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Volume 1 520 Low grain prices hurt farmers (Part 2)

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    520 Low grain prices hurt farmers (Part 2)

    The pavement of this street is entirely paved with cement, and the shops lined on both sides are wide open, with only a rolling shutter door at the lintel.  Each shop is a little cramped, leaving only an aisle for two people to walk side by side, and the cabinets on both sides display the goods for sale.  I heard that this street is called Xiushui Street, and the street right next to Xiushui Street is called Nanjing Road, but it is quite beautiful.

    The road is much wider, and there is a fence at the entrance to block the entry of vehicles. The ground has been replaced with fired grid bricks. Even the shops on both sides no longer have iron rolling shutter doors, but have been replaced with large ones.  block of glass.  Each store is more spacious and brighter than the last, surrounded by three or four-story Australian-style buildings.  There will always be patrolmen patrolling the streets with sticks swinging around.  I heard that the people who come in and out are all old men and women, and poor people like the man's family never visit.

    It¡¯s not that it¡¯s forbidden, but the price of any gadget in any store is enough to make a man stunned.

    Along the way, you will always meet men from the village or on the road who come to sell food.  Some sold it on the spot on the Bund, or were waiting for news. When they saw a man, they would always gather around him and ask how much it was sold for in the county town.

    Every time, the man shook his head, then spread his hands to reveal a tightly held stack of Australian silver coins.  Then some people sighed, and some people were thankful.  What I sigh is that the price of the Bund and the county town is the same; fortunately, I don¡¯t follow the example of men and take the unnecessary round trip of more than 20 miles.

    After a while, he resigned and went back, planning to sell grain on the Bund.  Those who had already sold them would go to Xiushui Street in groups with the men's families.  Walking on the still spacious streets, I kept mumbling to myself, lamenting the world, lamenting the black-hearted rice trade, and incidentally hating the Australians who had driven food prices to the bottom.

    The team became more and more dispersed as they walked, and in the end only the man was left with his wife and children.  Most of the other fellow villagers were attracted by the shops they passed by, or simply shouted at by their wives and children.  After hesitating and walking up and down Xiushui Street twice, the man finally made up his mind and led his wife and children into a shop.

    The newly acquired Australian silver coins, which were tightly held in his hands and kept warm, were handed over to the clerk in the blink of an eye and replaced with bags of salt and other daily necessities.  The woman calculated that she had to buy less, so she had to buy less.  But in a blink of an eye, he saw the man carrying a piece of flower cloth, his expression changed with horror, and he shouted that the man had gone crazy.

    The man has a sad face, but he just says that the woman doesn¡¯t need to worry about it, he has his own plans.  Buy as many matches and soap as you need; half a piece of beautiful and thick floral cloth was torn out, which is enough for the whole family.  I bought the palm-sized mirror because it was cheap. But the price of the kettle was so high that I had no choice but to endure it.

    After walking around for a while, we came out and saw a family of three. The man and woman were all old and young, and the girl had White Rabbit toffee in her mouth, and she was holding delicious fruit in her hand.

    The child naturally jumped up and down with joy, but her parents became increasingly sad.  When they got near the oxcart, the woman threw the package into the car and just lay on the old ox and cried bitterly.

    "It's so easy to pass down the family fortune. If a man does this, he will not only sell the old scalper, but also those acres of land."  The loans and taxes have been paid, but how will their family of three live in the future?  Just rely on the land of the tenant farmer?  After peeling off the skin layer by layer and getting it into their hands, where is the balance left?

    Watching the sun set in the west, the man¡¯s companions and fellow villagers gathered back in twos and threes.  Some bought less, and some didn¡¯t buy at all.  Everyone knew each other well, so they casually found a stone table and bench on the roadside and sat down. They took out the food they brought with them or bought on Xiushui Street, bought a pot of bad wine, and started arguing while eating and drinking.

    "In June, it was still three taels per stone. When it was expensive, it was probably five taels. When the autumn harvest came, it became one tael or six dollars. What a ghost!"

    "Last year there was a drought, the harvest was small, and we were losing money; this year the weather is good, the harvest is big, but we are still losing money."

    "This year's loss is worse than last year. Last year, it was at least one, two, eight, and one stone."

    "We can't keep the white rice, so sell it all for mixed rice. Mixed with rice bran, it will last another season. Maybe it will get better next year Alas, farmers can't eat rice."

    "I won't sell it! If you sell it, you will starve. Why don't you keep it for your wife and children to eat? If the government comes to collect taxes, they will arrest you!"

    "I have no choice but not to pay the rent. Just pay the rent and immediately borrow a new debt. I borrowed a debt of four cents and five cents to pay the rent. What are you trying to do? Do you want to be burdened with heavy debts next year?"

    ¡°The world is bad, and farmers can¡¯t survive.¡±

    "It's better to escape."

    "How to escape? There is no way to lead, and the government willIf you get caught, you'll get jail food.  Doing hard labor until death, being demoted to a lowly status, and your children and grandchildren will never be able to stand up again.  "

    "It's hard to say that. Didn't the imperial court issue a new policy and allow the change of registration?"

    "Then you also need money."

    In the midst of the noise, someone suddenly said: "Why don't you come to the Bund to work? If you work for five hours a day, food and accommodation are included, there will always be a few silver dollars left every month."

    Then someone sneered and laughed: "You are an old man. If you want to work, you have to have a factory to recruit workers. A while ago, some idle men in the village heard that the Li family boy worked in the Bund for fifteen silver dollars a month.  , so we came to the Bund with him. As a result, the boss of the factory didn¡¯t even let us in. I heard that several factories were already overcrowded.¡±

    "Aren't you going to open a new factory?"

    "That will happen after the New Year. After the New Year is spring plowing, are you willing to stop planting your own fields to work?"

    During the quarrel, the man suddenly said: "I plan to sign a deed of sale and go to Australia."

    A simple word immediately silenced everyone.  Those who were familiar with him simply changed their expressions and said loudly: "Brother Wang, you are just fooled by lard! You can't say this. How can it be so easy to leave your hometown?"

    Someone echoed: "That's right. It's all nonsense spoken by Australians. The minimum for working is ten taels of silver a month. If you don't work, you will be given a farm. The minimum for a family is thirty acres. You're lying! You can earn ten taels of silver a year.  I¡¯m afraid I¡¯ll earn more than my master if I come down here!¡±

    Someone objected: "That's not necessarily the case. Australians use credit, so food stamps are just a piece of paper. As a result, big families rush to buy them, which can be used as silver. It's the price of food. Australians say one, two, six, and it's just one piece of paper."  Two or six dollars, no ambiguity. As for work, I don¡¯t know how much the wages are in Australia. The Li family boy works in a factory, and I¡¯m afraid he really earns ten taels of silver in a month.¡±

    At this scene, someone suddenly poked his companion and pointed to the distance with chopsticks: "Does that person look familiar to you?"

    People at the table looked over at the same time. Someone looked at it and said in surprise: "Huh? Why do you look like the carpenter Lin who lived in our village and almost starved to death last year?"

    "Yes, yes. They look exactly alike, but not so rich. Back then, I even helped Lin Carpenter's family with two meals of vegetable porridge."

    Then something surprising happened to them. The fat man wearing black fur and a black fur hat in the distance looked over inadvertently, froze suddenly, then gave a few instructions to the guy next to him, and walked away quickly.  come over.

    "What a carpenter!" someone shouted.

    When everyone was standing up, Carpenter Lin was already approaching, and he raised his hands to everyone: "Fellow folks, I don't want to meet you here. I also thought about resting on the Bund for one night and returning to the village tomorrow I was in trouble at the time.  At that time, you all helped a lot, and Lin Yibiao had no way to repay the favor, so he could only treat the whole village, old and young, to a meal of pork." He turned around and pointed to the cart following him, with two big fat pigs tied up on it: "Look, even  The fat pigs have been selected. They are fat and strong, and can eat at least two meals."

    Everyone was shocked and speechless.  After a long time, someone took a breath of air, looked at Lin Yibiao's clothes, and said in surprise: "Carpenter Lin, are you rich?"

    Lin Yibiao smiled contentedly.

    Another person said: "Didn't you sign the deed of betrayal and go to Australia by boat? Why did you come back in less than a year?" After asking this person, he realized: "Oh, you are prosperous in Australia! Do the Australians say  Is it true that there is gold everywhere?"

    Lin Yibiao laughed: "Rumors, rumors. I just have some skills and know how to make household items. I borrowed money from the bank and tried to open a shop and customize household items. Those Australians really recognize the ancestral craftsmanship."

    At this scene, the clerk came running over: "Boss, the lumber has been unloaded. The total price is 140,000 Australian yuan. I asked the boss to go to Cashier Liu to settle the bill."

    Lin Yibiao said hello repeatedly, and then he bowed his hands apologetically to a circle of poor men: "There are still accounts to be dealt with, so let's go first, one step ahead. I will definitely return to the village the next day."

    Lin Yibiao left, leaving behind a bunch of shocked poor men.  Poor men like them, who didn't know a few Chinese characters and didn't know how to settle accounts, had no idea how much 140,000 was. They just thought it was an astronomical number.  If you are talented, do the math, one hundred yuan is one silver dollar, and one hundred and forty thousand dollars, isn¡¯t that one thousand four hundred silver dollars!

    ¡°Oh my god, that forest carpenter who was so down and out that he almost starved to death has only been in Australia for a year and he¡¯s already so prosperous?  From this point of view, the Australian propaganda of earning ten taels of silver a month, or else each person would be given thirty acres of paddy field, is it really true?

    After a long silence, a buzzing sound began.  But there were no more questions. Some were wondering where to apply for immigration, and some were hesitant whether to stay or just follow the crowd and immigrate.Forget about Australia, some people suddenly realized that they loudly cursed the landlords and their old wealth, and never planned to rent their land again.

    The man¡¯s head was angry, turned to the woman¡¯s family and said, ¡°Sell the cows, sell the few acres of land, keep some for self-defense, and spend the rest to have a good year.¡±

    The woman's sorrow disappeared, but hope appeared on her face, and she said "hmm" like a mosquito.

    There was no more gloom in the man's family, and he said with great pride: "When the New Year is over and the ancestors are worshipped, we will go to Australia. This Ming Dynasty that drives people to death doesn't matter if we don't stay!"

    *
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