Add Bookmark | Recommend this book | Back to the book page | My bookshelf | Mobile Reading

Free Web Novel,Novel online - All in oicq.net -> Historic -> Iron Blood 1933

Volume 1: The Arms Dealer¡¯s Feast Chapter 234: Oil is out

Previous page        Return to Catalog        Next page

    The Japanese liaison officers were a little confused. Their soldiers were attacking the Nanjing government's Central Army. The Central Army was attacking their infantry and Tsarist Russian artillery. The Tsarist Russian artillery was attacking the Central Army's positions and the Japs' chargers.  What a confusing relationship this is.

    "However, as the Tsarist Russians' heavy artillery fired, the Central Army's machine gun bunkers in the previous positions also stopped firing.  But God knows whether it was because the charging enemy was knocked out by Tsarist Russian artillery that the fire ceased, or whether the firepower in the bunker was knocked out by artillery.  The Japanese liaison officer would rather believe the second one.

    The people in China sneered at the fact that the Japs came to attack Rehe again. This was the third time in Guangrehe.  Can you tell me when he has won a fight?  Now that Taiwan has been taken back by the Nanjing government, the little devils don't even dare to fart. It is said that a large group of generals want to attack Ryukyu.  Both Taiwan and Ryukyu were taken away by the Japanese. How could we only recover one of them?

    But according to the recent military meeting of the Central Military Commission, this issue has not been discussed.  Ryukyu is 700 to 800 kilometers away from Taizhou, and can only be reached by the largest landing craft. Although the number of Japanese soldiers on it is smaller, the current Nanjing government's strategy is to focus on stability.  It would be fine if the navy ships had nothing to do and went around to ensure that the plaster flag could not be put into the sea. Such a blockade would be far more uncomfortable for the little Japanese than conquering Ryukyu.

    Most people¡¯s views on the little devils provoking war again are similar to the current season - the grasshoppers after autumn can only jump around for a few days.

    Rather than thinking about such far-off issues, it¡¯s better to leave it to the gentlemen in Nanjing.  Farmers just think about having a good harvest one year.

    This is strange. Since last year, the national taxes on imperial grains that have been paid for thousands of years no longer need to be paid. Since last year, instead of going to the countryside, the tax collectors in various counties and townships have been transferred to Jiangsu with a transfer order. What is it?  .  Except for the old and infirm ones who were sent back, none of the others escaped. I heard that they first went to Shandong for training, then to Fujian for reorganization, and finally to Taiwan.

    ¡°Now it¡¯s time to serve as a soldier and eat food. I don¡¯t know which master came up with the idea. Not to mention, this group of tax collectors is said to have beaten the little devils in Taiwan.  Isn't this fighting ability high? Usually, they are the top leaders in Hengxing Township - the tax collector is just this errand. If you are weak in your heart or hands, the tax collection will not be enough.

    What is this tax used for?  First of all, the country's official taxes must be paid. Secondly, the county magistrate, judge, patrols, etc. are government expenses. However, those security group tax collectors are not government expenses but have to use taxes. This part of the tax is often several times the official tax.  , called tax in the countryside.  If there are wealthy people, they can also use it to build water conservancy projects, build bridges and build roads - don't worry about poor places.

    These dozen little devils were first recruited by the regular army from various local security corps. In the past, these people were bandits in the countryside and were also large tax collectors. After they left, the tax collectors were not overjoyed, and their back legs were also recruited.

    Take Wang Guangtian, a farmer from Dingxing, Baobei, Zhili, as an example. This year, Wang Guangtian wanted to buy an oil press.  Last year, after the Nanjing government suddenly announced that it would waive the land tax that had been passed down for thousands of years, everyone was skeptical.  It would be a good thing if they could avoid it. Who wouldn¡¯t want to have enough food for a few more months a year?  If it's unavoidable, that's fine. Anyway, it's been handed over for thousands of years.

    At that time, most people in the village and outside the village thought that this was just a talk. King Chuang also said that the land would be equalized and grain would be exempted. What would happen in the end.  Wherever King Chuang's army passed by, no one was happy because the land was being equalized and food was free of charge - all the young men and women who did not go with the Chuang army were killed, leaving a lonely place where the young and old looked at the empty rice vats and howled all day long.  die.

    ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Without the young men passing through the territory to replenish the battle losses and not taking food and property as payment for the invading army, how could the invading army regroup after several defeats and finally enter the capital to hang the emperor?  Dear, this is an advertisement.

    But it was an advertising slogan that deceived ordinary people, and during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, some people were still willing to believe it.  There is no other reason. After more than two hundred years, everything that should be forgotten has been forgotten.

    ¡°No one came to collect taxes until the end of last year, so Wang Guangtian¡¯s family had a good year.  Dumplings stuffed with three delicacies were eaten until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

    Because Wang Guangtian, who had secretly betrayed two bandits in the county and received a reward, secretly went to the patrol house in the county behind his family's back and bought a foreign gun.  It is said to be a foreign gun, but the price is much cheaper. It costs ten yuan a gun and comes with dozens of yellow-orange bullets.  Wang Guangtian secretly fired six bullets at the shooting range near the county patrol house and was heartbroken. Even so, Wang Guangtian's marksmanship was still terrible. According to the patrol, he could only guarantee to hit someone within five meters. How could he hit someone?  Just two words.  He may also have aimed at the chest and hit his feet.

    A round of bullets costs a dime in a patrol house, and sixty cents can buy twelve kilograms of white flour pancakes at the town market.  Twelve pounds of white flour flatbread can feed a family of five for two days.

    But this ten yuan money Wang Guang??I still feel that it is necessary to spend money. Since the country has repeatedly issued orders to exempt agricultural taxes, and the bandits who forcefully distribute donations come again, they must have a way to fight them.

    It¡¯s not surprising that bandits forcefully distribute donations. Not all bandits go there to rob homes.  Some bandits write a note when they become more powerful. For example, a certain family's birthday is today and Zhangjiazhuang will provide one thousand tons of grain.  Without saying a word, Zhangjiazhuang had to send more than a thousand tons of grain and non-staple food to the bandits for their birthday.  Otherwise, just wait for the bandits to come and massacre the village to steal food and women.

    The day on which this bandit celebrates his birthday is not certain, at least twice a year - during the wheat harvest and autumn harvest.  But there are worse bandits who celebrate three or four birthdays a year.

    Although the country has just wiped out all the bandits in various places in the past two years, these bandits did not exist when society was first formed, and those bandits were not small bandits born in bandit dens who grew up to become big bandits.  In the final analysis, the army was defeated, and the refugees, hooligans, gangsters, etc. gradually organized themselves.

    After buying a gun last year, Wang Guangtian felt his waist became much stiffer. In the spring of the next year, he planted peanuts on more than ten acres of sandy fields passed down by his family.  As for the five acres of dry land that has been growing grain, it is still planted with winter wheat. It was planted last fall.  In May the wheat was harvested and corn planted.

    This year¡¯s ration fields can produce about 800 kilograms of white flour and more than 2,000 kilograms of cornmeal.  If the agricultural tax is exempted and a family of five eats, corn tortillas and white flour flatbread will definitely be enough.  Keren doesn't just need to eat.

    ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Out out of the countryside, marry a Chinese man, wear clothes and eat.  Nowadays, it is popular to talk about food and clothing, which shows the importance of dressing even before eating.  That year, two bandits' nests were sold, and with the reward Wang Guangtian had, he bought new clothes for the whole family for the winter.  It is said that Wang Guangtian himself was worried about this matter for a long time. There is a saying that if you can't defeat the thief, there will be endless troubles.

    Wang Guangtian sometimes thinks that the bandits will know that he was the one who tipped off the bandits' lair. Then the bandits will wait for the officers and soldiers to leave and come to kill and rob the whole family.  Fortunately, this did not happen in the end.  This is also one of the reasons why Wang Guangtian bought a gun for self-defense last year.

    ????????? Although the range of this gun is a bit closer, the people in the patrol room also said that if you use it well, it will be no problem to knock down two or three people.  Those bandits are just a bunch of gangsters. It's okay to bully the people who don't have guns, but if there is danger, they can run faster than rabbits.  If every family in the village buys a gun and every household joins the defense force, the bandits will not even dare to enter the village. If a village has dozens of short guns waiting for the bandits to approach, then no one will dare to enter.  But the bandits don't have cannons, so how can they rob them if they don't go in?

    Although the patrol officer praised the revolver to great extent, it could not change the fact that the revolver only had an effective range of thirty meters.

    Wang Guangtian doesn¡¯t want to sell the peanuts he planted this year to the oil shop owned by Zhou Caidong in the village as in previous years, and exchange them for some edible peanut oil and oil cakes for fertilizer. As for the cost, he only needs to pay part of the peanuts or oil cakes.  Everyone knows that extracting oil is profitable, otherwise Zhou Caidong would not be opening an oil shop.  This is when Wang Guangtian was buying a gun in the county town, he heard that there was a factory in Tianjin selling oil presses. Compared with the traditional oil pressing method of two stoves and one grinding, the oil yield rate was much better.

    I heard that this oil press can press oil by itself as long as it is powered on. If there is no power, it will be fine. You just have to put in more effort. You can use the pedal to press oil.  Someone in the city bought this oil press from Tianjin and then resold it to make a profit.

    The price is not too expensive. Wang Guangtian calculated that he had sold most of the grain his family had saved last year and this year and sold the bandit's lair. The money saved was just enough to buy such an oil press.  When the time comes for my family to open an oil shop in the village, maybe ten or eight years later, my family will be prosperous again.

    Electric oil extraction Wang Guangtian has never thought about where the electricity comes from in this village. Not to mention the village, even the county town has no electricity.  It would be nice to have an oil lamp to use at night. From the beginning, Wang Guangtian was attracted by the benefits of manual oil extraction.  There are five people in the family, so they don¡¯t have to really be idle during the off-season. They can take turns pressing this oil.

    For example, Wang Guangtian¡¯s three children, the oldest is 13 years old and the youngest is 9, can¡¯t do much yet.  A few children would go to the pond to hunt hogweed in summer and autumn, and then carry it to a town dozens of miles away to sell it.  A basket of dozens of kilograms of hogweed can only be sold for five cents, but it is already a great income for a child.  This five cents can buy a pound of white flour pancake or two Baoding traditional snacks with roasted pork at the market.

    As the saying goes, a poor man is a poor man. The stomachs of these three children are like bottomless pits. They can eat several kilograms of vegetables and wotou in one meal, but after a while they will feel hungry again.

    On weekdays, the three children always packed two baskets of pigweed and transported them to the market to sell to those selling livestock. The children took the money and often bought things and ate them up.  That's it, I take out two meals a day and add a snack, but I'm still hungry.

    Even if the country exempts land tax, the oil and water from this land will not?Big.  Wang Guangtian thought about this for a year before he made up his mind to buy an oil press.  Not only does my own family produce thousands of jins of peanuts a year, but the total number of people in the village and township also produces hundreds of thousands of jins of peanuts a year.  First, sell your own peanuts for oil extraction, and then buy peanuts from the village and continue to extract oil. Isn't it just a matter of spending some energy? Countryside people don't have much else, but they have a lot of energy.

    Since Wang Guangtian is the head of the family, there is no need to discuss this matter with his wife. Women have long hair but short knowledge.  He did what he said. After selling most of the grain stored at home, a silver-gleaming (galvanized) oil press was pulled back by a bullock cart.  This time, I went to Wang Guangtian, the county seat, to learn a complete set of oil-pressing techniques. In fact, there are no skills that can only be operated by fools. I just remember where to put in the materials, where to get the oil, and where to get the oil cakes.

    From that day on, the sound of "thumping, thumping, thumping" could be heard from the main room of Wang Guangtian's house.  Naturally, the first person to step on the pedal was Wang Guangtian, who had just learned this craft. The four people at home, his wife and children, started peeling peanuts and adding ingredients.  Then I watched the yellow-orange peanut oil slowly flow into a side bucket from less to more.

    When the oil came out, a piece of dark yellow oil cake slowly came out from the other side and fell on the plate. For a while, the room was filled with the fragrance of peanut oil.

    When all the oil and oil cakes came out, Wang Guangtian said: "The oil cakes can be squeezed one more time and then sent in."

    Wang Guangtian¡¯s wife put the oil cake into the feed port again, and Wang Guangtian started kicking again.  The oil produced in the second time is much less, but the combined oil production rate is considerable.  Although Wang Guangtian's family didn't even know a few words, they still felt confident in working with Zhou Caidong.

    Wang Guangtian¡¯s wife poured the squeezed peanut oil into an oil bottle that had been empty for many days at home. She gestured and said, ¡°It¡¯s one-fifth more oil than Zhou Caidong¡¯s.¡±

    Wang Guangtian said: "It's not just one-fifth. In the past, Zhou Caidong had to give all the oil cakes to Zhou Caidong to pay for the oil. Otherwise, he would give one-fifth of the peanut cakes. It's just a difference between the outside and the inside."  One-fifth of it. These oil cakes are also of great use."

    Of course, it is of great use. The oil cakes left after oil extraction can be used as fertilizer or feed.  When it was brought to the market, a lot of people spent money to buy it. The pigs ate the pancakes and grew fat and big, which was of course easier to sell - in this dark 1930s, fat meat was more expensive than lean meat.

    Wang Guangtian¡¯s eldest son thought that oil could still be squeezed out of the remaining oil cakes, so he asked: ¡°Dad, are you going to squeeze these oil cakes again?¡±

    Wang Guangtian nodded and said: "Okay. Let's try it. They said squeeze it twice, do we really squeeze it twice?"

    It¡¯s just that this time the oil press disappointed the father and son. The third time, only a few drops of peanut oil were squeezed out, which was not enough effort.

    ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? off.  It's an unexpected surprise to be able to produce so much oil.  The whole family immediately devoted themselves to the oil extraction work with greater mental strength.

    A pound of peanut oil can be sold for about 20 cents per pound in Shanghai or Sijiucheng, but the wholesale price in the countryside is only 10 cents per pound - it is naturally cheaper depending on where it is produced. Besides, the ones in Sijiucheng and Shanghai Beach  Living standards are always higher than those in local counties.

    When Wang Guangtian stepped on the oil press, he was thinking of the good days in the future.  This year, our family harvested more than 1,800 kilograms of peanuts, which yields about 1,400 to 500 kilograms of peanut kernels. After drying, we have to remove 100 kilograms of moisture.  But there are still 1,300 kilograms of peanut kernels. Normally, these peanut kernels are squeezed out for oil and sold to pay various taxes. Since last year, these taxes and agricultural taxes have disappeared, so there are still several hundred kilograms left last year.  Catties of peanut kernels - these are the peanut kernels dried last year that are pressed for oil now.

    "According to the current oil production rate, two thousand kilograms of peanut kernels can produce about six to seven hundred kilograms of peanut oil. Darling, how much does this cost?"  It's more than one hundred. After all the money spent on buying the machine, there's still a lot left over. What's more important is that the money legitimately belongs to the family.  No need to think about donations for suppressing bandits, donating to prevent thieves, donating for building roads, donating for disaster relief.

    After thinking about it, Wang Guangtian strengthened his belief: If he asks me to donate this or that again, I will fight him with a gun.

    Wang Guangtian¡¯s wife poured pots of peanut kernels into the food inlet and asked, ¡°Dad, our family will have to raise a few piglets next spring. I see these pancakes, and I can¡¯t use up all the land at home.¡±

    Wang Guangtian pedaled more and more vigorously and said: "More than just buying a few piglets, our family is so tired from digging peanuts this year that we can't even stand up straight. If we hire people to dig peanuts next year, there is no work in the fields that can keep up with the quick money."  I did the math and found that growing peanuts can earn about a hundred yuan a year. It is quite worthwhile to spend more than ten yuan to hire someone to plan peanuts. The work in the grain fields can also be outsourced to day laborers.  As the oil mill gets bigger, we will also hire a few long-term workers to live the life of Zhou Cai's boss."

    "A profit of one hundred yuan a year!" Wang Guangtian's wife found it difficult to accept it for a while.How much does the machine-made white flour cost? Sixty-seven cents per pound.  The annual output of the family's five acres of grain fields is only 800 kilograms of white flour and 2,000 kilograms of corn flour. The total value is more than 100 yuan, but that is what the family eats. If nothing else is said at home, it is enough for five people in a year.  The rations required thousands of kilograms of cornmeal and hundreds of kilograms of white flour.

    The saved grains were not dared to be sold indiscriminately and should be kept for later use. Like this time, Wang Guangtian took it upon himself to exchange all the cash and stored grains at home for an oil press. The wife did not dare to say it, but she was complaining in her heart.  Countless times - if this iron guy can't squeeze out oil, how will he survive this winter and next spring? You must know that your relatives and husband's family are not rich either.

    The family took turns to work, and it took them fifteen days to squeeze all 2,000 kilograms of peanut kernels into more than 700 kilograms of peanut oil and more than 900 kilograms of oil cakes.  From then on, everyone in Wang Guangtian's family had thick and strong legs. This was something that everyone discovered only a long time later.  The important thing now is to exchange the peanut oil for money and continue to buy peanut kernels.

    Baobei, where Wang Guangtian lives, is really a good place. Whether it is Sijiucheng, Tianjinwei or Baoding, the provincial capital of Zhili at this time, there are a large number of people living there, especially Beiping City, which has a population of several million (resident plus mobile).  ) There are still some, these people naturally need to eat oil.

    There may be factories, schools, and hospitals in the city, but it is impossible to produce oil without farmland. The necessary non-staple food, fruits, vegetables, and cooking oil must be purchased from the countryside, and there are also businessmen who come here to do second-hand business.

    After Wang Guangtian¡¯s family sold the oil, they inquired about the price of peanut kernels in the market.  I was immediately surprised to find that the 140 yuan earned from selling peanut oil could actually buy 2,800 kilograms of peanut kernels.  Not to mention anything else, my family also made more than 700 kilograms of peanut kernels.  The one I bought is not an oil press. The one I bought is obviously a money press.

    Wang Guangtian thought for a long time after returning home before he realized that Zhou Caidong's place had a lower oil output rate and could still make profits. It was impossible for his own company to make less than Zhou Caidong's place.  Furthermore, Zhou Caidong's oil shop hired two workers, five workers, and one accounting office. Even though his family didn't hire anyone, they also made a lot more money here.  (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to become a registered member of Piaotian Literature to recommend this work. Your support is my biggest motivation.)
Didn't finish reading? Add this book to your favoritesI'm a member and bookmarked this chapterCopy the address of this book and recommend it to your friends for pointsChapter error? Click here to report