Chapter 22 Chapter 22 Tax payment day two.
"Selling steamed buns, steamed buns with meat filling..."
When passing by the houses, she would call out her wares in her beautiful voice, clear and bright.
Although each family assigned people to pay taxes, there were still people at home.
It was breakfast time, and smoke was rising from every household. Many people looked over from the yard when they heard it.
"Steamed buns with meat filling? I've never heard of it."
They had only eaten the Hubing sold in the local market and the county town. It was filled with mutton, but was not steamed. Instead, it was baked in the oven, sprinkled with a few sesame seeds, and sold for five cents each. It tasted crispy and fragrant.
"Those hard steamed buns with meat in them? That sounds unpalatable."
"It's a strange-looking woman hawking something. She must be from somewhere else. What kind of delicious food can they make..."
Everyone was talking about it, but no one came forward to ask.
Ji Xu was not in a hurry, and went all the way to the grain drying ground, hawking his wares along the way.
"Steamed meat buns, hot steamed meat buns..."
Her basket was stuffed with washed and dried straw and covered with linen. This journey was closer than going to the city, and the outer wall of the basket was still hot when you touched it.
She only sells meat-filled food because the distance is close. Meat-filled food is not as good as vegetarian food. It will not taste good when it gets cold.
"Sister, there are a lot of ox carts stuck ahead." Ji Zhu pointed to Ji Xu curiously.
Ahead was the road they had to take to get to the threshing ground, but it was blocked by ox carts coming from all over the place.
At the back of the line is the one complaining,
"You're really just a lazy donkey trying to get into trouble. How long are you going to keep us blocked?"
"Auntie, what happened up ahead?"
Ji Xu asked about a woman sitting on an ox cart.
"Those bastards in Shengchang are blocking the road. We have to wait until their ox carts pass before we can have our turn."
The woman waited anxiously,
"It's because the threshing ground is big that we chose Shengchangli as the tax collection point. Look how arrogant they are. They even dared to stop the car from Xiaoshunli."
The grain-carrying ox carts from Shengchangli were moving one after another from the opposite fork in the road. At a glance, even the Jin family and the Feng family, who had arrived earlier, were stuck at this intersection.
There was no way to explain it at all. This road was built with money from Shengchangli, and if someone wanted to pass through first, there was nothing they could do.
"Auntie, it's boring to just wait. Would you like to try my steamed buns with meat filling?"
Ji Xu opened a corner of his basket, revealing the soft, meaty steamed buns.
"Two cents each."
The woman was waiting anxiously. She had rushed here as soon as she heard the gong sound out of filial piety. She hadn't even had breakfast yet. When she heard the words, she nodded randomly. After all, she had the two coins and bought one.
The thin dough was soaked with the oil from the meat filling. It was even juicy when bitten. It was so fragrant that the woman felt much happier and said hurriedly:
"Give me five more."
She can eat one in one bite. It is very delicious and not inferior to Hu Bing, but more economical.
Ji Xu then used chopsticks to pick five for her.
Seeing that there was business, Ji Feng couldn't help but be happy. She took out a piece of cut Bazhu leaf from the basket and handed it to her to wrap the steamed buns.
This wild Baju was found by Xiaozhu and her group of children the day before yesterday while they were collecting firewood on Niupi Mountain. It was a tall green plant with fan-like leaves and a stalk of Baju fruit. Perhaps due to insufficient sunlight and low temperature, the Baju fruit was still green-skinned and small even in autumn on Niupi Mountain in Wu and Chu. The children picked some and ate them, but the hard core was very astringent, so they threw them away and picked the large leaves to make felt hats to play with.
When Ji Xu saw it, he thought that the Bazhu leaves could be used to wrap steamed buns, so he asked Xiaozhu to lead the way, picked a lot of them, and cut them into one-foot-long pieces.
"Girl! Come here!"
At the front of this congested road, shouts were heard from afar.
At the fork in the road, next to Sheng Changli's ox cart, a young man was waving at Ji Xu.
Ji Xu looked carefully and recognized that it was the jailer he had chatted with in the public field. Today he was not wearing the black official uniform with a sword, so he was a little unrecognizable.
He led his two younger sisters and walked forward from the edge of the road blocked by ox carts, occasionally turning sideways.
Up ahead, Ji Yuanzheng and others were getting anxious because the intersection was guarded by two men from Shengchangli, who wouldn't let them pass for a while. The people on the ox cart were exposed to the sun, and the back of her new dress was soaked.
Seeing Ji Xu hurriedly heading towards the intersection, he couldn't help but smile, and turned back to Jin with a look of anticipation:
"Look, mother, this girl is still moving forward. She will definitely be scolded by the young man from Shengchang and embarrassed."
Ji Zhi opened his mouth to call her, but Jin gave him a sidelong look, so he swallowed his words.
It was Aunt Xu who was at the back who said, "Don't go any further. They are very rude. It won't be too late to leave after they pass."
However, the sound was drowned out by Feng Fuzhen's shouting at the fork in the road, "Why should we wait? We want to go to the threshing ground too!"
"This road was built with money from every household in Shengchangli, you Feng family slave."
Someone in Shengchangli gave someone a thumbs-up.
Aunt Xu hurriedly stopped her granddaughter and told her not to embarrass herself any further. Then she looked again and saw that Ji Xu had already walked to the front of the road and was indeed stopped.
However, a young man from Shengchang Village came forward and became very familiar with the two men guarding the road.
"This is someone I know. She's going with me."
The three sisters of Ji Xu were let go to the other side of the intersection, and Feng Fuzhen felt even more uncomfortable.
Ji Yuan immediately gritted her teeth. They were traveling fast in the ox cart, but they never expected that Ji Xu would overtake them.
The jailer said to Ji Xu, "I'm glad to see you again. I ate your steamed buns a while ago when I was assigned to work on the public farms. Later, I returned to the county jail. There are no other steamed buns like yours for sale in the whole county. Today, my family is busy paying taxes, so I took leave and came back to help. I'll buy some for my grandparents to try."
"I'm originally from Shengchangli, and I'm fortunate to be able to do business with you. Today I'm making steamed buns with meat filling, and they're still hot."
Ji Xu followed them to the threshing ground, saying as he went.
"Give me ten," said the jailer.
Ji Xu packed it for him as he was told.
After thinking about it, he gave him another one, "Thank you, sir, for clearing the way for me."
The jailer had no shortage of the money, and he felt comfortable seeing her being so generous.
I took the steamed bun and said to the crotchless boy on the ox cart,
"Brother, take this steamed bun back to Grandpa and Grandma, so they can eat it hot for breakfast."
The jailer's house was nearby, so it wouldn't be a big deal to just make a round trip. So the young man took the gift and delivered it to him.
threshing ground,
Four village officers were shouting,
"One column for the land tax, one column for the oral calculation! Arrange them in order!"
"This is the most filial piety!"
"The registered residents of Shengchangli, come to my side and line up in two rows!"
"This place is Benguli!"
"This is the collection office for Jinshili and Liaoshili!" There are only more than 50 households in these two villages, so they are merged into one.
"Sister, we are there! The village head wearing a black jacket is in Benguli." Ji Feng said with some excitement.
Ji Xu and her group were the first to line up, and the ox carts that were congested at the intersection also came in one after another.
Jin pulled the child with both hands and rushed to the front to line up in Benguli. Ji Fu was pulling the rice as land tax and was lined up in the next row. The township official there brought a measuring instrument to measure the rice.
You don’t usually see so many ox carts. They are so densely packed on the ground that Feng and Zhu were both stunned.
The villagers gradually filled up the threshing ground. In front of each line of people, a ramie mat was spread, and on the mat was a low fir table, with pens, ink and bamboo scrolls placed on the table.
Ji Xu, the round-faced township official in charge of the row, was seen kneeling down in front of the table, covering his mouth with his hands while yawning. He pulled off the bamboo tube at his waist and took a sip.
I could smell that it was boiled naiguo water, which moistened the lungs and replenished qi. Then I heard the businesslike tone of the other party.
"Chiji."
Ji Xu also knelt down in front of the desk and produced her household registration as instructed. She was becoming more and more accustomed to this sitting posture.
The village official compared the household registration with a bamboo slip in his hand and said:
"Xu, fifteen years old, is a hundred and twenty coins;
Feng, eight years old, small mouth, mouth money 23 coins;
Children under five years old, and children under seven years old are exempt from paying. The total is 143 coins.
Ji Xu handed over a string of coins from his waist. He had counted them at home yesterday. The coins were strung together with straw, and there were exactly one hundred and forty-three of them.
There would be no mistake in the number. She counted it carefully, Ji Feng also counted it, and Ji Zhu followed suit. Although she was young, she could count clearly, from one to one hundred, without missing a single one.
However, the village chief did not need to spend time counting the money. There was a copper "money scale" on his desk. He tied the money to a rope at one end and adjusted the weight to check the weight of the money.
The copper coins used nowadays are Wuzhu coins. As the name suggests, one coin weighs about five Zhu, has a diameter about the length of a finger, and is round on the outside and square on the inside.
The five-zhu coins minted by the government have uniform specifications. Some unscrupulous counterfeiters in the folk would mix iron filings into the copper coins, or simply use lead and iron to mint coins. When the coins were circulated, they made a profit, but the people suffered.
During the days when Ji Xu was selling steamed buns, she received four counterfeit coins. When she got home, she found that they were obviously thinner than the real five-zhu coins. Later, she would rather take her time and check the coins carefully, rather than let those unscrupulous people mix counterfeit coins with her.
Like this pile of coins of Ji Xu, according to the measurement system of the Western Han Dynasty, each weighs five zhu, which adds up to about thirty taels, nearly two kilograms.
After the village assistant verified that everything was correct, he dipped his brush in ink and wrote the words "paid" in the tax column of her register. He also crossed out her name on his own bamboo slips.
This means that the oral calculation fee has been paid. Don't underestimate the words on the register. If she wants to go on a long journey, such as to the county town, she has to go to the village headman to handle a clearance document called "Chuan". At that time, the village headman will check her register to see if she has paid the tax. If she owes it, then naturally he will not do it. Without "Chuan", it means that this person can't go anywhere.
"Next."
Ji Xu kept the ruler close to his body.
A girl who had been home for more than half a month was so poor that she had to eat coarse food. But on this day, she was asked to pay the full amount of money she had calculated mentally.
Jin gave her a sharp look, pulled Ji Yuan to kneel down, and handed him their string of money.
"How can my money not be weighed enough? I have picked them all up one by one. Please look carefully. Don't cheat me, a common woman..."
I saw that the team at the back was moving very slowly, especially those who were paying the land tax. They had to measure the rice, which was a time-consuming task and could not be done quickly.
Ji Xu paid his debt first, and took the opportunity to sell steamed buns.
"Steamed buns with meat filling? Let me take a look."
They arrived early, some of them had not eaten breakfast, and when they were waiting at the back of the line, their stomachs growling, they decided to buy some steamed buns.
The jailer who had bought steamed buns earlier had paid the tax and when he saw Ji Xu wanted to buy some more,
"Ten more meat-filled ones, please."
Seeing him as a returning customer, some villagers asked:
“Does it really taste that good?”
The jailer had just received some extra steamed buns from Ji Xu, so he helped to shout a few words, and what he said was also true.
"Buy it with confidence. I guarantee it'll taste great. My six-year-old brother can eat five of them by himself."
As a result, many fellow villagers from Shengchangli came to buy it.
Even the skin is soaked in the aroma of meat. One bite and the boredom of waiting is instantly relieved.
"It's so soft and fragrant! This is my first time eating meat-filled steamed buns, and they taste so good!"
"Give me five too!"
"I want one too!"
"I want one too!"
There were many people at that time, and the fifty meat-filled steamed buns and fifty white jade steamed buns made by Ji Xu were snatched away.
Jin finally paid the bill after arguing with the village chief for a while, wasting a lot of time and effort, and reluctantly took out five five-zhu coins to replace the fake coins she had mixed in.
Seeing Ji Xu trying to make money by selling steamed buns whenever he could, and the money falling into the bamboo tube one after another, he was so jealous that his face became long.
The author has something to say:
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Baju, banana.
This is still a reference to Sima Xiangru's "Zixu Fu": "Zhu Zhe Ba Ju."
Looking forward to your comments and collections [scatter flowers]
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