As soon as Wang Siniang came back, she showed a different "wealth and wealth" from the past. According to villagers who have been doing odd jobs in the yard, the silkworm-raising houses are all made of bricks and tiles, and the floors are made of square bricks - the houses where most people in the village live are just rammed mud floors. That’s all.
Duoduoniang, who lives next door to Shen Kaibao's house, and Wang Siniang's natal family are from the same village, and they have a relatively good relationship. As soon as Shen Da and his wife came back, she ran away. Her family had many children and the family was tired, so she started doing odd jobs at Wang Si's aunt's house. According to her, there are too many exquisite features in the Shen family's silkworm house - not just a square tile floor.
"...The windows in the silkworm house are all covered with screen covers!" Dudonia was squatting by the stream washing clothes and talking about her experience. She was very happy when she said, "Such a long silkworm house has large windows on the front and rear walls. How much screen is used just to cover these windows? What a crime!"
She said she was doing evil, but it didn't feel like "doing evil" at all. It seemed like she was boasting smugly, and it seemed that even odd-jobbers like herself were becoming "higher".
The person next to her who was listening to her words laughed: "Duo Duo Niang, you ate several bowls of cold soaked rice and dried radish from Wang Si's house, and you even had to blow up a silkworm room for others."
"Eating steamed rice?" Duoduoniang raised her eyes, "You can't even eat steamed rice. The fourth mother's family gives us nothing but dry rice."
There was a burst of envious tut-tsk sounds immediately by the stream. The silkworm season is approaching, and every household is almost running out of money. It is the norm for most people in the village to have a bowl of porridge mixed with grains and rice bran. Since the beginning of the month, some families have had to borrow rice from relatives in other villages with better conditions, and the Famine Relief Bureau has also distributed some relief rice. However, the quality of this rice is very bad, and it must be in the past. That's food even pigs don't want to eat. Even if you use it to make porridge, you won't be hungry.
Dudoniang seemed to be intoxicated by this atmosphere - she became the rare protagonist of the "streamside talk meeting" and continued to brag about her experience working at Wang Si's mother's house.
The silkworm house of Wang Si's family was actually built according to the same design concept as the breeding farm built by Li Yaoer in Fenghuang Villa. Of course, the equipment is far less sophisticated than the one in the villa, and it is even worse than the rooms in the Cihuitang silkworm farm at the foot of the villa. There are no large-area glass windows, blinds or any other overly impactful things, and there are no copper-tube hot and cold air conditioners installed in the brothel. However, other facilities are built according to standards.
According to the standards of the old time and space, these facilities can only be regarded as "a substitute for melons and vegetables", but in this time and space, they are already "luxury configurations" that silkworm farmers have never dreamed of.
Shen Kaibao happened to be passing by the stream and saw Duoduoniang blowing on Shen's wife again. He felt angry: originally he had nothing against these two couples. Especially after they were unlucky, they felt vaguely sympathetic. Ever since they came back gloriously, he had been feeling uncomfortable, always feeling that Shen Daer and his wife "shouldn't be like this."
"It shouldn't be like this." Shen Kaibao himself doesn't know exactly what it should be. Every time he heard someone talking about these two couples, he felt angry. Now that I heard Duo Duo Niang bragging again, I couldn't help but say:
"What are you doing with these fancy things in raising silkworms? You have been raising them like this for so many years. How can she, Wang Siniang, come up with a 'new method' and still be able to raise fairy silkworms? You waste things in vain and there must be retribution!"
The women in Yixi were all a little surprised when Shen Kaibao blew his beard and stared. When women chatted by the stream, men always ignored them, let alone interrupted. His "horizontal stabbing" momentarily blinded all the women.
He fired this shot, but he also felt that it was not appropriate - what are you doing with women? His "net worth" was wasted. He turned around angrily and walked away.
"I don't have meat to eat, and I can't see others eating meat!" Suddenly someone among the group of women behind him cursed softly.
The voice sounds like that of Dodoni. Shen Kaibao was so angry that his muscles swelled up. But he couldn't have an attack - he was already over fifty, and if word of his quarrel with a woman spread, it would be a joke to the people in the village.
Be patient and angry. Back home. The women and children in the family are all making "silkworm baskets" on the eaves of the corridor. His wife and Daqing's wife were very skillful in their craftsmanship, and they made the newly bought "Cantonese paper" very flat. Shen Kaibao was somewhat relieved - he had always been afraid that the Cantonese paper he bought cheaply would not be suitable for use and cause a scene. Come on joke.
Paste the top-grade font of "Silkworm Trap" and paste it on three small pieces of floral paper - they were bought together: one is printed with the color "Cornucano", and the other two are printed with sharp corners. The person holding the flag is riding on a horse, and is said to be the "Prince of Silkworm Flowers".
After the paste is so good, the "silkworm basket" is left to dry in the sun. This has been an old rule for many years - you can never go wrong if you follow the old rules. Shen Kaibao thought. Daqing’s daughter-in-law clapped her hands on her skirt and said:
"Dad! There is no rice at home, even the barley flour is almost gone..."
"Where is the rice distributed by the Famine Relief Bureau?"
"We only gave a total of thirty kilograms of rice, and half of it was made of gray sand and chaff. How many days can the whole family eat?"
Shen Kaibao couldn't think of a way. There was rice on the street, but there was no gray sand and chaff, but the price of three coins per dou was definitely beyond their reach. I have to save some money at home to buy mulberry leaves when needed.
At this time in previous years, the village would borrow some, Daqing's daughter-in-law would go to her parents' house to borrow some, and then go to a familiar shop on the street to get some on credit. She could somehow get by this month, and as long as the spring silkworms showed up, she would be able to survive.
But last year's drought left every household destitute, and there was no place to ask if they wanted to borrow money. Familiar shops on the street now refuse to take credit. They have suffered too many debts after a famine. If they can continue to open, they are in trouble. How can they dare to give out credit?
It would certainly be worthwhile to go to Mr. Cao’s house to borrow it. It's just that the debt that was already weighing him down was about to increase again. Shen Kaibao felt flustered when he thought about the little bit of land in his home that had been taken away.
"If there is no rice to put in the pot, I will have rice?" Father Shen said angrily. He and his wife had already been unhappy about whether to go to Wang Si's mother's house to do odd jobs.
Originally, Daqing's daughter-in-law wanted Shen Kaibao to use her relationship with the doorman brother to introduce her to Mr. Shen's house to work. There were many women who wanted to work in Mr. Shen's house. Daqing's daughter-in-law was too late to think about it and couldn't afford it. I had no choice but to ask my father-in-law to come forward and show off his old face.
Unexpectedly, Shen Kaibao looked at Wang Siniang with displeasure, and felt that it would be embarrassing to ask Shen Da, so he was not willing to say this at all. The two people often argue over this matter.
"I have long said that this year is no better than in previous years, so everyone can only tighten their belts and be more frugal-"
"The porridge you cook is like a mirror, how can you save money? If the adults can hold on, can the little one hold on?" Daqing's sister-in-law replied angrily, "I only know that there is rice to cook, but there is no rice." Hungry!" She added at the end, "You can't eat your face!"
Shen Kaibao was so angry that his face turned purple. The two of them never said a word again.
The period of "harvesting silkworms" is approaching day by day. Preparations for sericulture in the village became increasingly intense. It's just that the dilemma of not having rice to cook makes everyone feel very uncomfortable. The problem encountered by Shen Kaibao's family is the same as that of almost every family in the village. At this time, Wang Siniang came out and said that she could lend money to everyone to tide over the difficulties.
The loan is rice, and the account is recorded according to the market price of three qian per dou. When repaying the money, you only need to convert the cocoons into silver according to the market price.
"This is the 'good deed' of the slave's master, Mr. Zhao," Wang Siniang said to a group of villagers who came after hearing the news. "The interest is only one cent. You can pay it back when the silkworm cocoon is formed!"
It takes about a little more than a month to raise silkworms, which means that the monthly interest is less than one cent. This is a good deed when the market price outside is generally more than three cents.
What's more important is that the debt can be repaid with silkworm cocoons - if you want to pay back cash, you will inevitably have to be exploited by the silk cocoons. Returning silkworm cocoons directly saves the labor of reeling the silk yourself.
The conditions are so favorable that it hardly seems real. However, Shen Da and Wang Siniang both swore firmly and expressed their willingness to sign a written agreement with clear conditions written down in black and white.
The villagers hesitated for a few days, but finally couldn't bear the hunger any longer, so they all wrote notes to borrow rice from Shen's family. Not only people from this village came to borrow rice, but even neighboring villages asked people to borrow rice after hearing the news. The Shen family is full of people.
The loan procedure is very convenient. If you borrow money from your own village, you don't need a middleman or a guarantor. For those from other villages, you need a villager from the same village to act as a guarantor. The receipts were all in a printed format. The ghostwriter used a bamboo pen with a pointed stylus tip to fill in the numbers. He asked the borrower to put his fingerprint in duplicate, and each party held one copy.
After the receipt is established, the ghostwriter will directly distribute the rice chips according to the number, and the villagers will go to the rice shop in the town to receive the rice. Convenient for everyone.
Shen Kaibao originally refused to borrow it. He thought he had to be tough no matter what, but his stomach couldn't be fooled after all. When Ah Qing's wife angrily pushed the children in front of Shen Kaibao, she saw that Seeing that these children were already ashamed, he finally gave in.
Smoke came out of the chimneys of every house, and the long-lost aroma of rice also came out. The villagers have smiles on their faces again, food in their stomachs, and they work harder and harder. Now their only hope is that all temporary loans from Spring Silkworms are specified to be repaid during this "Spring Silkworm Harvest".
The Grain Rain Festival is approaching day by day. The "cloth" of people in the village is faintly green. When raising silkworms here, they keep their own seeds every year. Only those who are unlucky and fail to grow silkworms that year will buy silkworm seeds from outside.
If you keep your own seeds in this way, the silkworm seeds will deteriorate seriously and are often infected with viruses. Therefore, silkworm raising at that time was almost entirely based on luck. It is not surprising that silkworm flowers come and go. To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian to vote for recommendations and monthly votes. Your support is my biggest motivation. Please go to m. to read.
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