Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Little Maid
Jinniang was awakened again by the sharp shouting of Mrs. Hao next door. She covered her ears and finally fell asleep again, thinking that Mrs. Hao would stop crying. As soon as she put her hands down covering her ears, she heard sobbing sounds, which were particularly clear in the silent night.
She could tell that it was the crying sound of Mrs. Hao's new daughter-in-law.
The new bride is not really that new. She has been married for about three years. When Jinniang's family moved here three years ago, Mrs. Hao from next door even came all the way to give her wedding candy.
But she also knew why the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law had become so estranged. First, it was because the new daughter-in-law had very little dowry, and second, she only gave birth to a girl.
If it were in modern times, if the husband's family was dissatisfied, they would at most say a few words, and they would not even dare to do it openly. No one wants to bear the crime of favoring boys over girls. However, in this ridiculous ancient times, Mrs. Hao could even get a compliment. Why do you know? After all, Mrs. Hao did not secretly drown her baby girl like other families.
Irony, how ironic!
Look, the sobbing sound just now seems to have disappeared in the air, and was replaced by the sound of pounding rice after the rooster crowed three times.
Jinniang turned over and continued to close her eyes, but she couldn't fall asleep. He simply sat up. His hand, which was usually reaching for the switch to turn on the light, paused for a moment. He said self-deprecatingly, "Where is the light?" and continued to lie down.
The candles in the Northern Song Dynasty were not cheap, one candle cost two hundred coins. She was reluctant to light one, and her family was very poor now.
In fact, when she first came here, she seemed to be only half a year old, and the Wei family was not very poor. My father Wei Xiong was the second child in the family. He was neither as smart as his elder brother nor as likable as his younger brother, but he was born strong and sturdy. So he joined the army from Anlu Prefecture and served as a soldier in the Hanyang Army.
Later, she was selected to join the imperial guards, where she received very generous treatment and was able to bring her family with her. Jinniang also asked to study for three years, and her parents readily agreed.
However, when he was nine years old, the leader his father followed died, and the imperial guards were downsizing, so the family of three returned to their hometown in Anlu.
When he returned home, the Wei family was still quite well-off. Wei's father had no other skills, so he could only buy a mule cart to pull people or goods to earn some money. As the saying goes, it is harder to maintain a business than to start one. Wei's father was a talkative person. He had so much money that others could not hide it all, but he did not keep any secrets from others and told them everything.
From then on, the number of relatives who borrowed money from him, the number of neighbors who dragged him to gamble and play cards increased day by day, and there were even people who took the carriage and refused to pay. The money in his hands was almost spent like water.
Seeing that the situation was not good, her father was stopped on the road and hit by a car while sending relatives home, which led to a lawsuit. So she strongly requested Wei's father and mother to come to Jiangling Prefecture to buy a house.
Jiangling Prefecture was the capital of Jinghu North Road. Although it could not be compared with Hangzhou Prefecture and Pingjiang Prefecture in Liangzhe Road, it was also known as a place with "100,000 households and hundreds of merchants in normal times. In the middle of the night, carriages hit the wheels and ships were loaded with fish and horses."
Furthermore, this place is a strategic location, and ships traveling from the south and the north have to pass through it, especially Jiangjin in the south of the city where they live, which can be called a "meeting place for boats and carriages."
Wei's father was always afraid that people in the city looked down on him, so he thought of buying a property near the city. It was Jinniang who showed courage and asked her father to buy a property in the center of Jiangling city. They could not afford upper-class or middle-class houses, so they only had this tiny lower-class house with no yard, just two rooms, a small living room and a tiny kitchen.
A total of 180 strings of coins were spent. Wei's father had only saved 200 strings of coins over the years, so there were still 10 strings of coins left, which his parents were willing to spend. I spent three strings of cash to buy her furniture, including a bed, a small and narrow cabinet, and a desk. Now the paint on the cabinet is almost peeling off, the door can't be closed, and the corner of the desk is broken in half.
It's not that she was cruel to ask her father to spend money, but her father really couldn't keep the money. Relatives, friends and grandparents were eager to empty her family's pockets and buy a house so that she would at least have some property.
Since the family of three settled in Jiming Lane three years ago, Wei's mother gave birth to a child, Jinniang's younger brother, who is only three years old now. The family of four worked in three different places. Her father was a cart driver, earning a string of money a month, about three to five hundred coins. Her mother and her brother helped in the kitchen of a foot shop, while she worked as an embroiderer in an embroidery workshop.
Apprentices did not receive any monthly wages for the first three years, and they could only receive a new set of clothes made for them every year. Jinniang was lucky. When she entered the embroidery workshop, other apprentices in the same batch had already studied for a year, but because she could write and draw, the owner of the embroidery workshop only counted her as having studied for two years and could start receiving monthly wages.
With great difficulty, she started to receive monthly wages from last year, and the family became a little more well-off. However, she had no idea that her grandfather, Old Man Wei, had passed away. Also, because her uncle was paralyzed in bed, Old Man Wei's funeral was handled by her father.
After the funeral, the money that the Wei family had saved with great difficulty was almost used up, and even a lot of Jinniang's private savings was lost.
Just like this, she was thinking in a daze and didn't know when she fell asleep. She was awakened by a knock on the door. Jinniang opened the door in her slippers. A young woman was standing outside. She was wearing a green kudzu vine tube top with autumn fragrance color, trousers of the same color, and a blue bodice. She was wearing a silk shirt made of medicine-stained cloth on the outside and a sandalwood ramie headscarf on her head.
"Mom." Jinniang called out hurriedly.
Her mother's surname is Luo, and her nickname is Yu'e. She was originally the daughter of a poor family in Anlu Prefecture, but she was born with a beautiful appearance, with a face as white as jade, hands as slender and graceful as water onions. She looks like a delicate flower or a young willow, but in fact she has a hot temper. Her nickname is "Jade-faced Rakshasa", and she is very good at quarreling and fighting with people. A few days ago, she almost chopped a relative who was making trouble with a kitchen knife when she returned home. This is completely different from her husband Wei Xiong, who has a strong name, a sturdy and majestic appearance, and has served in the army for several years, but is actually a cowardly and easily influenced person, and he believes in what outsiders say.
Luo Yu'e also did not get along well with her relatives. When she got emotional, she would shout for fighting and killing. She grew several-inch long nails on her hands just to scratch people. However, although she was rude to outsiders, she had one advantage: she was extremely protective of her family.
Look, Jinniang is twelve years old now, and as long as she is at home, breakfast is brought to her bedside.
Seeing her daughter yawning, Luo Yu'e said, "Hurry up and go to work after breakfast. You've been away for several days because of the funeral."
"My daughter knows." Jinniang took her breakfast, a boiled egg and a fried rice cake. The man selling oil-fried glutinous rice cakes is at the entrance of their alley. They cost one cent each and are fried into round shapes, crispy and delicious. Luo Yu'e would not buy these for normal breakfast, at most a bowl of rice and a plate of pickles, but after returning home to attend the funeral and keeping vigil for seven days, the whole family was almost exhausted, so now all they had to do was to have a snack.
Luo Yu'e looked at her daughter and saw that she was eating happily. She felt that her daughter's appearance and figure were completely different from her own. She thought that if she ate less and became slimmer, it would be better. She was already twelve years old and would be married when she was thirteen next year. She looked like a glutinous rice dumpling, white and plump.
Yes, Jinniang was of medium height, with a plump figure, a short and round face, curved eyebrows, thin lips, arms like lotus roots, and a pair of protruding ears. She has a pair of beautiful almond-shaped eyes and two dimples, which make her look more cute and adorable.
If she had a figure and appearance like this in the Tang Dynasty, she would definitely be able to survive, but in the Song Dynasty, where slenderness and thinness were considered beautiful, she was not popular.
But Jinniang didn't care about these things. It was not a good thing for a girl from a poor family to be too beautiful.
After breakfast, she took out two strings of money from under her pillow and gave one string to Luo Yu'e first: "Mother, since you and the owner of the foot shop had a fight, it would be bad to go there again. Here is one string of money, take it for your expenses first."
Luo Yu'e quickly declined: "Child, I still have money in my hand, I don't need yours. You have given us so much money in the past year, take it away, take it away."
"Mother." Jinniang stuffed it directly into her sleeve pocket: "Please take it. We rely on you to take care of our three meals a day. Autumn is coming, and my brother still doesn't have a cotton coat or trousers. Two taels of cotton cost seventy-six coins, and the cotton used in a cotton coat costs four or five hundred coins, and the clothes cost five hundred coins."
Clothes in the Northern Song Dynasty were not cheap. Cotton was not yet widely grown, and poor people usually wore quilted robes with hemp inside. Jinniang also wore a padded jacket and a quilted robe together before. It was only the year before last when the embroidery workshop gave her a cotton coat made of inferior cotton that she had a cotton coat to keep warm.
However, my younger brother does not have a decent cotton-padded jacket. The one he is wearing now is the one given by my third aunt’s family, and the cotton inside has turned black.
Luo Yu'e had no choice but to accept it with shame, muttering: "This is our fault as parents."
Jinniang glanced at her, reluctant but determined, and pulled Luo Yu'e to sit down: "Mother, I plan to go to Bianliang with Chen Niangzi."
"Bianliang?" Luo Yu'e immediately denied it, "Why would a girl like you go so far?"
Jinniang said, "Last year, Madam Chen from our Shuxiu Pavilion made a wedding dress for the daughter of the mansion master's family. The mansion master's daughter was going to marry in Bianjing, and the relatives in Bianjing saw it and said it was good. Well, the mansion master's wife's sister also has several daughters who are about to reach the age of marriage, so she wanted to invite Madam Chen to be a needleworker. Madam Chen wanted to pick four people to go to the capital together, and she picked the daughter. The daughter didn't want to leave her parents, but if she didn't go, she wouldn't be able to earn much money in the future even if she embroidered blindly."
The embroidery business requires qualifications and experience. If you have worked for a high-ranking official, you will be able to get good wages if you work for another company in the future.
Luo Yu'e was worried: "It's not so easy to go to those wealthy families. Next year or so, you will be old enough to get married. If you go so far, it will delay yourself. You are a free person now. You can't bear to be a slave to others and be beaten and scolded by them..."
Jinniang knew that she must convince her mother first before the matter could be settled, so she said, "Mother, the government has banned the sale of lowly slaves. We are not sold, but hired for three years. When the three years are up, my daughter will be free. How dare they kill us hired from outside?"
In the Northern Song Dynasty, slaves and hired servants coexisted, but most of them were hired servants. The Song Dynasty abolished the system of slavery, so people could no longer call them "untouchables" but had to be called "female servants." Lowly slaves have no household registration or identity, but the hired manpower are good people, registered citizens of the country.
Seeing her mother still hesitating, Jinniang continued, "Besides, nowadays, even the officials' yamen (yamen refers to young masters) do not look at family background when marrying a wife, but only at dowry. My daughter is not beautiful, and without dowry, it will be difficult for her to get married even at home. Even if she really finds a husband, she will be despised in the future like the daughter-in-law of the neighboring Hao woman. Anyway, Madam Chen promised me that the wife of the mansion said that the salary originally promised to us four embroiderers was one string of silver per month. Because I can draw, her family also specially gave me one tael of silver per month. That mansion is not an ordinary rich family that only treats servants harshly. It is the family of a high-ranking official, and I believe the reward will not be small. It is better than the seven hundred coins a month that my daughter earns in Shuxiu Pavilion."
In Shu Xiu Pavilion, one can only be an embroiderer, and the work is taken from embroidery workshops. It is difficult to get private work, and the salary is not much. One string of silver is equivalent to one thousand coins, and one tael of silver is equivalent to one thousand two hundred and fifty coins.
Luo Yu'e recalled that when her husband was a soldier in the imperial guards, he earned thirty strings of cash a year, and when he was a member of the imperial guards, he earned fifty strings of cash a year. If the husband is still in the army, why would he need his daughter to be a maid?
She held her daughter's hand, still reluctant to let her go: "It's not much, who knows if Madam Chen is really going to take you there, or trick you into selling you off."
Jinniang couldn't help crying because of her mother's worry, but she still insisted: "In fact, my daughter has an unrealistic plan to go to Bianjing. The court's Wenxiuyuan recruits outstanding embroiderers from the people every few years. If my daughter is lucky enough to get in, she will not only get two strings of cash a month, but also have this gilded status. Maybe she can make clothes for the emperor and the queen. Look at Chen Niangzi, she is just an apprentice from the Wenxiuyuan, and now she has a monthly salary of ten strings of cash, which is ten times ours, and it may be more than that."
"Look at the house we live in. It only has two rooms. My brother is still young and can sleep with you, but we can't always do this in the future."
If you don't think about the future, you will have immediate worries.
You have to know that in the Northern Song Dynasty, the standard for a middle-class family was to have assets of 1,000 strings of cash. In modern times, Jinniang is still from a well-off family. In ancient times, she did not seek to be extremely rich, but at least she wanted to be well-off. It's good for a family to live together, but if there is no money, everyone will suffer together.
As soon as she finished speaking, she saw her mother finally nodded and said, "You are easily deceived by sweet words. I will go with you to meet that lady Chen and the owner of the embroidery shop first."
Jinniang couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. She had long regarded her parents as her own parents, and she didn't want them to live in poverty and misery all their lives.
Even if it's just for her parents, she will try her best.
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