After the children's matter was clarified, Liang Chuan felt more guilty than himself. He did not expect that Yiniang secretly concealed the matter because she was afraid that he would not agree. She was afraid that he would know about it and worried that it would hurt the children.
There are only a dozen children, how much rice can they eat? If we want to train these more than a dozen children to become unique talents, it will require talent and financial resources, but this is just to provide them with food and clothing, so what's the difficulty?
During the disaster period, the food for nearly a thousand people in the four villages, and during the war, the food information for the hundreds of people in the management brigade were all solved in the blink of an eye. Will there be less than a dozen small mouths?
In the past, she only had to worry about two mouths. Knowing the feeling of suffering, Yi Niang was still worried that her burden was too heavy. She always shouldered everything silently. After all, it was because her ability was not enough.
"How did you come up with the idea of making charcoal?"
"I want to pick up this job again after winter comes. Think about it, the mountains are covered with forests. The most indispensable thing is wood. The price of a pound of charcoal is now a bit higher than last year. It can be sold It’s nearly a hundred cents, and a dozen cents of firewood can be burned into a hundred cents, so there’s a lot of business.”
When Yi Niang mentioned this matter, she became excited: "There are so many children now. We can burn a lot of charcoal in a day. Plus the restaurants introduced by Mr. Baozheng and the ones sold in the store, it won't take long for me to I can build a big house for my children.”
It is good to be able to build a house, but there is one problem Liang Chuan still expressed worriedly: "It is a good thing to make money with the children, but now our children are similar in age to our children in He Lu, and they are at the age of studying. Wouldn’t it be better for them to be in school?”
The two people walked slowly on the path in the field, the wind was blowing on them and it was extremely cold. Yi Niang hugged Liang Chuan's arm and said: "I also discussed with Mr. Meng at the beginning to arrange for all these dozen children to be admitted to the academy. Mr. Meng was also very happy. The more students, the better. Tao Li said nothing. Cheng Xi.”
"Then why are the kids still..."
"I have asked the children, but they are not willing to go to the academy. They say that studying is wonderful, but now they want to have a stable life, so they want to see if they can learn bamboo weaving from me and make bamboo weaving together. .”
Liang Chuan knew that they were more eager to survive than to improve themselves. Studying is good, but not everyone is that good. After school, other children can go home to eat and sleep under warm quilts.
As for them, they have to cook for themselves when they go home, and they have to worry about tomorrow's food rations. Not everyone has such a strong belief to achieve academic success. If they don't get a result, then so many Time is wasted. Studying is the job that the ancestors gave to the family, and not everyone is meant to study, so their decision is not difficult to understand. There are also many older children in the village who are not willing to come to the academy.
"You didn't let them make bamboo weaving, but took them to make charcoal, right?"
"Yes, there are a lot of people doing bamboo weaving now. Many women in the three villages have nothing to do, so they are arranged to come in and do bamboo weaving. The bamboo weaving made every day can be piled up in a hill. There are so many bamboo weaving shops that they are almost full. It’s no longer enough, and now the money is calculated on a piece-by-piece basis. It’s left in the hands of each family first, and when the store sells it, the bamboo weavings are taken in from the villagers and sold.”
"I understand, it's hard to sell bamboo weaving now, so you don't let your children make bamboo weaving."
Yi Niang was a bit prescient. She swarmed in to make bamboo weaving. Although she could change her status, there were too many people doing it, and she would definitely be able to make ends meet. After all, the market was so big, and there were so many people and so many people. There are far fewer people making charcoal, so this is a feasible way.
"The clothes on the children are too thin, why don't you change the children into new clothes?" It stands to reason that Yi Niang is not stingy, why didn't you notice this.
Yi Niang was not willing to accept Liang Chuan's criticism and retorted: "No, I made new clothes for each of them. They were reluctant to wear them. They said that the new clothes would be stained when moving the charcoal. I said a lot to them. Times, they just wouldn’t listen.”
This must be the reason. When we bought new school uniforms for our children, they regarded them as treasures. Wearing the uniforms would never involve them touching mud or crawling around. They were just worried about getting the new uniforms dirty and torn.
Liang Chuan sighed quietly. There were more and more people around him, and he was under increasing pressure. He used to think that the few thousand taels of silver stolen from Da Fei Mountain was an astronomical sum of money. But looking at it now, it seems that it can't handle anything at all. There are dozens of mouths waiting for food. If something bigger happens, there won't even be a hair left to build a house.
"Now the children all live in the ancestral hall. During the day, we all go to chop wood and burn charcoal. The children with bigger charcoal will send the charcoal to Xinghua and Fengshan. Now many places buy our charcoal for use. , when the north wind blows, the supply of charcoal is in short supply every day.”
Yi Niang was quite proud when she talked about their affairs, because she also did something well. When a dozen children came back from burning charcoal, they cooked their own food and boiled water. After taking a bath, they did not think about running around and stayed in the ancestral hall obediently. The dozen or so children are very obedient and very united. They are all miserable children and no one will bully anyone else.
Liang Chuan asked: "How about the charcoal kiln I made behind? Is it good for burning charcoal?"
Yi Niang said uncharacteristically: "Third brother, I always thought you were the most beneficial. Whether it is making a water tanker or growing sugar cane, whatever you say will be done. No one dares to say that you are not the best. But later I found out that you are also the best." It can’t compare to other people’s places.”
Liang Chuan was quite surprised: "Go on."
"We were selling charcoal at the Jinzun Restaurant in Xinghua. At that time, I happened to follow He Baozheng to Xinghua. We had not yet taken over the charcoal delivery business in Jinzun, so I personally brought some charcoal there."
Now, not only the charcoal and mosquito coil business, but also the bamboo kimchi weaving business has expanded to Xinghua. The scale of this business is much larger than before. In the past, you could make dozens or hundreds of pennies, but now you can make several pennies. Today is different from the past.
Yi Niang recalled what happened at that time and said in detail: "We met two businessmen in that building at that time. They came down from the north. I don't know what kind of business they were doing, but when they saw my bamboo basket The bamboo charcoal inside came over to chat with me."
"What did they tell you? Want to buy your charcoal?"
Yi Niang smiled and said, "You guessed it wrong."
"They said my charcoal wasn't burning well enough."
The two people had already reached the door of the house.
Liang Chuan asked Yang Xiu to get some kimchi, and called Xiaochai Yuzhen and Li Erhua. Li Chuyi asked his younger brother to drink some wine. As a result, several people went to bed early with nothing to do, leaving only Liang Chuan, Yi Niang, and Yang Xiu.
Yang Xiu has been making a lot of kimchi recently, and the taste is not bad. Several restaurants are in demand. Liang Chuan has always wanted to introduce chili peppers into the country. This crop is a magical existence. It can directly create a cooking genre. Adding it to kimchi can take the flavor of this food to a higher level. The taste is much stronger than mustard. The root also has sub-ginger. It's a pity that this kind of crop is not yet found in any corner of the world.
"Yiniang, please continue talking about those businessmen."
"The two businessmen were not good-looking. As soon as they came up, they picked up my charcoal, broke off a small piece, smelled it and rubbed it. I didn't know what they wanted to do, but I didn't stop them. Maybe they wanted to Where’s the charcoal guy?”
Yi Niang poured a bowl of wine for Liang Chuan, and then said: "They claimed that they were Guanzhong businessmen. They heard that there was a war in Xinghua, but the war was over as soon as they arrived in Xinghua. But after the war, business can still be done. See When it comes to the charcoal we produce, they say our charcoal burns well, but it’s not good enough!”
Liang Chuan drank the wine in one gulp. Yang Xiu listened to what they were talking about about burning charcoal, but she had no interest in it. After eating two bowls of wine, she felt a little warm and went to bed. No one in this family is interested in burning charcoal, because it is dark and very tiring to burn. It is very hard for a woman to chop wood and move charcoal, so the artist wanted to do it. Yi Niang was reluctant to part with this job because it opened up a new situation in their lives.
"What's wrong is what they said."
"First of all, we didn't select the wood well. It's not good to burn charcoal when you see the wood. All the trees on the mountain are cut down, and the quality of the charcoal is not good. It's like we have a lot of fir trees here. The fir trees are not dense enough. The burned charcoal is easy to scatter and break, and there is a lot of smoke, so it is not an ideal charcoal material."
Liang Chuan quite agrees with this point. Although making charcoal is easy, it is not easy to do this skill well. Folk craftsmen have been engaged in this business for generations, and the charcoal they make seems to be very demanding. There is a big difference between special fuel charcoal and industrial charcoal. Liang Chuan's original plan was to be able to burn it and the store would like it. .
"Then did they say that burning charcoal with wood is better?"
"They say that the best ones are mainly oak and castanopsis. Of course, elm and maple are also very good. If there is green oak, it is the best. But that kind of wood generally grows in Yunnan and Guizhou, and is rare in central Fujian, so it can be Don’t think about it.”
"Is that all?" It's not good if the wood is too single. Although the quality of charcoal has improved, there is no way to mass-produce it, let alone make money.
"He said that the masson pine and red pine here are also good charcoal materials. We have this kind of wood everywhere!"
"Then it's easy. We have a lot of these trees on the mountains here. If we just chop these trees, we won't have to shave our heads on the mountain, and they are everywhere. This will be much more convenient."
