Farming Beneath the Changbai Mountains

The most important thing about handling the stick is skill, especially in this era without herbicides and pesticides, it is all done manually. The Xu family has been living in the mountains, and Mr. Zhixin and the others go to the ginseng field to tidy up whenever they have time. Therefore, the Xu family's sticks this year are better than last year's.

Many large mallets were dug out of the ground, and this year everyone was careful about them. If they encountered big ones, they would put them all away separately. Jinghan smiled secretly while picking up the mallet. It's a pity that people in the village can't do this, otherwise it would be fun.

Pengcheng, like Jinghan and the others, was wearing old clothes, kneeling in the ground and picking up sticks. While picking it up, he exclaimed, "Oh, there is such a big mallet, it's really amazing."

Jinghan raised her head and glanced at Pengcheng, "Brother Pengcheng, please keep your voice down. Are you afraid that people don't know the size of our mallets? We have to keep the big ones to sell, and we can't hand them over." "

After hearing this, Pengcheng understood. He nodded quickly and whispered, "I'm sorry, sister Jinghan, I understand."

Seeing Pengcheng's cautious look, everyone couldn't help laughing. "Okay, it's normal. You don't need to be so careful. We are picking up our own mallets in an honest way, and we are not here to steal them. Why are we being so careful?" Mr. Xue said with a smile while picking up the mallets. "Jinghan, don't scare your brother Pengcheng."

Jinghan stuck out her tongue, stopped talking, and lowered her head to pick up the mallet.

There were many people in the family, and they had finished getting up at the end of the day. Zhixin and Zhiming stopped them again with their four-teeth bags, and then everyone walked back carrying the sacks. The children also followed behind with various household items. Jinghan and Wenhan hid the big ones and let Wenchang and Wenxuan watch from a distance.

When we arrived at the gate of Shenchangzi, some villagers had already handed in their sticks and went home. There are others lined up there. Seeing every household handing in so many sticks, Jinghan felt extremely distressed. The Xu family wanted thirty feet of ginseng soil this year, so they had to hand in a stick of one hundred and twenty kilograms. At this moment, Jinghan’s heart was bleeding. She gritted her teeth and looked at the stick that her family had worked so hard to grow. Handed it over. Jinghan secretly vowed that one day, she would have to buy a forest for her own family, and then she would not have to pay so much.

The people in the yamen had been busy all day, and at the beginning of Youshi, they drove back with a large number of cars. Jinghan looked at the backs of those people and thought in a funny way, it would be great if she met a robber on the way. Haha, these mallets can be sold for a lot of money. However, it is estimated that no robber can do such a thing. The key is that these mallets are too eye-catching, and the Yamen will know about them if they are sold. Alas, I was just imagining it.

After everyone from the yamen and the village had left, Wenhan retrieved the mallets they had hidden. This year, the fifteen-foot mallet weighed a total of 290 kilograms. After handing in 120 kilograms, my family only had 170 kilograms left. The old man felt a little disappointed. After all, he had to pay forty kilograms more hammer than in previous years. However, thinking that there will be more and more in the future, the old man feels better.

Jinghan understood what grandpa was thinking, and walked to his side and said, "Grandpa, don't be sad. When we make more money, we will buy a forest and plant sticks in our own home. At most, we will pay some taxes. Where? Give them so much? Besides, the land you bought can be used to grow other things, unlike this one, which will not belong to us after one use. "

After hearing Jinghan's words, the old man's eyes lit up, and then darkened, "What you said is quite good. Buying a forest is not something you can afford if you don't have enough money. Our family hasn't reached that point yet. Okay, that's it." Don’t think so much, let’s get started quickly and do it step by step.”

The next day, the family started making goods. Yue Pengcheng gained experience this time, and all his thoughts on this trip were over. It has been seven or eight days since he came to Xu's house, so he will return to town on August 18th. Zhixin asked Wenhan to drive the ox cart to send Pengcheng back, and also prepared some things for Pengcheng to take back.

"Uncle Xu, there's no need to bring me anything. Life at home is not easy, so I might as well keep it in exchange for some money. You see, Jinghan and the others are so young, so it's not easy for them to be busy with everyone in front of them." Peng Cheng said as soon as he saw that the Xu family had prepared a lot of things.

"These are not for you, they are for your elders. We mountain people don't have any good things, they are just some local products. If you take them back, it is a little thought for us. When you are free in the future, we can play again , this time, we asked you to work with us, really." Zhixin put everything on the car.

The Xu family prepared some new ginseng this year. Chen picked out four big ones, each one weighing more than three taels. Then there were the deer whip, deer tendons, and the pair of antlers left over from that day, as well as two fox skins and one deer skin. The rest are some mushrooms, fungus, small fish, etc. Anyway, I have prepared a lot.

Pengcheng declined again and again, but finally accepted. Wenhan drove the car, and Wencheng followed, and together they sent Pengcheng back to the town.

Because we tasted the benefits of blocking sticks last year, this year everyone unanimously decided to go to blocking sticks first, and then get the ginseng soil. Anyway, the ginseng soil is almost done. So Zhixin Zhiming, together with Mr. Xue, Mr. Zhu, and even the old man went to Shendili to stop Bang Chui. Young masters Wen Han and Wen Cheng also joined in, and they were all busy in the fields. This year is pretty much the same as last year. He stopped a lot of sticks and whiskers. Now, the old man finally smiled.

After stopping Bang Chui, Wen Han and the others should go back to the town to study. Zhixin drove the ox cart to send the two children back to the town. Wenhan and Wencheng were staying at Huixin's place, so the Chen family prepared a lot of things for them to take with them. We couldn't just use the Tao family's stuff, right? So the car was loaded with a lot of grain, vegetables, etc., and it was full. Zhixin and the old man discussed that after the defeat was over, they would send Wenchang and Wenxuan to the town to study. These two children are not young anymore. Wenchang is nine years old and Wenxuan is eight years old. They should go to school.

The old man discussed buying a house in the town with everyone. Jinghan thought about it and felt that it was still too early to buy a house. Firstly, I don’t have that much money on hand, and secondly, I am in the town in the winter and have to come back in the summer. I have to sit idle even after selling the house, which is not cost-effective. Furthermore, Jinghan also wanted to make mushrooms and other things. These things are simply not possible in the town. There is not such a big place, so I told everyone about these things. After listening to Jinghan's words, the old man thought it was right, so he decided not to buy it this year and wait until later.

Jinghan took the time to ask her father to clean up the inside of the two houses, remove the kangs, and then change them to two firewalls in each house, so that the space would be more spacious. The fire wall occupies a small area and can provide warmth, so you don’t have to worry about heating in winter. There is plenty of firewood on the mountain anyway. After finishing all this, everyone moved the wood into the house. Jinghan found a way to pad all the wood. In this way, if you stack them layer by layer, there will be gaps in the middle, which will not affect the emergence of mushrooms. Jinghan was thinking about the technique of growing mushrooms in mushroom bags in her previous life. She could actually do it, but the taste was definitely not as good as growing it on wood.

This is the first time I've done this this year, and I really don't know how it works, so Jinghan tried it like this first. If it really works in the future, I might really have to use that method. After the wood was moved into the house, Jinghan took special care and went over every day to check the temperature and humidity. The weather is getting colder, so I start to light a fire in the house in the morning and evening to keep the temperature inside.

After all the sticks were used, Zhixin went to the county again and sold all the sticks. This year's output is not as large as last year's, so naturally the sales are not as high as last year's. Even the hammers sold for a total of more than 180 taels. There are quite a few of these. How could there be so many in normal years? The family still had some money left over from last year. For this year's expenses, they basically had enough money from hunting and selling fish in Wenchang, and all the money from ginseng was saved. After doing this, the family has saved some money.

Jinghan and the others still took their time to bring things home. Most of these pine nuts, walnuts, etc. were sold to people in the town who specialized in collecting them, leaving some of them to use as favors. In September, the villagers came to plant ginseng seeds and saw that the ginseng fees had been collected, which was almost the same as last year. Mrs. Chen counted the money at home that day and found that she still had more than two hundred and fifty taels. This was something she had never dared to imagine before.

"Let's save money for a few years. When this ginseng market is gone, we will buy a piece of forest. As Jinghan said, we won't have to pay too many sticks, and we can use the land to do other things. , No matter how you calculate it, it is more suitable than this." The old man looked at the money, not to mention how beautiful it was. "I didn't expect that in less than two years, we would be able to pay back the famine and still save money. At that time, I thought, this house is gone, the land is gone, and we still have to beg for food. Didn't you expect that this step was actually taken in the right direction? It's much better than what we did in the past few years." The old man sighed as he thought about the past.

"Who's life doesn't have ups and downs? Don't think about those things in the past. Now we just take good care of this place and save some money. We will buy a house in two years and buy some land. When the fifth child gets married, I won’t have to worry about anything and just live our happy life," the old lady said there. Zhixiang had been away for a year and a half, but he later sent two letters back. The letters only said that he was fine outside and told his family not to worry, and didn't say much else. When you are an elderly person, no matter which of your children is not around, you will always remember them in your heart. The old lady has always been talking about Zhixiang these days.