Chapter 92 Chapter 92 Taking the ship.
Jin was reluctant to spend the money, so she took her two daughters and walked away cursing, and found a small inn along the way.
The postman took ninety coins from the three of them, but without leading them, he pointed and said, "Go to the end, to the room at the very end."
The yard was filled with mud and the smell of cow dung mixed with mud made it stinky.
When they reached the end, the room and even the floor were filled with pedestrians holding bags, about a dozen or twenty of them. Some were dozing off, some were looking out the door at the rainy sky that might clear up at any moment, and some were glancing at them.
Ji Yuan was reluctant to go in. "There's a man inside, how can we accommodate him?"
Jin had squeezed to the very end, where there was a large mud bunk bed that stretched from the east wall to the west wall, with many people sitting on it.
Jin asked them to make room in the corner and waved to them to go in.
Ji Yuan frowned and had to go into the place filled with mixed smells. Jin used a towel to lightly dust off the dust on the floor, but the patina on the floor could no longer show its original color.
She sat outside, separating herself from the man next to her, letting her two daughters sleep on the side against the wall, and said:
"There are a few more people, but we saved a lot of money. I think that inn is really a rip-off. Can we stay elsewhere?"
Ji Yuan said, "Mother, you've been too frugal all this way. It's not like we can't afford to stay at an inn. We still have some money..."
Ji Zhi touched her hard, signaling her to shut up. Seeing that several pairs of eyes were looking at them, he stopped talking for a moment.
The mother and her two daughters took turns going to the toilet, changing their wet clothes, chewing some dry food to fill their stomachs, and the two little girls went to bed first.
Later, as it grew darker, Jin could no longer hold on, so she hugged the bundle in her arms and fell asleep on her side.
Before Ji Xu and the others left home, they heard that Jin, the eldest wife, was selling her twenty acres of land. Now that they met the mother and her two daughters here, they must have thought that the land had been sold.
"I wonder where Ji Huhai is?" Ji Feng muttered, and he also wondered where his mother was now and whether it was raining there too.
The rain did not stop until the next day. Jin asked the shops along the river if they wanted to hire her as a laborer to earn some money to supplement her accommodation expenses while staying in Pengcheng, but none of them wanted such a last-minute job as hers.
She heard that people were trying to salvage the tripod on the Sishui Bridge, but because the water level had risen, they had been trying for several days but still couldn't get it out of the water. The government paid money to summon strong men from all over the place.
Jin walked over here and wanted to try his luck.
"Zhou Ding is out of the water!"
"Zhou Ding is out of the water!"
The people on the river bank were heard running around telling each other, their expressions as if they were facing a great enemy. Jin found it strange, because even she, a country woman, knew that the Zhou Ding emerging from the water was a symbol of good fortune. She stopped someone and asked why.
The man said, "On the tripod are eight characters in seal script: The dragon gave birth to nine sons, the youngest of whom is a fake."
"The one who appeared in the water the other day must have been the ninth son of the dragon, Chiwen, the one who could create waves and rain. He must have wanted to prevent this tripod from coming into the world, so he cut the rope that day!"
"No wonder it's been raining for the past few days, this must be the appearance of Chiwen!"
Unexpectedly, the inscription on the tripod did not indicate any auspicious signs, but instead contained this sentence. The people were afraid of the Chiwen in the water's revenge, so they dispersed for a while.
The magistrate of Pengcheng finally fished out the Zhou Ding. He originally wanted to transport it to Chang'an and present it to the emperor, but he was shocked by the eight-character inscription on the tripod: "The current emperor is the youngest son of the late emperor. The youngest son is a fake. The youngest son is a fake..." He repeated it aloud and broke out in a cold sweat.
Unfortunately, the news that the Zhou tripod had appeared in Sishui had been urgently transmitted to Chang'an over 800 miles a few days ago. If he did not present the tripod, the emperor would question him. If he presented it, he might incur the emperor's wrath. He did not know what to do for a moment.
Jin returned to the post station in disappointment. At the door, she was bumped into in the chest by a reckless boy. The boy did not stop and kept heading out.
"Oh, you blind little bastard!" he cursed while rubbing his head.
"Catch the thief, mother! The thief stole our bag!"
Ji Zhi, who had chased after him, pointed from a distance and said that the moss on the ground was slippery and he almost fell.
"What use are you? You can't even keep a bag!"
When Jin heard this, she ran out cursing.
Ji Xu was buying dried fish by the river. Due to the ominous inscription on the Zhou tripod, the fish in the Si River were unsalable. Many people thought it was unlucky and refused to buy the fresh fish caught in the past few days.
After all, the price of dried fish didn't drop much due to storage, but it was the lowest price in recent days. Ji Xu used ten taels of silver to buy ten large bags of dried fish. To prevent them from getting wet in the rain, he put them on an ox cart, covered them with oilcloth, and pulled them back to the inn.
The rain was getting more and more strange, with strong winds and rumbling thunder. When people on the street saw the weather, they started to spread rumors that the rain was caused by Chiwen. Now that the Zhou tripod had been unearthed and the inscription had appeared, Chiwen was angry.
"Catch the thief! Catch the little thief who stole the bag!"
I heard shouting from the front. A young man, holding a brown bag, was running around in the crowd like a loach. He was soaked all over and stood out.
Everyone was shouting and yelling, but he slipped out from the gap and rushed to Ji Xu's ox cart.
The cow had followed him for such a long distance and was quite human-like. It was frightened by the thief and kicked its hooves to butt him.
The little thief was so scared that he rolled over and was surrounded by people on the street and was not allowed to leave.
"How dare you steal in broad daylight!"
"Take him to the authorities!"
A woman rushed out from the crowd, her shoes gone, her feet covered in mud. She slapped the boy, making him stagger, and snatched the bundle away.
"You little bastard, I'll chop off your hands and feet!"
The victim turned out to be Jin, but Ji Xu didn't have time to stay any longer. Even though the dried fish in her cart were covered with oilcloth for waterproofing, they were limited. She had to return to the inn as soon as possible to unload them. So she borrowed some from someone and walked away. No one knew what she did with them later.
Fortunately, the weather cleared up the next day.
"It's finally sunny now. Who has the money to stay here any longer?"
Ji Feng said, holding the bundle, that they drove an ox cart from the inn to the nearby ferry, with a bag of dried fish leaning against the back, and they could still smell the fragrance of the fish during the bumpy ride.
They were finally leaving Pengcheng and heading towards Xingyang. The three of them were in a good mood as the weather brightened.
"No, your whole truckload of stuff, plus a cow, is too big for my boat to hold."
I asked the merchant ships at the ferry, and the captains said they couldn't take it.
Small merchant ships like theirs were mostly bought by small traders who had their own goods piled up in the warehouses. At most, they would take some vagrants who were traveling light and earn some money for the ship. People like Ji Xu could not be squeezed in even if they were paid, so they could not take him.
Ji Xu also considered a way out, so he asked about the government's tower ships instead.
It is no problem for the ship to carry their people and cargo, and the big ship is more stable on the road.
However, the boat fare was double the price, two coins per mile per person. The distance from Pengcheng to Xingyang was 800 miles, so the total boat fare for the three sisters was 4,800 coins.
The cattle were paid one cent per mile, and Ji Xu led the cattle to the barn, where there were cages of live chickens, ducks, and even live deer and muntjac, all of which were transported to Chang'an to supply the palace and officials.
As for the ten bags of dried fish, the price was calculated by weight, half a cent per hu, and one cent per mile. There were five hu in these ten bags, and the total shipping cost was two thousand cents.
Fortunately, Ji Xu had inquired in advance and found out that the total value of these ten bags of dried fish did not exceed ten thousand coins, so it was not a large-scale transaction. In addition, she was a registered citizen, so no additional 30% tax was collected, which saved some costs.
The dried fish were brought into the warehouse by Ji Xu and a shipkeeper.
This ship was built by the government to transport grain from the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers to supply the capital. It has three floors in total. It is not yet the harvest season, and this ship is carrying a variety of goods. There are various materials, silk cotton, silk threads, as well as shrimp oil, cinnamon oil, tung oil, yellow wine, rice wine, rice wine, longan, persimmon cake, plum and other preserved fruits, as well as a variety of miscellaneous goods, rouge, rosin, cinnabar, clay carts, copper lamps, gypsum, fish maw, cowhide, mats, and countless other things.
The little stuff Ji Xu had was just the tip of the iceberg. The ship's guard gave her a small piece of wood with a number on it, which she used to get the goods when she got off the boat.
Here, the three people, the mother and daughter of the Jin family, also passed through Xingyang on their way to Handan, but they were riding on a merchant ship, which was far inferior to the official ship.
But she saw Ji Xu and the others boarding the ship. Ji Yuan's arrogant character made her feel very uncomfortable.
Ji Zhi saw it and said:
"This merchant ship is pretty good. It's better than walking. If we walk to Xingyang, we have to go over the mountains and take a long detour. It will take more than a month to get there."
Although Jin gritted her teeth, she had to admit that their days were indeed taken away by the second wife.
This time they escaped, fearing that Ji Fu would report them to the authorities, so they hired an ox cart to travel faster. The money ran out quickly, and fortunately they successfully left Kuaiji County and arrived in Pengcheng in Chu. They thought that even if Ji Fu reported them to the authorities, he would not be able to catch them, so why would they waste money on a ship? This was because there was no way to travel by water, otherwise walking would be the most economical way.
Ji Yuan also knew that it was difficult and said uncomfortably, "Such a boat is in such a mess. I'm careful and my baggage has been stolen."
"Silly girl, shut up, no one can steal it anymore." Jin poked her on the forehead and held tightly the bag that was lost and found.
"Hurry up! It's time to set sail!" urged the captain at the bow.
Jin and her companions hurriedly boarded the ship. People and cargo were crowded in the cabin, and there was not even a flat place to lie down. They could only curl up and spend two days sailing on the Si River.
On this side, the three sisters of Ji Xu were waiting by the ferry with bags of all sizes, waiting for the noble in silk robes to get off the carriage, and for a group of servants and soldiers to climb onto the top two floors of the ship one after another, before it was the turn of them, the ordinary people who were staying in the lower hold.
Ji Xu was in a good mood, thinking that with more soldiers in the palace, the safety of the official ship would be increased.
Feng and Zhu were so happy that they couldn't contain their excitement. It was their first time to ride on a ship.
"I saw such a large ship when I entered Pengcheng that day, but I never thought I'd be on one today."
Ji Feng was in high spirits, carrying a large bundle on her back. One could vaguely make out the pipa-shaped ham inside the bundle, which was held diagonally above her shoulder like a stick.
“This place is so big.”
Jizhu was also carrying a small bag, and she couldn't even look at it all, her eyes full of curiosity.
The mast was so high that it seemed to touch the clouds in the sky. My sister said that the big claws were anchors, and there were five or six of them. There were also huge wooden beams on the boat, and she couldn't even hold them with her hands.
When they entered the hold, they lived in a large bunk bed, a small room where three girls were already making their own beds.
Ji Feng was amazed: "We can actually sleep on the boat! Sister, this boat is really well built. We are really enjoying this trip."
He took off his bag and put it on, and couldn't wait to sit on it, looking left and right, feeling very happy.
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