The Yaichiro family from Sanhe County became part of the first batch of 500 people to disembark.
They were assigned to a tent in the northeast corner of the quarantine area. In addition to their family, there were four other families placed together in this tent, a total of nineteen refugees.
At this time, the five families stood outside the tent, looking at everything in front of them, and then turned to look around.
A dozen steps away to the east and north are the tall walls of the quarantine area.
The walls of the entire isolation area are built with newly felled Pinus sylvestris or Huanghuan pine. Due to the rush of time, these pine trees with a diameter of more than one foot were cut down without even processing the bark. They only removed the excess branches, cut them in half with an electric saw, sharpened one end and buried them in the soil.
As a result, the entire quarantine area was filled with a strong smell of pine oil. The smell of pine oil also wafted out of the tent with the door curtain lifted.
At this time, both sides of the Xila River were covered with Pinus sylvestris, Pinus sylvestris, red spruce and large white birch forests that were more than a hundred years old. The diameter at breast height of Pinus sylvestris was at least two people's height. More than ten meters.
Because the Yachiro family has lived at the foot of the mountain all year round, they are very familiar with the smell and don't find it pungent; the other four families are also similar.
Among their five families, except for one who came from Shichinohe Domain, the other four families all fled to Sendai Domain from Sanhe County. They were all farmers in the territory of Morioka Domain.
It is said that although the Morioka Domain was 100,000 koku high, it was actually poorer than the Hirosaki Domain. Because of its remote location, it was not taken seriously by the shogunate at all, and its development was not good.
Historically, in the late 19th century, due to financial difficulties and difficulty in maintaining the Morioka Domain, the Morioka Domain took the initiative to propose to the Meiji government to abolish the domain and establish a prefecture, which was later renamed Iwate Prefecture.
The light in the tent was not very bright, and in front of the five families were ten wooden beds with two levels. These are all hastily processed from Scotch pine and look very rough.
However, when Yaichiro saw that the upper and lower bunks of each bed were covered with quilts and pillows, he couldn't help but exclaimed "Ah".
The wife, who was carrying her son on her back, hurried forward, stretched out her hand and carefully touched the light green sheets and quilt, and a happy smile appeared on her face.
She turned to look at Yaichiro and said with a smile: "They are all made of cotton! These patterns are so beautiful."
When everyone heard this, they hurried to the bed, stretched out their hands to touch it, and sighed.
Yaichiro kept touching the quilt and said, "It's so good! This quilt is better than the one at the samurai master's house."
The male owner of the family next to him said: "That's what I said. Have you ever been to the samurai master's house?"
Miichiro hurriedly defended: "Why haven't you been there? A few years ago, I went to deliver mountain goods to the gentleman's house."
In fact, he had never seen it before. How could the samurai let a man with mud legs enter his house? But these people in the tent were all ordinary farmers, and no one was better than the other. Everyone believed what Mishiro said.
In addition to him, Yachiro's family also includes his wife, eldest daughter, youngest son, and his younger brother. The other four families are also similar. This group of people fled early. Among the family members, except for the elders who died of hunger, most of the adults survived.
After the family fled to Matsushima Town, Yaichiro took his wife and eldest daughter to survive by picking up seaweed and shellfish on the beach every day; occasionally he could help fishermen unload their catch and get some food.
Since boarding the Thor, the originally skinny family has been relying on the rice porridge provided twice a day on the ship. Over the past few days, a little color has gradually appeared on their withered faces. However, his youngest son was still as thin as a big-headed doll. His clothes were unbuttoned, his belly was bulging, and his tiny ribs were clearly visible.
"Send two people from each family to come out and take the wooden sign issued to your family to get lunch!" Heita and Jiuzang each held an electric horn and started shouting outside the tent.
When Yachiro heard the shouting outside, he quickly reached out and touched the palm-sized wooden sign in his arms. It was given to him by a man who looked like a samurai master when he entered the quarantine area. Every house has one.
I heard that the old man said that his name and the members of his family are written on this sign. He must keep it well as it will be used for getting food and new clothes in the future.
Yaichiro looked at his wife and children and said, "Jiro and I will go." After that, he took his brother out of the tent.
When they saw it, two people from the other four houses also came out, and they hurriedly followed them out.
Inspired by hunger and food, more than two hundred people quickly filled the open space outside the tent.
Seeing the refugees gathered around in a chaotic manner, Pingtai, who was holding a loudspeaker at the side, asked a few of his men to drive the refugees into a line. After the noisy group of people were intimidated by the guards holding wooden sticks and lined up, Pingtai nodded and asked the guard at the front of the line to take these people to receive their meal.
Yachiro and his younger brother were at the front of the queue. When they were more than ten steps away from the gate of the quarantine area, they smelled the strong smell of rice porridge and steamed buns.
It is said that wheat in the island country was introduced from the Sui and Tang Dynasties. However, due to lack of land, wheat production is not high. In the early days, due to the lack of flour grinding equipment and cooking technology, wheat was always used as feed.
Although stone mills and other equipment were later introduced from China, because they did not master this technology and the flour produced was too expensive, only the upper class such as high-ranking samurai and wealthy businessmen could afford it.
When he was on Bear Island, Zhao Xin considered that pasta was easier to digest and absorb than rice, so he started asking the women in the kitchen to learn how to steam steamed buns.
From a nutritional point of view, the calories of steamed buns are 221 calories/100g, while rice has only 116 calories/100g.
The sooner these refugees can recover, the sooner development in Beihai Town can begin.
The team walked forward slowly. After each family receiving lunch handed their wooden sign to a woman in front of the wooden shed, the woman loudly announced the name of the owner and the number of family members on the wooden sign; The woman took a brand new small plastic basin and poured the amount of rice porridge calculated per person into the basin according to the amount of a small bowl of rice porridge for each person.
Then, a woman next to the rice porridge opened a quilt covering a large basket. Inside were two-by-two large white steamed buns, still steaming. The woman used a wooden tong to take out the steamed buns according to the number of people in each family and put them into another basin.
The last woman placed the cutlery according to the heads of each family member. The chopsticks were all cut from ready-made branches, and the bowls were bright green plastic bowls. The items from each family will be counted according to the number of people and put into a red plastic bucket.
At this time, Yachiro heard a man in front of the team ask why he gave so much. A woman loudly said to the people in line: "The reason we only give you porridge on the boat is because you have been hungry for too long. Eating too much will hurt your stomach. Now the master has given orders, two steamed buns for each adult male and female. There’s only one child. Don’t worry!”
"Ah! This..."
When everyone in the queue heard this, they all bowed with gratitude. Some people even lay on the ground and kowtowed to several women.
The woman was frightened and stepped aside, shouting: "Why are you kowtowing to me? Like you, I was saved by my master when I was about to starve to death. From now on, I just need to work hard to repay my master."
As soon as Yaichiro heard this, a face appeared in his mind. It was on the beach in Matsushima Town, and a tall man was shouting while handing out food.
He grabbed a small steamed bun that day, and even though he broke it into five portions to share with the whole family, the taste of white flour that he had never tasted before left him thinking about it for several days.
The team continued to move forward and finally reached Yaichiro. He took out the wooden sign from his arms and handed it to the woman in front of him.
The woman took a look at the sign and said loudly, "Yashiro, there are five people in the family, four adults and one child." After saying this, she stamped the back of the sign with a small stamp and handed it to Mischiro. .
"Here, this is porridge for five people. The porridge basin belongs to you. Remember to wash it after use. If it is damaged, you will have to pay for it."
His younger brother Jiro quickly took it with both hands, held it carefully in his arms, then walked out of the team and waited aside.
Yaichiro picked up a bowl of snow-white steamed buns from the wooden platform and saw a fist-sized dark brown pickle inside. He leaned closer and smelled it, and a pungent salty smell hit his face.
"Is this a pickle?"
"Yes." The woman making the buns said without raising her head.
He took a few steps forward to get the cutlery and bucket.
"The buckets and tableware are all yours to use. Remember to clean them after use. If they are damaged, you will have to pay for them."
When Yaichiro heard this, he said again, "If it's broken, I want to accompany you." I couldn't help but hold the handle of the bucket tightly with one hand, and lifted it hard, but it was dodged and almost threw the buns in the other hand.
"Why is it so light?"
At this time, his stomach made a growling sound. Yaichiro didn't think much and took his brother back to the tent.
The wife and eldest daughter who were waiting in the tent had already rolled up the bedding on the lower bunk and placed it on the upper bunk; in this way, the bed board became a temporary dining table.
When the whole family took out the bowls and chopsticks from the bucket and was about to eat, the people from the other four families who went to receive the meal also came back with their food.
So in the tent designated as No. A1 in the quarantine area, there was a sound of gobbling.
After the meal, Yaichiro took his younger brother Jiro around the quarantine area. He remembered that when receiving the meal, the two women said they wanted to wash the dishes, but where was the water?
The two walked around for a long time, and finally found out the location of the pool by asking a guard. When I found it, I saw two gray-black pools that were as tall as half a person.
It's just that one has a cover made of branches, but the other doesn't. Yachiro and his brother asked a guard next to them again, and then they learned that the water in the covered pool was specially used for drinking, and the one without a cover could be used for washing.
In fact, this thing was also a temporary solution that Chen Qingsong came up with. Build two cement pools two meters long, one meter deep and one meter deep. Each of the two pools is connected to a PVC pipe equipped with a handle switch; a water outlet is made below the pool. If you open the valve below, the water will flow along the pipe from the outer wall of the isolation area to the seaside.
The water source is pumped from the Sila River. Chen Qingsong considered that there would be no industrial wastewater at all in the isolation area, and at most it would be dirty water for washing clothes and brushing things, so it was nothing to worry about.
As for the drinking water pool, every time the water is filled, the guards will put in pre-prepared drinking water disinfectant.
There are two such pools in the southeast, northwest and northwest of the quarantine area.
Yachiro and his younger brother wandered around curiously for a long time, then walked back. As a result, when the two of them walked outside their tent, they saw two women in white coats shaving the heads of other men in the tent.
When the two of them entered the tent suspiciously, they saw several bald heads already sitting on the bunk beds.
Two of them are Yaichiro's wife and daughter!
