"Village Chief Lao Ding, you go to the village and get two scales."

Zhang Zuoshi is in the county government, and his official position is actually a Hucao scrivener, neither Zuo nor Shi, Zuo is the chief official of Hucao, and Shi is a secondary official, which is equivalent to the director and deputy director, Zhang Zuoshi is just an ordinary Hucao scrivener, but usually, everyone is still used to calling Zuo Shi.

This Zhang Zuoshi is also more serious, although he brought the scales, but he still asked the village to take two scales and compare them together.

"Everyone is relieved about this scale, right?"

"Zhang Zuoshi is doing things, we can rest assured." The villagers saw that the three scales came out the same, so they smiled.

"Okay, then let's start weighing and changing grain now."

The villagers of Dingjiatai dug for a day, and the harvest was not much different, mostly about ten catties, and there were also people who dug twenty-one catties in one day, and some people who had less Ding, and the family also dug seven or eight catties in a day.

The village chief's family brought a table for eating, and several officials from the county government weighed and registered there.

"Sixteen pounds and two taels." Zhang Zuoshi reports.

The scale is almost unstable on the scale pole, this is Zhang Zuoshi deliberately gave some to the villagers, and he will never eat two catties.

"Ding Laosan, sixteen pounds and two taels." Over there, a servant carried notes under the lamp and put them on the tent, and then another servant began to carry a bag of corn from the car. "Forty-eight pounds and six taels of grain."

The grain bag was opened, and inside was millet grain.

The villagers who have changed their hands have already seen it carefully, it is all last year's millet, not some old and moldy millet such as ballast warehouse, it is well stored, and you can feel the pure sweetness of corn when you bite it.

Ding Laosan took the cloth bag from his mother-in-law Li and handed it to the official who weighed the grain.

The official first weighed the cloth bag, and then deducted two or two scales.

Forty-eight catties and eight taels, except for two taels of cloth bags, it is just forty-eight catties and six taels, the tail of the scale is raised high, and Xu also gave at least half a tael to the third child.

The third child happily brought the bag of corn grains over, reached into it and copied it carefully a few times, feeling the corn grains flowing in his hands, and he showed a full mouth of teeth that were missing.

"Thank you."

The third daughter-in-law took a rope and handed it to him, "Hurry up and tie it up, don't spill it later." ”

"No, no." The third child was as happy as a child.

Heiwa jumped around with her younger brother, even more happy.

In fact, in a normal year, as long as there is no waterlogging or drought, Ding Laosan's family will not be hungry now, dozens of acres of land at home, except for mulberry, jujube and hemp, the rest are planted with grain, watered land to grow wheat, millet on the mountain, millet harvest is lower, but at the end of the year, except for the money to buy fertilizer, and then planed to hand over the imperial grain, there can still be a lot left, in addition to keeping rations at home every year, you can also sell a lot.

And the two daughters work in the silk mill in Luoyang, and they can also add a lot of income to the family in a year, and the eldest son works as a partner in the county government.

The biggest expense of the family is Heiwa's reading, paper, ink, pen and inkstone, and the New Year's festival has to give the teachers a festival gift, but in short, the days are still okay.

But those who came hungry in the famine had an unusual sense of food.

Every year, the family sells grain, and the third child always has to keep more.

The daughter-in-law simply tied her pocket with a rope, and Ding's mother ignored the third child and said to her daughter-in-law, "Bride, let's take this grain home and put it in the warehouse, don't let the rats steal it." ”

The two women went back first, and there was a small kiln in the house, which was built with stones, and a wooden cover was added, which could be better to prevent rats, and the family even raised a cat to watch the food.

The third child still stayed in the village, watching others weigh the locust eggs and weigh the grain, and he was also very happy.

Many people who have already changed their food, when they get the food, are even more happy, and they begin to talk about how many catties your family has, how many catties my family has.

"On the first day of digging, I was still a little slow, but tomorrow I can dig more."

"This is the saint giving us food, and the useless locust eggs are exchanged for food for us, not only to remove the locust infestation for us, but also to give us food, the saint is good."

Ding Laosan didn't know what words to use to thank the emperor, so he had to say those words repeatedly.

Everyone was very grateful to the saints, and felt that this locust egg was of no use, but now they were exchanged for real food, and it was indeed the saints who showed mercy to them.

Some people also say that we just took advantage of this river beach, which used to be close to the Yellow River, and always suffered from some floods, but I can't imagine that this river beach is still a treasure now.

"No!"

In the past, in autumn, the villagers would also plant some beans on the Yellow River beach, taking advantage of the lack of water in the Yellow River in autumn, they could also use the river beach to increase income, but the river beach to grow grain, sometimes in the autumn flood, may not even be able to harvest the seeds.

Now I can't imagine that digging locust eggs on this river beach can exchange so much food.

"Yes, there is definitely no such good place to dig locust eggs in the south of our township."

Some people thought, will someone come to us to dig locust eggs, we have a lot of locust eggs on the river beach, and we can exchange forty or fifty catties of grain a day.

"Village chief, do we have to organize and not let others come to our village's river beach to dig eggs."

Some people were also curiously asking Zhang Zuoshi, asking him where the locust eggs were collected and sent, and they couldn't be poured out.

"Feed the chickens, feed the ducks, feed the geese."

"Will this work?"

"I don't know if it's okay or not, but I heard from the people above that the emperor is going to use these to feed chickens and ducks, and he also said that the chickens and ducks fed with this locust egg will grow faster."

Ding Laosan listened to it and said, "This catty of eggs is worth three catties of corn, and it's too extravagant to feed chickens and ducks, right?" ”

"So, this is our saint's compassion for the people, of course it can't be fed with food for chickens and ducks, but the saint asked everyone to dig up eggs, and didn't let everyone work in vain, although this digging out locust eggs to avoid locust plague is actually a good thing for ourselves."

"Yes, the saint is merciful."

Everyone believes that taking three catties of grain in exchange for one catty of locust eggs, and finally taking the locust eggs to feed chickens and ducks, must be a loss-making business. Not to mention that food is expensive, the cost of transporting grain to transport eggs away is not small.

Zhang Zuoshi picked up the account book and checked it carefully, "Village Chief Ding, I still have some grain left here, so I won't pull it back today, just save it at your house first, and I'll pull the grain over early tomorrow." When it was getting late, I pulled the locust eggs back first. ”

The village chief said, "Zhang Zuoshi will stop at this time tonight." ”

"I have to send these locust eggs back to the county government, now these are very important to the above, Li Xiancheng said, today must transport all the locust eggs back, there can be no mistake on the way, my account, I have to hand it over to Li Xiancheng for checking."

"It's too troublesome for Zhang Zuoshi to come at night, or you can come the morning after tomorrow, everyone is very active in digging locust eggs, but I'm afraid it will be too late to come back."

"I'll go back and ask the county again, if the county is willing, that's the best, if not, we have to work harder, no way, serve this public bowl and eat this meal, you have to obey the order."

The village chief looked at the bags of locust eggs, "It's so dark, why don't I bring some militia and send Sashi back, and the road will be safer." ”

"It's okay, I'll trouble you village chief today."

"It's us who troubled Zhang Zuoshi."

The village chief shouted, and suddenly the militia captain came over and ordered Ding Laosan and a few other villagers, "Everyone work hard, send Zhang Zuoshi back to the county office, make sure to send these locust eggs to the county safely, there can be no mistakes on the road." ”

The third said with a smile, "Don't worry, it won't take much time to take a trip." ”