Yi Song

Chapter 108 Flying General Li Shishi

The winter in Kaifeng is very cold.

The sky was gray, like lumps of solidified lead.

The north wind is biting and blowing with gravel, making people's faces hurt.

Liu Guozhang, riding a horse and walking on the left side of the ox cart, asked loudly.

"Wu Niang, Master, do you go to rescue the victims at this time every year?"

"Yes. Today is the day when my mother died of illness. Every year I go outside the city to donate clothes and soup."

Zhao Wuniang's voice came from the oxcart.

"Go every year?"

Liu Guozhang turned his head and glanced at the creaking rows of oxcarts and mule carts behind him, forty or fifty of them, piled with old clothes and grain.

This is all money.

"Yes, I go every year."

No wonder your private pockets have never been rich.

"Master, are you going with us every year?"

"Doing good deeds and accumulating virtue is a great thing. Of course I am willing to help and contribute." Murong Shisan rode his horse on the right side of the bullock cart. He stood as straight as a javelin in the wind and answered with his head raised.

"Why don't you wear a mask? Such a strong wind and sand are very harmful to the skin." Liu Guozhang couldn't help but say.

Murong Shisan turned to look at Liu Guozhang opposite him, his eyes sparkling, he quietly took out a silk scarf from the bag on the saddle and wrapped it around his face.

Zhao Wuniang suddenly stopped talking in the oxcart, and the scene became a little awkwardly silent for a while.

"With this damn weather, the tens of thousands of refugees outside the city don't know how to survive." Liu Guozhang looked up at the sky and found a topic.

"It's not tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands." Zhao Wuniang replied in the oxcart

"Hundreds of thousands?"

"This summer, the Yellow River burst in Yingzhou and Cangzhou. Countless people died, and millions of victims fled their homes. Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, 300,000 to 400,000 victims came outside Kaifeng. Sister Thirteenth Sister and I and others gave alms seven or eight times, but it was a drop in the bucket. Nothing can be done.

Later, the weather got colder and the victims could no longer endure it. Some returned to Hebei, some went to Hedong, some entered Guanzhong, and some went to Huainan. They dispersed in all directions. There were less than 200,000 victims left outside Kaifeng. Cold and hungry, I wonder how much longer I can survive? "

Zhao Wuniang said sadly in the car.

Everyone was speechless.

In Zhao Wuniang's story, Liu Guozhang did not hear anything from the government. Presumably the monarchs and ministers who were drunk and dreaming in Kaifeng City did not pay attention to the hundreds of thousands of victims and left them to fend for themselves.

A mule cart hurriedly caught up, and one person lifted up the curtain and shouted: "Fifth sister, Thirteen, you are really! I told you to wait for me, wait for me, why did you come by yourself without saying a word, and didn't wait? Me. Do you think my money and food are not clean?"

Who is talking so hastily?

Liu Guozhang turned his head and saw an extremely gorgeous face in the car window. It was the flying general Li Shishi. He immediately shut up and said nothing.

"Sister Master, Fifth Sister and I didn't call you mainly because it was windy and extremely cold today." Murong Shisan bent down and apologized.

"Master, Madam, I was the one who pulled Sister Thirteen away and set off straight away without calling you. If you want to blame me, blame me."

"Haha, I know you two sisters have a deep love for each other. Stop the car, stop the car quickly, I want to share a car with Wu Niang."

"Master, Madam, there are three people in my car. I don't have much room for you. I'm afraid I might squeeze you." Zhao Wuniang said softly.

"It's only when there are so many people that you can stay warm. It's such a bastard's nature that if someone freezes to death, how can the poor survive?"

Li Shishi stopped the car, got out of his mule cart, and bent down to get into Zhao Wuniang's ox cart.

He looked up and saw Liu Guozhang, "Are you Liu Erlang, and now you are the cousin of Fifth Sister?"

"Yes."

"Then you have to take care of Fifth Sister from now on and don't let anyone bully her again."

"Who dares to bully Wu Niang? I will kill him."

"What if it's a noble person in the palace?"

"The nobles in the palace? Even the gods in heaven and the ghosts in the underworld dare to bully Wu Niang. Even if I call them ghosts and gods, they can't do it."

"Have courage! I hope you won't be like those scholars who shout loudly that something is really going on, and you can't even see the ghost. Xiaojin, take my Jibei quilt over here."

Li Shishi shouted, bending down and getting into the bullock cart, and then the screams of Xiangzhu'er and Xiniang, as well as Wu Niang's helpless voice, could be heard.

"Master, Madam, why do you like touching their faces so much?"

"Isn't it okay? I'm jealous, I'm jealous of your youth, and I want to take advantage of you, but that's not okay." Li Shishi replied confidently, "Come on, give me a seat. Xiang Zhu'er and I will sit over there, okay. , It smells so good, let my sister hug me."

rogue!

Liu Guozhang turned his head and saw a maid holding a thick colorful quilt, getting off the mule cart and walking towards the ox cart.

"Wait a minute! What kind of quilt is this?"    "Jibei quilt."

"Jibei quilt, so hard to pronounce."

"Of course it's a mouthful. It is produced in Qiongya, Guangnan and Fujian. It is woven with kapok. The cloth is called colorful spotted cloth, and it is filled with kapok cotton batting. The best spotted cloth and cotton batting come from Qiongya Island, the local area. People call it Jibei.”

"Jibei? What's the difference between it and Bai Diezi?"

Maid Xiaojin shook her head in confusion, "I don't know."

"It just so happens that the business under my name makes cloth. I know a thing or two. Let me tell you." Murong Shisan replied, "Jibei is said to have come from Nanyang. It is currently grown in Qiongya, Guangnan and Fujian. There are many. The woven cloth is called spotted cloth. Bai Diezi said that it came from the Gaochang Kingdom in the Western Regions in the early Tang Dynasty. It is cultivated in Hexi, Guanzhong, Hedong and Gyeonggi, but not much. The woven cloth is called Jibu."

This is consistent with a science and education program in my memory.

It is said that Asian cotton originates in India and Arabia and was introduced to China in two ways.

Along the overland Silk Road, from the Arabian region and through the Western Regions, it is sometimes called grass cotton.

Along the Maritime Silk Road, from India, it first spread to Annan and Qiongya through the South China Sea, and then all the way north to Guangnan and Fujian. Sometimes it was also called kapok, but it was confused with the native kapok tree.

It is also said that before the Song Dynasty, the Chinese character only had Mian, but not Mian.

"Baidiezi and Jibei are both good things. They keep you warm. They are good things. We should ask the people to grow more of them."

In ancient times, having enough to eat was a big problem, as was keeping warm. Rich people still have silk and fur, but poor people only have linen and trembling clothes.

"More varieties? Nowadays, people are growing food and can't even fill their stomachs. Who has the spare time to grow these messy crops? Baidiezi and kapok are different from mulberry trees. They need fertile land and careful management. Mulberry trees, on the other hand, are different. It can be planted on mountains and slopes and it will fend for itself.”

Okay, I'm superficial.

Murong Shisan's words left Liu Guozhang speechless and he said no more.

After Xiaojin put the quilt in, she returned to the mule cart, and the team moved slowly again.

"Xiang Zhuer, this name is too tacky. Fifth sister, change your name and start over." Master Li said in the car.

"Okay, what's another name?"

"Secret fragrance? 'You know it's not snow in the distance, because there is a subtle fragrance coming'. It just reflects the winter scenery."

"I don't like Wang Jinggong's poems," Zhao Wuniang replied.

"Hinmao? 'When you know the jinmao in a mansion, you feel the fragrance of reeds in the water.'"

"Vulgar!" Murong Shisan denied.

Li Shishi even mentioned seven or eight names, but Zhao Wuniang and Murong Shisan vetoed them, finally irritating her.

"This doesn't work, and that doesn't work either. Then come up with a name, a nice name!"

Zhao Wuniang and Murong Shisan remained silent.

Liu Guozhang said from the side: "How about wearing a sleeve?"

"Yingxiu? What's the reason?" Master Li opened the curtain and asked.

"After dusk when I drink wine in Dongli, there is a faint fragrance filling my sleeves."

Li Shishi's eyes lit up and he asked keenly: "This is a sentence from a poem, what else is there? Liu Erlang, you don't want to enter the Ministry of Internal Affairs, do you?"

Of course I don't want to go in, there's still something down there!

This bitch is so fierce!

"After dusk when I drink wine in Dongli, there is a faint fragrance filling my sleeves. I can't help but feel ecstasy. The west wind blows behind the curtain, and people are thinner than yellow flowers."

Master Li recited it silently twice and then said: "This is half the palace, what else is there?"

"This is the lower half of the palace, the upper half of the palace."

"Yes, where is the upper half?"

"I forgot."

"What!" Master Li almost jumped out of the oxcart, "Liu Erlang, do you want to die? How can you only recite half of the words? There is no such rule."

"This is the rule for me, because I have lost my memory!"

No way, I only remember half of Li Qingzhao's poem, and it was thanks to some TV series, otherwise it would have been returned to the Chinese teacher long ago.

Li Shishi looked at Liu Erlang and his teeth itched with hatred.

There was nothing she could do. Even though she was called Flying General, she really couldn't defeat this guy.

At this time, Zhou Juan and Yue Fei, who were in the vanguard, came back on horseback. Liu Guozhang shook his reins and stepped forward to meet him.

(End of this chapter)