In the afternoon, the beautiful boy took the picture drawn by Zhou Dazhi and took Qin Feng out of Zhoujia Village.

However, when he left Xiao Qiongzhi's house, he specially asked Zhou Dazhi to give Xiao Qiongzhi a message, saying that he had repeatedly joked with her before, which was really wrong, and he didn't take it as an example, and specially asked Qin Feng to find a few kindergarten enlightenment books from his residence and give them to her, which should be an apology.

After Xiao Qiongzhi learned about it, she had a little more affection for the beautiful boy.

Next, during the day, Zhou Dazhi will take half an hour in the morning to teach her to learn the words in the children's enlightenment book.

The rest of the time, Zhou Dazhi basically digs loach and yellow eels in the field, as well as small potatoes and sweet potatoes that have not been dug up.

Occasionally, Zhou Dazhi will also go up the mountain to hunt, mainly hunting rabbits, pheasants and other small animals, if you are lucky, you can pick back a small basket of wild persimmons or wild firewood plums (in fact, it is a kind of wild chestnut, but the chestnut particles are very small, often only as big as a little fingertip. ）。

Xiao Qiongzhi thought it was interesting, and once pestered to follow her, Chu Yunniang disagreed, on the grounds that there were many mosquitoes, snakes, ants, and wasps on the mountain, and if they bitten, they were prone to fatal illness, which was too dangerous, and they had to wait until winter, when these things hibernated, or hidden, they could go.

Xiao Qiongzhi felt reasonable and did not insist.

In addition to reading with Zhou Dazhi, she either watched Chu Yunniang busy every day; Either take the big girl, the dog, and the stone egg, go to the ridge to catch grasshoppers, and go to the stream to catch small fish; Either follow Zhou Dazhi out and go to the field to help him find loach fish and yellow eel holes or go to the mound to find small potato vines and small sweet potato vines.

In addition, she also did two more meaningful things.

The first thing is to remind Zhou Dazhi to polish the two pairs of jade bracelets that were broken by Old Vixen Liu into small pendants of the zodiac and take them to the township jewelry shop for consignment.

They were soon favored by the young lady of the squire's family, and in exchange for half a tael of silver, they bought back fifty catties of rice, and made a small contribution to improving the life of the family.

The second thing is to instruct Zhou Dazhi to rebuild the latrine, chisel a square stone, make a squatting toilet, and use several rectangular stones, chisel into a concave frame, connect up and down, pave the sewer, from the tail of the squatting toilet, connect to the outside of the latrine, and then at the bottom of the outside sewer, build a simple septic tank.

From then on, when I go to the toilet, I don't have to watch out for flies rushing to my face, and I won't see the disgusting scene of countless maggots crawling in the manure tank below when I look down.

It's the end of the month.

Chu Yunniang has already embroidered the twenty embroidered handkerchiefs agreed with the fabric store.

She asked Zhou Dazhi to borrow an oxcart from Zhou Yuandong's house, took Xiao Qiongzhi, took a few rabbit skins that Zhou Dazhi had hunted recently, and a few beautiful feather dusters tied with pheasant feathers, and rushed to Quanpi Township.

The fabric shop was very satisfied with Chu Yunniang's embroidered handkerchief, and this time, he simply renewed a three-month new contract with her in one go.

It is still required to embroider 20 pieces of handkerchiefs every month, and it is estimated that the sales volume of embroidered handkerchiefs in this shop in January is only 20 or 30 pieces.

When I came out of the fabric store, I happened to catch up with the township grain depot opposite, and there were two people putting up notices.

Zhou Dazhi was curious, and took Chu Yunniang and Xiao Qiongzhi over to see.

The content of the notice is not much, just two paragraphs.

In the previous paragraph, in the battle of Chu and Qi this month, the Chu State only had 600,000 troops, but the Qi State had 800,000 troops, resulting in the Chu army being outnumbered and retreating, and so far, five cities have been taken away, with nearly 200,000 dead and wounded.

In addition to occupying five cities, the Qi army also suffered far fewer casualties than the Chu state, only about 100,000.

In order to defend the country, redeem the defeat, and recover the city, the current monarch of Chu ordered to recruit 300,000 soldiers from the people.

All adult males over the age of 18 and under the age of 50 are eligible for the recruitment.

Those who take the initiative to sign up for the army can be exempted from paying taxes for one year for the whole family.

Those who do not join the army, calculated according to the head, each person will be levied three quintals of imperial grain, and they will be paid within seven days of the notice, otherwise, all of them will be arrested and confiscated into the army, and the whole family will not be exempted from taxation for one year.

After reading it, Zhou Dazhi was worried.

There are only less than two loads of grain left in the family, and he can't hand over the imperial grain that will be levied again, so he can only choose to join the army.

But once he joined the army, Chu Yunniang was left alone in the family to support the family.

Chu Yunniang was born in a small squire family, and she only knows how to feed in the hands of her husband and children in the back house, and she can't do farm work, although she is a good woman, she can embroider a handkerchief and earn some money to subsidize the family.

But with this money, it is no big problem to support herself, and she can't support Zhou Dayong and Xiao Qiongzhi, let alone send them to school.

After pondering for a while, he discussed with Chu Yunniang in a low voice: "Yunniang, the rise and fall of the country is the responsibility of the husband, not to mention that we can't hand over three loads of imperial food, so I can only join the army." ”

"It's just that after I leave, you are a woman, and it is inconvenient for you to take on the responsibility of supporting your family alone, and I don't feel at ease. Dayong is 14 years old this year, and in troubled times, reading comes second, and living a good life first is the right thing. I plan to go to the township post station, send a letter to him to give up his studies immediately, come back to help the family, and when he comes back, I will come to the township to enlist in the army. ”

"This ......" Chu Yunniang hesitated a little and turned her head to look at Xiao Qiongzhi.

Xiao Qiongzhi thought for a while, and said to Zhou Dazhi: "Dad, the people in the village treat us very well, even if you are not at home, the neighbors should be with us and help each other." ”

"I calculated, there are nearly two loads of millet left at home, and you have found a lot of miscellaneous grains this month, and my mother and I will have no problem until February next year, so let my uncle finish reading this year's book."

"Zhi'er, I have also taken into account what you have considered, but you have to understand that no matter how good the people in the village are, they are usual, but now is an extraordinary period, and things are not as simple as you imagined."

"For example, in the nearby village, when there was a heavy rain last month, no one rushed to harvest the grain, and now every household is basically running out of rice to get out of the pot, and it is impossible to hand over the imperial grain that will be levied again, it stands to reason that only the middle-aged men in the family can join the army, but if these middle-aged men join the army, who will they rely on to survive if they have no rice to cook?" Zhou Dazhi is kind and inducing.

"What does Dad mean is that the middle-aged men in these families may escape from the army and lead the whole family to fall into the grass in order to support the old and young in the family?" Xiao Lingzhi understood, frowned and asked.

"Yes, and, not only that, but the first target of their robbery after they fall into the grass is likely to be our village. Because, when the imperial grain was handed over last month, there were already people in our village, and the news of our village's timely harvesting of rice in the rain was spread, and everyone knew that our village had the most grain. Zhou Dazhi said helplessly.

"But even so, I don't think it's necessary to let Uncle come back in advance." Xiao Qiongzhi insisted on her own opinion.