Officials have to pay for their own entertainment in the countryside, unless it is an official organization for research, in which case the letter will be stamped with a long stamp representing special significance, and it is obvious that the letter presented by Chen Ding is not stamped with this seal. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

But the village chief did not underestimate him because of this. Take a look at the guards around Chen Ding, and the origin is still so big, the headquarters of the Nanyang Naval Division.

If he could, the village chief was willing to take out the good things in the entire village and worship Chen Ding.

But Chen Ding's request was only four dishes and one soup.

This is the standard configuration when he eats at Sungkyun Public School on weekdays, where all the students and teachers eat four dishes and one soup, two hot and two cold, two meat and two vegetarian, and the soup is not seaweed and egg soup, or meat foam kelp soup, which is nutritious, can increase phosphorus, iron, calcium, iodine, vitamins, sugar, inorganic salts and other multiple nutrients, especially iodine. In this era, people can only supplement iodization through seafood.

The village chief honestly introduced the situation in the village to Chen Ding, such as the grain harvest, the annual per capita income, the rich and the poor, how many years it took for the whole village from its initial establishment to development, and what difficulties it has experienced. The schooling of school-age children, the increase in the literacy rate of adults, the government policies of the Singapore government over the years, and the situation of the prisoners in the villages......

These things can't be cleaned up for a day and a night, and the village chief is welded to death. The militia captain hurried to the village accountant to get the account books.

The latter used to be a shopkeeper before immigrating to Nanyang, he could play a good abacus, and he was also clever and well-behaved, although the accountant of this immigrant village was not a serious public servant, only ten stones of rice as a subsidy every year, and he had a benefit that belonged to him during the New Year's holidays, but his status in the village was not low.

Especially in the past two years, the Malay natives have all been afraid, and they have been killed, and they dare not come to loot, kill, and harass again, and the importance of the militia captains in the village has plummeted.

The latter is like a dog-headed military division, the 'master' of the village, the [village chief] of the big boss is not there, and the militia captain also listens to him.

The village accountant looked at the letter in his hand, his face was full of shock, "This is a nobleman, we must entertain it." ”

The village chief invited him to his house for dinner, but he refused, so he stayed in the village commune. And show him the file. "This is not a master who can be fooled by good food and drink.

"If a noble man wants to see the file, you will show it to him. Our accounts are all done, and I can still make mistakes. ”

"Pull it down, I don't know you yet. There is still a pinch of forms in the account from that year ago that has not been filled in, can you show it to the nobles? ”

"The noble man is a person, and he is not a working group from above and below, what does he know? …… You show him what you have done, and then speak beautifully, and then it will pass. The accountant looked at the militia captain with contempt, "Isn't there no one in the city to accompany you?" Only a few policemen followed as bodyguards, will they check the accounts or what, what are you afraid of? ”

"I think you'd better have someone inform the town sooner rather than be scared of this."

"Go over and ring the bell and tell the captains of the teams to come over quickly. Take them with you to the nobles. ”

In this village, the supernumerary accountant of the system has managed to be the home of the militia captain within the system.

As soon as Chen Ding chatted with the village chief for a while, he saw the militia captain come back with a smile on his face, holding a large stack of account books in his hand and putting them on the table in his hand.

"Not quite, which part do you want to see, my lord?" The village chief got up and laughed, "Last year's account hasn't been finished yet, so we'll get it for you again." ”

Don't underestimate the account books of a village, the annual harvest and expenses need a large stack of account books to record, their village has been established for less than ten years, and it is not time to destroy the account books. The books of a migrant village like this have no value to be retained, and they are allowed to be destroyed and lost after ten years, and only a rough record of income and expenditure needs to be kept.

In the reserve room of their village, there is a special house for the ledger, and every year they have to make a large cabinet out of wood to save the account books for the year. The imperial court has very strict rules on this area, and they dare not disobey it.

"No need." Chen Ding secretly smacked his tongue, just now these account books are piled up on the table, this is not all, God, he still thought that he could find loopholes in a large number of account books, and had a sweet dream of pulling out a bunch of moths and rats?

The stack of books beyond his brain's imagination was so invincible. Chen Ding casually picked out a copy from it, picked it up and flipped through it, feeling that this kind of thing at the level of the running account should be put in the toilet and kept to wipe his buttocks, which is really too untechnical.

The village chief is still very responsible, and he does not hesitate to describe how many families there are in the whole village, where they are, the specific population, the labor force, the proportion of young and old, the proportion of men and women, the number of school-age children, how many people go to school, and how many poor households there are. This level is already good, at least in Chen Ding's eyes.

The village chief can also answer the questions of paddy fields, orchards, mu yield, water conservancy and so on in the village, and there is an orderly and rational data, which really makes Chen Ding very satisfied.

The two sides chatted, and the time went all the way to one point, and the meal was ready, a very simple four dishes and one soup. There are fish and chicken, as well as dried shrimp, eggs and kelp soup, and there are rice, pastries, and pancakes. Everything is done under the noses of the guards, and Chen Ding's eating and drinking outside must be guaranteed.

Flour in Singapore is a precious and rare item, rice noodles and rice here are not valuable, but the price of white flour is more than twice that of rice.

This is definitely to entertain Chen Ding as a distinguished guest.

"My lord! Nothing, just a few plates of home-cooked food! Except for a chicken, not even a single meat! Don't give this money, if you want to give it again, it will be a slap in the face. ”

"Yes. Now our lives are better, if it were in the past, we wouldn't even be able to make this meal for the New Year! Draught can not forget the well diggers, this is all the blessing of the imperial court, we came to Singapore, this is to live a really good life, in order to Zhang Luo! ”

The village chief and the militia captain pressed Chen Ding's arm stretched out to his pocket with four big hands, and the village accountant brought a stall of sugarcane wine, with a smile on his face, and poured Chen Ding a bowl full.

"Your Excellency, don't pay any more. Isn't this meal unaffordable for our village? You're really slapping us in the face if you pay again. The village accountant had a flattering expression on his face, but he also had a sincere heart.

"In our hometown, we ate two meals a day except when we were busy with farming, and we couldn't eat all dry meals. What now? There were already more than three meals a day, four meals, five meals. The days are the same as they were in heaven. We little people don't know anything big, but we really support the court. ”

"The imperial court stipulates that officials are not allowed to entertain in the countryside, and they have to pay for meals, and we know that this is for the good of our little people."

"But when will you be able to come to us for the second time?"

"You are a big man, and the letter is stamped with the seal of the headquarters of the Nanyang Naval Division, and you are not from our town or the city. It is a blessing for our village that you can come to our village today, and we will entertain you with a light meal, and if you collect your money again, it will really be shameless. ”

……

The people in the village were reluctant to accept money, and Chen Ding was really a little overwhelmed by enthusiasm.

The two Singapore policemen outside with a dustpan of multigrain pancakes smiled hesitantly, and said to the two internal guards in front of him: "This village chief still has eyes and knows that it is for distinguished guests." ”

There was also a small bamboo basket on the dustpan, which was full of green onions, a jar of soybean sauce, and then a plate of shredded kelp that had been transferred.

The multigrain pancakes are a bit thick, but they can be eaten after being wrapped with green onions, soybean sauce, and shredded kelp, and the taste is still very good.

At this time, the internal guards also ate rice, and today they came to this village where there are many immigrants in Qilu and the Central Plains, and the multigrain pancakes are just a change of taste. The pancakes have corn and sweet potato noodles in them, and they have a coarse texture that requires a few more chews before swallowing.

But Chen Ding was very happy to eat this meal, because the enthusiasm of the village chief made his heart warm. This enthusiasm may be a little false, but even if it is, it is based on the fact that the lives of immigrants are really better.

After the meal, Chen Ding accompanied the village chief to visit a production team in their village, which consisted of 22 households, a total of 97 people, with 620 mu of land under their names, and also contracted 200 mu of land from the villagers and 300 mu of mountainous land -- orchards from the village.

Chen Ding arrived at the production team, but unfortunately he couldn't meet the person in charge here, who went to the city, that is, the port area.

Almost all of the team's harvest was sold to the Singapore Navy Base at a lower price than the market one, but the military took as much as they could, and offered to provide transportation as long as the road was built in any village.

When he was accompanied by the village chief to take a walk in the fields, Chen Ding saw an acquaintance in one of the fields, who was the wife of the village chief. They had met not long ago.

The village chief's wife was standing in front of a sugarcane field to sort out a big back basket, and when she approached Chen Ding, she saw clearly that the contents of the back basket were bean dregs cake.

This is arguably the best fertilizer in our time.

Sugarcane is very nutritious, and if the sugarcane land does not apply much more fertilizer than ordinary farmland, the sugarcane will be planted in a few seasons, and the land will be wasted.

The soybean dregs cake after oil extraction is not only necessary for the military and civilians to use large livestock, but also more and more okara cakes are needed in Lingnan and Nanyang regions.

In the past, this thing was edible food, but now it is more used as fine fodder for cattle and horses and fertilizer for the field.

The price of okara cakes is more expensive than the guano simply taken on the island, and if it is used to fatten wheat and rice fields, it is obviously not cost-effective, and few people care about it when it can be used in sugar cane fields.

"Now that the price of food is so cheap, growing sugarcane is more profitable than growing rice." The village chief explained to Chen Ding.

Chen Ding noticed the weight of the back basket, and it was not easy to carry a basket full of bean dregs cakes. "Why don't you raise a cow or a horse?" The conditions of the village chief's house should be okay, Chen Ding is very strange about this.

"I don't want to raise it." The village chief held a cigarette handed by Chen Ding in his mouth, swallowing the clouds and spitting out the fog, "My family is now just me and my mother-in-law, just farm the land and get food." It's easy to farm here, it's light, what are you doing with a livestock? Raising a calf is more strenuous than raising a doll! ”

"Only the last of my six children was left standing, and by the time they arrived, they were all skinny and skinny, but they were alive anyway. Now that he is a soldier in the port, he has been promoted to a non-commissioned officer, so I can't say what he will do in the future. What's the use of our old couple planting the land no matter how good it is? ”

"It's better to enjoy more. Let's take an old bone, and now it's half cut into the ground, and we won't toss it. Just live a good life in peace. A few more days is a few days. ”

"Maybe one day the child will be transferred to another place, and the two of us will die, and he won't be able to come back."

The village chief's mood was a little negative, looking at his age was only forty or fifty years old, Chen Ding thought that this kind of negative mood was not good, so he persuaded a few words. The militia captain who followed next to him said, "I want to raise a big animal, but I don't have the money." Big bulls can't afford it. Mavericks don't dare to buy it. ”

"Isn't there an agricultural loan in Singapore?" The interest on agricultural loans is very low and the repayment time is at least three years.

"I don't dare to borrow money to buy cattle." The accountant shook his head resolutely. "What should I do if the cow dies? If you can't repay the loan, you don't want this land, and the family lives on this land. The poor family has a thin foundation, and the sky will collapse if a cow dies! I don't dare to take this risk. I'd better save up my money to buy it. ”

"And now the calves are getting cheaper."

The village accountant has his own account in his heart, and there is a smile of hope on his face as he speaks.

Chen Ding disagreed with his thinking, and the interest rate on agricultural loans in the imperial court was only two percent, two percent, which was definitely a low interest. As an immigrant, when applying for a loan, you can enjoy certain discounts, and in the end, the banknote is one and a half centimeters high, so why can't you take out a loan to buy a cow?

But obviously, the hurdle in the village accountant's heart is not something that he can overcome with his words.

Borrowing money is really a difficult thing for grassroots people in this era.

Moreover, he heard from the accountant several times that he was most afraid of dying of illness, which shows that the grassroots people who can represent immigrants are very worried about the disease problem in the process of raising cattle. And Chen Ding thought about it carefully, his father was very concerned about the problem of people getting sick, but it seemed that no one was getting sick about cows and horses.

Veterinarian, veterinarian.

This is a big shortcoming. This is not just the South Seas represented by Singapore, but the entire continent.

Chen Ding took out his notebook and solemnly wrote down this point on it, this is the second problem he found in rural Singapore, the first is that after the primary problem of food and clothing is solved, after the initial loan arrears are repaid, whether it is an ordinary farmer, or a village chief and other grassroots managers, there is a general laziness mood.

This may have something to do with the fact that they had had enough hard life before, but it also has something to do with the environment here in Nanyang.

It's not cold all year round, there is no winter, the rain is sufficient, and at the beginning it was a good time to catch up with grain exports, as long as you work hard for a few years, you have saved a little money. At least you don't have to worry about eating and drinking.

But compared to the original days, this happiness came too quickly and easily. Happiness comes too easily, so naturally it is a little less cherished. Laziness has become a common problem.

It is important to note that the proportion of villagers in Singapore's migrant villages joining the production team is much lower than that in mainland villages. This number can tell some of the situation.

And another superficial manifestation of this 'laziness' is the efficiency of collective labor.

The old man who was punished that Chen Ding met at the entrance of the village was difficult for him to forget in a short time.