Baby brings his own shopping mall to travel through

Chapter 119 Tanning

With the help of Tang Yanshu, the local official, in promoting the planting of new grain varieties, and with the help of relatives and friends from Qingshan Village, sweet potatoes were successfully planted in the homes of ordinary people in Pingjiang County in autumn.

The new grain seeds with a yield of several thousand per mu were just dug up in Qingshan Village today, and the news spread to the surrounding villages the next day.

The county government had not yet finished promoting the event in the villages below, but most of the villagers close to Qingshan Village already knew about it, and many families with ties to Qingshan Village had already received the sweet potato seeds.

In order to prevent the sweet potatoes from rotting and being wasted, the people of Qingshan Village taught relatives and friends how to store them when they came to get them. Those who didn't get any could only learn how to store them first and then wait for the county government to notify them to pick them up.

Yes, you can go to the county government to collect it. It’s free, but no matter how much you collect now, you have to return it when the harvest comes. One kilogram of sweet potato seeds will yield four kilograms of sweet potatoes after the harvest.

What everyone had expected also happened. Some powerful and wealthy families in the surrounding area heard the news and sent people to the common people to buy it. The result was: only enough was kept for planting, and the rest was sold to the county government.

These powerful people wanted to use their status to pressure others to buy grain seeds from the county government as they did in the past. But they didn't expect that the county magistrate was more powerful than them, so they couldn't use any shady means, nor did they dare to use them.

Tang Yanshu threatened them: "Don't even think about snatching what the common people have. Our county government has recorded how much grain the common people have and how much land they can cultivate. We remember it clearly. If you really dare to snatch it, I will ask the saint to judge for us."

In a word: Whoever dares to steal grain seeds, ruin my plans, and make the people under my management starve, I will go to his house to ask for food. If he doesn't give me any, I will ask me, a saint, to judge the situation.

All the powerful and noble families could not have imagined that the always elegant Master Tang would actually use such a shameless method, but they could do nothing about him. He brought out the saint, and the saint allowed him to move around, so wasn't that a tacit agreement with him?

The method of registering every household was inspired by the fact that every villager in Qingshan Village held a piece of paper in his hand.

They told the people at that time that if anyone wanted to force you to buy your grain seeds, you can refuse and let them buy from the county government, because our county government has recorded clearly how much each family has and how much they can grow, as well as the harvest for the next year.

The people also had their own considerations. First, they were afraid that the county government would really need so many sweet potatoes but they did not grow so many. Second, it would be great to get the silver now after selling them, but they were afraid that the silver would not be enough to buy food for a few meals. So why not grow it themselves?

Just like that, the powerful and wealthy families did not dare to rob the common people, nor could they suppress Tang Yanshu, the son of a noble family, so the people they sent could only leave in disgrace.

There are also people who dislike him, and they are his superiors.

You are a newly appointed county magistrate, and you have received such a great opportunity right after you came. If it were someone else, they would definitely want to present their achievements to their superiors in order to win their favor. But you have offended all the powerful people around you right after you came. Don't think I will stand by you when something goes wrong.

Also, the county magistrates in the surrounding counties are all colleagues, and they all work for the people. Why don't you share any of the high-yield grain seeds with us? Are you trying to create an opposition with the county magistrates in the surrounding counties?

Some people even wrote letters to impeach Tang Yanshu directly, with the reason being that he forced the common people to work for him, regardless of their wishes, and planted the crops he designated, thereby enriching himself.

However, the impeachment memorial against Tang Yanshu did not cause any stir in the court. The Ministry of Personnel simply sent him a letter of inquiry as per routine regulations and asked him to submit a memorial to defend himself, and the matter was over.

Are you kidding? Having high-yield grain varieties is a good thing that benefits the country and the people. Who would dare to hold on to them? Well, you can just let them go and never come back.

These things had no effect on Tang Yanshu at all. Although he knew nothing about farming, he was very concerned about the sweet potato planting. There was a person in the county government who was specifically responsible for farming. He would take his people to the countryside every now and then, leaving the county affairs to the county magistrate and other subordinates.

The biggest gentry in Pingjiang County had all been brought down, and there were no major cases in normal times. Tang Yanshu assigned general county affairs to his subordinates and only took care of major matters.

If you were like County Magistrate Cui, who had to handle all the big and small matters in the county government, you would be exhausted to death.

He now specializes in tracking sweet potatoes, and records their growth, fertilization, etc. at each stage clearly.

He loves going out so much that this noble young man has become several degrees tanned.

When Zheng Huaming and Qi Xingyun met again, Zheng Huaming couldn't help laughing for a long time.

"You should go to the countryside like this, still as clean and white as before, walking in the fields, those aunties and young wives are only looking at you, and have no intention of doing anything."

This is true. When Tang Yanshu went to the countryside, the aunties liked to see such a fair-skinned boy and kept chatting with him. There was nothing these aunties didn't know about him, whether in the east, south, west, north, or in the village. These were the topics of conversation they usually had under the big tree at the entrance of the village.

I also want to introduce young ladies to him, from the same village or the next village, from any family, there are a lot of them, I am not afraid of your being picky, I am just afraid that you will not be picky.

At first, Tang Yanshu was scared away by these old ladies. Later, he went to the countryside more often and encountered more such things. He became thick-skinned and could even tell a few jokes to the old ladies.

It’s just that he’s tanned now and isn’t as popular as before.