When the old woman heard this, she happily agreed: "Then what can't you see?" A few of you are nobles at a glance, and it is a blessing for me to come to my house, please come in, please come in. Look at this rainy day, go into the house and sit and drink a cup of hot tea, or get rid of dampness and cold. ”

Holding the child, he happily invited the two into the yard.

Li Jing stood at the door with his hands in his hands, looked at the courtyards in the light rain, and exclaimed: "Even if it is Chang'an, the imperial capital, how can there be such a neat and refreshing place?" This Huating town is worthy of being the first town in the world, and it is breathtaking everywhere. ”

The old woman was inexplicable, I don't know why this white-bearded old man who looked older than her was so emotional, but she didn't dare to ask, although she didn't know the identity of the two people in front of her, but Fang Xuanling's bearing of dominating the world in a high position, and Li Jing's invincible momentum in commanding thousands of armies, all made her feel a kind of palpitations for no reason, these two people looked by no means as simple as ordinary businessmen......

However, I couldn't see any malice on the part of the two, and the old woman was at ease.

led the two to the main hall, entered the house, the two took off their hats, and the old woman shouted while greeting: "Old man, there are guests!" ”

Fang Xuanling hurriedly said: "Sister-in-law doesn't have to be polite, just let us see the woven blanket, I really don't dare to bother more." ”

The old woman was very hearty, and she didn't see the cautiousness and embarrassment of the ordinary peasant woman, and said generously: "The noble man is also his father and I are old and confused, although the person is old, but the eyes are not blind, you are an official of the imperial court, right?" Came to investigate our weavers? ”

Fang Xuanling and Li Jing were stunned, thinking that they were pretending to be good, but they had already been recognized by others......

Li Jing smiled: "It's just two old bones who tell the old man, but what is the matter with the so-called investigation of the weaver just now?" ”

Compared with Fang Xuanling's kindness, the old woman is obviously more afraid of this Li Jing, who is as majestic as an abyss, but when people live older, they will always have some experience, which has nothing to do with origin and culture, it is purely the experience accumulated from long-term life experience, which makes her believe that although the two people in front of her must be noble, they do not have bad intentions......

But even so, the old woman still asked cautiously: "Is it really not the imperial historian?" ”

Fang Xuanling smiled bitterly: "It's really not." ”

The old woman breathed a sigh of relief, and then chattered and said: "You don't know, there was always a so-called imperial historian who came a while ago, you said that you are an official of the imperial court, what is there to ask in the near future?" No, it's always sneaky for fear of being discovered, and then catch and ask some sources of wool, the output of weaving, sales channels, etc., at the beginning we were all inexplicable, and then the town office heard the news, so they sent someone down to remind us, saying that someone in the court wants to be unfavorable to Fang Erlang, and wants to take our job articles, telling us not to talk nonsense......"

Fang Xuanling's heart sank, is there such a thing?

The old woman was very talkative, invited the two of them to sit down, took down the kettle from a small burning stove in the back room, made tea for the two of them, and said, "Do you say that these imperial historians are idle and have nothing to do?" If we ordinary people who don't collect land and don't raise it every day, if we don't have Fang Erlang to weave cloth and carpets to make a living, I'm afraid that we will starve to death a long time ago, and we can still live in such a house and live such a life? In my opinion, there are people who are jealous of Fang Erlang's ability and want to frame Zhongliang! ”

Fang Xuanling and Li Jing both laughed, this old woman is really not simple, a rural villager can actually say such a thing, it is indeed impressive.

Seeing the expressions of the two, the old woman was a little embarrassed, and said with a smile: "I have never seen the world, and these words are all from those merchants who came to receive the goods, don't be surprised, don't be surprised." ”

At this time, an old man came out of the back room, a lean and lean old man, casually wearing a Ge linen clothes, wearing cloth shoes on his feet, but he was clean and neat, very energetic.

"You old woman is talking nonsense again, and you can't change the problem of broken mouth."

The old man complained, saluted Fang Xuanling and Li Jing, and said respectfully: "Little Lao'er has seen two nobles. ”

The old woman complained: "Why is your mouth broken? Am I not right? The whole town was built by Fang Erlang, without Fang Erlang, you are still planting the two acres of mountain land at home in the mountains of Jiangbei, and the hungry children are screaming all day long, and now someone wants to frame Fang Erlang, we naturally have to stand up! ”

The old man said helplessly: "Don't you know that the disaster comes from the mouth?" There are some things that can be done, and there is no need to talk about them everywhere. ”

The old woman snorted twice, obviously unconvinced, but probably because there were outsiders, she had to give the old man a little face, and she told Fang Li and the others about their crimes, and carried the child into the back room.

The old man said, "You two want to see the woven blanket?" That's no problem, please come with the little old man. ”

After that, he took Fang Li and the others out of the main hall and came to the wing room on the east side.

As soon as they entered the wing room, Fang Li and Li were startled, only to see a huge loom placed in the big room, several women were busy, the criss-crossing yarn on the loom was moving rapidly, and the sound of "click" was endless.

Seeing that Fang Li and the others were stunned, the old man explained: "Recently, there has been a shortage of wool, and the weaving of blankets has stopped, which is weaving cotton cloth. However, now the cotton output is limited, and it is spun into cotton thread in Guanzhong and transported over, and if there is no cotton thread to transport it in a few days, I am afraid that it will have to be stopped. ”

As he spoke, he came to the pile of goods in the corner, and lifted a piece of oilcloth covering the outside, revealing a large pile of blankets and fabrics covered underneath.

Fang Xuanling stepped forward to take a closer look and found that the quality of this blanket was not very good, and the patterns were all simple symmetrical textures, far less delicate and gorgeous than the Persian blanket.

The old man said: "Do you think this blanket is not good?" Hehe, according to the blankets that came from the Western Regions, I did check a lot, not that we couldn't weave them, but we didn't weave them. ”

Fang Xuanling said: "Why is this? ”

The old man said: "Although the blankets in the Western Regions are gorgeous and expensive, they must be hand-woven, and machines can't weave them, even the best weavers have to be able to weave one piece a year." But where is there so many people at home who have been practicing good skills for many years? And our kind of blanket, looks simple, but the victory is in the simplicity of the process, with this loom to weave the pattern, a day can weave a piece, sell to merchants, in addition to the cost of materials, each piece can earn 30 yuan, a year can earn 10 money. And that kind of delicate and gorgeous blanket don't say that we can't weave it, even if it is knitted, the whole family will only have two or three yuan a year, and each piece will be sold for three or two, and it will not make much money with this. ”

The accounts here Fang Xuanling naturally settled, and he was even more surprised by the annual income: "Ten yuan a year? ”

The family in Guanzhong has 20 acres of high-quality fertile land, and the annual income is not consistent, because the current low grain price in Taiping in the prosperous era, coupled with the continuous influx of rice in Linyi country, has caused the grain price to be at a low level of three or four cents for a long time.

In this way, the advantage is that everyone can eat enough, and the disadvantage is that everyone has no money......

The grain is cheap and hurts the peasants, this is not just talk.

Even though the imperial court mobilized a large amount of grain in preparation for the Eastern Crusade, and even gradually relaxed the control of wine-making and other industries, the rapid development of water conservancy facilities in Guanzhong in the past two years, coupled with the smooth wind and rain, and the grain harvest was bumper every year, and the price could not be raised......

However, even so, Fang Xuanling did not expect that in the small town of Huating, a peasant family only hired a few women weavers, and the money earned in a year was ten times that of the rich peasants in Guanzhong.

The impact is just too great......

The old man was a little proud, and said: "There is no lie, the little old man's family is too small, and the two sons are in charge of things in the salt fields, so no one is in charge, and the one with the most looms in the town has eight looms, and employs dozens of weavers all day, and can earn hundreds of times a year." ”

A farmer can earn hundreds of yuan by weaving cloth, and the commercial tax in Huating Town is the highest in the world, reaching five taxes and one, that is, to pay a tax of twenty yuan, how many such farmers in the town are more than one thousand? Weaving alone is a commercial tax, and Huating Town has to collect at least 10,000 yuan every year.

No wonder there are such words as "you can buy a warship for the sailors every year".

You need to know that compared to the big business transactions on the dock, this is not even a drop in the bucket......

This is a place that has never appeared in the past, where the people do not farm, but only rely on the methods of those unpopular buying and selling merchants, but have amassed a jaw-dropping huge wealth!

Fang Xuanling naturally knew his son's bastard doctrine of "liberating the peasants from the land", but what worried him deeply was that if the peasants left the land to work and do business, then who would farm the land?

Could it be that the Tang Dynasty will produce countless wastelands without precedent and eventually collapse and perish?