Chapter 61 Eat Meat

Chen Gu roughly took a look at the number of people at the scene. There were about 100 to 200 young and strong people, and 300 to 400 old, weak, women and children. "With so many people, I'm afraid it will be difficult to buy enough sickles."

"It's okay. Just let them bring their own sickles, divide the land, and then rent it to them to cut grass. Thirty cents might be enough for a piece of land. More than a thousand acres will only cost more than thirty taels of silver. With some food, it should not exceed fifty taels of silver!" Chen Tao said as he calculated.

After hearing this, Chen Gu couldn't help but ask in surprise: "So cheap?"

"Not cheap, is it?" Chen Tao looked at Chen Gui in surprise and said, "A woman who is more skilled can finish mowing a field in one day at most. It's not easy for a woman to earn 30 cents a day. Besides, the weather is not too hot now, so it's not that hard work. And you provide meals, so it's a good deal."

Chen Gu was not very clear about the market situation, but since Chen Tao said it was a good deal, he would not treat them unfairly. Chen Gu was not short of this money and had never thought of treating anyone unfairly.

In Chen Gu's opinion, it is a very cost-effective thing to spend some money to gain a good reputation and make the village get along well with the surrounding people. Not only is it convenient to purchase supplies nearby, but people may also tip you off if anything happens.

Sometimes it can even play a big role.

"How many taels of silver do so many people need to eat in a day?" Chen Gu asked again.

Chen Tao smiled and said, "If you want to treat them to a good meal, you can spend dozens of taels of silver. If you just want to fill their stomachs, one tael of silver is enough. A few taels of silver is a standard meal. A little more will make the meal better, and a little less will also be acceptable."

A pound of rice costs at least ten cents. For a group of about five hundred people, even ten taels of silver would not be enough for them to eat rice for a day. If they could be full with five taels of silver, it could only mean that the food must have contained a lot of vegetables such as sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and green beans.

Well, if it's planned well, there should still be a little bit of oil and meat.

"Then let's do as our senior brother says and plant the pumpkins as soon as possible!" Chen Gu said with a smile.

Planting pumpkins does not interfere with land reclamation. You just need to stop for one or two months after the pumpkins start growing. However, that will be the hottest time of the year, so even if you don't stop, you won't be able to do much work.

As soon as Chen Gu finished speaking, he saw Zhang San peeking from a distance, which made Chen Gu a little angry. He shouted, "Come here, why are you sneaking around like that? What do you want to see?"

"No, the things have been transported back, and the grooms are waiting to get their wages!" Zhang San ran over and said.

Chen thought for a moment, took out two ingots of ten-liang silver and handed them to Zhang San, saying, "Give them the money for their labor, and you find two more people to buy a big fat pig. Use the remaining money to buy soybeans. We will have pork stewed with soybeans tonight. Stew the whole pig for me."

These people who have been reclaiming the land have been working hard for many days, and each of them is very diligent. Just now, Chen Gu watched from a high place for half an hour, and none of the men, women, young or old were lazy. Even in the gaps when the supervisor was not looking, they still worked hard.

Chen Gu didn't know why, maybe it was because he could eat enough here, maybe it was because the salary was high, or maybe it was because such a job was hard to come by.

Chen Gu didn't want to care about the reason. Anyway, since such hardworking people were working for him, he was willing to reward them with a delicious meal.

"Ah, the whole pig is cooked in one meal?" Zhang San asked in surprise.

"Of course, I'm your boss's treat, how can I be stingy?" Chen Gu raised his eyebrows and said, "Not only will we cook the whole pig today, but we will also eat a pig every three days in the future."

A live pig costs only 40 to 50 wen per jin, and a fat pig weighing more than 100 jin costs only 5 or 6 liang of silver. If you eat one every three days, you won't need to spend a single silver note in a year. Chen Ju has 100 to 200 silver notes worth 1,000 liang. If he takes out one, he can make these hundreds of people happy for a whole year. It's not a loss no matter how you think about it.

Although each person can only get one or two taels of pork per meal, it does make them happy.

Eating meat could be said to be one of the happiest things for ordinary people in this era. So, when Lao Nian left, Chen Gu, in addition to giving him three silver notes for him to visit his brothers' families and sending twenty taels of silver to his brothers' families for emergency use, also gave him an extra one hundred taels of silver to buy meat.

A family can buy more than ten kilograms of pork with one tael of silver.

At this time, Lao Nian came to Scar's house carrying more than ten kilograms of pork. This was Lao Nian's last destination. After visiting Scar's house, he completed his mission and could return to the village.

There were ten people who came out with Lao Nian, and each of them was responsible for visiting the homes of a dozen brothers. Most of the brothers in the mountain village were in Yichang, because this was the first big city after coming out of the Three Gorges. After passing Yichang, a large number of trackers were needed to pull the boats across the gorge.

Of course, there are also people who come here from other places waiting for work, but they are a minority after all, so we just need to send a brother to take care of those who are scattered and far away.

The routes were planned in advance by Chen Gu and everyone else. The ten people who came out could not return to their homes and could only ask other brothers to take the money back.

Lao Nian understood that Chen Gu needed to completely control every brother in the stronghold, so Lao Nian himself did not go home and carried out Chen Gu's orders thoroughly.

Scar's family lives in a small town. They have no land and rely on working for others to make a living. They live a relatively poor life, mainly because there are too many brothers and sisters in the family.

After Lao Nian finished cutting the meat, before he even reached Scar's house, he met a barber in an alley who looked about 60% to 70% like Scar. Needless to say, this was most likely Scar's father.

Lao Nian walked over cheerfully carrying some pork and said with a smile, "Brother, business is good!"

"TOEFL, TOEFL!" The barber quickly stood up, rubbed his hands, and replied stiffly. The man in front of him looked unfamiliar. Although he was only wearing a half-new and half-worn cloth suit, he was carrying a large piece of fat pork weighing more than ten pounds.

I'm afraid an ordinary family cannot eat so much pork in a year. It's not a festival now and the weather is getting hot. To buy so much pork, you must be very rich or don't care about money. No matter which kind of person you are, no one dares to offend him.

"Would you like to ask me something?" Lao Nian asked with a smile.

"Please ask anything you want!" The barber responded carefully.

"Brother, I am also a barber. Do you know that there is a barber named Fu Quan in this town?" asked Lao Nian.

Fu Quan was already terrified at this time, and had no idea whether he should tell the other party that he was Fu Quan.

Lao Nian continued to laugh and said, "To be honest, I am from Chongqing Prefecture and work in the government office. I have a brother named Fu Hang under my command. I came to visit him when I passed by here this time and brought him something back!"

"Fu Hang, is Fu Hang okay?" Fu Quan asked nervously.

(End of this chapter)