Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Selling bamboo steamers.
After picking up a basket of pine cones, Ji Zhu went around to pick up fallen dead branches, dragged them together and piled them together to carry down the mountain later.
She was busy until noon, and because of the physical labor, she was already exhausted, and finally came true what Ji Feng said in the morning: "I'll be hungry."
Ji Zhu handed her a rice dumpling made of bran and vegetables. This was made by Ji Xu in the morning. He added salt and water, rolled it into a ball, wrapped it in mulberry leaves, and tied it tightly with straw.
Ordinary people had two meals a day, breakfast and afternoon meal, which was between 3pm and 5pm in later times. If they worked outside for a long time, they would bring some dry food to fill their stomachs.
Ji Xu made three vegetable dumplings, Ji Feng took one away, and Ji Zhu put the other two on the pile of pine cones in the basket. Now that they were in the sun, she took them and ate them.
The big one and the small one each picked a wooden stool that was in the shade to sit on. Being so hungry, Ji Xu no longer thought the bran and vegetable dumplings were unpalatable. He ate them in big mouthfuls and felt barely full.
Ji Zhu broke off most of her portion and handed it to her, probably thinking that she had only drunk half a bowl of bran porridge in the morning and it would not be enough for her now.
Ji Xu shook his head and let her eat it by herself. He stood up and drank some mountain spring water. The water soaked the bran and made it more filling.
After eating and taking a break, we went to cut the branches from the felled trees and piled them in one place.
I was busy until sunset, and saw three pine branches, a pile of dead branches, three bamboos, a pile of bamboo branches, and a basket of pine cones in front of me.
Ji Xu felt that it was almost time for today. It would take time to transport this pile of things back, and he also had to leave time to process the bamboo so that he could weave things and sell them as soon as possible.
So I said to my sister, "It's time to go back."
Ji Zhu was pulling a vine to tie branches to carry down the mountain later. She had already pulled several branches from the tree at her feet, and her face was covered with a lot of fallen grass clippings. She nodded when she heard this.
Ji Xu was the one who carried the firewood down the mountain. Ji Zhu was too young to carry much at a time. Besides, they were not the only ones coming to Niupi Mountain to cut firewood. There was an old woman raking pine needles not far away, so someone had to stay behind to guard the pile of firewood.
She had been robbed before. The firewood she had worked so hard to chop was carried home by some greedy and hungry person. Ji Feng was so angry that she cursed the person to get sores on his hands and feet. Later, she guessed that it was Wang Mazi, but it was just a guess and there was no evidence.
Ji Xu made six trips, and on the last trip, Ji Zhu helped drag the bamboo branches, while she carried the bamboo and the pine cone basket on her back and brought today's harvest back home.
The family had only one thatched hut for sleeping, so they temporarily piled it in the open space in front of the door, just in time to dry it out in the sun, and then cut it into suitable lengths before stacking it under the eaves. There was already a low row of thatched huts there, which the three sisters had recently prepared.
There was no need to rush to collect the firewood in front of the door. Ji Xu first broke the bamboo and poked the bamboo joints in front of the house.
Ji Zhu squatted in front of the kitchen and watched curiously, holding a bowl and drinking bran and vegetable porridge. It was the porridge that Ji Xu had not finished in the morning. Ji Xu drank some himself and asked her to fill her stomach too. She hesitated for a while, and when she heard Ji Xu say that it would be bad if the weather continued like this, she drank it with satisfaction.
"Mother, my daughter Xu has been out there for three years and her brain has been ruined."
"Cut some bamboo and burn it."
Ji Yuan from the next courtyard came out to wash his face. Seeing Ji Xu chopping bamboo in front of the second house's door, he turned around and went in to talk to his mother, Jin.
She was wearing a ruchang, which, though made of coarse cloth, was quite fashionable compared to the poor people who wore trousers for convenience in doing work.
Jin, who was weaving in the west room, was Ji Yuan's mother.
Jin and Tian were sisters-in-law. When Tian from the second house became pregnant first, Jin from the first house, as the eldest wife, was often beaten by her aunt.
Things were different later on, Tian gave birth to three daughters in succession;
She, Jin Cuiru, gave birth to the only grandson of the Ji family after giving birth to two daughters.
For this reason, three years ago, when my uncle was dying, the family property was divided. The eldest branch got a tiled house with a yard and twenty acres of land; the second branch only got a dilapidated thatched house next door.
Not to mention her brother-in-law Ji Gui, who went to work for others to earn money in order to suppress the eldest wife, died accidentally, and Ji Xu was kidnapped and sold by thieves.
Tian sold her belongings and went looking for him, but unfortunately he never came back half a year ago. As a result of all these incidents, the second house became increasingly poor and had to eat only coarse food.
How can it be compared with the big house?
"Tian Guinu's eldest daughter has been stupid since she was young, unlike my daughter Yuan, who is smart and clever."
When the bamboo is burned, the stove will explode with a loud noise, and even the clay pot will explode. No one in the village likes to use it as firewood.
Ji Yuan was very proud. She had been a little jealous of Ji Xu because he had seen the world of Chang'an, but now it seemed that he was still as stupid as before.
**
When the sun was half setting, Ji Feng came back from herding pigs, his brows raised with particular joy.
Ji Xu used a hatchet to break the bamboo husk into equal strips. "Is there something good going on?"
Ji Feng pulled out a small lotus leaf-wrapped bag from her bosom. "Feng Da's mother saw that I cut a lot of grass for the pigs, so she served me a bowl of white rice at noon."
Rich families in the village like the Feng family eat one more meal a day than ordinary people. They cook lunch at noon and eat white rice. However, since there are many people in their family and they eat a lot, they cook according to the amount. Today, Feng's eldest child suddenly cried and asked for water-infused cakes, so there was extra rice. Usually, there would not be extra.
Ji Feng felt that she was lucky, but she couldn't bear to eat it. After finishing her bran and vegetable dumplings, she wrapped the rice in lotus leaves and brought them back to eat with her sisters.
When they were short of food and clothing, Ji Xu was also infected and smiled knowingly.
"I'll go cook rice porridge for dinner." Rice alone is not enough for three people, so adding water and cooking it into porridge will make them full.
Ji Feng went to the kitchen to light a fire. The water in the pottery pot boiled for a while, and then she came out to chat with her sister. She noticed that Ji Xu had broken the bamboo into very thin strips. Scratching her head, she said, "Sister, the bamboo doesn't need to be this thin to burn. It takes a lot of effort."
"I'm not going to burn it. I want to weave some bamboo steamers to sell." In fact, it is the steamer of later generations, but the steaming utensils at that time were "zeng", which were mainly made of pottery. There was no such thing as a steamer yet, so she simply called it a bamboo steamer for easier understanding.
"Buy some more meat and rice." Ji Xu said, without slowing down his hands.
The steamer has a steamer lid and a steamer bottom, with a gap in the middle to allow the upper and lower layers to be nested, and each layer is about ten centimeters high.
Ji Xu first cut the bamboo into two meters long, then broke it into twelve pieces. After removing the green and yellow parts of the bamboo, a straight bamboo strip was made.
Don't forget to shave off some thorns to make the surface smoother. It would be more convenient to do it with a planer, but at the moment you can only use a hatchet.
Then she thinned the two ends and used a nail to drill six holes at the connection between the two ends. This nail was also used to hang rice bran bags in the house. It was the only iron nail in the house, so she took it out temporarily and used it. After the holes were drilled, she tied it tightly with bamboo strips.
The middle clip is now ready, followed by the teeth gap, outer clip, bottom stop... and finally put these parts together.
Bamboo steamer?
Ji Feng saw a round object with a lid and it was ready. Just looking at its appearance, one would think it was a chest for storing things. There were also bamboo chests. I remember that my family had one in the past, used to store clothes, but it was square. After the family split up, it naturally became the eldest wife's chest.
Moreover, how could the inside of the box be made of hollowed-out bamboo strips?
"Sister, what can you put in this? Something will leak out." Ji Feng put her fingers through the gap in the bamboo.
"Put on plates, bowls and dishes." Ji Xu came to the kitchen to demonstrate.
Behind them, Ji Feng and Ji Zhu were full of curiosity.
The water in the cauldron happened to be boiling, so Ji Xu placed the steamer on top of the cauldron and opened the lid. "Put some cold food in there and it will heat up."
Like many families, they cook more for breakfast and eat it in the evening after heating it up to save trouble. The ceramic steamer is high enough, but it does not have as many compartments as the bamboo steamer, and it is not light enough. Ji Xu thought that this still has a selling point.
That night, Ji Xu used the middle parts of three bamboos to weave ten bamboo steamers and a new basket.
The bamboo tip at the top was not thick enough and was not needed, so Ji Xu used bamboo branches to make three brooms.
The bamboo knots at the bottom were dense and hard, and therefore unusable. Ji Xu did not waste them, but stored them under the wall in the house, intending to break them in half later and use them to make utensils.
It was difficult to light candles at night, so the three sisters lay down on their wooden beds early. In the moonlight from the window, Ji Feng counted the copper coins she had hidden in the mouse hole, plus the one penny she had earned today, a total of ten coins.
"Sister, take this money with you. If the bamboo steamer doesn't sell well, use it to buy some barnyard millet rice to eat."
Ji Feng had no idea whether he could sell the bamboo steamer.
Every household uses ceramic steamers. Will anyone buy this bamboo steamer that looks so different?
The taste of barnyard millet is sweet, bitter and astringent, but its advantage is that it is cheap and you can buy a dou for ten coins.
And it is rice after all, which is better than bran.
Ji Xu knew that these ten yuan were the only money in the family.
Her monthly salary in the palace was deducted and she was unable to save any money. She had to pawn two sets of fine cloth clothes before she could return.
There is only one word to describe my family now: poor.
"good."
Although she was confident in her craftsmanship, no one knew what would happen tomorrow, so she didn't brag about it. She thought that if she made money, she would bring the ten coins back and leave them to Ji Feng as a personal stipend. It was not easy for an eight-year-old child to raise pigs to support a family.
The next day, for breakfast, they had a pot of stewed amaranth, which Ji Xu had found at the foot of the mountain when he was carrying firewood yesterday. He had picked a handful and brought it back. Now he stewed it in water and sprinkled some salt on it, which was enough to fill his stomach.
There are two vegetable plots behind their house, which were cultivated when their mother and grandfather were still alive. However, now they have no money to buy seeds for planting, so they are left idle.
Ji Xu thought that if he had enough money today, he would buy some cabbage, celery and rapeseed seeds, plant them in time, and pick them as he wanted.
Thinking that there were no suitable bamboos for weaving in Niupi Mountain recently, she set aside two bamboo steamers and a broom for home use.
He stacked the eight pieces of bread into a new basket, carried it on his back, and, holding two bamboo brooms, went to the market in Niupi Township.
The original body had been away from home for three years and her memory was a little fuzzy, but with Ji Zhu leading the way, she was familiar with the route as she had occasionally come with Tian to sell vegetables.
"Sister, let me help you hold it." Ji Zhu was still very excited. Children love to watch the fun.
"The broom is too long. It's not easy for you to carry it while walking. Xiaozhu can lead the way for you."
There are five villages in Niupi Township. In addition to Benguli where they live, there are also Shengchangli, Xiaoshunli, Jinshili and Liaoshili nearby.
For example, Shengchangli has more than a hundred registered households, and they have a market within the village.
The number of registered households in other villages is not as large as that in Shengchangli. For example, Benguli has more than 50 households; Liaoshili has even fewer, with only more than 20 households. Therefore, there is no village market, and the nearest market is the township market.
The township market is located in the middle of Wuli, and it is about seven miles away from Benguli.
It was still dark outside, and the densely packed tiled houses along the road were dimly visible. A merchant was directing servants to carry grain into the store. On the road, there were people carrying loads on their shoulders selling vegetables, carrying baskets selling eggs, and even pushing a wheelbarrow with two wooden barrels on it, unloading the goods as soon as they had a spot on the roadside.
Ji Xu passed by and took a look. There were fresh fish in the bucket.
"Fish for sale! Freshly caught carp and mullet from my pond. Take a look!"
Everyone in the countryside goes to the market early. Along the way, some street vendors are already hawking their wares.
"Look at my Aunt Liu's backpack. It lasts for ten years!"
"Girl, buy some big potatoes to make soup."
"This scallion is from the first crop, so it's fresh."
The shops on both sides mostly sell utensils, cooking utensils, food, cloth, and vehicle equipment. They sit in the shops and are not in a hurry to sell their goods. They just greet customers when they come in.
Ji Xu had just found a place to put his things when a woman with a child sat down opposite him, carrying two baskets of fruit.
"Tiger boy, come sit next to your mother."
She called out to the child across the street who was attracted by the vendor selling clay dogs.
"Mom, I want a dog!"
This Ji Huhai is none other than their four-year-old cousin, and the woman opposite is Jin.
It's also a narrow road for enemies to meet.
"If you make trouble again, I won't take you out to play next time. Come, mother will give you a pear." Jin naturally also saw the two sisters opposite and set up the stall here on purpose.
She picked out a bright red pear from the basket, attracting Ji Huhai who was standing diagonally opposite and watching the clay dog.
"I don't want to eat naiguo, I want wagou!"
Although this clay dog is made of coarse pottery mixed with sand, it is lifelike and stands on the stall with its mouth open, as if it is barking. However, the vendor makes the clay dog's belly sounds of "woof-woof-woof" while making them.
Ji Huhai was so hooked that he stood there in a daze.
"You don't want to eat it, right? I gave it to your two cousins, but they wanted to eat it but there was none left, so they came to snatch it away."
The nectarine tree in the backyard of her home has been there for more than ten years. It was given to the eldest wife when the family was divided. Not only can they eat the fruits and dry them into dried pieces, but they can also carry them and sell them to make some money to supplement the family income. Her younger sister-in-law, Tian, is often jealous of this tree.
Jin pretended to stand up and give it to her, but of course she wouldn't. Jizhu was used to her aunt tempting them with food, so she turned her head away first.
When Ji Huhai heard this, he went over and picked up the pear fruit to chew, waving his hands to show off while chewing, and then took a big bite of the crispy fruit.
"There are plenty of pear trees in every household. Xiaozhu, after you finish selling your things, let's go buy some meat."
"Yeah!" Jizhu nodded. At this moment, she was particularly looking forward to her sister being able to sell the things.
The author has something to say:
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Late aunts and uncles: deceased parents-in-law. Erya: "If the aunts and uncles are still alive, they are called Junjiu and Jungu; if they are dead, they are called Xianjiu and Xiangu."
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