Farming Beneath the Changbai Mountains

Everyone was chatting and laughing and finished the banquet. It was already late. The Yue family was about to leave, so Xue quickly divided half of all the food sent by the Yue family, wrapped it up and took it back to the Yue family. This is the rule. Half of the things for the engagement must be brought back to the man. There are also two sets of clothes that Jingya made for Pengcheng herself, and they were also wrapped for the Yue family to take away.

"Uncle, aunt, let's go first. If you have time, the two elders will come to my place to sit." Yue Siyuan led his family and said a few polite words to the old man and Chen, and then left. As Pengcheng walked out, he looked back at Jingya. Today, the two of them couldn't say a few words together. Pengcheng felt a little regretful that he couldn't enjoy this great engagement event with his beloved.

Jinghan felt a little funny when she saw Pengcheng's appearance. "Sister, you should also go out and see me off, and at least have a few words with brother Pengcheng."

Jingya's face turned red and she didn't know whether she should go out to see her off. It was Mrs. Chen who said, "Jingya, go out and see Pengcheng off. If you two have anything to say, just say it. Our family is not that old-fashioned, so it'll be fine."

Jingya then got up and walked out. Of course Pengcheng heard what Jinghan and Chen said, so he walked slowly on purpose, waiting for Jingya. Jingya walked to Pengcheng's side and said softly, "Just go back and study in peace. Aren't there college exams this fall? I'm still waiting to be a scholar." Jingya lowered her head, her face flushed.

"Hey, don't worry, I will definitely work hard." Pengcheng was extremely happy and quickly nodded in agreement. The power of love is great. Just because of Jing Ya's words, Pengcheng really dove into the pile of books and studied hard. "You should pay more attention to yourself at home and don't get too tired. I'm really going to prepare to take the exam, and I may not have that much time to come here. Take care of yourself." Pengcheng warned him a few more words.

Jingya nodded and said nothing more.

By then they had arrived at the gate, and the Zhixin brothers said goodbye to the Yue family, and then the Yue family all got on the carriage. Yue Siyuan waved his hand at Zhixin, and the driver drove the carriage away.

After seeing off the Yue family, Zhixin and the others returned to their house. The family would inevitably talk about today's betrothal gift, and then they would discuss Jingya's dowry.

"I didn't expect that the Yue family would be able to send such a large betrothal gift. Boss, we have to prepare a dowry for Jingya properly. We must not lose the Xu family's face. This is related to Jingya's future life." Mrs. Chen was most concerned. I felt sorry for the child, so I spoke directly and asked him to prepare the dowry properly. "We will keep 20 taels of the one hundred and sixty taels as a gift, and leave the rest to Jingya at the bottom of the box. Our family will pay for the rest of the dowry. I think we will spend about two hundred taels. Don't worry. It’s too little. Fortunately, we can still afford the money, so we don’t want to miss out on anything that should be given to me, boss.”

Zhixin nodded, "Mom, I understand. Jingya is my daughter, how willing are we to let her suffer?"

The old man drank a lot of wine at noon, and now he was a little drunk. "Okay, boss, you two can figure it out. I'm a little sleepy, so I'll go and stare for a while. Old lady, you can also squint for a few days." You didn't even sleep well." The old couple have always been on good terms. In recent days, Mrs. Chen has been thinking about Jingya's marriage and often can't sleep at night. That's why the old man said this. He felt sorry for his wife.

The old lady was indeed a little tired. After the engagement was made, a stone fell to the ground, and the old lady finally felt relieved. "Okay, I'm going to take a nap too. I'm getting older and I really don't have enough energy. Boss, you guys should go and have a rest too. In two days, we should start clearing the land we bought. By then I don’t know how to be busy yet.” The old lady and the old man helped each other to their rooms.

Among the remaining people, Brother Zhixin and others were chatting there, while Mrs. Xue and her two younger siblings went to the backyard to discuss preparing the dowry. Jinghan and Wenhan also went back to the room in the backyard to rest.

By March 20th, Zhixin and the others were going to the mountain to clean up the forest, and Jinghan just happened to lead Jingxian back to the mountain. When Honglian and the others saw Jinghan coming back, they were all very happy. They gathered around Jinghan and chatted about what happened on the mountain. "Second Miss, there's nothing wrong with those cocoons. We did it exactly as the Miss said. Second Miss, Fourth Miss, you wait a moment, I'll clean up your house." Hong Lian finished speaking. Going to work.

"Honglian, no need. I've only been home for three or four days, and Jingxian's luggage is all new, so there's no need to worry about it. You guys are busy enough in the mountains every day, don't be too tired." Jinghan didn't instruct anyone. The entire Xu family does not have this habit, they all do their own work. "Maybe tomorrow the family will have to clean up the woodland we bought. You should be prepared. You have to make some delicious food tomorrow. The work is very tiring, so you can't eat too badly."

Upon hearing this, Honglian and the others quickly agreed, and then went to prepare things.

"Jingxian, you should live with me, so that we can have company." Jinghan and Jingxian still live in the house where the old man lived. The Chen family is no longer in the mountain. Occasionally, the old man will come and see. Originally, Zhixin and Xue also lived with Jinghan and the others, but Xue and Zhu didn't have time to come here recently and had to prepare a dowry for Jingya, so Zhixin and Zhiming lived in the east room, while Jinghan and Jingxian lived in The inner room of the west room. Those four girls lived with Jinghan, outside the west room.

The Fang family and the Wang family live in the house where Zhixin and Zhiming lived. Jinghan plans to tell her father that when the land is opened over there, she will build a few houses there and let the family move there. past. It seems that this ginseng market will not develop in a few years. When the time comes, that will be the root of the Xu family, so we have to make plans now.

In the days that followed, the Xu family all went to tidy up the newly purchased forest land. The forest must be about a hundred acres in total, not only woodland, but also some wasteland near the river. The area of ​​forest land and wasteland is about fifty acres each. When Zhixin went to the county to apply for the deed, he approached someone from the Lu family, so the price was not expensive, averaging about ten taels of silver per mu. Otherwise, the forest land alone would cost more than 20 acres. You must know that there is a lot of wood in the forest, and these wood alone can be sold for a lot of money.

This forest is just to the west of the ginseng field. Logically speaking, the people in the village can still grow ginseng for a few years. However, Village Chief Zhou has long-term considerations, and the county decided last winter that the harvesting location was not here, so starting from this year, the village will not plant ginseng here.

Of course, Zhixin and the others had to sort out the wasteland first, which could be used to grow food. Those in the forest are reluctant to move. They want to keep good ginseng seeds. In fifty acres of forest, they can probably produce more than 3,000 feet of ginseng. Even if the Xu family plants a hammer of more than 100 feet a year, it will last for about thirty years, which is basically enough.

It is not easy to clean up the wasteland. There are no tall trees on the wasteland, but there are many shrubs, especially thorny shrubs such as mountain rose and raspberry, which are the most difficult to deal with. Everyone took sickles and cut down all the bushes, and then carefully piled them together. After the shrubs are cut down, the larger roots are dug out with a pickaxe, and then the ground is turned over with a plow.

These jobs are not easy to do, and there is a lot of work in the ginseng field. Fortunately, the family now has enough people. The Fang family and the Wang family alone have eight or nine strong laborers. The man from the Fang family is named Fang Yonggui, he is forty-five or six years old this year, and his wife is Mrs. Li. There are four sons and two daughters in the family. The eldest son is already 25 this year, and the youngest is 16. They are both very capable. The eldest son originally married a wife in his hometown, but during the famine, she ran away with someone else. The man from the Wang family is Wang Zhongren, who is in his forties this year, and his wife is Zhou. There are three boys and two girls in the family, and the boys are also quite old.

When she first came here, Jinghan felt that the names of the boys from both families were unpleasant, so she changed their names. The four sons of the Fang family are named Guoan, Guoping, Guoxing, and Guoqiang, while the three boys of the Wang family are named Anfu, Anshun, and Ankang. It's easy to remember and sound like this, so the two families naturally don't object. Normally, people who sold themselves into slaves would have to change their surnames, but Jinghan only changed their names and did not ask them to change their surnames, so the two families were naturally very grateful.

Zhixin and Wencheng took the Fang family to clean up the wasteland here, while Zhiming took the Wang family to be busy in the field. The work of combing the land was done faster. Once the work was completed, Zhiming brought people over to help tidy up the wasteland. Li, Zhou, and the others were leading Honglian and others and were busy cooking. In winter, each family cooks their own food. Anyway, the Xu family has prepared rice and grain, so that the house can be kept warm. When spring comes, everyone will eat together. Spring is tiring, and the Xu family is not a stingy family, so there is enough oil and water in the dishes. If everyone eats together, they can eat better.

Jinghan didn't care about these things. The family was busy, so she and Jingxian looked at the cocoons in the two rooms in person. This thing couldn't be careless. Occasionally, when Jinghan is free, she will go over to see how the wasteland is being tidied up.

Everyone worked hard for more than ten days, and finally the wasteland was almost cleared. All the tree roots and grass roots that were dug out were piled into several big piles. After a day of light rain, they were all set on fire. Guoan and Guoping of the Fang family were older, so they watched in the wasteland until the fire was completely burned out at night. They pulled away the ashes to see if there were no more sparks, and then went home to sleep. .