About ten miles away from Ganzhou City, there is a village, called Mushroom Skin Village, the villagers are only a few dozen people, decades ago the whole village planted vegetables, and later all made a living by cultivating mushrooms.

Since Wu Sangong invented the method of cutting flowers, there are two ways to plant mushrooms in the Great Jin Dynasty, one is to sow in spring and summer, and the other is to sow in autumn and spring in winter.

The mushrooms in the mushroom skin village are accustomed to using the latter method, so that the summer time of labor in the village is free. In previous years, most of these idle young adults either went to Ganzhou City to find a part-time job, or went to other villages where Ganzhou oranges were planted to apply for a short-term job.

This year is also average.

Mushroom Pizhai has another nickname, called Zhangjia Village, because the villagers are all the same surname, a clan.

Since ancient times, the more people are of the same clan and the fewer people there are, the easier it is to work together. Mushroom skin village in the village to do things with the same advance and retreat, when the original planting vegetables, planted vegetables together, later a person in the village went to Longyan Village, Qingyuan County to learn the method of cutting flowers back, taught to the people of the same village, then together to plant mushrooms.

However, after all, the method of cutting flowers is not only a village meeting in the mushroom skin village, with the high price of mushrooms, attracting many foreign businessmen to come to buy, and more and more people see that it is profitable, and they have to learn it back, and cut flowers and plant mushrooms one by one.

It is not easy to plant shiitake mushrooms well, and it is not difficult to learn how to cut flowers, and it is also very important to pay attention to the talent of techniques, but it is not difficult to plant them. The more people who plant, the lower the price of shiitake mushrooms, when the mushroom skin village first started to plant shiitake mushrooms, it was in short supply, good quality, can be sold for two hundred guan a load, that is, the general quality, can also get a seventy or eighty guan.

However, in the past three or four years, the price of shiitake mushrooms has plummeted, and it has fallen to 350 yuan a load of good quality and more than 10 or 20 yuan of general quality.

Shiitake mushrooms are the main source of income for mushroom skin villages, one year is not good, but also to comfort themselves is not good, two years of bad sales, the heart will inevitably mumble, and so on the third year, everyone in the village feels that something is wrong.

This year is the fourth year that the price of shiitake mushrooms has been low, and the price has not risen as in previous years, not to mention, but has also fallen one or two times. In order to subsidize the family, the laborers in the village had to go early to find a job to subsidize the family.

On this day, Zhang Wuqi took a leave to return to the village, and before he got home, he saw Zhang Afu next door holding a bowl with gruel and a few cloves of capers, squatting outside for dinner.

Zhang Wuqi was a little surprised, greeted the other party, and asked, "Aren't you doing a short-term job in Huichang County?" Why did you come back today? ”

Zhang Afu drank the porridge in two bites, put the bowl aside, then wiped his mouth, and replied: "Don't mention it, a bunch of homeless people came to Fuzhou in the north, I heard that there was a locust plague, and there has been a drought for more than half a year. ”

When he said this, he seemed to have some itching in his throat, so he stopped, first coughed twice, spit on the ground, and then stepped on the phlegm, and then continued: "Originally, it was said well, saying that it would be done to pass the Chongyang Festival, but now it is still a few months away, and the main family has changed the hexagram, and recruited seven or eight homeless people to help take care of the orange trees at home, where is there still a place for me to stand!" ”

After Zhang Afu finished speaking, he sighed for a while, and then came back to his senses and asked, "You didn't work in Ganzhou City, why did you come back?" ”

He suddenly woke up and suddenly said, "I'm afraid that the homeless people are also in the city to compete with our locals for jobs?" ”

Zhang Wuqi shook his head and said: "The city of Ganzhou is okay, there are a few people in and out, the state is tightly controlled, I heard that those who can work are called to dig ditches, and the rest are living outside the city - you go and see, the camp is afraid that there are not more than ten hectares, and thirty or forty thousand people can live." ”

Zhang Afu didn't understand this, and asked, "Then why don't you do your work, why do you run back?" ”

Zhang Wuqi was stunned for a moment, and also asked, "Your father didn't tell you?" Didn't my uncle let everyone who was close come back? ”

Zhang Wuqi's uncle is a prestigious clan elder in the mushroom skin village, and it was he who came back from Qingyuan County to learn the method of cutting flowers and taught it to the people in the village, so that everyone could take advantage of the situation to earn more money and rice, so that they would not rely on planting vegetables every day, just to have food and clothing.

Zhang Afu shook his head, and was about to speak, when he saw his father coming not far away, and while walking, he greeted himself and shouted: "Third child, don't you let the eldest girl come back and call you, why don't you pass for half a day, Uncle is nodding!" I saw Zhang Wuqi standing aside again, and greeted him, "Wuqi is back?" Hurry up, put the things and go to the sunbath, Uncle has something to discuss with everyone. ”

Zhang Wuqi hurriedly called someone, answered again, hurried home and threw his things away, and followed Zhang Afu and his son to the west of the village.

This was originally used to dry rice in the village, but now the autumn grain has not come out, and it is usually empty, but at this time it has been crowded, and Zhang Wuqi heard the buzzing voices one after another.

An old man with white and black hair stood on a high place, calling out people's names loudly.

There are only about 20 households in the mushroom skin village, and they will soon be ordered, and each family will have someone who can take charge of it.

Zhang Wuqi heard his uncle say above: "I called you here today to say something." ”

"Shiitake mushrooms have not been sold at a price in the past two years, and everyone knows it, so I won't say much, I hope that this thing can rise in the future, and there is nothing possible, my Erlang has asked around, and now it is Ganxian County, Yuecheng, and there are mushrooms everywhere."

"If we don't want to fight famine in the future, we have to think of some other way out."

When my uncle said this, someone shouted below: "Uncle, except for cutting flowers and planting mushrooms, we won't do anything else!" ”

The uncle gestured, and after a while, a tall and thin middle-aged man walked over with a few bushes of branches in his hands, which were half a person high, and the leaves of the branches were tightly wrapped in oiled paper, and there was no mystery in them for a while.

Zhang Wuqi recognized that it was the son of his uncle's second son, and everyone called him Erlang.

The uncle shouted, "Erlang came up to speak." ”

Sure enough, Zhang Erlang followed and stood beside his uncle, and first said hello to everyone's uncles, aunts, uncles, and uncles in the field, and then said: "Do you still remember, last time we sold two mountains in the village next door to the people in Ganzhou City?" ”

Zhang Afu stabbed Zhang Wuqi in the back and said, "Didn't he Erlang just do a short-term job in that mountain?" ”

Zhang Wuqi thought about it, and sure enough, he remembered that there was such a thing, the person who bought the mountain was said to have some foundation in Ganzhou City, and the price was quite high, and he also came to the village to find someone, saying that he wanted to raise insects and wanted to ask someone to take care of it.