Jia Yujing of Red Mansion

Chapter 55 Physical and mental baptism
In the early morning of this day, it was just dawn.

Jia Qiong and other freshmen followed Tao Dachun and several old students down the mountain and walked to Baihe Village, twenty miles away from Wutong Town.

Jia Qiong is still dressed as a knight, but this time he does not carry a gun, only a sword.

Nowadays, many people in the college have joined the Xia Club, which Lu Yu started as a joke, and Jia Qiong was naturally elected as the first president.

The members of the chivalry club take Jia Qiong as an example, and believe that the great chivalrous person serves the country and the people; the Qingshan students can also be chivalrous as their purpose.

He advocated the restoration of the style of Confucian scholars in the pre-Qin Dynasty, taking the world as their own responsibility, emphasizing literature but not scorning military force.

Like Jia Qiong, they usually practice martial arts to keep fit, and they also love to wear swords when they go out.

There are now more than fifty members in the Xia Club, most of whom are new students.

Therefore, their group of people travels like a group of people in the world, and the novel scene attracts the attention of many passers-by.

Baihe Village is located on the Qiantang River. It is just a small village with a population of [-] households.

The academy has a small manor here with more than 200 acres of paddy fields.

The academies, which are large and small estates scattered throughout Zhejiang, are specially prepared for students to gain experience, and they are not just making money from these properties.

Jia Qiong and the others traveled all morning before arriving at Baihe Village. There were several households of tenant farmers in the manor, who were usually responsible for taking care of the crops and cooking for the students during busy farming periods.

After traveling all morning, everyone went to the manor to rest and have lunch.

It's summer now, and it's noon when everyone arrives at Bailong Village.

The sun is scorching and the weather is sultry.

Just standing in the sun for a few minutes can make the sun unbearable.

Not to mention having to bend down in the mud to harvest rice. As you can imagine, this must be much harder than cutting bamboo.

It takes a skilled farmer about five or six hours to harvest one acre of rice.

This is the first time for most of the students to do this work. It is good to be able to harvest an acre in seven or eight hours.

There are more than 40 students coming to Bailong Village this time, which is equivalent to each person needing to harvest five acres of rice.

Calculated, it will take at least four or five days to cut the rice.

The freshmen have gone through "military training" and practiced martial arts with Jia Qiong in the past three months, and their physical fitness is much better than before.

After everyone finished eating, some people were eager to go to the fields to harvest rice, but were stopped by a few experienced old students.

Tao Dachun said: "The sun is poisonous now, and my body cannot bear it when harvesting rice at this time.

Besides, water hasn’t been released into the rice fields yet, so we can’t harvest it now.

Let's all take a rest first. When the sun is no longer so poisonous, we will go to discharge the water in the fields first.

Go to bed early today and get up early tomorrow morning to harvest while the weather is cool. "

Lu Yu asked: "Senior Brother Tao, what are we doing now?"

Tao Dachun said: “If a worker wants to do his job well, he must first sharpen his tools.

Everyone's job this afternoon is to sharpen their knives.

Please pay attention to how we polish it, and be careful not to get injured. "

Tao Dachun and others asked the tenant farmers to fetch whetstones and sickles from the warehouse. It can be seen that more than twenty sickles are already rusty.

Tao Dachun and others first used coarse gravel to cut the blade, and then used fine gravel to polish the blade finely and sharply.

This is a technical job, not too difficult, it just requires patience.

The students of Wansong Academy are all smart people, and they mastered it quickly and polished all the sickles.

"Brother, there are only more than 20 sickles, and there are not enough of us." "After harvesting the rice, we still have to thresh the millet and dry it.

Threshing millet is the most tiring, so everyone needs to take turns. More than 20 sickles are enough for us. "

It was the first time for the freshmen to harvest rice. Only when they actually practiced it did they realize that there are so many ways to harvest rice that seems simple.

And the hardship involved is beyond everyone’s imagination.

When cutting rice, you need to judge the weather. It is best to do it when it is cloudy and not raining, otherwise you can only harvest it in the morning and at night.

It is best to have a sunny day for two or three days after harvesting, so that it is easier to dry.

When cutting the rice, you should leave the right length of the stalk. If it is too short, the thresher will easily injure the soles of his feet if he is not careful.

Don't leave it too high. If it's too high, it will be difficult to pull half a bucket.

Each bundle of rice should not be too big or too small. If it is too big to hold, it will be easy to fall off when threshing.

If it is too small, it will be done in three or two strokes, which will affect efficiency.

Moreover, the rice must be swung neatly to make it easier for threshers to take it.

Threshing millet is the most tiring. You must first prepare a half-bucket (bucket-shaped container), a wooden brush (ladder-shaped threshing tool), and a mat (bamboo sheets are woven and sewn, tied to bamboo strips, and clamped in the half-bucket with bamboo strips). Along the top to prevent the grains from flying out half a bucket).

After carrying the half bucket to the field, the thresher must hold a handful of rice ears tightly, raise them over his shoulders and slam them against the wooden sticks and brushes in the half bucket.

Repeat several times until all the grains fall into the half bucket.

After the threshing is completed, the rice is picked back with a basket, poured into the dam and spread out. The thickness of the spread is determined according to the size of the dam.

First, use a bamboo shovel with a wide slit to scoop out the straw leaves from the grain pile, and then use a wooden shovel to spread them out.

After the moisture is basically dried, use a coarse sieve basket to filter out the weeds and leaves in the grains.

Then gradually increase the thickness and thinness, and focus on drying. In fine weather, it can be completely dried in about two days.

The last step is to pound the rice, using stone mills and stone mortars to shell the rice to get the rice we usually eat.

When the hoe was on the day of the day, Khan dripped down the soil.

Who knows dishes on the menu, A Journey.

This time the freshmen have a deep understanding of the profound meaning of this poem.

They worked hard for more than ten days, and all of them were tanned to look like African refugees. Only their faces were fair because they were wearing bamboo hats.

The moment you eat rice harvested by yourself, the sweet taste will be unforgettable for everyone.

The freshmen experienced another physical and mental baptism, and deeply realized the difficulty of farming for farmers.

At least at this moment, they deeply hate corrupt officials who exploit the people.

Students who traveled to various places returned to the academy one after another, and brought back a lot of news from various places.

Among them, the news brought back by the brothers who went to Hangzhou Bay made Jia Qiong feel very nervous.

In May, Japanese pirates tried to enter the Qiantang River basin through Hangzhou Bay. Fortunately, they were discovered and repelled by the Ningbo Navy in time.

It is said that the battle was very fierce and the cannons were fired for more than an hour.

Several Japanese pirate ships were sunk, and the Ningbo Navy also suffered losses.

Jia Qiong was a little worried when he heard the news, wondering if his cousin Xu Shan had participated in the battle.

He was afraid that his aunt would be worried, so he didn't dare to tell her. He only secretly wrote a letter and asked someone to send it to Ningbo to inquire about Xu Shan's current situation.

From the reply, Jia Qiong knew that Xu Shan had indeed participated in the battle, but he was on the command ship and had heavy protection and did not encounter any danger.

(End of this chapter)