By the third of September, everyone from the village had arrived. According to the customs of the ginseng field, when the ginseng seeds were being harvested, everyone had to bring their ginseng-watching fees and hand them over to the caretakers. This was because by this time, every household had sold some of their ginseng and had money on hand.
So everyone gathered at the ginseng field, and the first order of business was to pay this year's ginseng-watching fees to the Xu family. The elderly grandfather and grandmother were responsible for collecting the money, while Wenhan kept the accounts. With paper and pen, Wenhan meticulously recorded all the transactions. In total, there were about 60,000 feet of ginseng plants, with a fee of five coins per ten feet, amounting to 30,000 coins. In addition, the village chief had said that merchants had to pay an additional five coins per ten feet, and for the 1,500 feet sold to them, this added another 7,500 coins.
