1994: Vegetable farmers strike back

Chapter 13: Criticizing Sang and Huai
"Jiazhi, it's time to eat."

After collecting his thoughts, Chen Jiazhi also came to the table. For lunch, they had boiled fish, a big pot full of it, and they even made a soup with the fish head specially for Li Xiu.

Chen Jiazhi has been selling vegetables in recent days. After having money, Chen Jiazhi never treats himself badly when it comes to food, not to mention that Li Xiu is pregnant.

Therefore, after selling vegetables every day, Chen Jiazhi would go buy meat or chicken, duck and fish.

The grocery shopping expenses for four people are more than 10 yuan every day, and occasionally reach 20 yuan, which is the highest in Dongxiang vegetable market.

As usual, Chen Jiazhi and Yi Dinggan each poured a small glass of wine.

A few days passed, and neither Chen Jiafang nor Yi Dinggan talked about Chen Jiazhi harvesting the vegetables early. Instead, they also thought about harvesting the vegetables. The rain was really coming!

However, the two of them planned to harvest not much. Just now, they heard the second sister say that they would only harvest more than 100 kilograms of Chinese cabbage to sell.

"Second sister, Brother Yi, I say you can't delay any longer. You should buy it as soon as possible while there is a price."

"Brother, the dish is too small to eat. If I didn't see you buying all the big fish and meat every day, I would not want to accept it."

Yi Dinggan picked up his wine glass and clinked it with Chen Jiazhi's, saying that he was actually not used to Chen Jiazhi's behavior in the past two days.

Logically speaking, he should be relieved to see that Chen Jiazhi is becoming more and more diligent and sensible. After all, if Chen Jiazhi cannot support a family, he and Chen Jiafang will eventually help.

Looking at Chen Jiazhi's performance now, he really has the potential to make a name for himself. Not only is he well-organized in his work at home, he also has a set of skills when selling vegetables in the market.

Even though harvesting the crops early was criticized, few people talk about it now.

Moreover, after this kid became rich, he really bought things for the house, and he brought new things every day, which made his self-esteem as his brother-in-law a little damaged.

Chen Jiazhi knew what Yi Dinggan was thinking by looking at his expression. However, it was not easy for his second sister to agree to harvest some of the vegetables in advance.

"Brother Yi, can you lend me two vegetable workers for two or three days? Tomorrow is Qingming Festival, and I want to harvest more vegetables."

Hearing this, the other three people at the table were stunned, and Chen Jiafang even put down her chopsticks and looked at him.

"You only have less than an acre of vegetables left. Once they're all harvested, you won't have any vegetables to sell for at least the next 20 to 30 days."

"I know, Second Sister. I'm going to plant another crop of vine vegetables these days. I've already dug more than half of the ground. If I'm quick, I'll be able to have vegetables in 20 days."

Generally, experienced vegetable farmers will plan when sowing, either sowing every day or every two days, so as to ensure that vegetables can be harvested in batches without interruption.

For example, Li Mingkun and Guo Mancang. Although they don’t have much vegetables recently, they still have vegetables to sell, which means they have income.

Originally, Chen Jiazhi had planned this way, but once he harvested the vegetables early, all the vegetables were harvested early as well.

Now the pace has to be accelerated, which makes Chen Jiafang a little worried, but under Chen Jiazhi's insistence, she can only lend him two vegetable workers.

Naturally, they couldn't hide this exchange from others.

Chen Jiazhi did not intend to hide it, because he had harvested too many vegetables and his bicycle could not carry them all, so he had to find fellow villagers who did not have many vegetables to help carry the goods.

After dinner, Chen Jiazhi took a cigarette and went next door, asking Li Mingkun and Guo Mancang to help bring the food the next morning. After each smoking a cigarette, the two happily agreed.

By the time work started in the afternoon, almost everyone in the market knew that Chen Jiazhi was going to collect more vegetables.

These days, their whole family cooks a lot of fish and meat every day, which has already caused heated discussions.

"You're living off your grain. You have no intention of living for the next two weeks."

"How is that possible? Xiucai must have sold over a thousand yuan these past few days. If he saves some of it and uses it until the next crop, there's definitely no problem."

"The food has been so good these days, Xiucai. It's worth it even if we have to live a hard life in the second half of the month." Some fellow villagers were also craving for meat, and since the vegetable prices were good, they also planned to get some vegetables to sell and have a good meal later.

But no one was as thorough as Chen Jiazhi. Even though it rained occasionally, no one took the root rot and vegetable rot caused by the plum rain seriously. One reason was the time difference, and the other was that they had sprayed pesticides in the past few days, so they were hoping for a lucky break.

There are even people who have been struggling and refusing to harvest the vegetables, eating bland soup every day. Liu Minghua's family is one of them.

"Suzhen, why don't we pick up some vegetables today? It's been a while since I last had meat, and I'm really craving it."

"Just try touching the food!"

When Jia Suzhen heard that Liu Minghua wanted to collect the vegetables, she exploded! She yelled out, and everyone around her heard it immediately.

Liu Minghua was as silent as a quail.

But Jia Suzhen has been furious these days. Chen Jiazhi has been making a lot of noise every day, raising prices in the market and buying a lot of fish and meat. She had gone to his door half a month in advance to collect the debt for 50 yuan, and their relationship had already been broken up.

Now Chen Jiazhi can earn more than 300 yuan a day and also buy chickens, ducks, fish and meat to take home. All of this is a slap in her face.

She has always been dissatisfied with Chen Jiazhi's early harvesting of the crops, and she is the one who is most sarcastic.

It is absolutely impossible for her to harvest the vegetables in advance just for a bite to eat!

"If you think about eating good food all day long, how can you live like this?"

"You're already struggling to make ends meet, and now you're borrowing money from everywhere after just two weeks. Liu Minghua, if you dare to do something like this, I'll punish you!"

“If you don’t learn good things, you will learn bad things.”

After hearing these indirect criticisms, the second sister Chen Jiafang and Li Xiu were about to leave. Not only did the second sister have murderous eyes, but Li Xiu was also very angry.

Chen Jiazhi, who was sitting at the door, quickly stopped him. He said that since the other person didn't call him by name, there was no need to approach him.

But even if they didn't go out, my second sister and Li Xiu started shouting loudly in the house.

Sometimes they talk about how delicious the fish is today, and sometimes they discuss how confident men should be when selling vegetables.
It wasn't until it started raining again, and the rain got heavier, that it gradually subsided.

It was raining, so Chen Jiazhi slept for a while longer at noon before getting up. He stood at the door and watched the rain outside for a while, thinking that this crop of beans, melons and vegetables was really full of disasters.

Two days ago, he took the time to deal with the accumulated water again. He didn't have time to set up the trellis and guide the vines, so the branches and vines grew too tall, making it difficult to guarantee the yield in the later period.

At this time, Li Mingkun from the next room also came to the door and saw Chen Jiazhi.

"Scholar, you really hit the nail on the head about this rain."

"Hurry up and collect as much as you can. Local vegetable farmers won't go to the wholesale market on rainy days, so shipments will be quick."

On rainy days, not only are local vegetable farmers in Huacheng unwilling to go out to work, but even in Dongxiang vegetable market, some people are unwilling to harvest vegetables because the vegetables are small or they will get wet in the rain.

The number of people buying vegetables will also decrease, but those who purchase vegetables for restaurants, factories, schools and government agencies still need vegetables every day.

Plus, tomorrow is Qingming Festival.

Therefore, Chen Jiazhi had a premonition that vegetables would be in short supply in the market tomorrow morning.

After waiting at the door for a while, two vegetable workers hired by Brother Yi: a couple from Guizhou came to the vegetable market wearing "raincoats".

Chen Jiazhi turned around and said hello to Li Xiu, then went to the field with two vegetable workers.

(End of this chapter)