"Because of Tao Shu. In the past years, I was the one who built roads and dug rivers. But now that I'm gone, that family can't afford five hundred coins. When the government recruits people, Tao Shu will definitely come to make trouble."
"And you are studying now, and your reputation is very important to you. If we refuse too thoroughly, will outsiders think you are cold-blooded and heartless?"
Tao Zhu was worried and, of course, angry.
"We are not really cold-blooded. As long as they have the intention to repent, then we will definitely be willing to give them a hand. But they don't! They just want to suck blood from us."
Why did he meet such a difficult relative?
well!
"So it's this..." Li Qiao understood.
He had a solution, but he couldn't say it.
So, he hugged Tao Zhu's waist and comforted him softly: "One step at a time, if he goes out to ruin my reputation, then the villagers will definitely turn against us."
"What if he goes to a private school to make trouble? You will go to a private school in the future. Even if your classmates know that he is hateful, but seeing that he is a poor man, but we are popular and drink hot food, then even if we are reasonable, we will become It’s unreasonable.”
"We'll wait until he really makes a fuss. Let's live our lives now."
Li Qiao could only say this.
Tao Zhu sighed, yes, there is really no other way at the moment, alas!
On the third day after Mrs. Tao came to Li Qiao's house for dinner, Tao Shu came.
He came to ask Tao Zhu for money and did not want to do corvee service.
Tao Zhu naturally refused to give him, and clenched his fists to beat him. The corvee work here in Pingcheng was not heavy, it was just building roads and digging rivers. He refused to do any of these jobs. This was simply because he wanted to be beaten.
When Tao Shu saw that Tao Zhu was going to beat him, he yelled at Tao Zhu to beat him to death just like before.
When Tao Zhu's fist really fell on him, he screamed like a ghost and howled, saying that he was going to die in Li Qiao's house.
He actually hit the kitchen wall as he spoke.
Tao Zhu didn't want to pay for his medicine, so he wanted to pull him away. Seeing this, he thought he had Tao Zhu in his grasp, and even went so far as to hit the wall with all his strength.
He wanted to touch porcelain, but somehow, his foot slipped and he fell to the ground.
His head happened to hit the green brick placed in the corner.
Blood spurted out immediately, and he fainted.
Tao Zhu was startled, while Li Qiao carried a medicine box to help him stop the bleeding, but the bleeding couldn't be stopped, so the couple took out the bullock cart and sent him to the county seat.
When he arrived at the county hospital, the doctor worked hard to stop the bleeding, but Tao Shu had a high fever that night and almost didn't survive.
The next day in the evening, he finally woke up, but he looked a little stupid.
And I dare not move my head at will, as it hurts whenever I move.
According to the doctor, he had a fever that burned his brain.
Li Qiao: "..."
High fever can indeed burn out a person's brain, but this happens more often in babies. Because babies' brains are not fully developed, high temperatures can affect the nerves in their brains.
But adults don’t do this. Their brains have already finished developing.
But this kind of opportunity, which is more difficult than winning the lottery, came to Tao Shu. It can only be said that Tao Shu was unlucky.
He didn't do anything. He just made Tao Shu fall. Who knew what the consequences would be.
Tao Shu stayed in the hospital for a few more days. The wound on his head stopped bleeding, but he was indeed stupid.
This stupidity does not mean that he has really become a fool, but that his reaction is very slow. If you say a word to him, he will have to think for half a minute before he can respond.
Moreover, he still has the sequelae of a concussion and cannot move his head at will.
Mrs. Tao, Old Man Tao and Lai Dongmei cried heartbrokenly. They relied on Tao Zhu and had to make Tao Zhu pay for it.
With the villagers present, these three people didn't even touch the corner of Tao Zhu's clothes.
However, Tao Zhu and Li Qiao discussed it and decided to give in.
Although he is a married husband, who makes him soft-hearted.
From now on, he can take care of Taoshu.
However, the standard of food is the same as that of Mrs. Tao and Mr. Tao. You can eat vegetables and wild vegetable soup as much as you like to keep yourself satisfied.
As for Lai Dongmei, he really has no obligation to care about Lai Dongmei's food.
This result made the villagers a little bit sad, but Tao Shu deserved it. A big man with hands and feet, could go to collect sweet potatoes for Lai Dongmei's mother's family but couldn't do corvee?
He threatened Tao Zhu with being hit to death, but in the end he was knocked stupid. God has eyes, and God has shown his power again.
Some people even said that this is good. At least they won’t have to worry about food and drink in the future. Isn’t this better than before?
However, the villagers also knew about the peeing habits of the three Tao family members, and were afraid that these three people would cause trouble at Li Qiao's house, so they paid close attention to the situation at Li Qiao's side twelve hours a day.
In this bustle, the autumn harvest is over, the autumn tax is also over, and the next step is to plant winter wheat and perform corvee service.
To perform corvee service, one man from each family would go to the place designated by the government to work with tools and dry food.
The corvee work here in Pingcheng mainly involves repairing pipelines and digging rivers.
The roads at this time were all dirt and could easily become potholed, so they had to be repaired every year.
This job is not heavy.
Digging a river, sometimes to dig a new river channel, sometimes to dig out the silt in the river to dredge the river channel, is a heavier job than building roads.
The job assigned to Sanliu Village this year is to dig a river fifty miles away.
The imperial court wanted to build a big river to facilitate irrigation by the people in nearby villages, so all the corvee work in nearby villages this year was to dig rivers.
This year, Sanliu Village relies on buckwheat, and the income of each household is more than before. However, if you don't do corvee work, you have to pay 500 coins. Many families are reluctant to part with this money, plus the distance from the location of digging the river Sanliu Village is not that far away, so except for a few families, most families send out a man to dig the river with a simple bag and dry food.
The fifty-mile road is actually not that close, and it would be a waste of time to go back and forth every day. The government will provide simple tents, and the villagers can live in the river.
There was a bumper harvest of sweet potatoes this year, but no one in Sanliu Village took the sweet potatoes to dig the river.
Everyone pays the autumn tax with sweet potatoes. If they also bring sweet potatoes, then they must be sweet potatoes every time.
Although sweet potatoes are delicious, eating too much can cause heartburn!
Therefore, the villagers in Sanliu Village bring other miscellaneous grains, such as millet and sorghum.
After this group of people dug the river and left, life in Sanliu Village continued as usual, and winter plowing began. This was related to next year's wheat harvest, so carelessness was not allowed.
But the sweet potatoes at home also have to be consumed.
In previous years, one cellar could store all the sweet potatoes, but this year it would take two or even three cellars to store all the sweet potatoes.
If so many sweet potatoes are not eaten quickly, they will either go bad or be made into dried sweet potatoes and kept to feed the pigs.
With corn in front, no one really wants to feed sweet potatoes to pigs.
After such a long period of observation, the villagers concluded Li Qiao's reading pattern: when it gets dark, he stops reading.
Therefore, in the past few days, people have been coming to Li Qiao's house every day to find out if Li Qiao has any new achievements.
Everyone has long known that Li Qiao is using sweet potatoes to make various delicacies in order to find a way to make money for the many sweet potatoes.
But it's been more than half a month, and with Li Qiao's intelligence, it seems like there's been no progress.
But yes, if you can find a way to make money for sweet potato by just doing it casually, then this money way has been found long ago.
Everyone has been growing sweet potatoes for so many years, but no one has come up with new tricks for sweet potatoes.
That afternoon, Li Ping came to buy Youth League.
She hadn't been here for several days. After buying the Youth League, she didn't leave. Instead, she stayed to eat, chatting with Tao Zhu while eating.
"My father just came back from the construction site and brought Dazhong back."
"Huh? What's wrong with Brother Dazhong?" Tao Zhu was making winter clothes and was a little surprised when he heard this.
Li Dazhong just went to dig the river a few days ago, why is he back today.
"Everything at the construction site is filled with sweet potatoes. He has a weak spleen and stomach. He was so uncomfortable that he couldn't sleep after eating sweet potatoes last night. He can't do any work today. He keeps sweating and his face is sallow. Just as my father is coming back, I put him to bed. He brought it back."
As the village chief, Zhuang Fengshou naturally had to go to the construction site for a few days to settle the villagers in Sanliu Village.
There is a big stove on the construction site, the two villages eat together, and people from Xiaogang Village join Sanliu Village.
The villagers in Sanliu Village bring other miscellaneous grains, but half of the people in Xiaogang Village bring sweet potatoes.
Not everyone will get heartburn if they eat too much sweet potatoes. In addition, there is a bumper sweet potato harvest this year, so people in Xiaogang Village brought sweet potatoes.
Anyway, it’s a big pot meal, so everyone will eat whatever they bring there. There must be some people who don’t bring sweet potatoes, so not all meals will be sweet potatoes.
The people in Xiaogang Village thought very well. It is true that Sanliu Village did not bring sweet potatoes, but they could not resist the fact that all the sweet potatoes provided by the government were sweet potatoes.
Therefore, there are almost no other cereals in the food for the past few days. In the morning, noon and evening, there are sweet potatoes, steamed sweet potatoes, sweet potato porridge with clear soup and no water, and with a bowl of wild vegetables that are not oily and watery and cannot be aged any more. Just one meal.
Li Dazhong had a weak spleen and stomach and could not bear so many sweet potatoes, so Zhuang Fengshou brought him back.
"Why don't the cooks use other grains to cook?" Tao Zhu asked with a frown.
"Tsk, isn't there a yamen servant here? The yamen servant doesn't want to eat sweet potatoes, and the cook doesn't want to eat them either, so he left the grains brought by our folks to start a small stove."
One government official was responsible for two villages, but in order to have someone to run errands, the government temporarily hired two assistants for the government officials. Therefore, the Sanliu Village and Xiaogang Village were managed by three people.
These three people are all old men. They don't want to eat sweet potatoes, and the cook doesn't want to eat sweet potatoes either, so they can only let the people in the two villages eat sweet potatoes every day.
The grains brought by the folks in Sanliu Village were taken over by the government servants and cooks.
Call this a big deal, but it's not that big either.
In addition, villagers naturally have a kind of fear when facing government officials, so people in the two villages only dare to complain silently in private and dare not really protest.
Tao Zhu had served as a corvee for several years in a row, so he knew all the twists and turns involved.
The government officials were not corrupt, and Li Dazhong was the only one who got into trouble, so the villagers had no choice but to endure it.
"It'll be over after you get through it." That's all he could say.
"No, it's not a big deal. At most, I don't want to eat sweet potatoes for a long time after I come back."
Li Ping didn't think this was a big deal.
Li Dazhong didn't think this was a big deal.
