Chapter 31: Chapter 31 New Year
Hua Kai wanted to visit the village elders. Butler Hua Fu had already told everyone the list of people Hua Kai had chosen to visit. Today, Hua Kai was accompanied by his third uncle Hua Zijie and fifth uncle Hua Zichen.
When visiting the village elders, the head of the family usually brings the core members of the family. It was natural for Hua Kai to bring his third uncle Hua Zijie. Most of the affairs of the entire Huajiabao were managed by his third uncle. As for bringing his fifth uncle Hua Zichen, it was purely for the loyalty point.
The first family Hua Kai went to was Hua Yue's. Hua Yue's father was 70 years old this year. He was the uncle of Hua Kai's grandfather. As a branch of Huajiabao, the old man had worked hard for Huajiabao all his life. Now he was a little confused and was one of the most respected elders in the Hua family. When he was young, he was the captain of the village guard of Huajiabao. Now, three of his five sons have died in battle for the family, and the most promising son Hua Yue has become the captain of the village guard of Huajiabao.
Hua Kai brought his third and fifth uncles to the home of Captain Hua Yue and saw that more than 30 people had gathered here. Knowing that Hua Kai came to visit the village elders in person, all the brothers of Hua Yue gathered at their house. This was a gathering of the Hua family.
Asking the accompanying servants to put down the gifts, Hua Kai brought greetings and blessings to Hua Yue's father. Although Hua Yue's father was a little unclear, he still called a large family over and told them that they must be attentive to the master's family, dedicate everything for the prosperity of the family, and obey the orders of the master, even if it is a sea of fire.
This is how the world is. Small families gather together to form a family. When a family becomes strong and is surrounded by more families, it becomes a family. When a family becomes strong and manages other families, it becomes a country. The concept of family and country has always been engraved in everyone's mind.
Hua Kai kept going until dark, and he and his third uncle and fifth uncle went through 20 families. When he returned home, Hua Kai saw that the family's luck value had increased by more than 10 points in just a short while, and the loyalty of his fifth uncle Hua Zichen also increased by 2 points, reaching 88 points, which was 2 points away from the target value. The family's luck value rose to 108 points in one day. In the past, I was reluctant to use the luck value to help family members improve their strength. Now that I know how to use the luck value, there is no place to use it. Hua Kai decided not to be too frugal in the future. The [Artistic Training Space] with 10 luck points per time should be given to more talented people.
In the evening, Hua Kai took his grandparents to his yard early. Soon, several uncles came to the main yard with gifts. Now it was time to pay respect to the head of the family.
Several uncles came over, and soon Wei Baotou and some village representatives came to the main yard. They all brought carefully prepared gifts. Although they were not expensive, they also represented their own thoughts.
Hua Kai asked the housekeeper Hua Fu to remember that he would give everyone a return gift of the same value in a few days. This gift must be something that can be easily converted into money, usually some cloth, weapons and equipment, etc. No one in this world uses gold and silver to make jewelry. If you dare to take it out like this, someone might directly attack you.
When almost all the village representatives came, Hua Yue and other Hua family collateral disciples came. Most of them came empty-handed, but Hua Kai had to prepare gifts for them. This was considered the end-of-year family dividend. Huajiabao gave each family ten taels of silver every year, and sometimes more.
After all the Hua family collateral disciples came, the servants living in the main courtyard came next. They were all considered the main family, represented by the housekeeper Hua Fu. There were more than 30 servants and maids in total. Some of them were villagers in Huajiabao. They worked for the main family during the day and got paid, and went back to their own homes to sleep at night. These were important people in the village with high talent, strong strength, and high loyalty.
Then there were some prestigious village elders and famous genius representatives in the village, who came together to wish Hua Kai a happy new year. This is a tradition for hundreds of years.
After a lively night, the money in Hua Kai's hands was completely spent. When he returned to his room at night, Hua Kai heard a system prompt.
"Congratulations to the host's family [Hua Family], all members' loyalty value has reached 90 points, and the family's luck value recovery speed has increased by 50%." Hua Kai saw that the family's luck value has reached 126 points. It should be that the family's luck value has increased after the return of the fifth uncle, which has made the family's luck value grow faster.
"Last time, the luck value reached 168 points, and the increase rate became slow. Maybe I can try to save up 200 luck points. 200 luck points can improve the family's mental method [Quiet Heart Sutra], or continue to improve my own portable storage space." Hua Kai heard this system prompt and thought about it. At the same time, he carefully studied the entire [Family Secret Realm Space]. In addition to the secret realm that can consume the family's luck value, he also found a luck value that can be easily used.
That is the cheapest equipment in the [Weapon Shop].
[Gold Silk Soft Armor]: It requires 50 taels of gold, 1 piece of brocade, and 100 points of family luck.
Hua Kai tried the best southern brocade in his portable space, but he couldn't make this equipment without 50 gold. However, this is at least a way to spend the family's luck value. When the family's luck value reaches the peak and no longer increases, he can consider making a [Gold Silk Soft Armor] to try.
Early the next morning, Hua Kai got up and saw Uncle Wu and Princess Ji Le discussing something in the yard. Uncle Wu was obviously deliberately keeping a distance from Princess Ji Le. Although Uncle Wu was handsome and upright, which made him more attractive, Princess Ji Le was only 16 years old. This was what Hua Kai's mother told him last night, so even with Hua Kai's guidance, Uncle Wu still didn't have much confidence in Princess Ji Le.
Hua Kai knew that Uncle Wu liked Princess Ji Le in his heart, otherwise he would not have brought Princess Ji Le back to Huajiabao. In this case, Hua Kai decided to release Uncle Wu's potential as much as possible. With [Family Secret Space], as long as the luck value is enough, Hua Zichen's strength can be greatly improved, but all this is based on Uncle Wu's loyalty value must be quickly raised.
Hua Kai went out. Hua Zichen saw him and deliberately distanced himself from Princess Ji Le. Hua Kai was about to greet her when the door of Yu Jun's room opened.
"Meet the head of the family, meet the Confucian student!" Ji Le went out and bowed to the two of them.
The thoughts of the various schools of thought all belong to the Spring and Autumn Annals. Although they are in competition, they often learn from each other and communicate with each other. Yu Jun is a novelist, which is weaker than Confucianism in this world, and students are one level lower than students. The gap is a world of difference.
"There are relatively few novelists in Qi State. It is a fate to come to Huajiabao, but I don't want some unnecessary voices to appear in Huajiabao. Do you know what I mean?"
Most of the various schools of thought support individualism, and the emphasis on self is the main body of society. This conflicts with many family and country ideas. Many young people who study the thoughts of the various schools of thought end up being rangers. This is also one of the reasons why ordinary people don't like the various schools of thought.
"Please rest assured, Fifth Master, all of Yu Jun's novels are based on family and inspiration. The head of the family knows this." Yu Jun said.
"Well! We can discuss it when we have a chance. I heard that you have started writing your own novel recently. This novelist emphasizes the use of novels to govern the world. Although I don't agree with it, there are some things worth learning from it."
The ultimate goal of the Hundred Schools of Thought is to guide the development of world thought. Confucianism has been the first of the Hundred Schools of Thought for thousands of years, and novelists can only be ranked after 30. It is normal to say so.
Although Yu Jun disagreed with his idea in his heart, he did not say it out loud. Who let him be a student? He is nearly 30 years old and still a student. It is hard to say whether he can be promoted to a student in this life.
Hua Zichen said that novelists should use novels to govern the world, which is obviously out of context.
Novelists advocate expressing all knowledge, principles, and concepts in a way that people like, so as to guide everyone to establish correct values, and managers can also guide the thoughts of ordinary people. This is more pragmatic than many schools of thought.
However, the novelist's thoughts consider too little about the interests of the family, and the power of the supreme ruler is also weakened invisibly, so most novelists can only seek survival at the bottom of society, and the family only regards him as a storyteller.
In the following days, the number of wild beasts outside Huajiabao increased again. Hua Xing planned to wait for the wild beasts to gather enough to launch an attack. Huajiabao must complete a defense this year before the wild beasts can really pass. Otherwise, the wild beasts will keep surrounding Huajiabao until the snow melts, which is not good for the village.
It was not until the sixth day of the first lunar month that Hua Kai heard the whole village busy early in the morning. More than 1,300 wild beasts outside the village began to attack the village again, and this time no one told Hua Kai.
Hua Kai came to the city wall and saw that the village protection team and many villagers had climbed the city wall. The wild beasts in the wild beast group had already been killed by Hua Xing. The wild beasts came to the city wall in waves to die. In just one hour, Huajiabao killed more than 800 wild beasts. At this time, the other wild beasts outside the village began to flee. Grandpa led all the Huajiabao warriors to drive these wild beasts several miles away, and the whole Huajiabao was suddenly quiet.
Hua Kai only got 9 points of family luck after killing more than 800 wild beasts this time. Maybe the family's strength has improved, so all the villagers are not surprised to defeat the wild beasts!
There are still more than 20 days before the arrival of spring. After this batch of wild beasts leave this year, it will be difficult for wild beasts to gather. Huajiabao has passed this winter, and the family will prepare two things for the next year.
The first thing is to boil animal bones. Every winter, Huajiabao will kill a large number of wild beasts, and a large number of animal bones will be collected. When there are more, there are nearly 10,000 catties, and when there are fewer, there are more than 1,000 catties. Most of the family's spring plowing and business preparations for the next year will come from this, so this is not a trivial matter for the whole village.
After the wild beasts leave, the boiling of animal bones can begin this year. In previous years, Hua Xing personally controlled the furnace. This year, Hua Xing handed everything over to Hua Kai to handle, and Hua Kai pushed all the things to the skilled people in the village who often boil bones.
The pot for boiling bones is a special large vat, with a big fire burning underneath, and servants constantly throwing bones into the vat.
Hua Kai comes here every year to watch the animal bones being boiled. It can be said that all the villagers in the village come here.
Boiling animal bones still requires certain skills. First, the bones of low-level wild beasts are easy to burn in the large vat. After two hours of burning, the bones will become soft and become powder, leaving only some hard bones and very little metal. Primary wild beast bones are worthless.
This year, Huajiabao's animal bones exceeded 10,000 catties for the first time, reaching an unimaginable 18,000 catties. Just 11,000 catties of primary animal bones, every half an hour, some animal bones are added to the large vat. It took 4 consecutive days to boil the primary wild beast bones, followed by the intermediate yellow animal bones. It takes more than 6 hours to burn the bones after throwing them into the large vat. It took three days to boil more than 3,000 catties of intermediate wild beast bones. From a high place, you can see that there is some black liquid rolling at the bottom of this special large vat.
Next is the focus of this time's bone boiling. More than 2,000 kilograms of high-level wild animal bones and about 2,000 kilograms of wild animal bones are the focus of this time.
It took 6 days to burn 2,000 kilograms of high-level wild animal bones, and it is estimated that it will take at least 10 days for wild animal bones.
The large vat of Huajiabao remains unchanged every year, and the size of the fire does not change much. According to the length of the burning time and the quality of the animal bones, everyone has made an estimate early on that this year Huajiabao's bone coins will yield about 60,000, 537 taels of silver, and about 23 taels of gold.
Hua Kai doesn't care about these. Even without his grandfather, many old people in the village are very familiar with the process of boiling animal bones. He only needs to go and see when they come out of the vat.
On the 16th day of the first lunar month, the temperature gradually warmed up. If there were wild animals outside Huajiabao, the village protection team would go out of the village to drive them away. The land left in winter and returned to the hands of the people again.
The second thing Hua Kai has to do is to determine the number of family members. In winter, many villagers will surely die in the fight against wild beasts. The main family may need to add some servants or absorb some nearby small villages at this time. If invited by the main family, some villagers can choose to stay in the main family, or they can choose not to stay and leave after the spring.
The villagers who leave can either return to their previous villages to continue farming. After winter, Guangxian will soon be killed by the city guards. At that time, at most some low-level wild beasts will be left in the wild, which will not be a big threat to ordinary villagers.
So Hua Kai must now decide which villagers to stay and whether the main family needs to recruit some servants.
These third uncles, fourth uncles, and housekeepers have already told Hua Kai in advance which people have the idea of staying, how many jobs Huajiabao can provide, and how much money the family can pay for everyone's wages next year.
"This is too much! There are 36 households in total, with a total population of 294. Our village has only 100 acres of land. If we accept so many people, how can we feed them?"
Third uncle Hua Zijie took the list given by Hua Kai, read it and said in surprise.
Although he also hoped that Huajiabao could continue to grow, everything had to be within his own tolerance. If the family did not have corresponding things to do for so many people, or could not pay wages at that time, it would be difficult to deal with.
"I have carefully considered these lists. These 17 households are members of the village protection team of Kaiyuan Realm. They brought their families to join Huajiabao. We have no reason to refuse. These 9 households have highly qualified teenagers. These 6 households are the most courageous in fighting against wild beasts and the most loyal to the family. And these 4 households have special skills." Hua Kai opened the list and said.