Begging in late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 168 Yan'an House

Several big ditches were drilled from the Fen River to the farmland. In the early morning, on the pedals of the huge wooden waterwheel, more than 100 young and strong young men shouted and stepped on it. The waterwheel runner more than ten meters high was like a giant. Probing into the lake water that originated from the Fen River, the muddy lake water was immediately drawn out from the runner, and flowed into the big ditch. I saw this life-saving water moisten the dry potato fields, which were exposed to the scorching sun yesterday. One day, the wilted potato leaves quickly turned green again.

Labor is really fun sometimes. The young and strong of the two thousand-man teams and more than 6000 old and weak women laborers made up of the production team swarmed out, singing the song of labor in northern Shaanxi, entering the fields, loosening the soil, fertilizing, To get rid of weeds, the most important thing is to get rid of rats. If these small rats are not cracked down hard, the losses caused are quite astonishing!

Next to the large tracts of farmland, there is a rather straight loess road, with more than 100 knights galloping at a high speed, with five carriages sandwiched in the middle, followed by twenty Qingquanwei unique scenery, three-wheeled rickshaws!Each car is full of boxes. Apart from the rider, there are two extra people sitting on the tricycle. On the one hand, they act as replacements, and on the other hand, they also serve as bodyguards. The products on the tricycle are all produced by the guards, such as the highlight. There are many soaps, many books, homespun cotton cloth woven by the official weaving layout, and many ready-made clothes.

Without riding a horse, Song Qingshu accompanied Caiwei and Li Gu'er in a carriage. This kind of carriage was also specially made, modeled on the four-wheeled carriages in Europe. In China, four-wheeled carriages are usually the hearse for nobles' funerals. Song Qingshu used it like this It's against the system, but Shaanxi has become such a mess, and no one cares about him.

Compared with the two-wheeled carriage, the four-wheeled carriage is undoubtedly more stable. The shock absorbing spring designed by Song Qingshu and later generations is installed under the carriage, and the wheel is wrapped with a circle of cowhide tires. Although it is stillborn, it is better than pure wood wheels There is a lot of shock absorption, and the slow-speed carriage runs extremely smoothly, which makes people feel very comfortable.

But Song Qingshu wasn't in a good mood at all, he felt awkward looking at the waterwheel, because it was designed and manufactured by Li Xin.

"Isn't it just a broken wheel? When my master develops a water pump, you'll be damned!" Lying on the car window, Song Qingshu muttered sourly.

"I know brother, you are the best, but can you please close the window! The ink is about to blow!"

Qingquanwei is more than 90 miles away from Yan'an Mansion. During this period of time, it is undoubtedly a very ambiguous and romantic thing to take two concubines and sit in a comfortable four-wheeled carriage. It's convenient, but a bad old man climbed up on his car, and even expropriated his two girls.

Tang Ruowang's red hair was messy, he looked like a geek scientist, busy picking up a large pile of messy manuscripts, Caiwei and Li Gu'er copied the manuscripts he picked out on the scroll.

Song Qingshu promised to hold a lecture for Tang Ruowang, which aroused Tang Ruowang's incomparable religious fanaticism. However, there is no Chinese translation of the "Bible" these days, and even if there are some, they are just a few fragments recorded by the literati at that time. Contradictory and not systematic at all.

Buddhism has a lot of "Mahayana Sutra", "Hua Yan Sutra", "Tripitaka" and so on. Taoist "Tao Te Ching", "Baopu Zi" and so on also have their own perfect system. If they want to preach in Ming Dynasty, they don't have their own scriptures How to do it, tidy up the things drawn out together with Song Qingshu in Xi'an City, Tang Ruowang is determined to make the first Chinese translation of the "Bible".

This is a pain for Song Qingshu, seeing Caiwei burying her head in copying and not forgetting to straighten the ink bottle in front of her, Song Qingshu closed the curtains again depressed, and Uncle Ge collapsed himself .

If he had known earlier, he would not have brought this stuff here, Song Qingshu muttered sadly in his heart, a stack of manuscripts was suddenly thrown in front of him again, and Tang Ruowang, who was already somewhat possessed, yelled vaguely: "Don't be idle, copy!"

"What? I have to copy too?" Pointing at his nose, Song Qingshu frantically bounced.

…………

It is 45 kilometers from Qingquanwei to Yan'an Mansion. In this era, it is only about ninety miles. If you drive, you can get there in an hour. However, the carriages and cavalry are really slow in this era, let alone [-] full-loaded vehicles. The rickshaw set off at six or seven o'clock in the morning, and arrived at Yan'an Mansion until almost twelve o'clock at noon.

It is still the vicissitudes of life, the khaki city wall full of scars, experienced the last catastrophe, and now this big city on the Loess Plateau has not recovered its vitality. The population is only in the early [-]s, and the people are sparsely populated, which looks quite dilapidated.

However, because the peasant army took away those poor people who could not survive, the living conditions in the city were better at this time. Some landlords who fled with their families or were killed by Luo Rucai, Zhang Xianzhong, etc. were distributed by Hong Chengchou to the poor. Farming has slightly eased the harsh social contradictions.

The officers and soldiers are still very repulsive to the peasant army recruited by Zhao'an. Even if they reported their names as Qingquan commanders, the officers and soldiers guarding the gate still kept their faces cold and refused to let them in. Finally, they handed over ten taels of silver, and Li Tiezhu took his subordinates More than 80 riders were waiting in the inn outside the city, and only then did the remaining [-] soldiers follow the convoy into the city.

The city has almost recovered. The smashed and burned shops and more than half of the manor have been repaired. There are also many pedestrians on the street. Merchants traveling from south to north are once again carrying heavy goods to and fro.

Don’t look at the poor in northern Shaanxi who can’t afford to eat, but there are great business opportunities. The local wealthy families from here to the north sell their goods to the Mongolian tribes occupying the Hetao Plain. An iron pot can often be sold. Ten times or even dozens of times the price, as well as salt, other ironware, cloth, clothing, everything can make huge profits.

However, this business is not something that everyone can do. These aristocratic families who can walk away often need to meet two conditions. The first point is to have a relationship with the frontier army, or simply be a member of the official army system, otherwise There is no need to go out of the customs, the frontier soldiers who are like wolves have already looted all the goods, and the people have also been accused of being a prisoner. The second point is that there must be a certain amount of armed force. The Mongolian tribe is not a good stubble. There are more than 20 people The caravans going out of customs are like sheep entering the tiger's mouth, even if they go out, they have to be killed by the Mongols of that era.

For example, Gao Yingxiang, the Ansai horse thief, was in the business of going out of the fortress. He had a large number of cavalry, and his horses were traded with Mongolian tribes.

Fortunately, many hungry people who could not survive were also looking for opportunities to escape from Shaanxi and went to the grasslands to join the Mongolian tribes and cultivate wasteland on the grasslands. This social phenomenon of population migration began in the middle of the Ming Dynasty and did not end until the end of the Qing Dynasty. The famous appellation for this phenomenon is to take the West Exit!

Song Qingshu is actually jealous when he sees this business, but unfortunately he has no way out, and can only act as a supplier, looking at the huge dividends makes him greedy.

But even among the suppliers, Song Qingshu is now considered an upstart. There used to be no shortage of grocery stores on the street. The old Litou grain store, Saibeilou, and Zhao Tiechi cloth shop are all his now, and Hong Chengchou He specially said hello, and he asked for all the shops on half the street.

These days, the fattest people are indeed officials and businessmen.

When they first occupied Yan'an Mansion, they took in a lot of local people. Although more than half of them were stopped outside the city, Song Qingshu was still at ease when he entered the city. After wandering around Chibuzhuang, even twenty tricycles were put up for sale in the store. The group finally set foot in Saibeilou, Song Qingshu's old business.

After all, Yan'an Mansion is too remote, and it doesn't have a large middle class like Xi'an City. This Saibei Building no longer has a fast food business. It is still like a traditional restaurant, only serving dinner, but going in and out of this Saibei Building every day, it is There are more face burdens.

In the north of Nanmi, pasta has a history of thousands of years in Shaanxi. In the Tang Dynasty, there were soup cakes, hu cakes, and boiled cakes. There was also a kind of cold noodles that were ground with locust leaves and iced in water at the official banquets of the Tang Dynasty. , and in this era, the most famous one is Qishan Zongzi Noodles.

However, the noodles under Song Qingshu's hands are different from other noodle shops of the same era. His noodles are a kind of delicacy that can be seen almost in the streets and alleys of later generations, regardless of the city, Lanzhou ramen!

According to legend, Lanzhou Ramen was created by Ma Baozi in the late Qing Dynasty. It is famous for its one-clear, two-white, three-red, four-green, and five-yellow noodles. Heaping flour, each master carries a big burden, on one side is hot haggis soup in the stove, on the other side is reconciled flour, noodles, bowls and chopsticks, if anyone wants to eat, the noodle master will pull a bowl of noodles in a few minutes , Then put it in the stove, sprinkle some beef shreds, and the ramen is almost as delicious as the later generations, and it comes out of the oven.

The dozen or so ramen masters walking around the streets have become a beautiful scenery in this Yan'an mansion. It is said that there are nearby counties who invite them to go there, and there are wealthy customers who are willing to open noodle restaurants for them. North celebrity.

However, Song Qingshu's painstaking effort to make such a thing was not for the sake of making money. As soon as he arrived, the ramen master who was still carrying a burden to sell everywhere on the street suddenly "run out of materials", and began to retreat back to Saibeilou in twos and threes .

When they arrived at the Saibei Tower, Caiwei was left behind to copy the book, Song Qingshu hurriedly dropped the manuscript and fled. In a secret room in the backyard, Song Qingshu sat with a cold face like a Buddha, while a ramen master respectfully Bending down and standing in front of him, he began to talk endlessly about the information he had received these days.

Who would have thought that all the masters with kind faces were actually spies!

(End of this chapter)