I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 174 New Support
Zhou Laosan and Zhou Abao naturally did not dare to get involved in this series of events. They were both honest farmers, but they also saw the thundering methods of the engineering command.

They suddenly realized that the heaviest punishment now was actually expulsion, which they had previously thought was the lightest, because the wage standards had already been announced.

As long as they can work 26 days a month, they can get 2 silver coins as salary.

Zhou Laosan didn't understand how much two silver coins were worth at first, but he became excited when he heard that it was worth one tael of silver.

In the Ming Dynasty, the average yield per mu of farmland in the north was more than one dan of wheat in spring and millet in autumn, which adds up to two dan per year.

Zhou Laosan and his family rented 5 acres of land. The land was not particularly good, but they had to pay % rent every year.

In this way, Zhou Laosan's family could only have 20 dan of grain left in a year. In the Ming Dynasty, one dan was 190 jin, which is about 3800 jin. These 3800 jin of grain would have to be eaten by six people for a year, which means each person would have to eat about 6 jin of grain a day.

Don't think that two kilograms of food a day is a lot, because they don't consume too much fat and sugar, and these two kilograms of food are not enough.

Moreover, these 3800 kilograms of grain could not be used just for eating. They had to keep seeds, pay various taxes, and buy daily necessities such as oil and salt. Therefore, the Zhou family lived a very difficult life. They had to eat two meals a day, and both were half-dry and half-liquid, and often had to be supplemented with some elm seeds, locust flowers, wild vegetables, etc. The whole family was in a semi-starved state all year round.

Zhou Laosan would also do some odd jobs to supplement the family income, but there were not many odd jobs available around Zhoujia Village.

Now, one can earn 26 tael of silver by working 1 days a month. This is a perfect opportunity for Zhou Laosan. He and his son can buy 4 shi of grain by working for a month. To be honest, working here is much better than farming at home.

They are not afraid of working, but they are afraid of not getting corresponding rewards after doing the work.

Moreover, the construction site also provides meals, so they both have full meals every day, which saves a lot of food for the family, so they cherish this working opportunity very much.

Under this standard wage rate, many workers have begun to inquire whether they can be paid more if they do not take four or five days off a month. However, their request was rejected by the project headquarters on the grounds of considering the workers' health.

There are only a very small number of lawless elements among the workers. The vast majority of the workers are down-to-earth, honest, hardworking and willing to work hard. Therefore, these disturbances did not have any negative impact on the progress of the project. Instead, they made the workers trust the project command more.

When Zhou Erwa was resting on the shore with his workers, a messenger suddenly came and asked Zhou Erwa to take some people to the logistics department to help move things, and it would be best if they could swim.

Zhou Erwa thought about it and decided to let the people from Zhoujia Village sign up themselves.

"Me!" Zhou Abao was the first to stand up. Zhou Laosan tried to pull him but failed.

Building a dam is very hard work, and Zhou Abao wants to rest for a while, but he also wants to see other things. After all, building a dam is too boring.

With Zhou Abao taking the lead, more and more people signed up. All of them were young people like him, and middle-aged and elderly people were there to watch the fun.

After Zhou Erwa finished registering everyone and walked a little further away, Zhou Laosan couldn't wait to scold Zhou Abao.

"Why are you trying to stand out? Why are you trying to stand out?" Zhou Laosan said in a low voice, "Didn't I tell you not to stand out? Don't stand out! Just follow the crowd."

"Dad," Zhou Abao said, scratching his head a little embarrassed. "Don't call me dad, you are my dad now, my ancestor!" Zhou Laosan said with a tone of regret, "I have eaten more salt than you have eaten rice, and I have served many times. Don't I know what the fate of those who like to stand out will be?"

Zhou Abao's expression became embarrassed. He hesitated for a moment and then retorted: "Dad, I know what you said, but I feel that this time is different. Those people are reasonable, whether they are doing work or punishing people."

Zhou Laosan turned his head away angrily and stopped talking.
Zhou Erwa came back after a while and took Zhou Abao and his group to the logistics department, where each of them received a shoulder pole and two baskets.

The group walked along the coastline into the distance, and young people like them kept joining them. Soon there were four or five hundred people. They moved away from the construction site, went around the foot of a mountain, and suddenly saw four large ships anchored on the sea in the distance. There were eight long piers on the sea leading to where the ships were anchored.

All four ships lowered their sails, and on the tops of their masts were hung the familiar red-bottomed black dragon flags.

"Follow me, and be careful not to fall into the water!" Zhou Erwa called out to Zhou Abao and his group.

The water is relatively shallow near the Nanbao shore, so ships cannot enter, so they can only build a plank road in the sea.

Zhou Abao and his group walked onto the wooden plank road and found that it was very solid, and then approached the large ship in the sea.

The closer he got to those big ships, the stranger Zhou Abao felt they looked. He had seen sea ships before, but the one in front of him looked very strange.

A huge net was hung on the mast and was drying in the sun. There was a long crane at the stern. What was even more surprising was that there were a lot of huge fish hanging on the boat with ropes, some of which were taller than a person.

When he got closer, he smelled a strong fishy smell and couldn't help but cover his nose. He saw someone on the boat repairing the hanging fishing net.

"You're here! Move the fish away quickly, otherwise they will go bad!" A man leaned out of the boat. He was also wearing a familiar uniform, but he had a boat-shaped hat on his head.

"How many fish do you have here?" someone in the crowd shouted.

"There are 20,000 kilograms of food on the boat. Hurry up. The weather is hot and the food will go bad quickly. If it goes bad, you won't be able to eat it!" the people on the boat shouted.

Eat? Zhou Abao thought he had heard it wrong.

Zhou Erwa on the side had already started to mobilize, "Workers, hurry up and move, this is a fishing boat sent by the prince, all these fish are ours, pull it back and we will have a good meal tonight!"

As soon as the topic of eating meat was mentioned, everyone cheered. Suddenly, the fishy smell was no longer so unpleasant. Morale was extremely high. Although they could have their fill, who wouldn't want to eat meat?

Zhou Abao followed the instructions and boarded the boat. He saw a pool in the middle of the boat, which was filled with fish and shrimps of various colors, including crabs and octopuses. Many of these fish were still jumping.

He was stunned for a moment, then quickly used tools to put the fish into the baskets he brought, and then passed them to the workers waiting under the boat. The workers happily picked up the fish and walked to the shore.
These four ships were the product of the Qizhou Shipyard's practice. They were named Jingyu Type 1 by Zhu Houxun. They are specially designed for near and far sea fishing. There are only four ships of this type. Now they have all been pulled here by Zhu Houxun to support the construction of Nanbao Salt Field.
I worked overtime yesterday and didn’t get home until four in the morning today. I slept until the afternoon and then got up to write the book. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for so long.

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(End of this chapter)