 20 dan of wheat can be ground into 16 dan of white flour. 16 dan of white flour is 160 dou, and 160 dou is 1600 liters. All of this is only a wen, a total of 16 taels of silver. And this price of 10 wen per liter of white flour is the price it can be sold at after intermediate processing, which is not a price that ordinary people can afford. If it is discounted in half, 16 taels will only be left with a little more than 8 taels.

Bai Lingyi, what do you think? "

When Bai Lingyi heard this number, he was stunned.

Eight taels of silver was not even one-tenth of the price of the Duan inkstone his grandmother had given him on his eleventh birthday last year.

It's not even as good as a hairpin my mother bought casually, nor is it worth half the price of a tall horse that Qin Bingrui's brother bought, but it's the annual harvest of a family of five?

Luo Yu smiled and continued, "This doesn't include the land tax and other miscellaneous taxes that farmers have to pay. If the tax rate is 10%, then the eight taels of silver will be reduced by another eight cents. If you encounter a bad official and collect 20% more, can you imagine how difficult it will be for the people?"

Qin Bingrui looked at Bai Lingyi's face, which was covered in sweat, and wiped it with his sleeve. He said, "Sister, let's go help Uncle and try to finish the harvest for him today."

Uncle Zeng and Mrs. Zhang were stunned. They listened to Luo Yu's calculations as if they were listening to a mystery. How could someone calculate their annual harvest to an accuracy of 70% or 80% by just asking a few simple questions? It was amazing.

It sounds like sixteen taels a year is really good. If 10% tax is collected this year, twelve taels can be kept. If you save a little, it will be enough for the whole family to eat for two years. However, the price paid for harvesting wheat every year is not only 3 wen per liter, but wen per liter is already good. After deducting the tax, four taels a year is actually the best.

It was only four taels of silver, not enough for an entire family to have food and clothing for a year.

That's why they had to rent the land from Mr. Li's family.

Seeing Qin Bingrui rushing off to help harvest the wheat, Bai Lingyi said weakly to Luo Yu, "Sister, I want to help too?"

"Can you harvest wheat?"

The reason why Luo Yu brought him here was that he hoped Bai Lingyi could truly understand the hardships of ordinary people. Compared to the hardships with no hope of getting out of this situation, would the setbacks Bai Lingyi have experienced be a little less severe?

At least, he still had his grandfather's family to rely on, and he could also change his fate by studying for the imperial examination.

Bai Lingyi shook his head. Luo Yu smiled and said, "Sister, you don't know how either. Let's go and learn from uncle. It would be better if we could learn how to harvest wheat here today."

"Ok!"

Bai Lingyi has been studying in the best academy in Muzhou City since he was four years old. The teacher of the academy also said that asking about the sufferings of the people and knowing their true feelings is the true way to be an official.

Although he was still young and didn't understand the true meaning of it, his father had hoped that he would take the imperial examination and pursue a career in government. He had always believed that pursuing a career in government would simply make the family more prosperous and provide his family with better protection.

Now, he feels lost.

Qin Bingrui learned it quickly and could harvest wheat with a sickle even faster than Uncle Zeng.

As the sky grew brighter and the sun shone brightly on the earth, Bai Lingyi finally understood why Brother Bingrui and Sister Luo Hong were running so fast that they looked like two shadows.

Words spoken are like water spilled, and cannot be taken back. He continued to work hard.

The second boy of the Zeng family was only seven years old. Luo Yu asked him to go back and explain their arrangements for the day to Aunt Fang, as they might have to stay for another day.

When the second son of the Zeng family heard that they would stay for one more day, he jumped back home happily as if he was walking on cotton.

Bai Lingyi looked up and thought he had harvested at least several feet away, but it turned out to be less than ten feet, far behind Sister Luo Hong and Brother Bing Rui.

He couldn't help swallowing when he thought about having to harvest twenty acres of wheat fields today. Even if he was given ten lives and a month, he still couldn't finish the work.

Poor Feiying and his two companions, it would have been bad enough that they didn't have a normal place to rest along the way, but the key was that they had to go to the villagers to exchange for food and water, living like beggars.

Why did Miss Ling Hong insist on helping someone else with farm work when she was just staying there for the night?

Unbelievable.

She and her sister were overwhelmed with regret. Even the boy from the Bai family was hanging out with them. How could a young man who had never suffered any hardship help harvest wheat?

I'm afraid the hardships I've endured in the past ten years are not as much as those I've endured in the past few days.

Fei Jian couldn't help but ask Fei Ying: "Wouldn't it be bad if we just stood by and watched?"

Feiying glanced at him, then looked at Miss Ling Hong who was cutting wheat in the distance as if she had practiced the invisible hand.

"Do you think Miss Ling Hong needs our help? Besides, do you know how to harvest wheat?"

Fei Jian shook his head, but he was very good with the sword and could cut through wheat as easily as chopping off a human head.

"Wait here. I'll go to the nearest town to buy some food. If anything happens, have Fei Dart come to me quickly."

"it is good."