Chapter 385 - 374: Survey of Public Sentiments
Yang Heshu gave a stiff nod and managed a smile as he said, "Assessing the livelihood of the people is also one of the tasks Mr. Zhuang has assigned to me as part of my studies."
Manbao and Bai Shanbao both nodded earnestly to show their understanding, then indicated that he could ask them anything, and they would certainly spare no detail in their answers.
Although things were going very smoothly—indeed, they had never gone this smoothly before—he still felt that something was a bit off. What should he do?
The only one who seemed normal was Bai Erlang.
Bored while listening to their conversation, he crawled over to his book chest and took out two packets of snacks. Opening them, he grabbed a piece for himself and then placed the rest in the middle for everyone to share.
Yang Heshu inquired about the previous year’s harvest. He had originally thought that the three children wouldn’t know, after all, it was something only adults were aware of, and even among the adults, most only had a vague impression. From what he had seen in other villages, the most people could say was something like "The best plot of land was slightly worse than last year, yielding two bags of rice, and the worst had nothing to harvest at all."
But Manbao and Bai Shanbao were different; they were actually able to give specific numbers. For example, during last year’s summer harvest, the plot with the highest wheat yield in Qili Village belonged to the Zhou Family, totaling two and a half stones, and the worst yielded just a bundle of wheat, not even enough to recoup the seeds sown.
The rice crop fared worse—the highest yield was from the village head’s plot, at two stones, while the worst also had nothing to harvest, the kind that no one bothered to gather from the field. But considering the hardships of the coming year, people still went to collect rice with husk, which could be milled into rice bran, at least.
Manbao even had data from the year before. The two searched through their book chest and showed Yang Heshu the average yield per acre they had calculated.
Of course, this was only the data Manbao had temporarily collected from Qili Village, which didn’t include that of Old Master Bai’s family.
But Bai Erlang had data from his family. Of course, he originally didn’t have it.