Reclaiming Wasteland: Carefree Mountain Farmer

Chapter 127 The Literacy Craze

Late June, early July.

Early in the morning, the Wang family began to prepare for the renovation of the new house, and built a new courtyard near the original earthen house.

The workers got busy, and the ladies got up, dressed, washed, and prepared for breakfast.

The servants were cooking in the kitchen when Dou Yumen came out of the young lady's room and a maid ran in.

"Sister Dou, here's today's newspaper. Please keep it safe. I'm going to get busy now."

498 packed up the twenty newspapers he had prepared and handed them over.

Dou Yumen smiled and said, "Alright, let's eat here before we get back to work."

Si Jiu Ba wiped the sweat from his brow. "I'm not going. We only sell a lot in the morning. I'm leaving now."

After saying that, the little girl slung her cloth bag over her shoulder and went out.

Summer weather is hot, and it's unbearably hot early in the morning.

Dou Yumen brought the newspapers into the room, left two copies, and placed the rest on the table.

Wang Mingyu, dressed in a cool silk dress, was sitting behind the screen combing her hair. Seeing this, she instructed, "Send this to each of the households later. Don't wait for them to come over on their own. It's so hot, and it's annoying for them to crowd into our room and chatter on and on."

"Yes, ma'am."

Dou Yumen casually agreed and sat down to read the newspaper.

She was illiterate, but fortunately, her mistress taught her to read, so she knew some of the mountain people's script.

Not long after they started looking, Bao'er, the maid of the eldest mistress Fang Huairui, came in.

"Hey~ You're reading the newspaper now? Can you even understand it?"

Bao'er teased Dou Yumen, then politely addressed the room, "Third Miss, Grandma asked me to come and get the newspaper."

"Okay." Wang Mingyu replied simply, then added, "This place is too hot; the Duke's mansion is much better."

Tong Bao'er picked up the newspaper and glanced at it, then quickly said, "Third Miss, the newspaper says there's a major epidemic in Luoyang that hasn't stopped yet. The Duke of Chu has passed away, and his son has inherited the title."

Wang Mingyu emerged from behind the screen, walked to the table, sat down, and picked up the newspaper to examine it.

A great plague struck Luoyang, killing a million people. Corpses were transported by oxcarts day and night, the cries of agony never ceasing. The Prince of Jin, the Prince of Dai, and the Duke of Chu died last week, and his son inherited the title.

The list of the dead was detailed, and they were all prominent people in Luoyang.

Wang Mingyu saw some familiar names and couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness at how things had changed.

If you keep reading, you'll come across some shocking news related to agriculture.

In Shandong, Henan, Guanzhong and other places, locust nymphs covered the fields, making it impossible for people and horses to travel. The ditches were flattened, the locusts filled the sky, and their sound was like wind and rain. Wherever they passed, the land was scorched for thousands of miles.

Locusts swept through the area, continuing for three days without ceasing, and instantly wiped out all the crops.

Starving people sell their wives and daughters; a young girl gets three bushels of millet, and a wife gets one meal.

People caught locusts for food, or dug up grass roots and peeled tree bark; some even disemboweled themselves to put locusts inside and died.

[Years of severe disasters led to reduced grain production, and a major epidemic further exacerbated the situation. Prices of rice, wheat, and millet in Luoyang skyrocketed, with ten catties of millet costing six thousand coins—a two-hundred-fold increase.]

[The locust plague has affected Youzhou, Jizhou, and Qingzhou, causing widespread disorder and rampant misconduct. Officials and soldiers have extorted ten years' worth of taxes from the people before fleeing south, leaving millions of people exhausted and unable to cope with the drought and disaster.]

[Due to the impact of the war-torn region, the price of wheat in Shannong County has increased by eight qian per jin, and the price of millet has increased by five qian per jin. Smuggling grain to areas outside the mountains is prohibited; anyone caught doing so will be executed!]

Wang Mingyu breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the local grain prices.

One tael of silver is equivalent to one thousand coins, which is enough to buy two hundred catties of millet.

In mountainous areas, the problem of getting food becomes extremely difficult after grain prices have skyrocketed a hundredfold.

Wang Mingyu continued reading the newspaper and discovered that this year was both hot and dry.

They died from the scorching heat, from hunger, from forced conscription during war, and from plague. Even in the mountainous county, some died from heatstroke or suffocated in their houses.

Extreme and unusual weather conditions have made survival difficult.

The newspapers also described the troubles in each region.

The Central Plains were plagued by disease, while the area under the Qin King's jurisdiction in Guanzhong was suffering from severe drought.

The heavy snow during the Spring Festival brought a large amount of snow to the Shaanxi and Shanxi regions, but the Loess Plateau could not retain moisture, and the water dried up not long after it passed.

The situation shifted rapidly from flood to drought, with water levels soaring and fire raging.

The two inhuman kings, Qin and Jin, didn't care about the lives of the locals. Their tyrannical taxation and extortion forced city dwellers, who were already not very good at farming, to flee south to escape famine, leaving the land even more neglected.

The drought in North China was not severe; the main problems were locust plagues and war.

Wen Chao ordered everyone to move south. During the migration, the officials and soldiers in power acted like bandits, looting and plundering everywhere to help with the move.

The simultaneous swarms of two locusts plunged the northern region into immense chaos.

Wang Mingyu continued watching, becoming increasingly alarmed.

In early March, people in Daming Prefecture, sensing an impending year of famine, mobilized their villages and clans to protect, store, and safeguard their grain.

In April, bandits rose up everywhere, stealing grain, robbing grain, and committing murder.

In June, the garrison in Jizhou forcibly collected taxes on those migrating south, entering villages to requisition grain, which was then sold to rice merchants in the city.

In late June, officials and soldiers in various counties of Jizhou forcibly requisitioned summer grain; due to their independent actions, it was impossible to compile statistics.

Chaos reigned outside the mountains, with countless bones scattered about. Disaster victims robbed grain transport convoys heading to Jiaodong from the mountain peasant army. King Wu dispatched troops to suppress the rebellion.

[From now on, in addition to the five pages covering agriculture, military affairs, news from outside the mountains, news from within the mountains, and people's livelihood, the newspaper will add a fashion page to introduce current clothing and style trends. The price of the newspaper will remain unchanged at five copper coins.]

"What happened? I've been waiting for ages, I thought you fell into a stinky pit and you haven't come back yet."

Fang Huairui walked into the room fanning herself and began to scold her maid, Tong Bao'er.

Tong Bao'er immediately said, "Grandma, please forgive me. There were so many things in the newspaper today, and I got so engrossed in reading them that I neglected your business. Please forgive me, Grandma."

Fang Huairui asked curiously, "Let me see, what's going on now?"

Tong Bao'er began to explain from the side. Because Fang Huairui's learning ability was somewhat poor and reading was difficult, she roughly explained the meaning of several news articles so that Fang Huairui could guess the general meaning when she read the newspaper.

It's like when you see a TV series and suddenly some English is mixed in; because you know the content, it's easy to understand the English content.

After hearing the general content, Fang Huairui had a direction when reading the newspaper. She was able to filter out possible translations from the general meaning, and the reading became much smoother.

Literacy rates are rising throughout the entire mountainous county. Men on farms and plantations, men and women of many artisan families, and bored soldiers on guard duty are all subconsciously beginning to learn to read.

There is no free education or mandatory universal access, but with peaceful development and a stable supply of three meals a day, literacy rates will definitely rise.

A newspaper costs five coins, a worker's daily wage is thirty coins, a patrol soldier's monthly wage is one thousand coins, a city guard's wage is one thousand two hundred coins, and a border guard's wage is one thousand five hundred coins, all of which include food, clothing, lodging, and transportation.

With fixed land, there's no need to save money to buy anything. You can even use it to buy newspapers without feeling bad, and a single newspaper can be read repeatedly by a group of people. It can also be used to wipe your bottom, plaster walls, or burn as kindling.

Iron smelting, copper making, printing, papermaking, gunpowder, agriculture, harvesting machinery, textiles... Slaves in the Arctic Army not only get to eat their fill while working, but they also receive wages.

Of the 500,000 people, only 100,000 need to be paid wages, which amount to 200,000 to 300,000 taels of silver per month.

There wasn't enough silver, and copper coins were also in short supply.

Fortunately, the financial system was very healthy, and it had been systematically recycling copper coins and silver, redistributing them after recycling, in a continuous cycle.

The goods the workers produced were sold to the rest of the people, along with newspapers, fruits and vegetables, cheap clothes and bedding, wool blankets and curtains, and salt and tea brought from elsewhere.

They would exchange grain and meat for tea and salt from outside, and then sell them to the grassland people and their own people.

Because there are few people, there is always enough money to circulate.

(End of this chapter)