The journey of the only child of a peasant family to take the imperial examination

Seeing that Yang Dianshi admitted his mistake so readily, Zhang Pingan was at a loss for words.

The head of the village was also very perceptive. After listening to what Zhang Ping'an said and seeing that Zhang Ping'an looked unhappy, he quickly asked the villagers to go back to the fields to continue working.

Business was important, so Zhang Ping'an didn't bother with it too much.

The village chief led everyone to the fields.

There are very few large continuous paddy fields in the south, basically just a few acres here and a few mu there.

The villagers have to pull out the seedlings that are less than a foot long and have been grown in advance, bundle them into bunches, and then the men will carry the seedlings to the fields to be planted.

The women and children planted the seedlings in bunches according to the spacing.

Speaking of which, transplanting rice seedlings is a technical job. If you plant them too deep, the seedlings will not survive. If you plant them too shallow, the seedlings will float up.

It's all about practice makes perfect.

In the fields, men, women, young and old were all bent over and busy, even children of four or five years old were no exception.

As for the younger children, since they couldn't do much, they just sat on the edge of the field and played.

It was the first time for Green Bean Eye to see the scene of rice planting, and it was very novel.

Pointing at the cotton thread in the field, he asked curiously, "What is this for?"

Zhang Laoer explained, "Tie the cotton string to two wooden stakes and insert them at both ends of the field so that the grid is aligned. Otherwise, it will be easy to insert them crookedly and the planting will be uneven."

"Oh, so that's it," the man with green eyes touched his chin and nodded.

At this moment, he suddenly saw a child of six or seven years old in a field not far away with two or three black things stuck on his legs, and the child even seemed to be moving.

I couldn't help but hold the fan and shouted: "Hey, kid, what's that on your leg? It seems to be moving!"

Maybe there were too many children in the field, and when Green Bean Eyes shouted, many of them looked over.

Seeing that Zhang Ping'an and his group were wearing official uniforms, he quickly turned his head back.

Zhang Lao Er knew that a young master born with a silver spoon in his mouth wouldn't understand these things, so he explained again: "That's a leech, it's burrowing into your calf and sucking blood. Just swat it out!"

"What?" Green Bean Eyes' face was filled with question marks. "What is that?"

After saying that, he turned to the village chief and said, "That kid, help me call him."

The village chief said earnestly, "Okay, okay!"

Then he shouted with full energy: "Idiot, come here quickly! The officials are calling you!"

The child reacted now. He put down the seedlings in his hand and stepped onto the edge of the field. He looked up at his dark face and asked in confusion, "Sixth Grandpa, what do you want me to do? I'm busy!"

Green Bean Eyes tapped the child's leg with his fan: "There are leeches on your legs."

After seeing this, the child calmly took his straw sandals from the edge of the field, put them on his calves and patted them, and the leech slowly fell onto the edge of the field.

I guess they sucked a lot of blood, the three leeches were fat and still twisting.

After seeing the leech clearly, Green Bean immediately stepped back three steps and screamed, "What the hell is this? It's so disgusting!"

The village chief was afraid of offending these officials, so he looked around and didn't see anything that could start a fire. He could only use a few pieces of dry soil to smash the leeches to death.

He said embarrassedly, "These filthy things, I'm afraid you officials have never seen them before. They are very easy to keep alive. Even if you smash them into pieces, they will still grow back when they come into contact with water. They have to be burned with fire or dried in the sun to die completely!"

Green Bean Eyes has broadened his horizons. He thinks this thing is scarier than a snake.

Others are used to it.

Zhang Lao Er walked and looked around, nodding repeatedly and saying, "These paddy fields are nice and fertile. You can tell they've been carefully tended."

"Village chief, what is the approximate yield per mu of this high-quality paddy field?" Zhang Ping'an asked with his head tilted.

The village chief rubbed his hands and said cautiously, "It depends on how each family takes care of the fish, and whether God will give it to them. In good times, it can weigh around 350 kilograms, but in bad times, it may not even weigh 300 kilograms."

The village chief was also feeling miserable. He didn't know why it was their village's turn for inspection this year. He suspected that the village chief was picking on him because he had given too little to the head of the village during the New Year.

This is the most difficult job. If I talk too much and the county magistrate believes it, the land tax will definitely be high. If there is not enough grain during the autumn harvest, the people will have no choice but to tighten their belts and pay the tax. Then the villagers within a hundred miles will hate me!

But the report was too little, and the grain officials following the county magistrate were no pushovers. They would definitely suspect that he was deceiving his superiors and subordinates and had ulterior motives. If he wasn't careful, he might even be thrown into jail.

Especially when he heard about the beheading of Yu County Magistrate's family when he went to the county to purchase groceries, the village chief became even more afraid of the newly appointed County Magistrate Zhang.

This per-acre yield is similar to that of Ezhou Prefecture, a land of fish and rice. This shows that the people of Ci County are better off than those in other places.

Zhang Ping'an also has no intention of inflating tax items. According to the current tax policy, if the weather is good this year, the people will definitely have a good New Year.

He said no more.

The village head, observing this, stroked his beard and said with a smile, "Hey, that's not right, Village Head Su. I heard someone say that someone in your village harvested over 400 kilograms of grain per mu of land last year!"

Hua Wanli stopped walking and raised an eyebrow. "Over 400 catties per mu? I'm from Lin'an, not too far from here, and I know a bit about farming. But I've never heard of anyone around here producing over 400 catties per mu. Perhaps the village head heard wrongly?"

"Yes, our Ezhou Prefecture is a land of fish and rice, and I have never heard of an area that can produce more than 400 kilograms per mu." Zhang Laoer was also puzzled. He was an old farmer, and he had planted high-quality fields, medium-quality fields, and even the worst low-quality fields and sandy land. In the best year, the best high-quality fields could only yield more than 360 kilograms, and that was the best!

He has lived for most of his life and has never heard of anyone around him being able to produce more than 400 kilograms per mu.

Everyone looked at the village chief.

The village chief was sweating profusely. He was now certain that the headman was not just trying to make fun of him, but was clearly trying to make fun of him.

Looking at Zhang Pingan and others, they were standing with their hands behind their backs and looking serious.

He knelt down and kowtowed, explaining, "County Magistrate, there is indeed a family in our village that is better at farming than others. They can always harvest dozens of kilograms more per mu than others. But you don't know that the farmer who farms this land is a fool. He is the only one in his family, his wife, his children, and a grandmother who is over seventy years old. This fool is not good at anything else, but he is a good farmer.

"I've asked him before, but this idiot knows nothing. I've watched him farm the entire process and I don't see any difference. From raising seedlings to transplanting, to finally setting ears, it's all the same as ours. This... this doesn't mean that everyone in our village can harvest so much! I hope the master will understand!"

"Is there such a thing? It's okay, take me to his field first," Zhang Ping'an raised his hand and motioned the village chief to stand up.