Chapter 1042: Greed Is Not Enough (3)
Don't underestimate that ten percent of the harvest; even without Spirit Spring Water, the villagers of Chen Family Village still produced an astounding 1,100 jin per mu of high-yield rice. That ten percent is 110 jin, which amounts to a third of the yield from previous years—and much more than the ten percent they used to skim off for themselves.
With that ten percent, families cultivating two hundred mu of rice paddies each gained an additional four hundred jin of rice. This four hundred jin of rice, if traded for cheaper coarse grains, could roughly turn into eight hundred jin, enough to feed a family of five for a quarter of the year.
Zhao Dafu had quietly enjoyed the benefits for ten years, accumulating more grain from his small share from each family than what a single main tenant could get. The tenants simply didn't believe he had the courage to forgo those benefits and refused to hand over the remaining ten percent, no matter what.