Traveling through troubled times to escape famine and cultivate crops as a grain merchant

Chapter 691: The Ash Pile in the County

The next morning, she got up before daybreak and wandered around the streets.

After wandering around for half an hour, I saw someone coming onto the street and starting to sweep the street with a broom.

Zhou Guo watched for a while, then stepped forward and said, "Uncle, it's really cold, you got up so early!"

The old man glanced at her and was somewhat flattered by her attire. He couldn't understand why a young man from a rich family would talk to a street sweeper like him. He choked and said, "Good morning, sir."

Zhou Guo handed him a steamed bun, which he had been holding in his arms, so he was not very cold. "Uncle, I want to ask you something. Where are you going to put the ashes you swept out?"

The old man accepted the steamed buns after seeing that Zhou Guo had no ill intentions, and he was relieved and spoke more fluently. He pointed to the bucket beside him and said, "When this bucket is full, take it to another street. There is a place for ashes there. When the ashes are full, the government will naturally send people to take the ashes away."

Zhou Guo asked again: "Where do they pull it? Do they pull it every day?"

The old man put the steamed buns in his arms and said with a smile: "Pull them outside the city. I sweep these streets every day. I come to clean them when they are full. You can go and see for yourself."

Zhou Guo thanked the old man and went to see it himself.

It was said to be a place for ash dumping, and it really was a place for ash dumping. There wasn't even a bucket. They just dug a pit and dumped all the dirt in it. There were also a lot of rotten vegetable leaves, vegetable peels, and even slop left all over the ground. It was so smelly that there was almost no room for more.

She looked at these as if they were looking at gold all over the ground, they were all good things!

After seeing the place, she wandered around the streets again, and by dawn she had almost visited the entire county.

There are more than a dozen such ash piles, each one is huge and full as can be. I don’t know how long it has been since they were cleaned.

If you take these things home, you won’t have to worry about not having enough raw materials for making compost.

She can also use these things to improve the composting process and shorten the composting process, which may make the fertilizer more effective.

After walking around all the streets, she had a general understanding of the garbage in the county. The problem she had to solve now was how to get this job from the government.

It's not difficult to take it over. They are too lazy to do it anyway. The garbage on the street has not been cleaned up for many days. It stinks so much but no one takes it out. It seems that the people doing this work are not very happy.

But she was not very happy to work for the government. It was obvious that she would be skinned alive, even if she was doing a job they were unwilling to do.

After breakfast, she checked out of the room and went to the shop. At that time, in addition to sheep mushrooms and flower mushrooms, the shop also had some beans. Since there was not much grain, it was not sold. There were more than 50 people in her family, and they would consume more than 20,000 kilograms of grain a year.

Now there is one more person coming from the mountain village, and so many permanent and temporary workers, it would be a waste if we don't have enough food in reserve.

The best-selling item in the shop now is flower mushroom. Autumn has arrived and winter is approaching, and everyone needs to prepare food for the winter.

We can’t grow vegetables here in winter, so we have to store more of them, whether they are dried or fresh. Life would be hard without vegetables.

Flower mushrooms are the cheapest and are the first choice for those who are not well-off in the county.

As for those who come from well-off families, they prefer sheep mushrooms and only want the best flower mushrooms, but there are not many such people, so flower mushrooms still sell the best.

She looked at the account book and found that since the beginning of autumn, the business in the shop had been getting better day by day, much better than in the summer.

At that time, sometimes we could only sell four or five orders a day. Now we have at least twenty orders every day, and sometimes even sixty or seventy. The most we sold in a day was eight strings of coins, and we sold several large orders.

After looking at the account book, she went back.

It was not yet noon when I returned to the village. There was no other sound in the village except the crowing of chickens and barking of dogs.

Li and Wu Ya went to work in the fields, applying the last crop of fertilizer to the beans. They would be ready for harvest in half a month.

Only Zhou Xing and Xu were left in the yard. The old man was tending to his strawberry seedlings in the vegetable garden, watching them almost as if they were his eyeballs every day.

Hearing the sound of horse hooves from a distance, he turned around and saw Zhou Guo, and asked in surprise: "Why did you come back by yourself? Didn't you go to Chengding?"

Zhou Guo walked over and said, "I didn't go. Master, how do you think I can take over the job of collecting ashes from the government? It's really a headache. After thinking about it all the way, I think it would be better if I just shoveled the ashes when they dumped them. I don't have to deal with the government, and I don't have to give gifts to anyone. How great is that."

The old man stopped what he was doing and said, "You've already figured it out, why are you still worrying about it? I think your method is the best. Maybe we can just wait until they get to the ground and take it from them directly. We don't have to shovel it ourselves. It's always better to deal with people below than with people above."

Zhou Guo nodded. It would be very troublesome to deal with people from the top down layer by layer.

Thinking of this, he became happy again, "Master, then this is my decision? You will go with me tomorrow?"

The old man shook his head quickly, "I'm not going. I want to grow vegetables. Winter is coming, and I need to fertilize these radishes, cabbages and carrots."

Zhou Guo said, "No need, my mother is still at home, I'll leave this job to her, you can just come with me."

The old man was helpless. "You little girl, you dare to break into a bandit's den by yourself. You need me to go with you to collect night fragrance? What? Are you afraid that it's too smelly? Let me help you smell it?"

Zhou Guo was speechless. "How can you think like that? I have a lot of things to do tomorrow. In addition to the night incense, I also have to collect the ashes. I checked every street and alley today, and every pit is full. If the ashes are not transported away today, there will definitely be a lot more tomorrow. They will be transported out tomorrow. You have to help me see where they are transported to."

The old man didn't want to go anymore. "You can find anyone on the farm to do this job. Why should I do it for you?"

Zhou Guo insisted that he go with him, "How can you not be present for such a big event? Now I am only collecting the people from this county, but I will also collect the people from the entire prefecture in the future. It's such a big deal, Master, you have to help me."

The old man sighed, "I'm so old now. I can't even tend to the vegetable garden every day. I didn't expect that I'd be busier when I'm old than when I was young."

Zhou Guo smiled and went to find Wu Jiang to ask him to prepare manpower for tomorrow. Before the autumn plowing, a layer of fertilizer had to be spread on the ground. Others could not afford it, so they had to do it themselves.

Wu Jiang was in a dilemma. "Master, our convoy has all left, and there is not a single car on the farm now."

Zhou Guo said, "Have you gone crazy collecting mushrooms recently? You didn't go to the car dealership to rent one. Ask all the people who are sawing dead wood to come out. You need to rent at least 30 cars tomorrow, half for collecting night incense and half for collecting ash. Leave at midnight and wait at the East City Gate early."