Not willing to pay

 The other village elders agreed as well. Ten taels was a big sum and even more so when the conditions were like this, the entire village was having trouble because the grain shops getting closed. They were now relying on wild vegetables and meat from the mountains to survive, if not for the fact that Yu Dong warned them and asked them to dig a few wells, then they all would have died out of thirst. 

The stream in their village was about to get dried up. 

If not for the four wells that were dug in their village they would have died out of worry. 

The condition of the village was like this, how could they take out ten taels?