Because of the Purple Star Grass incident, the village folks had formed a strong opinion against her; even though she insisted that it was edible and she and Yaya had eaten it, they were convinced it was poisonous. Such a deeply ingrained subconscious had taken hold, seemingly beyond redemption.
She had asked Yaya to inquire if any fisherman with a boat could take them out to harvest sea snails (which the locals called "sea snail"), but not a single person had agreed, not even for money. Xiao Yu, to be honest, was somewhat angered and even thought these villagers were incredibly stubborn.
"Forget it, if they don’t want to help, so be it; it’s not the end of the world if we don’t go harvesting. We’ll just stick to searching and digging around the reefs nearby,"
Over these days, she had come to understand something: these people didn’t even know how to eat sea urchins or sea cucumbers, let alone seaweed or nori.
They deserved it if she became wealthy, haha.
As the weather got colder, people began harvesting potatoes. Although the Old Lady had almost fully recovered, considering her contagious condition, people would certainly keep their distance, so she was advised to stay at home cleaning the seaweed and processing the shelled meat they brought back, while she and Yaya went back and forth to the end of the field digging potatoes.
To avoid numb legs from squatting, she crafted a stool out of wooden planks and rope to strap onto her buttocks, allowing her freedom to walk, and she could sit whenever she wanted without any delay in her work, eliminating the need to move the stool all the time and thus working much more efficiently.
Usually, Yaya would do the digging while she carried the harvest back and forth. The potatoes they collected had to be first weighed and registered at the village chief’s place before they could take them home to store in the cellar.
Once all were gathered at home, and the weight calculated, she would take the amount owed for taxes to the village chief, who would forward it to the tax collection department.
Since they were potatoes and not the primary grain, the tax rate applied was 30 percent, meaning for every 1,000 jin harvested, 300 pounds had to be turned over in tax.
This ratio was quite significant since after planting potatoes, their fields would be closed off until the spring thaw the following year, leaving them lying fallow for over three months. If they planted winter wheat, the gap could be filled, but no one here grew wheat. Wheat required eight months to mature while millet only needed around one hundred days, hence the absence of wheat and rice in this area.
Fishing should be the main occupation of fishermen, but not every household owned a fishing boat, therefore a part of their effort had to go into farming. They would farm only if the yield was high; if low, they would not, which is why other than corn, sweet potatoes, wheat, and rice were not typically cultivated here according to our modern standards.
But the seeds now were not like those in the future, which were high-yielding hybrids aided by pesticides and fertilizers; in ancient times, such things didn’t exist and the harvest often depended on the weather.
Xiao Yu did not even know if planting winter wheat now would germinate, as normally it was sown in October and it was already the end of November; the outcome might be poor. However, she genuinely wanted to encourage everyone to plant wheat but couldn’t use the hybrid wheat from the space because it was a one-season crop and using its seed might not result in new crops, which was why farmers had to buy seeds each planting season. Follow current novels on n0velfire.net
After much thought and after speaking with Yaya, she decided to plant the unmodified grain bought from the space after harvesting, which could be planted infinitely in cycles; naturally, it was not high-yielding.