The eighth day of the first lunar month is considered a minor New Year celebration. People set up stalls, open shops, and go to work in the fields. Everyone should do what they are supposed to do.
After having a small gathering on the mountain, Jiang Zhi prepared to start work at Qingquan Bay.
From Xujia Village, about a mile away from the official road, after crossing the stone bridge and following the path at the foot of the mountain, it takes another mile or so to reach the entrance of Qingquan Bay.
People from Xujia Village often take this shortcut when going to the market, so although the road is winding and uneven, it can still be used to push carts once it has been repaired.
Since work was required, Jiang Zhi brought along several able-bodied young men, including Tian Gui, Xu Genqing, Er Rui, and Xiao Man.
Li Laoshi, leading an old mule laden with hoes and baskets of dirt, once again broke the silence of the place with his large group of people.
The dilapidated house and withered grass remain in the same state of decay!
If the country is not at peace, the common people will not be at peace either; if the skin is gone, where will the hair attach?
The village of Xujia was adjacent to the destroyed official road, and the villagers living there could not escape the calamity of being wiped out.
Looking at the valley that had become overgrown with weeds and trees after only two years of no human habitation, everyone sighed a few times and then began to clean up the mess.
There are three households here, and their houses are built along the foot of the mountain.
After the original villagers were robbed, the houses were looted by migrants who had previously gathered near Xujia Village. Everything that could be dismantled was taken from the houses.
Everything that could be taken away has been taken away. There are no doors, windows, furniture, wooden beams, or tiles left; only the stone walls that make up the house structure and the remaining broken tiles and bricks remain.
Everyone got to work as soon as they arrived, and everyone was an experienced worker.
They removed the rickety roof tiles, cleared away the weeds on the ground, dug out the hollow earthen stove, and then carried the straw that had been soaked and rotten by the rain outside and set it on fire.
While everyone was busy, Jiang Zhi also walked around the place again and gained a new understanding of it.
There are three households here, each with sturdy stone walls, and their houses, ranging from three to five rooms, are arranged in a straight line.
There is little arable land; it consists mainly of the plots of land built up in front of the houses, which are now overgrown with weeds.
In the grass, you can still see the shadows of some scallions, ginger, garlic, and green vegetables that escaped the clutches of the refugees and survived on their own.
Li Laoshi wasn't going to honestly move bricks and stones; he followed Jiang Zhi around with a hoe, digging here and there, pretending to be very busy.
All the land in front of the house was only about one or two acres in total. Jiang Zhi only glanced at it briefly before starting to look for the Dragon Cave that Xiao Manye had mentioned.
This is easy to find!
At the lowest point of the valley is a small stream. Now, in the dry winter season, the stream, which is only a meter wide, is a foot deep. The water is crystal clear, and you can see small fish among the pebbles of all sizes.
Clumps of reeds line both sides of the stream.
Reed rhizome is used medicinally. It is also known as "earth rhinoceros horn". It clears heat and reduces fever, relieves irritability and quenches thirst. It is used for external wind-heat, cough and thirst, stomach heat and vomiting, and has a rapid effect.
If you follow the stream upstream, you will find a cave at the bottom of the cliff behind three houses.
The cave is about three meters high and more than two meters wide, with a small portion of the entrance blocked by a stone wall made of stacked stones.
At this moment, water overflowed from a small gap above the stone wall, flowing gurglingly into the stream below.
Seeing water flowing out of the hole, Jiang Zhi breathed a long sigh of relief, her biggest worry finally gone.
With such a good water source here, my pharmacy has no shortcomings!
The inconvenient transportation to the pharmaceutical plant in the mountains is a minor issue; the main problem is the lack of water.
The two families lived in Laoyun Cliff, where there was a spring, but the water flow was scattered, and during the first year of drought, the water was just enough for people's daily needs.
To farm, they relied on irrigation ditches built near the terraced fields to store water, which solved these problems; it would be even more impossible to make medicine.
In the village, each household had to fetch water from a large spring. The spring had a large water volume and would only dry up during severe droughts, but fetching water was always a hassle.
The cave now has a plentiful water supply, enough even in winter. Judging from the erosion marks in the vicinity, the water level will at least double during the summer flood season.
Once the medicine shop is repaired, I can use the spring water here and take advantage of the drop in elevation to set up a small waterwheel to grind the medicine downstream, without having to consider building a dam on the mountain to store water.
Li Laoshi followed behind like a tail. When he saw Jiang Zhi wanting to get closer to the stone wall to see what was going on in the cave, he quickly picked up his hoe and said, "Wait a minute, let me clear these weeds first!"
Because of the constant flow of water, the area around the cave entrance and the stone walls are covered with plants, mostly moss growing against the stone walls, as well as evergreen maidenhair ferns and pteris vittata.
The herb, also known as golden rooster tail or wax kidney grass, has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, removing dampness and stopping bleeding. Combined with maidenhair fern, three-pronged herb, and white thatch root, it is used to treat coughing up blood or blood-streaked sputum.
Jiang Zhi stopped Li Laoshi: "Don't rush, I think I saw a few spiders laying eggs!"
"Where are the spider eggs?" Old Li used his hoe to haphazardly poke at the plants.
Seeing his clumsy movements, Jiang Zhi said urgently, "I told you not to move, so don't move. It's right next to your feet."
On the stone wall at Li Laoshi's feet, there was a row of inconspicuous long-leaved plants.
The leaves are green and smooth, with some white spots scattered on the surface, which look like spider eggs.
Image from the internet: Spider carrying an egg, Green snake lotus
"This is the Spider Embracing Egg, also known as the Green Snake Lotus, the Bone-Setting Pill. It has many names, including Nine Dragons Coil, Bamboo Leaf Root, Mountain-Driving Whip, Ground Centipede, Crawling Centipede, Thousand-Year Bamboo, Bamboo Leaf Coil, Snake Lotus, Coiled Dragon Seven, Walking Stone Road, Centipede Grass, Inch-Eight Joint, Ground Leaf..."
Hearing Jiang Zhi rattle off such a long list of names, Li Laoshi was dumbfounded: "So what are they called?"
Jiang Zhi was helpless; that's just how herbs are—each region has its own name, and people call them whatever they want.
Because the roots and rhizomes of the Green Snake Lotus grow horizontally, with fibrous roots and scales, and the leaves grow directly from the roots, resembling bamboo, it was named with the character "bamboo" in its name.
Furthermore, this plant only grows in the moist and fertile crevices of rocks in the mountains and forests, and its roots and stems grow horizontally, resembling "snakes".
The white spots on the leaves resemble spider eggs, hence the name "Spider Embracing Eggs".
There is even an alternative, with two types of leaves that look similar, but the only difference is the rootstock.
Authentic spider egg spawn is made from bamboo roots, which can be harvested in all four seasons.
The substitute is simply the common root system, which needs to be collected in late spring. Both have the same medicinal effects, namely promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis, and relieving bone pain.
The herbs can be crushed and applied externally to the wound to help set bones, and can also be decocted and taken orally to treat bruises and sprains.
This herb is hard to find, so Jiang Zhi should cherish it now that she has it.
Pick a few plants to apply to the waist of the large pillar, and keep all the others as seedlings.
After walking around, Jiang Zhi felt that there must be some people who knew about herbs among the residents here.
She has discovered several types of medicinal herbs that are intentionally cultivated by humans.
Ah, if only the original owner of this place could have escaped the calamity and returned.
If the original inhabitants are dissatisfied with the land allocated by Magistrate Zhang because they built their own medicine shop, they can be resettled in Xujia Village, where there is land and house foundation. They can also work at the medicine shop if they wish.
Just then, Errui ran over and shouted, "Mom, we've prepared a house with three rooms. How do you think we should arrange them? I think the other room is too small; we could use it as a storeroom."
The houses of these three households do not need to be moved. Just clean them up, rebuild the roofs, and repair the doors and windows.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing doesn't require much equipment. All you need is a pot for decocting medicine, a furnace for drying, and racks for drying powder before you can start production. The initial investment is not high.
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