With this dowry, even if the Ming family had Governor Ming, it would be impossible for Li Yuning to look down on it.
Li Yuning's dowry has been the headline news in Shengjing for several days. Li Yuan also had a dowry of ten miles when she got married. Now Li Yuning's dowry is richer than Li Yuan's. It seems that Li Qiao really loves this sister. Two brothers.
Now Li Qiao also has a niece, Li Xiaolan...
Jiang Maozhen has been under a lot of pressure recently. Li Yuning's dowry when she got married was a big advertisement for Li Xiaolan. Now Li Xiaolan has become a hot commodity, and many more people come to the door to get married than before.
There were top nobles here, as well as some of the most wealthy businessmen in Dasheng. What shocked him even more was that some scholars from well-off families came to visit!
This is really abominable.
But there was nothing he could do.
The first impression he left on Li Qiao was too bad. Even though he later acted well-behaved, Li Qiao was always polite and distant towards him, without any trace of the intimacy he treated Ming Xi.
He was so disturbed by this incident that he didn't even perform well in the examination, but fortunately he had solid basic skills, so he won the Jinshi.
But the imperial examination is next month, so he can't relax yet. We don't know what his final ranking will be. If he doesn't get the first grade, then this marriage will definitely be hopeless.
But it is useless to worry more at this time.
Just concentrate on preparing for the exam!
In this palace examination, Sheng Hong’s questions were both simple and difficult, allowing candidates to express themselves freely:
If there is a famine for consecutive years, how can the government stabilize the situation?
Candidates can set themselves as the governor of a province, a prefecture, or a county to give specific plans.
The answers given by the one hundred and thirty new scholars are varied, but they are all quite reliable. After all, Sheng Hong has been on the throne for more than ten years, and Li Qiao's method of going one step further than other candidates has been around for almost ten years.
Even when Sheng Jun was in power, he was forced by Sheng Hong to abandon his rigidity and seriously study how to solve the problem.
Sheng Hong carefully read the answer sheets of these 130 new scholars, and personally selected the number one scholar, role model, and top scorer in the first class.
Jiang Mao did not perform well in the joint examination, but performed well in the palace examination, and was selected as the third overall winner by Sheng Hong.
When this result came out, Jiang Mao was really relieved.
so far so good.
At least he still has a chance.
Li Qiao didn't take the initiative to ask about Jiang Mao's test paper, but Sheng Hong did talk to him about it.
Jiang Mao set himself up as the governor of a province. Taking Yuanhe Province as an example and considering the recent cold weather, he wrote a good policy article.
The article has strict logic. It first writes about a series of impacts and natural disasters caused by the cold weather, and then writes down specific solutions according to the different degrees of the disasters.
The article is eloquent and has more than 10,000 words. It not only demonstrates Jiang Mao's ability to coordinate the overall situation, but also demonstrates Jiang Mao's detailed understanding of farming and people's conditions.
Sheng Hong's original words were that the young man was brave enough to set himself up as the governor of a province as soon as he came up, but he was too young and had insufficient experience. Most of the knowledge he knew was obtained from books and other people's mouths. He didn't see it in person.
This sense of floating was a little on paper, and Sheng Hong was not very reassured, so he decided that Jiang Mao would be the third overall pick.
However, Sheng Hong was hiring people at the right time. He placed this new talent who seemed to be very capable in a newly created official position: Grain Supervisor, instead of letting Jiang Mao go to the Hanlin Academy according to the previous tradition.
Although he wanted to farm in the four southern provinces, Shengjing and Jibei Province certainly could not give up. Therefore, Sheng Hongxin thought of an official name so that he could inspect the crop planting situation in Shengjing and Jibei Province on his behalf.
Grain inspectors do not belong to the six departments. They are ad hoc just like the field doctors. There are five in total. Except for Jiang Mao, who is the most popular, the remaining four are all new scholars.
This is a hard job. I travel almost every day and have to travel all over Shengjing and Jibei Province.
Fortunately, cement roads are now paved in both places, which not only shortens the distance, but also makes walking on the road much more comfortable.
However, after all, this job is really hard, and you have to withstand wind, rain, sun and sun.
But Jiang Mao was very happy after receiving the appointment. He didn't want to be promoted step by step, so he made a mistake when he met Li Qiao for the first time.
If he were really allowed to enter the Hanlin Academy and follow Xin Zhi's path, and still stay in the Hanlin Academy after so many years of hard work, then it would be a real torture for him.
He just wants to do something big!
He just wanted to do something practical, and he didn't want to be trapped in the Hanlin Academy compiling books and compiling history.
Moreover, although the Grain Control Officer is only in the seventh rank, he is directly managed by Sheng Hong like the farm doctor, and his immediate boss is the Holy One!
I remember that when his grandfather was the magistrate of Pingcheng, he was deeply afraid that the Holy Emperor would forget him, a seventh-grade official. Now it was his turn. Although he was also a seventh-grade official, the Holy Emperor would never forget him no matter what.
He is full of energy!
Li Qiao was a little surprised by Jiang Mao's attitude. Is this young man really focused on his career and not bothering with anything?
When Jiang Mao came to visit him, he sincerely encouraged him and suggested that Jiang Mao hire people from Royal Logistics as bodyguards.
The grain inspector is equivalent to Sheng Hong's imperial envoy. He checks the crop planting conditions of each village and town in Shengjing and Jibei Province. This can easily offend local officials and dignitaries.
To prevent someone from getting sacked or even losing your life, it is better to hire a few bodyguards.
Jiang Mao readily accepted Li Qiao's suggestion and was accompanied by six strong men from the royal logistics company when he left Beijing. The Jiang family was not short of money and he could afford to hire so many people.
Soon it was the end of April.
The weather is getting hotter.
It's not long before the wheat is ripe.
After that spring snow, it never rained again in Shengjing, and the main work of farmers became irrigation again.
At this critical moment, Wang Guihua did not run back and forth between her village as before, because Zheng Qianqian was about to give birth.
Zheng Qianqian's pregnancy was twins. Their belly was very big and it was difficult to walk. Li Qiao specially informed Ming Shenghong and invited two imperial doctors to live in the house.
He also invited Dr. Chen, who was sent by the Seventh Prince when Tao Zhu was pregnant.
There were three doctors with superb medical skills in charge. In early May, Zheng Qianqian successfully gave birth to a son and a daughter.
Although Zheng Qianqian was exhausted, he was very happy. He had been looking forward to giving birth to a brother, and now he was gifted with a delicate and soft girl. The sin of pregnancy was not in vain!
Li Xia gave birth to her second child three months ago, a fat boy. Now there are three more babies in the family.
The birth of a child was a happy event, so Li Qiao waved his hand and gave his clerk an extra month's wages as a reward, and also gave his tenant farmers a 10% reduction in rent.
Now the entire Li family's clerks and tenants became happy. For several days, they chanted various auspicious words and sent blessings to the three newborn babies.
Although Li Qiao couldn't hear it, they felt it.
After the wheat harvest, farmers' daily tasks include irrigation, weeding, and catching insects to ensure a bumper harvest.
At the end of the sixth lunar month, Sheng Hong received an urgent report from the five prefectures in central Xishan Province. These five prefectures were experiencing a major locust plague that had not been seen in decades.
The locusts are overwhelming and dense, and they are moving south quickly.
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Chapter 225 Locust Plague Various Measures
It was written in the report that locusts were covering the sky and the sun. Apart from soybeans, locusts were lying on every green place in the fields. There were three layers inside and three layers outside, which were a foot thick.
These locusts fly around and are not afraid of people when they meet them. They just bump into people, making them afraid to open their eyes.
The adults were okay. They wrapped their heads in cloth towels, grabbed big brooms or other tools, and tried their best to kill the locusts. The younger children closed the doors and windows and didn't even dare to go out.
The local government did not sit still and wait for death. The local people also struggled hard, beating and sweeping the locusts from tree trunks and seedlings. They gathered them together with flammable materials such as dry firewood and fallen leaves, and burned them in a fire.
But how do humans compare to billions of locusts?
A single locust is inconspicuous, but when hundreds of millions of them gather together, it is impossible to compete with the population density at this time.
The local government and people tried their best, but the effect was minimal. These locusts gnawed all the greenery except soybeans, and then moved southward.
There are a total of twenty-three counties in these five prefectures, and locust plagues occurred in seventeen of them.
Sheng Hong looked at these reports, his face so gloomy that a storm could break out at any time.
According to the description, it is indeed a major locust plague that has been rare in decades.
The only good thing is that this locust plague occurred at the end of June. Now we should seize the time to plant some sweet potatoes, so that we can still harvest a wave of autumn crops in winter.
If it happens when the autumn grain harvest is about to happen, it will make people cry without tears.
While Sheng Hong collected seedlings and seeds and had them transported to the seventeen counties, he quickly issued an edict to the local officials in the south of the seventeen counties so that these local officials could be prepared to exterminate the locusts.
Locusts can move as fast as three hundred miles in a day, and the expedited edict of eight hundred miles can outrun the locusts.
But the locusts were already covering the sky and the earth. Even if he issued an edict, it would actually be of little use. It's impossible to capture them all just relying on manpower.
…
Instead of focusing on exterminating locusts, we should focus on replanting and harvest whatever we can.
Sheng Hong was not in a beautiful mood, and all civil and military officials in the dynasty were shrinking their necks to minimize their presence, and the same was true for Li Qiao.
When I got home from get off work in the afternoon, Tao Zhu went to the school and hadn't come back yet. Zheng Qianqian was out of confinement. She didn't want to stay in the house in the summer, so she took her twins and Li Xia to sit and play under the persimmon tree in the west courtyard.
Fan Yuanyuan sat aside and helped take care of it.
Li Erbao and Brother Ju are one year older, and the three-year-old can already play with Li Xiaorui, Li Changfeng and Li Yunfan.
It was still hot at 4:30 in the summer, so the five little guys were not running around and playing. They stayed under the persimmon tree and were playing in the mini kitchen.
The mini kitchen is to make some small kitchen utensils that are real and usable but only the size of a palm, allowing a few children to cook like a house.
As a grown man, Li Qiao naturally wouldn't have thought of such a small toy. It was Li Xiaorui who gave him the inspiration.
On New Year's Eve, Li Xiaorui enthusiastically made animal dumplings with his two uncles. Although the little animals were made in various ways, the three of them were very excited. They talked together and prepared to cook them themselves.
Of course Zheng Qianqian and Wang Guihua allowed such a small job as cooking dumplings. Li Xiaorui was about to be seven years old at that time, and a seven-year-old baby could be used as an adult in the countryside.
Li Xiaolan was also seven years old when Li Qiao first traveled through time, but Li Xiaolan could do all the work like cooking, washing, feeding chickens and pigs.
So Li Qiao asked someone to bring him a small stove. It was small, the kind that Tao Zhu used to deliver meals to him in winter, and could be placed in a carriage.
The small stove was brought and the small pot was put on. The three little guys squatted at the door of the kitchen and started cooking.
The first time I cooked dumplings was a success. The three little guys were very satisfied with the food from the small bowls, which inspired the three of them to be passionate about cooking.
But cooking requires talent, and they are young. After Li Xiaorui's face was scalded with a few blisters by the hot oil splashed from the pot, Zheng Qianqian stopped him from messing around.
Li Qiao was also very distressed, but it was obvious that Li Xiaorui's passion for cooking had not subsided, so he thought of a mini kitchen.
