Farming Beneath the Changbai Mountains

After listening to Jinghan's words, the old man patted his thigh and said, "Oh, what's wrong? We saw it at the time, but no one thought about it. Alas, this man seems to be old and his brain is not at all It's not enough. Jinghan is smart enough to figure it out. Old lady, we really took advantage of Jinghan's help this year. It was Jinghan's idea to plant the land, collect ginseng seeds, and collect sticks. , which part of this is not Jinghan’s credit? This is our Xu family’s blessing to have such a lucky star.” Thinking of all the things, the old man fell in love with Jinghan even more.

The old lady stood aside and looked at the little granddaughter with a smile on her face, "Isn't that right? Thanks to Jinghan's words, she came to the mountain to see ginseng. Otherwise, we still don't know where to make money? Girl, what do you think? What do you want? Grandma can do it for you.”

Mrs. Xue said quickly, "Mom, don't spoil her. What's the point? She's just a little girl. She doesn't need anything." How can a mother be unhappy when her daughter is praised? However, Mr. Xue still had to stop him, not wanting the old man to spoil the child too much.

Jinghan looked at the relatives in the room, all with smiles on their faces and expectations for the future, and her heart felt warm. "Grandpa, grandma, I don't want anything. Let's do this. If our family can have some spare money this year, can you send my eldest brother and second brother to study in the town?" This is what Jinghan has been thinking about. Taking advantage of this At this time, it was finally brought up.

There was silence in the room. The old man looked at the eight grandchildren in the room. The boys were smart and handsome, and the girls were delicate and gentle. They were all so cute. The old man felt infinitely proud, "Okay, grandpa promises you that he will find a way to send Wenhan and Wencheng to study this year. Studying is a good thing, and grandpa agrees."

Wenhan and Wencheng couldn't help laughing after hearing what their grandfather said, especially Wenhan, who really liked studying. The other children also cheered, and the children's voices were heard in the room for a while.

The old lady looked at the cheerful children, with a satisfied smile on her wrinkled face, "Okay, let's eat first. After eating, you should go and stop the stick, or what are you going to do? , everyone is doing their own thing, we girls still have to brush the sticks. "

Everyone hurriedly lowered their heads to eat. After a while, they were all full. The children helped clear the table, and then everyone went to work.

The old man, Zhixin and Zhiming, of course followed Wenhan and Wencheng to stop the stick. With the addition of these three adults, the speed will be much faster. The old man told him to watch carefully and not to miss anything. In one afternoon, five people blocked 200 feet of ginseng and actually pulled out a hammer weighing 189 pounds. This is really a lot.

In this way, the family worked hard for five days and finally blocked all the ginseng fields. The old man let these harvested mallets be kept alone. When the last weighing came, more than 180 kilograms were harvested, which was almost catching up with his own production.

The whole family was very happy, but Jinghan secretly disagreed. In this era, it is considered good for every household to make a stick of about ten feet a year. There is no need to hire people, so the work is generally done meticulously and not too many sticks are left behind. If this were the case in Jinghan's previous life, a family would have been able to build a mallet of hundreds or even thousands of feet, all by hiring people to do it. How can the person you hire give you such careful attention? So there will be a lot of hammers falling inside, like this 1,500 to 600 feet, and blocking out a 3 to 500 kilograms, just like playing.

Jinghan secretly made up her mind to develop the ginseng at home. By then, it would grow several hundred feet a year, which would be a real pleasure.

Naturally, there are more beards on the blocking sticks and fewer sticks on the whole. The ones at home have been finished, so Mrs. Chen led her daughters-in-law to start brushing them. Just wash the beard with water, just pull it out bit by bit, and then put it in a big basin to steam. It took another three days of work before all the mallets were finished. Looking at the densely packed forks on the shelves outside, Mrs. Chen's face lit up with joy.

After stopping Bangchui, Zhixin and Zhiming naturally went to get loess again. Finally, they picked up enough loess and had to use a shovel to mix the loess with the black soil underground so that Bangchui could be planted.

Wen Han and Jing Han still go to the woods every day to get things, such as winter mushrooms, hazelnuts, acorns, walnuts, pine cones, etc. When there is no nearby place, they go to far away places. Being far away from the ginseng field, sometimes they would inevitably encounter large animals. Once, they had just climbed over a hillock and before they could go down, they saw a group of wild boars walking at the bottom of the ditch below.

The children were so frightened that they didn't dare to move. They all lay there, not daring to breathe. They didn't get up until all the wild boar herds had passed. Wenhan patted his chest and said in shock, "We can't go too far in the future. What if something happens? I was scared to death just now."

Jinghan was also shocked. She really forgot that this was not her previous life. In this era, there are still many wild animals. "Whenever we go out in the future, we must bring crossbows and other things with us so that we can defend ourselves if something happens. However, it is true that we should not go too far." Jinghan looked at Jingwan behind him, as well as Wenxuan and Wenchang, if something happens, he and his two brothers may not have anything to do, but he is afraid that these little ones will not be able to do it. "However, don't talk about what happened today when you go home, otherwise, we won't be able to go into the mountains again in the future." Jinghan warned.

Everyone nodded, "Second sister, don't worry, we understand. We have been in the mountains for so long, didn't we encounter such a large group of wild boars today? From now on, we can just wander around the Shenchangzi, and don't go far away." Wenxuan said quickly.

After a fright, everyone was not in the mood to continue, so they walked back. After returning home, no one mentioned this matter, and everything went smoothly from now on, just picking up acorns near Shenchangzi and not going any further.

Time flashed to September, and all the ginseng at home was dried. Zhiming and Zhixin specially took the best ginseng at home to the county and found the drug store where he used to stay. The shopkeeper was quite nice. He held Zhiming in his arms and talked for a long time, asking questions about this and that. "Zhiming, if something happened to you at that time, we couldn't do anything about it. The Qin family's hands and eyes are very good. If they don't do it well, we will have to help them all."

Zhiming had already looked away and didn't care about this, "Shopkeeper, it's all over. I am growing ginseng with my father and brother now, which is very good and practical. Shopkeeper, I came today to ask if you want this Don’t want ginseng? This year’s ginseng is bigger and better than last year’s.”

When the shopkeeper heard this, his eyes immediately lit up, "I want it, why don't I want it? Your ginseng is big and of good quality, so of course I have to have it. You also know that we not only have a pharmacy, but we are also in the medicinal business. Yes, your sticks sold very well last year. I’ll take whatever you have.”

Zhixin and Zhiming took out all the ginseng they brought. Naturally, they brought the ones they had grown at home. The remaining ones that were blocked were not brought.

The shopkeeper came forward and looked at the ginseng from the Xu family. The big ones that Jinghan hid before weighed about twenty-five or six kilograms. When dried, there were still more than six kilograms of dry goods. The shopkeeper liked it at first sight and said, "Zhiming, I want all of these, especially the big ones. In this way, I will give you three and a half taels of silver per pound for the big ones, and the rest will still be at last year's price. Two halves, okay? “The bigger the ginseng, the more valuable it is.

Neither Zhixin nor Zhiming expected to be so happy, so they quickly nodded and agreed, "Sure, what else can't be done? If the shopkeeper is willing, it will be done."

So I found a scale and weighed all the mallets. The big one weighed six kilograms and two taels in total, and the rest weighed forty kilograms. After calculation, the total was one hundred and twenty-one taels and seven cents of silver. The two brothers took the money and hurried back from the county. In the evening, they returned to the venue.

When I told everyone that I sold so much money this year, everyone was very happy. You know, they only sold the complete mallet. The beards that fell off during the production were not sold, and the ones that were blocked were not sold. Even if the price was lower, they could still sell for sixty or seventy yuan. As for the two silver coins, now I really don’t have to worry about it.

"Boss, you go to town in the next two days. Go find Lao Liang, the man who often collects sticks in the village, and sell the rest. Then let's pay back the money of the Lin family and Huixin first. It’s been more than half a year, now that I have money, I’ll pay it back as soon as possible.” Chen thought about it and decided to pay back the money she owed first, so as not to worry about it all day long.

Zhixin nodded in agreement. People in the Xu family were like this. If others borrowed something and left, they wouldn't feel anything. If you owe someone else something, you really think about it all the time, for fear that you will forget it. Once you have it, you will quickly pay it back. "Okay, mother, I understand."

The next day Zhixin arrived in town and sold all the remaining ones. The price this year is better than in previous years. Even the squid can be sold for one to two or six yuan per catty. In this case, the fifty kilograms of beards and other things left at home were sold for exactly eighty taels. Now, this year the mallet alone was sold for two hundred taels of silver. This is not a small sum. After paying back all the debts owed to the family, there is still money left. This was something I couldn't even imagine in the spring. I didn't expect that in just over half a year, not only would the family be able to cope with the famine, but they would also have a lot of money left.

The old man immediately decided to send Wen Han and Wen Cheng to study in the town once they were in trouble. "The village chief came over and said that planting will start on the third day of September this year, so that Bangchui can be planted on the sixth day of September. After planting Bangchui, Zhixin sent Wenhan and Wencheng to study in the town and found the best school. I think the school that Lao Wu went to was pretty good. The teacher was from a juren background, so it was enough to teach them."