The happy little days of the Ye family

Although the honeysuckle on the mountain is not taken care of very much, it grows many new branches every year.

The honeysuckle on the two hills of the Ye family has been planted for three or four years. From the original small seedlings, it has gradually grown bigger and bigger, and now it is as lush as a small tree.

The longer the branches of honeysuckle grow, the more honeysuckle will grow. It can be said that the production of honeysuckle is increasing every year.

Excluding the wages of hiring someone to pick honeysuckle, the Ye family can earn at least dozens of taels of silver every year just from selling honeysuckle.

You still need to spend money to buy the jujube trees on the mountain, but you can cut honeysuckle, and there are honeysuckle in the mountain behind the village.

Except for a little labor cost when planting honeysuckle, it basically cost nothing in the end.

People who bought hills in the village basically planted honeysuckle on the hills.

There is a large amount of honeysuckle in Taohua Village. After Ye’s father’s continuous promotion on the dock, many drug dealers will come to the village to collect honeysuckle every summer.

The price of honeysuckle purchased by drug dealers is much lower than that sold in bulk in drug stores, but there are too many honeysuckles in the village, and the drug stores in the town and county cannot afford them.

It basically costs nothing to grow honeysuckle, and it is easy to sell it to apothecaries. People in the village sell honeysuckle directly to apothecaries.

As for the honeysuckle from the Ye family, Ye's father had already contacted a drug dealer he met on the dock and charged 43 yuan per pound.

Before the summer harvest, Ye's father would send half of the honeysuckle to the dock, and then the other half after the summer harvest.

In previous years, merchants who came to the village to collect honeysuckle were only willing to pay 42 Wen per catty.

But the drug dealer Ye's father contacted said that although he had to transport it to the dock himself, he could pay an extra penny per catty.

The Ye family has their own donkey cart, so it is not troublesome to transport them there. A pound of honeysuckle costs one penny more, and 1000 pounds is one tael of silver.

Mr. Ye led the long-term workers on the mountain to pick honeysuckle every day from dawn to dusk.

By the time most of the honeysuckle on the mountain has been picked, the rice at the foot of the mountain has quietly matured.

The golden rice became so heavy that the seedlings were bent over.

The experienced Mr. Ye knew at a glance that this year's summer harvest would be a good one.

Before the summer harvest begins, Mr. Ye plans to increase the wages of all long-term workers in his family.

As for how much the salary would be increased, Mr. Ye and Mrs. Ye discussed it for a long time and finally decided to increase it from the original 500 cash per month to 550 cash per month.

In addition, after the summer harvest and autumn harvest, each person will be rewarded with an additional 50 cents.

Before the summer harvest, in addition to the Ye family and the Tang family, those who planned to increase wages for long-term workers.

Originally, Tang Shan and Tang Xiaojing planned to directly increase their wages when the long-term workers came back.

But Mr. Ye felt that this was inappropriate and quickly stopped it.

As soon as they come back to work, they immediately give the long-term workers a raise, as if they can't live without these long-term workers.

Although the two families are really busy without these long-term workers, they cannot let the long-term workers know, otherwise they will be manipulated by these long-term workers in the future.

Mr. Ye suggested that Tangshan could increase wages for long-term workers before the summer harvest.

First of all, these long-term workers have been with the Ye family and the Tang family for two or three years, and they really deserve a wage increase.

Secondly, the summer harvest is a heavy task. Not only do we have to harvest grain, but we also have to plow the ground and plant autumn grain, which is very hard.

Increasing wages at this time can also motivate these long-term workers.

Tang Shan and Tang Xiaojing had to admire Mr. Ye. He was still hot when he was old, and he was absolutely right.

The father and son followed Mr. Ye's suggestion and planned to increase their wages before the summer harvest.

Tangshan learned that Mr. Ye also planned to raise the wages of long-term workers, and planned to match the Ye family, and the wage increase would be the same as the Ye family.

The Tang family and the Ye family have a good relationship, and the long-term workers from the two families often meet. If the wages and rewards are different, those with less wages will inevitably feel uncomfortable.

After Mr. Ye and Mrs. Ye decided how much wages they would give the long-term workers, Tangshan and Mr. Ye discussed it. Both families agreed on the same wage increase of 50 cents.

In addition, after the summer harvest and autumn harvest, each person will be rewarded with 50 Wen.

The long-term workers of both families were very happy when they found out that they would get a raise in wages, and there would also be rewards for the autumn and summer harvests, and they worked even harder.

Several long-term workers said that they had relatives at home who wanted to come here to work as long-term workers, and asked Mr. Ye and Tangshan whether they would accept long-term workers.

Mr. Ye feels that there are 13 long-term workers in the family, which is enough manpower to take care of the family's fields, hills, rabbit sheds and pig pens.

In the first half of the year, we can recruit some semi-permanent workers to help pick mushrooms and dig bamboo shoots, which would be good.

The hunters from Dashan Village would come to the Ye family to work as semi-permanent workers in the first half of each year, and they were very experienced. Mr. Ye still wanted to use these people back.

Tang Xiaojing felt that there were still not enough manpower at home. There were fields, hills, rabbit sheds and pig pens at home.

All this needs to be taken care of by long-term workers. Tang Xiaojing feels that it is better to recruit two or three more long-term workers.

Tang Shan and Tang Xiaojing discussed it all night and finally planned to recruit three more long-term workers.

It happens to be the summer harvest. With more people, the summer harvest can be easier. This autumn harvest and summer harvest are actually competing with God for time.

With the increase in wages, the family's long-term workers are all very motivated to work.

Grain from the fields was transported home little by little, and Mr. Ye and Mrs. Ye were very proud.

There is food in hand and there is no need to panic. This food is the lifeblood of farmers like them.

Since the family opened up 50 acres of paddy fields, the Ye family's cellar is not enough.

Mr. Ye also asked someone to dig two huge cellars in the backyard specifically for storing food.

The cellar that was used to store food still contains food for home use.

The newly dug large cellar is only used to store the excess food at home.

Both the Ye family and the Tang family raise a lot of pigs and rabbits, and there is plenty of fertilizer. This year's rice feels heavy to the touch, and the harvest is very good.

Before the summer harvest, Mrs. Ye had already packed up the cellar where grain was stored at home.

All the old grain inside was moved to the large cellar.

After the grain from the summer harvest was dried, Mr. Ye moved the new grain to the cellar overnight, leaving enough grain in the cellar to feed the family for three years.

All the remaining new grain was put into the large cellar.

In the past two years, Mr. Ye had sold the excess new grain and old grain from previous years directly, but this year he could not.

Ye Donglin sells grain in a grocery store. The grain at home can be sold in a grocery store and make more money.

There is another more important reason, which is that for this year's autumn harvest, all the barren hills and land purchased before will be taxed.

I don’t know what the harvest will be like in the second half of the year. Mr. Ye plans to keep all this grain to pay the grain tax after the autumn harvest.

Barren mountains are tax-free for five years, and barren lands are tax-free for three years. After the tax holiday, each acre of barren hills will have to pay a tax of 20 cents per year.

The fields created from wasteland will be subject to grain tax as normal fields.

The tax money on the barren hills is not much. The Ye family has to pay about seven or eight taels of silver a year for the two hills.

The bulk of it is the 50 acres of paddy fields created from wasteland.

The yield of the cleared fields is not high to begin with. Although Mr. Ye took care of him and applied a lot of farmyard manure.

However, the yield of the newly opened fields is far less than that of the original three acres of paddy fields.

After paying the grain tax and then deducting the wages of the long-term workers, these fields are actually not very profitable.

To make money, you still have to rely on the output of the mountains.