In the first few years, all the work of cutting sugar cane was done by the Fengshan people themselves, but this work was really not suitable for people. After working for two years, the Fengshan people found that the hard money was not as good as bamboo weaving.
Yi Niang has no choice. In recent years, all the local villagers have followed Liang Chuan in Qingyuan and Fengshan, and they have made much more money than in previous years. If they are asked to work hard to make a living, not many of them can do it. After all, few people are willing to fight so hard.
Many foreigners came to Fengshan to seek a living, from Luocheng, from Jiangkou Lianjiang above, and even from Yongtai and Yongzhou Jianzhou. Many people heard that there was a shortage of labor in Xinghua, so they rushed over with some dry food!
Li Chuyi wandered around the mountains for a few days and brought back quite a few people when he came back.
In the past two years, almost all the sugarcane cutting work has been taken over by the mountain people in Xinghua Mountain.
There are really few ways to survive in the mountains. As long as there is an opportunity to make a little extra money and have a prosperous year, the mountain people will never let it go. They will even fight for a few sugarcane fields and a few sugarcane cutting positions!
This situation completely changed until the arrival of a large number of refugees from northern Shaanxi.
The refugees need opportunities to make money more than the mountain people. They even have very little land. Not to mention a good and humid year, even having enough food is a huge challenge for them!
They won't pick and choose, let alone be lazy and slippery when cutting cane. Once they pick up the hatchet in their hands, they will work until they are tired and fall down.
The key point is that the wages these people receive are still 10% or 20% less than the locals!
Laborers from Xinghua cost one hundred cents per acre of land, and they often had to leave three to five sugarcane stalks per acre. The heads of the cane on the ground were not cut clean, and the tails of the cane were thrown away casually. Just tidying up the sugarcane fields in the coming year will take a lot of effort.
The people in northern Shaanxi were different. They only charged 90 cents, and they deliberately lowered the price just to get the job. They did a beautiful job without compromising on it, and even took back every sugar cane tail!
Sugarcane tails can be used to make fire, and you can eat a few more bites after chopping them down. It is really because they are poor, these refugees just want to save money! It’s not easy to go into the mountains to collect firewood in winter, and firewood also costs money!
Fengshan people will keep prices down, but Yi Niang will not. The number of refugees who work for the Liang family is the largest every year, but not all the sugarcane fields on the north bank belong to the Liang family. The laborers who come late can only go to other villagers to cut down the price. sugarcane.
In the past, those who came here were all men from the mountains, and most of them were from the Tianxiong Army. This year the situation is different. All the men in the mountains have left farming and joined the army. Liang Chuan has given instructions and everyone has begun to receive military pay, which means they have officially started training, which means they have a job.
In this way, the people of Tianxiong Army could not go down the mountain to cut cane. The men did not come, so it was the women of Tianxiong Army’s family who came to cut cane!
Women can hold up half the sky. These women are willing to follow their men all the way to the south to take root. They work hard to seize every opportunity to survive. Cutting sugar cane is like an extremely happy thing to them. In northern Shaanxi, let alone When cutting sugar cane, the whole family works together!
There were too few opportunities to make money in that era. On the Tea Horse Road, people had to carry hundreds of kilograms of tea leaves and tea bricks for hundreds of miles. Some women even had to nurse their children on the road.
Even when Liang Chuan was a child, he often heard from his grandmother that their neighbors, two father and son, were porters before liberation. How to pick it up, carry it all the way from Xinghua to Fuzhou
Or go to Qingyuan, and the longest journey is even from Qingyuan to Fuzhou. .
Today, not to mention carrying it on the shoulders, it would take a day to drive such a long distance in a truck. Many people could not bear the hardship. Back then, it was carried with iron feet and iron shoulders!
They could actually pass on this kind of hard work from generation to generation, and it didn't end until modern times! In their eyes, they do not feel that this kind of work is hard and tiring. Instead, they are grateful to those employers. Without such hard work, the family will starve to death!
As soon as the squeeze season arrived, a scene that shocked Liang Chuan even more came.
Fengshan, which used to be deserted and quiet, began to turn into a sea of trade and joy. Countless hawker stalls sprouted up like bamboo shoots in the small corridor made of stone slabs in Fengshan overnight.
The shrewd Fengshan people are quick to learn. There are thousands of these outsiders when they arrive, and the thousands of people eating, drinking, and having sex create countless business opportunities! In the past, the family relied on Fengshan, a small place less than a hundred miles away, to digest their mountain products, local specialties, and small handicraft snacks. Now things can be sold to outsiders, and the sales volume is very good, and the people are very happy to do business. height of!
The people who set up the stalls even set up the stalls next to Shima Bridge and set up food stalls. They just made the simplest rice porridge with a few pieces of sweet potatoes thrown in. Countless outsiders also enjoyed eating it.
There are also selling all kinds of snacks, gadgets, and even sweet potato wine, and some go to Qingyuan and buy a lot of medicine. It is extremely normal for people who pass by to get bruises. Even hatchets don’t have eyes, which they often do when cutting sugarcane. Hurt people.
There were also people selling clothes and jewelry. Suddenly, Liang Chuan thought that the time for buying new year's goods during the Spring Festival had been advanced!
As if overnight, the previously deserted north bank of Fengshan suddenly turned into a sea of joyful crowds. The cane cutters were also happy, and the local people were even happier!
The arrival of people means that the labor force is here. Some people are helping people from several villages on the north bank to do farm work. These people even tidy up the empty rooms in their homes. Many outsiders are willing to rent even a cowshed!
The journey back and forth is not a short one. Even if they go up and down the mountain, these mountain people cannot turn back every day. With this time, they can't cut down more than two acres of sugar cane!
Not to mention that a cowshed is crowded with cows, and there are not many families raising cows in Fengshan. It can provide shelter from wind and rain than anything else!
This piece of land on the north bank of Fengshan is now extremely jealous of outsiders!
The current houses on the North Shore are all good houses! At a glance, there were only a few houses made of lumps of earth, and all the houses were large brick houses. In their hometown, such a house could only be afforded by the rich locals!
If they can't afford such a big house in Fengshan, it means they have no vision. Instead of living with the Liang family of He Lu, which family followed Liang Chuan and didn't turn over. I heard that the baby has books to read, and the old man has grown up. In this house, foreigners are vying to marry their daughters over!
Even the Longshui Temple on Shima Bridge has become the most popular place at this time. Once you bring your bedding and put it inside the temple, you can have a good sleep at night. Just take care of the bedding, otherwise the place will be unavailable the next day. Not to mention occupying it, the bedding will be taken away by others!
When Liang Chuan returned to Fengshan and saw Longshui Temple for the first time, he felt strange. Why was this small temple so clean now? It was because it was a place where travelers could sit. Not only did the Lord Helong live here, but also the people there. Want to live. People who have lived here naturally have to clean it and put it on the table
I also need to put some melons and fruits on the table to show my filial piety to the Dragon King!
The people are finally here!
Li Chuyi came down the path of Hulu Mountain with a large group of women. Most of these people carry a hatchet in their waist, a whetstone in their bag, clothes and bedding on their backs, and a bag of dry food.
From beginning to end, there were almost two to three thousand people in the group. .
Liang Chuan and He Baozheng looked at this group of people. None of them were any thinner than the men in Fengshan. Women from northern Shaanxi were just like men. In wars, the whole family would go out.
If it weren't for the fact that they were all women, they would also have bedding and even pots and pans. They thought that the Lin brothers led people down the mountain again five years ago, but there were still many traps behind the mountain. .
This group of women did not go directly to the ground, but consciously gathered in front of Wangxiang's old house, sitting next to each other without making any noise, waiting for Yiniang's arrangements!
Seeing that Liang Chuan appeared first, they all asked Liang Chuan: "Hello, boss!"
The sound was so bright that it spread toward the distant mountains, and the echoes were so loud!
Who would call Liang Chuan Dongjia? Naturally, they are the group of people who followed Liang Chuan to earn their lives!
"You are.."
"My man is the vice-captain of the third team of the Tianxiong Army..."
"My man is also in the Tianxiong Army..."
Liang Chuan's eyes were filled with tears. He suddenly felt that what he had done was too bad. These brothers who followed him through life and death actually asked their wives and daughters to go down the mountain to cut sugar cane. .
The brothers put their lives in their own hands, but I couldn't even provide them with food and clothing. .
In fact, since Liang Chuan asked Song Youcai to gather the team and start paying full wages according to the adult management team, this group of people no longer live as tightly as in previous years, but they are afraid of those who don't have enough to eat. If you keep a little more money in your pocket, you can guard against some disasters in the future. .
For thousands of years, the life of ordinary people has been like this. One day goes by, and there is still a need to stay in the future, just for fear of running out of food one day! There is no danger of having food. Because people in later generations have too many peaceful days, they pay attention to the freshest food. They forget the days of starvation, and they have no habit of preparing for famine.
Yi Niang went out and started to register the number of people. Shen Yuzhen and Zheng Ruoying stood beside to help. They held the account book and wrote down the names of the people one by one with the pens in their hands.
These mountain people come here to register during the day, and then come back with sugar cane to collect their money. Sugar cane is measured by the pound, and they can earn more than 100 yuan in a day's work. Ten days is a constant amount of money. Looking at the whole of Xinghua, no, the entire Fujian Road, I heard that except for Qingyuan Port, you can make a consistent amount of money by doing business in ten days. Where else can such a good thing be found?
A bushel of fragrant rice only costs tens of cents. If you cut sugar cane here for a few days, you can bring back dozens of kilograms of fragrant rice for your family to have a good year. Not to mention cutting sugar cane, but even going into the mountains to chop big insects, I'm afraid many people will know how to do it. No hesitation!
The women began to line up consciously, and the registration was on a first-come, first-served basis. Everyone was very polite, and the people at the back were very nervous. Those who had registered seemed to have won the lottery, and they still had to talk to Zheng Ruoying and Shen Yuzhen. Thank you!
On the first day this work was done by several ladies, and from tomorrow onwards He Baozheng would come to Wangxiang House to help. Because the ladies have to be busy with more important things, making sugar!
