"Sigou, come here?" Zhang Rui shouted to Chen Sigou who was joking with others.
Hearing Zhang Rui's words, the villagers all looked at Chen Sigou who was talking and laughing.
"Four dogs, Sixth Brother is calling you." Chen Liu reminded his son.
Chen Sigou trotted up to Zhang Rui.
"Brother Six, what do you want from me?"
"It's not a big deal. I'm going to distribute rice to the folks soon! I thought I should take a pen to record which family received the rice and which family didn't, so as not to cause chaos when there are too many people. Don't make it worse then. Some people who have received rice still receive it, and some who have not received it still think they have received it," Zhang Rui said.
"But I asked last night and found out that there is no place in our village where I can buy pens, inks, paper and inkstones. Now I can't leave and go to the county to buy some. I just want to ask you, are you willing to go to the town and buy some for me? "
"Of course there's no problem, Brother Six, don't worry. I'll buy it for you right now, but I haven't bought those things before. I don't know the price and I'm afraid of being cheated." Chen Sigou agreed without any objection. Still a little excited.
"It's okay, this thing isn't worth much. As soon as you enter the store, just ask for pen, ink, paper and inkstone to pay." Zhang Rui said to Chen Sigou naturally,
"Okay, listen to Brother Six."
Zhang Rui took out a bag full of copper coins from his arms. Some of the copper coins were taken from the bandits, some were exchanged with the cooks, and some were exchanged with Li Hun. Most of them are fine copper coins, each worth ten mosquitoes.
Under the influence of TV dramas, Zhang Rui always thought that money in the Qing Dynasty was not worth much. After all, some TV dramas show scenes where eating a bowl of noodles can cost five taels of silver. It wasn't until he exchanged money with the cooks that Zhang Rui had some understanding of money.
I heard Li Hun tell Lei Bao before that one stone of rice costs two to five taels of silver, and one stone of rice is equivalent to 146 pounds in modern market pounds. Judging from the price alone, Zhang Rui thought it was easy to earn a tael of silver, but Zhang Rui, who had never experienced famine years, naturally could not understand how precious food was at that time. There was no price bureau in the Qing Dynasty, and stores could sell whatever they wanted. In ordinary years, the price of rice is only about one or two and five qian. However, as long as there are droughts and floods and transportation is restricted, it is normal for food prices to rise two or three times.
At this time, the average daily wage of an urban worker was about 100 cash, and the highest was no more than 200 cash. The daily wages of rural workers are only between 30 and 50 yuan, and some are even lower. During the Qianlong period, one tael of silver was exchanged for between 900 and 1,100 copper coins, so many villagers may not have seen one tael of silver in their lives.
It can be understood that when Zhang Rui took out 10 taels of silver and gave it to Li Niu Shi, he immediately knelt down and worshiped Zhang Rui. If he were asked to repay according to his usual job, he might not be able to repay it in his lifetime. Maybe his father would die like this because he had no money for medical treatment and recuperation.
Zhang Rui got 300 taels of silver notes, 60 taels of silver ingots and some broken silver and copper coins from Lei Bao. He also found 200 taels of silver notes, 120 taels of silver ingots, a small bag of broken silver and a small bag of copper coins from the bandits. bag. He also took advantage of Li Hun's 160 taels. In addition to what has been spent, Zhang Rui now still has 500 taels of silver notes, 15 silver ingots, 20 taels each, more than 70 taels of broken silver, and more than 500 copper coins for ten mosquitoes.
As expected, only high-risk professions like banditry have high returns. Ordinary people may not be able to earn a hundred taels after working hard for half a lifetime, but it also shows how many bad things these bandits have done over the years, and they deserve to die.
After learning how valuable the money was, Zhang Rui thought about taking the money and hiding somewhere else to live a life of a wealthy family. But like this, bandits may come to take revenge at any time, and you will live in instability for the rest of your life.
Besides, if he can leave, the people in the village may not be able to leave, and they may not all be killed. I didn't kill Boren, but Boren died because of me. So Zhang Rui thought twice and decided to recruit troops to kill this group of bandits first.
Zhang Rui gave Li Sigou two copper coins for shopping expenses, and an additional one hundred copper coins for running errands. It means that you don’t need to buy something too good, as long as it works.
"Brother Six, how can I ask for your money? I didn't even thank you for the dinner you invited us to last night. This was just a matter of running errands. People in the country will walk around if they have nothing to do. If I still charge you money, I won't Are you too ignorant?" Li Sigou said when he refused the hundred mosquitoes given by Zhang Rui.
"Take it! You can make your brothers suffer by doing things for Sixth Brother. Sixth Brother is not short of your money, you deserve it." Zhang Rui said
After listening to Zhang Rui's words, Li Sigou silently put away the money. After all, his family really needs money, especially money that can give him peace of mind. Then Zhang Rui asked him to pay attention to his safety and asked him to take some money from the two coins to buy breakfast when he arrived in town.
The villagers present felt that Li Sigou was very lucky, and it only took less than half an hour to go back and forth from the village to the town. This made me easily earn a hundred coins and a breakfast. Sure enough, working with Sixth Brother was beneficial.
When Zhang Rui entered Li's Mansion, he encountered the kitchen workers who stayed at Li's Mansion last night and were packing up the tables, chairs, pots, dishes and dishes from last night and getting ready to go back.
So Zhang Rui and his boss bought them three large pots and many bowls and chopsticks, and then asked the kitchen workers to cook three large pots of porridge. He took out the three jars of sauerkraut that Li Huan had asked for last night and gave them porridge for breakfast to everyone waiting. For the villagers who had not had breakfast, everything was so beautiful.
The rice for making porridge was good rice bought from Li Hun last night for thirty taels. This rice is reserved for when Li Decai's family comes back here, so there is no need to use it urgently. Li Hun thought about selling it at a high price and then returning it at a lower price, so he dared to buy it to Zhang Rui.
Originally, Zhang Rui wanted to buy ten shi of rice, but the Li Mansion only had more than seven shi, so he could only buy seven shi of rice. Fortunately, it only costs about three kilograms of rice to be distributed to the villagers, and there is still some leftover food after the overall distribution.
When Zhang Rui said that he needed to buy more grain, Li Hun said that the Li family still had a granary here, but how much he could sell to Zhang Rui and how much he wanted to sell depended on his master. Zhang Rui asked him to go back and ask, so Li Hun went back to the town early in the morning before dawn. After all, he wanted to ask for more than just this one thing.
Time is passing, because there is breakfast to eat, even if you want to sleep for a while, you will be woken up to drink porridge, so after a while the villagers will come over to drink porridge. As a result, the kitchen workers had to cook three more pots of porridge before they could eat it.
It wasn't until the chefs left the village with envious eyes that Li Sigou finally came back. He handed Zhang Rui the pen, ink, paper and inkstone he asked for, as well as 560 Wen. Among them, the pen and ink cost 1,100 yuan, the pen only cost 40 yuan, and I bought two more, and the rest bought about 20 pieces of paper. After Zhang Rui thanked him, he took the bowl and drank the porridge.
No one in the whole village could write, so Zhang Rui had no choice but to do it himself. Fortunately, he also won the third prize in calligraphy when he was studying. Although his writing is not very beautiful, there is no problem with normal writing.
After he finished writing the names of each household representative on a piece of paper, he asked Li Si and the old man of the Zhou family to help look at the scale. Zhou Tong and Zhou Tie were responsible for taking the rice scale. Originally, Li Si didn't know how to read a scale, but he got able to do it after Zhang Rui briefly explained it.
Zhang Rui asked the Li family workers to help put four stones of rice in front of the Li mansion gate. Looking at these four stones of good rice, the villagers were very excited and reassured.
Zhang Rui would ask each household representative to come forward and receive the amount of rice. Zhou Tong and Zhou Tie would weigh it and hand it over to them. The representative would then sign and sign before leaving. After all thirty-two households in the village received rice, it was almost noon.
A total of three shi of rice were handed out, and after picking out four shi of rice, there was still nearly one shi of rice left. The villagers who had received the rice expressed their gratitude to Zhang Rui again. The children felt more lively than during the Chinese New Year these two days.
Looking at the nearly one stone of rice, Zhang Rui once again paid for it and asked someone to go to town to buy meat and vegetables. It would be a good idea to let the villagers have another lunch together with vegetables and rice, and announce that they still have something to talk to the villagers after lunch.
