When the last millet planted sprouted, and the soybeans emerged from the ground, holding two fat bean pods with a little yellow sprout in the middle, the first grinding mill of the Qingque tribe was finally declared a success.

Not far from the stone flower bed built by Han Cheng, a one-meter-high stone platform was built.

A stone slab about one square meter was placed on the stone platform, and in the center of the slab sat the stone mill recently made by the Qingque tribe.

The stone mill at the bottom sits on cement made of wood ash and is firmly built there.

This is to prevent it from rotating along with the grinding plate above when grinding something.

Around the millstone, ten centimeters wide, a "ridge" about ten centimeters high was built using cement and small stones.

A water outlet is left at the lowest edge of the 'ridge'.

This is to prevent the ground soy milk and other things from scattering.

People who are particular about their stone mills would not do this. The bottom panel of their stone mills is carved directly out of the large stone slab and is integrated with the stone slab.

The outer part of the stone slab was chiseled into "grooves and ridges" that collect soy milk.

The Qingque tribe now has limited tools, and the skills of the stonemason Mu Tou are not mature enough. Most importantly, Han Cheng and others who were waiting for the opportunity have already lost their patience, so they used cement to replace this time-consuming project.

After making sure that the surrounding cement had completely dried up and thoroughly cleaning the millstone and the stone slabs around it with several buckets of clean water, I finally started grinding tofu.

The early summer morning sunlight shines through the green bamboo in the flower bed, leaving a patch of tiny spots of light on the wet millstone.

In the cool air, Han Cheng held a ceramic bowl in his left hand and scooped out a bowl of something from the ceramic jar placed on the stone platform.

The bowl was filled with two-thirds water and one-third soybeans that had been soaked for more than a day and were completely full of water.

Hold the bowl close to the top of the millstone eye and tilt it slightly, and the water will enter the eye. When the water has almost entered the eye, the soaked soybeans will appear.

While doing all this, Han Cheng's right hand was not idle. He held the wooden handle of the millstone and his arm rotated in circles.

After the soybeans pass through the grinding hole and enter the middle of the two grinding wheels, it becomes easier to turn the mill.

The stone mill rotates in circles, and the soybean grains that enter it are squeezed and ground into fine foam by the rough stone mill. The foam appears from all sides of the stone mill and then slowly slides down the stone mill.

The white soy milk mixed with some bean dregs slid into the cement groove around the millstone.

As more and more of them gathered together, they began to flow towards the lowest gap, and finally formed a white line, falling into the pottery jar placed below, stirring up some white foam.

The slightly cool air was filled with the familiar smell of raw soy milk, just like the smell of ground tofu during the Chinese New Year when I was a child.

The difference is that things and people have long since changed, and they have become two completely different worlds...

Novel things like grinding can easily attract people who have never done such things before.

After Han Cheng had ground half of the soaked beans, he finally couldn't bear it anymore as Wu, who had been staring at the grinder for a long time and was eager to try, could no longer.

He opened his mouth tentatively and expressed to Han Cheng his desire to have some practice as well.

Han Cheng smiled, he had actually forgotten that the stone mill was attractive.

He immediately handed the bowl to the witch, and Han Cheng stood aside, leaving the task of grinding the beans to the witch.

This was not a very demanding job, and pouring more or less water into the millstone would not be a big deal, so Han Cheng just stood aside and watched without giving any instructions.

The first millstone of the Qingque tribe was just a small millstone with a diameter of 30 centimeters. It was not heavy, and the witch didn’t feel it was heavy when he lifted it.

When Wu first took over these tasks from Han Cheng, his body was slightly tense and his movements seemed a little stiff. After grinding three bowls of beans, his movements became very skillful.

After all, this is really not a difficult job.

After grinding the beans, Han Cheng asked someone to bring some clean water and pour it into the grinding hole bowl by bowl.

As they poured the beans, they turned the stone mill to wash away the remaining bean dregs and soy milk.

Firstly, it can avoid waste, and secondly, you can spend less effort on cleaning when you use it next time.

Han Cheng, Wu, the eldest brother and others carried the ground soy milk and walked to one side, where a two-meter-high rack had been set up.

There is a crossbeam in the middle of the rack, and a rope is tied in the middle of the crossbeam.

A stick about one and a half centimeters thick was tied under the rope.

The stick passes through the middle of two flat, overlapping sticks.

There is a big lump under the stick after some rest.

The big lump blocked the horizontal wooden stick below, preventing the two overlapping wooden sticks from sliding down from the air.

Two overlapping one-meter-long wooden sticks have a hole drilled at both ends, and the corner of a square piece of linen is inserted into each hole.

The corners of the sack were tied securely here to form a sling.

Han Cheng found a clean large ceramic basin and placed it under the sling, then poured a can of soy milk into the sling.

Then he motioned to his eldest brother to do the same as him, hold the two ends of the two overlapping wooden sticks, and start shaking the sling left and right.

The soy milk wrapped in the sling swayed left and right with the movements of Han Cheng and the eldest senior brother, and some of the slightly yellowish white soy milk fell into the large ceramic basin placed below.

The reason for such a procedure is that in addition to soy milk, the ground soy products also contain a lot of bean dregs.

This step is to separate the dregs from the soy milk, in other words, it is filtering.

The linen with fine mesh woven by the Qingque tribe is just right for this task.

After filtering the soy milk in several ceramic jars, the large ceramic basin under the sling was almost full.

There was only a piece of bean dregs left in the sling.

Han Cheng did not take out the bean dregs immediately, but added half a can of water into it and hung it for a while.

There is no way. There are too few beans at this time. We can only operate based on the principle of making more soy milk as possible.

After hanging it again, Han Chengcai took out the bean dregs, but he was reluctant to throw them away because they were a highly nutritious feed.

In ancient times, tofu shops usually raised livestock such as pigs and donkeys.

Because they eat well, they are much fatter than ordinary people after they are raised.

When food is scarce, bean dregs will be transformed into a kind of food, and eating bean dregs is not uncommon at all.

Han Cheng naturally couldn't bear to throw it away.

(=)(https://)