Rebirth: Making a Fortune in Ancient Times

A few days after selling the watermelons, it was harvest time. Zhang Youtie's family and everyone in the old house worked tirelessly for another ten days to harvest all the corn cobs and bring them home.

Next comes threshing the corn, which is even more difficult than threshing wheat. Since there are no threshing machines now, it all has to be done by hand.

This year's corn yield is good, with about 300 jin per mu. The village chief informed everyone that the autumn tax might start from their area this year, so everyone should hurry up and get the tax grain ready first, and then work on the rest at home.

The autumn tax is the same as the summer tax, still 20% per mu. Because Xia Yu's family bought more people this year, with two more helpers, Uncle Ma and Aunt Ma, Xia Yu's family's corn was directly transported to their own yard this time, instead of being harvested at the old house.

Five people huddled around a mountain of corncobs, rubbing and rubbing them all day long. Liu even sewed a few gloves out of scraps of cloth. The pattern, of course, was provided by Xia Yu. They wore them to prevent their hands from getting cut. During this period, the villagers' daily routine consisted of eating breakfast, rubbing corn after breakfast, eating lunch, rubbing corn again, eating dinner, rubbing corn again, and then sleeping. Looking at the mountain of corn, Xia Yu felt that even working until the New Year wouldn't be enough to finish the work.

Fortunately, by the fifth day, the corn harvest at the old house was finished, and more than a dozen people came to help, finally rescuing Xia Yu from the corn mountain. The family had been eating haphazardly for the past few days, but now with the help of the old house members, Xia Yu happily went to cook.

Xia Yu prepared three meals a day, changing the dishes as she went. Although it was still tiring, it was better for Xia Yu than sitting there motionless husking corn kernels. After three more days of this, they finally finished husking all the corn cobs for Xia Yu's family. From their twenty-eight mu of land, they harvested a total of 8,472 jin of corn kernels. According to the yield reported by the village head, their family needed to hand over 1,680 jin as autumn tax. Xia Yu's family still had 6,792 jin of grain left.

"Dad, will the autumn grain still be sold this year?" Zhang Youtie asked his grandfather.

"I'm not selling it anymore. Your fourth brother doesn't need to pay his tuition anymore, and we have some money saved up. I plan to stockpile this year's autumn harvest."

"That's what I mean too. Having grain in hand gives me peace of mind." Perhaps because of the poor harvests in previous years, Zhang Youtie only kept enough grain to eat each year, selling the rest. He always felt a sense of emptiness. This year, thanks to his daughter's opportunity, the family received some money, and apart from paying taxes, he didn't want to sell a single grain. Although selling shrimp could make money, deep down, Zhang Youtie always felt that money was too fleeting, not as real as land and grain.

After the autumn harvest, wheat is planted, and people gradually have more free time. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone was still busy with the harvest, but now that they have some leisure time, Xia Yu spends her days at home thinking about new foods.

The two Zuixiaolou restaurants in the county town and the prefectural town have started using chili peppers instead of dogwood when cooking, and the taste of chili peppers has begun to be known, accepted and liked by the guests of Zuixiaolou.

Once, when Zhang Youtie was delivering food to the restaurant, Manager Liu asked him for 100 jin of dried chili peppers. Zhang Youtie had no idea how much of that was from his daughter and didn't dare to agree. He only said that he would go home and ask his daughter if they had that much left.

When she got home, she told Xia Yu the news, and Xia Yu was delighted. Anything that could be grown in the ground was no problem for her. Even if she had to grow it fresh, she could easily get a hundred jin (50 kg), especially since she already had plenty stored in her spatial storage. So, in front of her parents, she quickly pulled out three baskets of dried chili peppers from her storage space.

"These three baskets should contain fifty or sixty pounds of chili sauce. I'll plant some more tonight and take them out to dry tomorrow. They should be ready in two or three days."

The dried chilies in the basket were all slowly dried by her over the years. The restaurant initially ordered fresh chilies, but later discovered they spoiled easily and didn't keep well, while dried chilies lasted longer and tasted better in dishes. So these days, the restaurant would buy four or five pounds of dried chilies from her every now and then. Therefore, she would take out some fresh chilies to dry in the yard whenever she had free time, and then store them in her spatial storage once they were dry. Even when people came to her house to chat with her mother, seeing the bright red chilies, they just assumed they were just drying in the sun, and no one suspected that Xia Yu was drying batch after batch.

When the hundred catties of dried chili peppers were delivered to the restaurant, Manager Liu readily paid forty taels of silver. Xia Yu was delighted to receive the silver ingots brought back by Zhang Youtie. She preferred the weighty feel of silver ingots to banknotes.