Walking into a cesspit, the best evil widow wants to stand up

This was not even counting the distribution of cotton. She asked the servants to help her with this. Making a quilt was exhausting for her.

The most difficult part of the whole process is fluffing the cotton. The bow for fluffing the cotton is tied to my waist, and my left hand presses the bow. My right hand holds the cotton hammer and fluffs it. I repeat the same mechanical action at least tens of thousands of times, which makes my hands tired.

After making this quilt of cotton, her whole body was covered with hair, just like the White-Haired Girl. She didn't want to make a second quilt as it would be too taxing on her waist.

But there were still dozens of kilograms of cotton, and making a quilt with it dampened Shen Ping's enthusiasm.

It was the first time for everyone to see such a cotton-fluffing method, and they all looked at it in wonder. Dadong was also eager to try it out: "Madam, can you let me have a try?"

"Yes! Why should we do it ourselves? We can teach Dadong and let him do it!" Shen Ping laughed.

It has to be said that cotton-fluffing is still done by men, as men have the advantage in height and physical strength. Dadong is also a martial artist, and he has a sturdy build, over 1.7 meters tall.

He was very skilled in using the cotton-fluffing tool. He learned it once Dadong taught him and became more and more enthusiastic in using it.

It took Shen Ping five days to make the first quilt, while it only took Dadong three days.

Practice makes perfect. Dadong made the next few quilts faster and faster. He made seven quilts with more than 50 kilograms of cotton, each weighing eight kilograms.

These seven quilts were used for nearly half a month. Each of the brothers and sisters had one quilt, plus Shen Ping herself, so there was one quilt left, which Shen Ping gave to Mo Ru.

Everyone was pleasantly surprised to find that this quilt was really great. It was not only heavy but also warm.

Erya touched the quilt and smiled: "Mom, this quilt is so good. It would be great if everyone could cover themselves with it."

Erya said sincerely: "If there is extra cotton to make cotton clothes, it will be double happiness. Mother, we can consider making cotton clothes in our garment workshop then."

"I will definitely be able to do it next year!" Shen Ping's eyes were bright and full of hope: "I have saved a lot of cotton seeds. I will distribute them to the villagers and let everyone plant them~"

"Really! That's great!" Erya was overjoyed. It was winter now and the business of the garment shop had declined a little.

According to Mr. Liu, in the winter, underwear sells slower than in hot weather. Erya also took this into consideration because the main business of the garment shop is light-weight products.

If we can use this cotton to make cotton-padded clothes and take over the market first, the prospects for these cotton-padded clothes will be promising.

This year's winter came earlier than in previous years, but life is much better this year than last year. Everyone now has not only food but also some cash.

But the joy didn't last long before the village chief brought bad news, which poured cold water on everyone.

That day, the village chief came back from the county government office and brought news that the imperial court had begun to collect grain taxes. Based on the calculation of land, 200 kilograms of grain had to be paid per acre.

This news made some people in Kaoshan Village happy while others worried. The villagers who planted high-yield rice started to laugh. If they calculated it this way, they would still have a lot of food left after paying the tax. They would not have to worry about food and drink for the whole year.

What worries the villagers is that there are no high-yield rice plants. The maximum yield per mu of traditional rice is only 400 kilograms. The harvesting cost is not high, and half of the grain has to be paid.

The family only had a few acres of land, and there was not enough food to feed more than a dozen people, let alone paying taxes and grain. Even if they didn't pay, it would not be enough to eat, let alone paying taxes and grain.

The village chief said that there are three ways to pay taxes. If there is not enough grain, you can make up for it with silver. At least one or two taels of silver must be paid for every acre of land. Isn't this tantamount to costing lives?

But there was no way to ask everyone to take out money. This was impossible because we didn't have that much money.

Finally, there is another way, which is to use people instead of taxes. Families that cannot afford to pay grain or silver are required to send one able-bodied man to perform Yao labor.

Unless one is desperate, no one would choose this, because young men are the backbone of the family.

So some villagers came up with the idea of ​​borrowing grain from the villagers who grew high-yield rice, but these days you can borrow anything except money or grain.

These are the foundations of life, who would be willing to lend them out so easily! This matter made both Widow Wu and Gao worried.

Because her mother-in-law, Mrs. Liao, did not buy high-yield rice, Gao's family still planted traditional rice. They originally had five acres of land, but the harvest was poor, so they only harvested more than 1000 kilograms of grain from all the land.

Now this levy would take nearly half of their grain, wouldn't that cut off their food supply? But they had to pay silver, and they didn't have that much silver on hand.

Compared to paying silver, Gao would rather pay all the grain, because it is more cost-effective to pay grain. After all, if you pay the grain, you will have some silver in your hand to buy more grain.

But I don’t know when the price of food will go up. There are five or six people in my family, and the money I earn is not enough.

Gao has been having a headache these past two days and can't help but resent her mother-in-law. Everything is caused by her mother-in-law, otherwise her life wouldn't be so difficult.

Gao thought of asking for help, she planned to ask Shen Ping for help. She planned to borrow some food from her, as she knew that Shen Ping had collected a lot of food from everyone.

Even if she transported the grain to the capital, there would definitely be some left.

Gao found Shen Ping and explained her purpose. Shen Ping was very straightforward and lent her 500 kilograms of grain without saying a word.

Shen Ping knew that if she planted high-yield rice the next year, the 500 kilograms of grain would be quickly repaid. Besides, Gao worked diligently in her workshop, so she would help if she could.

Widow Wu also planted some high-yield rice, but not much. She did have six or seven acres of land under her name, but she had not planted much before. Now that she had to pay so much grain at once, she was really worried.

Paying money was impossible, and serving as a Yao laborer was even more impossible, because there were no able-bodied men in their family.

Widow Wu couldn't sleep these days because she was thinking about this matter. Widow Wu was a competitive person and she didn't want to ask anyone for help.

He couldn't sleep for several days and had no energy to work during the day. He Yao saw this and took it to heart.

Their relationship is very delicate now. He doesn't know when it started, but He Yao's eyes always follow Widow Wu intentionally or unintentionally.

Widow Wu's husband had passed away a long time ago, and many men in the village had their eyes on her. In the past, Widow Wu had a bad reputation in the village, and He Yao knew this.

He also always thought that Widow Wu was a fickle woman, and he would avoid such women if possible. He never thought that one day he would be involved with Widow Wu.

Ever since Widow Wu started working in the workshop, the two had more contact due to work reasons, which also made He Yao change his previous opinion of her.