Traveling through troubled times to escape famine and cultivate crops as a grain merchant

Chapter 589 Go outside to look for

Everyone spoke up, "Yes, yes, we are all from the same clan, and we can't be too different. Wouldn't that hold your family back in the future?"

Zhou Guo laughed, "Uncle, how come what you said is a drag on our family?"

One person said, "Now that your family is prosperous, you should also help us poor relatives. When the clan is in trouble, you can't just stand by and do nothing."

Everyone nodded again. They were all from the same clan and all the benefits could not be taken away by outsiders.

Zhou Guo said, "I told you guys that if you come here for this, we can't do anything. The married women in the village can't come back. If I ask you to follow me up the mountain, how can you stay in the village? There are so many people in the nearby villages. Even if we have more people, we can't defeat them. This is business, not enmity. If we make enemies, we can't do business anymore."

"Then what do you think we should do? You have to find a way for us to make money. By then, everyone in your village will be rich, and we will have to eat coarse food over there. You can't bear it."

Zhou Guo secretly laughed. How could she bear to do that?

Looking at the people in the room, she knew that if she didn't give them a solution today, they would stay in her house and would not give up easily. She thought for a while and said, "Uncles, think about it, this thing is in our village, and our villages are not far away. They are so close to each other. Why don't you look for it in the mountains of your villages? It doesn't make sense that they are all in one place. They are only in these mountains, right?"

Everyone clapped their hands and said, "You're right. We thought so too, but we have also searched the mountains carefully for several years and still haven't seen it. We don't know if it's really gone or if we just don't know how to find it."

Zhou Guo said, "Next year, next autumn you can go up the mountain to look for it. There are so many mountains. This thing grows on the high mountains deep in the mountains. It doesn't grow on the mountains near the village. You have to go deeper to look for it. Also, if your village doesn't have it, there are many ownerless mountains outside. Gather a group of people and go up any high mountain you see. I believe that if there is one in our village, there must be one in other places."

Everyone lowered their heads and thought about it. The more they thought about it, the more it made sense. They had also looked for it in their own village before, but gave up when they didn't see it. Now that they got Zhou Guo's words, they felt that they must not have found it all. It didn't make sense that such a good thing was only found in this village.

Everyone started discussing which mountains they had visited and which places they had not visited. Some people knew of some uninhabited mountains outside the village. Those mountains were really high and big, and there might be fungi on them, but they were a little far away and steep, and looked difficult to climb.

But no one is afraid. In this day and age, the hardest thing is to have no money and no food to eat.

Seeing that no one was forcing them anymore, Zhou Guo was very satisfied and his ears were finally quiet.

Zhou Dacang felt more relieved when he saw that she had fooled them with just a few words.

Zhou Mi and Zhou Mai also came in early.

Zhou Mi whispered, "Do you think they can really find it? If they do, wouldn't that mean they're stealing our business?"

Zhou Guo said, "It's not that easy to find. Didn't I send people to search the mountains in the nearby villages this year, but they found nothing? Besides, even if they did find it, there's nothing we can do about it. Can we really prevent it from growing in the mountains? This money is destined not to be earned by our family. It would be a blessing from heaven if we could earn it for two or three years."

Zhou Mai and the others nodded. That was true. Besides, even if they acted quickly, they could still sell the products for at least another year. The price would definitely go up this year, and even if the output wasn't as good as last year, they might still be able to earn the same amount as last year.

In three years, the family earned tens of thousands of taels of silver by selling pine mushrooms!

If this had happened in the past, it would have taken decades of life to earn it back!

That’s enough. Don’t be too greedy!

Once things calmed down here, the people on both sides who got the news stopped pressing each other.

Li breathed a sigh of relief. No matter how bad her mouth was, she would still find it difficult to handle so many women, all of whom were good at quarreling.

Let’s not talk about this anymore and everyone starts talking about other things.

Anyway, there is still more than half a year before autumn, and it is obvious that the Zhou family will not give in. It is useless for them to talk. They will wait for autumn to go to various mountains to look for it. If they can't find it, they will think of a solution then.

The men began to talk about Zhou Dacang and asked what rank he held in the army. When they heard that he had been promoted to the rank of centurion, they were surprised and envious.

There were even younger ones who asked him excitedly if they could go along as well.

But before Zhou Da Cang could agree, he was glared back by the elders in the family, "You ignorant brat, do you think anyone can join the army? Do you have their skills? Do you have their abilities? Nothing at all. You will be shot by arrows on the battlefield!"

Zhou Dacang didn't say anything. He couldn't speak about this matter, otherwise, if someone really wanted to join the army, it would be blamed on him.

Zhou Guo didn't want to stay here, so he got up and went to the kitchen to help.

Seeing that their family was living a better life, Wang Fugui and others even helped Qian Shi to improve her life as well. The lives of the local villagers, whose families were originally not as well off as theirs, also gradually improved. Even the old head of the village could no longer sit still.

But if you think from their point of view, they really can't sit still. Their village relies on this, and life is getting better and better every year. I'm afraid that several nearby villages can't sit still either.

This is what people are talking about in the kitchen.

The only person who came to help in the kitchen was Chen, a local man. He was kind to others and naturally well-informed.

"Before the New Year, all the married girls in the village came back one by one. Some families loved their daughters, and some were strong and refused to leave. They stayed at home as long as they sold mushrooms. After selling mushrooms, they knew that their families made a lot of money, so they made a fuss and wanted to come back next year to pick mushrooms. They also said that the mountain was originally ownerless and did not belong to the village, so naturally anyone could climb it. I guess there are many people who think this way. You see, the married girls will come back tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and the village will be lively."

Everyone sighed, "I hope there won't be many people from other villages who will come up the mountain to pick up the berries this year. There aren't many to begin with. If we get one cent for one cent, how much can we get?"

Everyone became worried. Originally, they had been enjoying a life of leisure and happiness thanks to the mountain behind them. But now, they saw that their leisure and happiness were about to be gone. If it was divided up, how much could they earn in a year?

There are quite a few villages nearby, and there are many people from all over the place.

Seeing Zhou Guo coming in, they couldn't wait to express their concerns.

Zhou Guo suddenly felt that he had come to the wrong place. His ears had just been quiet. If he had known earlier, he would have stayed in the main room.