【Quick Wear】My Years as a Mother-in-law

"Eat, Chunsheng and Meizi have twenty each, Yanran and Xiaqing have twelve each, and sixteen will be enough for me." Yun Xi divided the wontons with a smile, without a trace of bias.

Li Chunsheng watched silently, pushed his bowl over, and took his stepmother's bowl, "Mom, you eat my bowl, I want to save some room for the braised meat."

"Ah? Okay, thank you Chunsheng, eat it all and don't be so modest. We have buns and braised meat at home, so we have enough food." Yun Xi did not refuse. She couldn't keep rejecting her child's filial piety. Over time, the child would easily be disappointed and become indifferent. However, she would accept the filial piety of the other three people next time, and this time she would accept Chunsheng's first.

Everyone carried their own bowl of rice and did not go to the main room to eat. The kitchen was quite large, with a large stove and a fire. It was just right to eat here. It was warm and they could chat. Yun Xi did not care. Poor people could not care about so many things. It was snowing outside and it was slippery.

Everyone was eating from their bowls while waiting for what was in the pot. Li Meizi ate very politely. After finishing a few wontons, she said, "Mom, I've fed the livestock in the backyard."

Li Chunsheng followed her, talking about things in the village. "My eldest cousin's wife from my uncle's family is vomiting a lot. She can only eat pears and persimmons. She throws up everything else. There are also rumors of pregnancy in other families."

Li Meizi nodded. "The clan leader said that if there are a few sunny days in the winter, he will take people to Rongcheng. There's a new baby in the clan, and they need to buy some nutritional supplements and a ginseng root as a precaution, in case something goes wrong during the birth."

Speechless, Yun Xi spit out, "That's all nonsense. Don't you know it's bad for both the mother and the baby if you don't take good care of your body before getting pregnant? What's the rush? We've already endured the years of disaster, what will happen if we wait another year or two?"

Two blushes appeared on Li Meizi's face, and she looked at Li Chunsheng shyly. Li Chunsheng seemed to have noticed something and turned his head to give Meizi a shy smile.

Yun Xi: Damn it, I’m eating dog food again.

The two little ones only had their eyes on food. They were already full after finishing the wonton stew, but they were reluctant to give up the delicious bone soup, so they drank it all in one gulp.

After eating wontons, Li Chunsheng washed a few bowls. Li Meizi took out the newly bought coarse cloth and sat in front of the stove to sew clothes. Yun Xi showed her the pattern of an apron and asked her to make one when she had time. Li Meizi said it was no problem.

At this time, the second sister-in-law Wang Xing was knocking on the door. Yun Xi had no relationship with this taciturn second sister-in-law, so out of curiosity, she quickly asked her to come over, "Second sister-in-law, what's the matter with you?"

Wang Xing said embarrassedly, "Third sister-in-law, it's embarrassing to say this, but my period hasn't come for two months, and my belly is a little big now. Based on past experience, I might be pregnant. I wanted to come to you to buy some brown sugar and cloth. The brown sugar is for nourishing my body, and the cloth is for making small clothes for the child."

Yun Xi opened her mouth in shock and stammered for a long time, "Second sister-in-law, you are already 38, right?"

Wang Xing said sadly, "I used to have easy pregnancies. I gave birth to triplets two years before the disaster, but they all died. This was an accident."

Yun Xi remembered this incident. Wang Xing had an easy fertility physique. Two years after her marriage, she gave birth to two big fat boys. Unfortunately, she injured herself during the birth of the second child. It wasn't until two years before the disaster that she became pregnant again and gave birth to triplets. Unfortunately, they didn't survive the disaster...

The second branch has the fewest children among the three brothers. There are eight people in Li Daniu's family, including Li Daniu and Yu Qianer, and then five children, Li Dashan, Li Ershan, Li Sanshan, Li Shangshan and Li Wushan. Li Sishan's name was not nice and was replaced by Li Shangshan, as well as Li Dashan's wife Yu Lele.

Yu Qianer and Yu Lele are called Big Yu and Little Yu by their clan members.

There are only five people in Li Erniu's family now, including Li Daniu and Wang Xing, Li Liushan, Li Qishan and Li Liushan's wife Wang Xiaoxiao.

Wang Xing'er and Wang Xiaoxiao are called Big Wang and Little Wang by their clansmen.

That's right, Yu Lele and Wang Xiaoxiao are from Yu Qian'er's and Wang Xing'er's maternal families respectively, but they are separated by several branches and their blood relationship is very weak. Lijia Village is doing well in the surrounding areas because of those dozens of pear trees, and many people want to marry into the village. So Yu Qian'er and Wang Xing adhered to the idea of ​​keeping things within the family and married their eldest sons to the younger generation from their maternal families.

"Okay, I still have three pieces of cotton cloth and more than a pound of brown sugar left. How much do you want?" Yun Xi didn't think any more.

"I want half a piece of cotton cloth and half a pound of brown sugar." Wang Xing followed Yun Xi into the house.

In the main hall, Yun Xi cut cloth for her. "One piece of cotton costs five hundred coins, half a piece costs two hundred and fifty coins. One pound of brown sugar costs one guan, half a pound costs five hundred coins. I remember no one bought cotton. Do you want some? I'll make some winter clothes for the child."

Wang Xing was about to take out some money from her pocket when she heard this and asked curiously, "What's the price of cotton now?"

Yun Xi: "One jin of old cotton costs three hundred and fifty coins."

In a good year, a pound of new cotton only costs about 200 wen. Wang Xing was reluctant to spend it. "Forget it, it's a bit expensive. I'll see next year."

"Row."

After receiving the money, Yun Xi escorted the man out the door.

The cotton that my second sister-in-law mentioned is unlikely to drop in price next year. After the disaster, everyone prioritizes growing crops, so who would be willing to grow cotton? Besides, two hundred wen per pound of cotton is the purchase price of merchants, so it will definitely be more expensive if you buy it in the city.

Would cotton farming be very profitable next year? Would two mu of land be enough? Yun Xi fell into deep thought.

"System, how are Jin Country's taxes calculated?"

System: "The taxes in Jin State are divided into two parts. One is the land tax, which is calculated based on the area of ​​land owned by each household. The other is the labor service, which is calculated based on the number of able-bodied laborers in each household who work for the government on a regular basis. This can be offset with money.

The land tax is calculated according to three grades: upper, middle and lower. The upper grade is three dou of rice per mu, the middle grade is two dou of rice, and the lower grade is one dou of rice. In addition, an additional kilogram of rice is required per mu. Finally, there is a loss in the transportation of grain and the recasting of tax silver. An additional three percent surcharge is levied per mu of land. There are three reasons for paying agricultural taxes in total.

As for cloth, each household had to pay two feet of silk per year.

In addition, there is no fixed amount of labor service silver.

There are generally four types of labor: Lijia, which includes tax collection and requisition of various materials, as well as short-term labor such as transporting grain. This type of labor is usually completed by yamen runners and is a lucrative job.

Equal labor service: It is year-round, full-time labor, usually completed by criminals. If there is a shortage of labor, the court will often conscript people to complete the work, such as building city walls, county government offices, roads and bridges, or dams, etc. In areas rich in minerals, people are also required to work in mines to complete the court's KPIs, etc.

Post station: Maintaining the post station and providing services. This requires connections to do, and the staff at the post station are paid.

"Minzhuang: Military service, conscription to supplement the army, commonly known as military service."

"Generally speaking, the uniformed labor service requires one person per household per year, and a few taels of silver can cover it. Military service would probably require more than ten or twenty taels of silver." This was a systematic guess. "Military service doesn't occur every year."

Yun Xi was a little confused after hearing this. After thinking about it carefully, she took out a pen and paper to calculate how much tax her family needed to pay.