Village Head Huang was a typical local snake, and one who had lived through the entire period of warfare at that. He had seen plenty of blades and bloodshed, life and death. How could a few petty favors buy him off?
Besides, he genuinely did not believe this thing could be exchanged for a full ten jin of millet. He merely accepted it, then checked the village's population and gathered up the copper coins, swords, and sabers distributed earlier... In these times, copper coins really were useless, at least in Hebei. Hearing that they might be exchanged for seed, hardly anyone kept any.
After gathering everything, Village Head Huang added some old rice he had hidden away, found someone to steam it the night before, called up two or three hangers-on, and recruited four or five villagers who understood farming. Hitching up his household's sole remaining mule and loading the previously distributed, battered blades onto three wooden handcarts, they took the main road toward the county town.
Because of their location, Village Head Huang's party initially encountered no one making a similar journey. That was nothing unusual, but after more than ten li without meeting anyone, they inevitably grew uneasy. Only after asking at a roadside village did they learn that everyone else had set out early, hoping to arrive that very day. This instead made the party anxious in another way, afraid they would arrive too late.
Of course, Village Head Huang had seen much of the world and knew they certainly could not arrive that day. He soothed them and continued at an unhurried pace. That night, they stayed with an acquaintance a little over ten li from Jiangling City, where they indeed saw that the locals had already collected their seed. They were told the farm tools