Chapter 60 Are all the village heads going?
Things like carpentry are not difficult for those who know how to do it.
The sentence before it is - those who are difficult won’t.
This is different from a chicken coop that is simply woven and hammered into the soil, with the seams fixed with hemp rope.
My uncle and I looked at each other, and we were a little confused at first.
Sang Luo: "First of all, it must have three pillars."
Chen An: "Four, right? You see, our table has four legs, so it's more stable with four legs."
Sang Luo shook her head: "You are wrong. The triangle is the most stable."
Little Shen An: You are the eldest sister-in-law, so you are right. Whatever the eldest sister-in-law insists on is right!
He nodded immediately: "Okay, three!"
"Each layer is connected and fixed with crossbeams." Sang Luo, who has seen many modern assembled furniture, is very sure that it is just replacing nails with mortise and tenon joints: "Mortise and tenon joints are not difficult, but we need to have a pattern first. I need to calculate the size."
As he was talking, he said, "Xiao An, bring out your sandbox, let's draw something."
Chen An got up and went back to the house to fetch the sand table. After a while, he brought it out and smoothed the sand surface. The two of them squatted beside the sand table and really started painting and playing with it. They even seriously measured the size of the round dustpan inside.
After drawing for a long time, Sang Luo stared at the pile of wood of different sizes and lengths, and suddenly shook her head: "I think it would be simpler and easier to use bamboo stalks.
Bamboo is hollow. You can use thick bamboo stalks to make three main pillars, saw a notch in the place where the mortise and tenon should be, and insert the cross bar. Isn't it easier than using wood?
After getting the drawing and the size, Sang Luo and Shen An waited for Shen Ning to come back and went to cut bamboo with their machetes. After a long time, they dragged back two bamboos and processed them again outside the yard.
After calculating the dimensions and comparing them with the drawings on the sand table, a simple four-layer triangular drying rack is not difficult to make. It's mainly time-consuming. Sawing the uprights and horizontal bars is the same job, and this time there's no need to split them. In the end, after nearly two hours of hard work, I successfully made the first finished product. I didn't get my hands full of bamboo thorns again, but... it didn't seem very stable. If I pulled the main upright to one side, it would fall apart easily if I wasn't careful?
Sang Luo, Chen An, Chen Ning: ...
The three, one big and two small, were dumbfounded.
"There must be a force from the outside to the inside to hold the three pillars, right?"
“Should… be?
You see, this is the advantage of being able to knock the column bases directly into the mud when building the chicken coop last time. There would definitely not be the problem we have now.
I was staring at the tripod in a daze, no, wondering how to fix it from the outside.
Bamboo nails?
Sang Luo was afraid that if she hammered a bamboo nail into the pillar, the whole pillar would split.
When Chen Youtian came back with the sold-out tofu basket, he saw a family of three staring at a bamboo rack outside the Shen family's courtyard.
"What are you doing?"
Upon hearing the voice, the three of them turned around at the same time.
Expert!
"Uncle Arita, come and show me how to do this."
"Uncle Arita, help us see how to do this."
The three people's voices were particularly consistent.
Chen Youtian walked closer, put down his burden, and stared at the bamboo frame: "Two layers up and down won't work. They can't be fixed. What are you doing with this?"
Sang Luo almost couldn't help but give a thumbs up: "You are really an expert. You spotted the problem at a glance. We can put the big round dustpan I bought in the drying rack. This way it will take up less space and we can dry more things."
Chen Youtian thought that you are an expert.
But how much stuff do we need to dry? We even need to make a drying rack to hold the dustpan.
Thinking about what the three of them were selling every day, Chen Youtian didn't ask. It was most likely some kind of food, and they could only put it in the backyard to prevent people from seeing it.
"It's actually very simple." He walked closer, took a bamboo stick and measured the size of the bamboo frame's horizontal bar, then turned around and picked up a mulberry stalk that had been trimmed of miscellaneous branches but was not yet used, gestured and began to saw, sawing a cut in the thick bamboo, gestured for another section, and sawed another, and finally made the two ends narrower, while sawing he called out to Shen An: "Xiao An, go and light a fire."
Chen An ran into the kitchen to get a fire starter, and Chen Ning helped to build the fire. Soon the fire was lit.
Chen Youtian roasted the sawed part of the bamboo over the fire and began to bend it while roasting.
Only then did Sang Luo understand what was going on. So that's how it was.
She forgot that bamboo can be bent by heating it over a fire.
After the two bent openings were dealt with, Chen Youtian removed the horizontal bar that Sang Luo had originally used, and asked Sang Luo and several others to help hold several uprights. He used the empty space at the bend to firmly close one of the uprights, and knocked the bend of the bamboo to just the right degree. He then dealt with the second bend and wrapped the second upright in the same way. The narrowed ends of the bamboo stalks fit perfectly into the holes sawed out by Sang Luo on the third upright. He then cut a bamboo plug and knocked it in for reinforcement.
The problem that had troubled the three people for a while was solved immediately.
Chen Youtian didn't let her do the top layer of Sang Luo, she could do it by herself.
Chen Youtian put down his burden with a smile, and decided on the amount of tofu he would need the next morning. He said, "Let's use soybeans. I'll bring the food up to you in a bit."
Sang Luo thanked him, and Chen Youtian went down the mountain.
…
Zhou family.
Zhoucunzheng's wife said to the man who came back for lunch: "I bought tofu again today. Guess who I bought it from?"
Zhou Cunzheng only looked at her and said, "The Chen family? Or the Shi family or the Lu family, they are no better than these three families."
Zhoucun’s wife: …
"You're amazing! It's Chen Youtian. He was selling his wares along the village. I ran into him when he arrived at Sanli Village. He had sold out so much that there were only a few pieces left. I bought two and asked him about it. He didn't hide it and said that it was Sang who took care of his family's livelihood."
She paused and said, "You said that Chen Youtian's wife said that she was selling wild vegetables in the county with Sang. This is what they sold, right? Doesn't that mean the Chen family has set up two stalls now?"
Zhou Cunzheng hummed, "It's not surprising. Wasn't there a rumor that Sang almost starved to death? Shen An went down the mountain to ask his uncle for food but was not able to get through. In the end, the old couple of the Chen family took the initiative to borrow food and sugar and sent them to the mountain, saving Sang's life? It's not too much to thank them for saving my life."
It can be seen that good and evil will be rewarded.
Zhou Cunzheng's wife was quite envious: "They should be able to make a lot of money, running two stalls a day. The Chen family is going to be successful."
Zhou Cun was looking at the sky outside, muttering: "It's good to get up. Only when life gets going can we plant roots firmly and withstand the wind and waves."
Zhou Cunzheng's wife glared at him and said, "What are you talking about all day long?"
She said happily, "You say, can we ask Mrs. Sang if she would like to help sell this tofu for us? Ask Sanlang to carry it to the county. The county town is quite big, so it shouldn't affect Mrs. Sang's and Youtian's wife's business, right?"
After asking for a long time, the man didn't reply.
Zhou Cunzheng's wife saw that he was in a trance. She pushed her husband and said, "Why are you in a trance? I'm not talking to you."
Zhou Cunzheng came back to his senses: "What did you say?"
Zhou Cunzheng's wife repeated what she said. Zhou Cunzheng thought about it and shook his head: "It's not our turn. There are the Shi family and the Lu family ahead. The Chen family has two stalls. How can the Chen family and the Shi family who helped build the house a while ago not be taken care of?"
Zhou Cunzheng's wife didn't believe it: "No way? With so many people, won't Sang sell it themselves?"
Zhou Cunzheng smiled and said, "It's easy to find out. Just ask Sister Seven and see if the Shi and Lu families have ever asked Brother Seven to do something."
Going back and forth to the county town requires passing through a passage. If the Shi family and the Lu family want to set up stalls in the county, they have to go to the village head.
Zhoucun Zheng's wife thought it was true and said, "I just said it casually. Why did you go to ask Seventh Sister-in-law about it? It's not necessary."
That being said, he went out for a while in the afternoon and came back with a sigh of relief: "You really got it right. The Shi family and the Lu family went to Seventh Brother to handle the case the day after the busy farming season started. One is from Gan's family and the other is from Feng's family."
Zhou Cunzheng smiled and said, "Are you asking about Seventh Brother?"
Zhoucun's wife shook her head and said, "I asked my seventh sister-in-law. My seventh brother went to the county. He said that the higher-ups notified all the village heads to go to the county government office today."
Zhou Cunzheng's expression changed slightly, and his hands, which were originally loosely placed on the table, clenched unconsciously: "All the village heads are going?"
Zhou Cunzheng's wife looked puzzled: "Yes, every time there is something for the higher-ups to do, don't all the village heads go?"
Zhou Cunzheng closed his eyes, raised his hand to rub his eyebrows, and didn't speak for a long time.
Zhou Cunzheng's wife finally realized something was wrong and asked him, "What's wrong with you? It's not strange for Seventh Brother to go to the county, right?"
Zhou Cunzheng waved his hand: "It's okay, maybe I'm overthinking it."
After thinking for a while, he gave a warning: "If any grain merchants come, we will not sell our grain this year."
Zhou Cunzheng's wife finally realized something, and the carelessness on her face disappeared. She asked with a serious expression, "What's wrong?"
Zhou Cunzheng shook his head: "I don't know, I'm not sure. I'll ask when Brother Qi comes back. Anyway, we won't sell our grain this year."
"You won't sell it even if you pay a high price? I went to Sanli Village today and heard that the grain merchants offered 73 wen per bushel of millet for the dried millet they harvested this year."
This is already higher than the current selling price in the grain store, and the grocery store in Sanli Village adjusted its price today upon hearing the news.
Zhou Cunzheng heard that the grain price had gone up, and his face became even uglier. He shook his head and said, "I won't sell it. Even if you give me 173 coins per bushel, I won't sell it. We have to keep all the grain this year."
Zhou Cunzheng's wife nodded blankly. The man didn't say anything, so she didn't ask why. She just wrote down everything he said: "Okay, I'll tell the elder brothers too. If the grain merchants come, there's no need to bring them home."
After all, when Seventh Brother comes back in the evening, the man will confirm the news and will definitely tell his family.
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