Shu Yan and Zhi Xin are approaching adulthood. They no longer play innocently together as often as before. Besides, Shu Yan is very busy, studying and running a family, so they haven't seen each other for a while.

Autumn has entered, and Zhixin has nothing to do at home, so she helps Ruoxin with her homework. On this day, she reviewed the Book of Songs·Zheng Feng, and Zhixin read one of the poems: "Qingqingzijin, my heart is long."

.Even if I don’t go, Zi Ning

"Bu Siyin? Green Zi Pei, I think about it for a long time. Even if I don't go, Zi Ning won't come? I'm picky and daxi, and I'm in the city gate. If I don't see you for a day, it's like March." This poem describes the feeling of lovesickness.

, Zhenghe Zhixin’s state of mind at this time.

"Brother Yan, silly Brother Yan, it's not convenient for me to come to you, and you won't come to me, even to teach Ruoxin her homework. Not only did you not come to me, you haven't even heard from me recently...

"

"Zhixin, go get some rice and cook."

Hearing her mother's cry, Zhixin got up in frustration, walked to the kitchen, and looked into the rice bag. There were only two handfuls of rice left, so she poured all the rice into the gourd.

"The rice is gone. In the afternoon, why not ask Brother Yan to pound rice together? In this way, we can not only finish the work, but also meet Brother Yan. Okay, this is a fair reason!"

"Mom, there's no more rice. I'm going to pound some after dinner."

"Okay, you and your brother can get some rice to thresh. It's ready now. The Shi family's paddy field is very close, so you don't have to travel far."

"Go and tell Brother Yan and ask him if he wants to pound rice this afternoon." She ordered Ruoxin. Ruoxin agreed, turned around and went out.

Zhixin thought to herself: That silly boy Shu Yan, who doesn’t understand customs, how can he understand my thoughts? If his family has rice, he will definitely not say anything. She wanted to give Ruoxin a few more words, but in the blink of an eye, Ruoxin

Already ran away without a trace.

After a while, Ruoxin came back, and Zhixin asked hurriedly: "How was it? Is Brother Yan going?"

"Go, Brother Yan said, his family doesn't have any rice either."

Zhixin was overjoyed and in a good mood, so she ate half a bowl more rice. Ruoxin was still young and ignored it completely, but Mrs. Liu took it all into her heart. She knew her daughter better than her mother, she had already seen through her daughter's little thoughts, but

Didn't say it out loud.

As soon as they finished eating, they saw Shu Yan pushing a wheelbarrow with a bag of rice on it. Shu Yan parked the car at the door, came in first to greet Mrs. Liu, and asked Ruoxin: "Recently?"

What are you reading?"

Ruoxin said: "I am reading the Book of Rites and occasionally review the Book of Songs and The Analects of Confucius."

Shu Yan nodded and said: "Okay, you can become a teacher by reviewing the old and learning the new. You must read well and be an upright gentleman, so that Uncle Han can rest in peace..."

As soon as she mentioned "Uncle Han" and "close your eyes", Zhi Xin immediately winked at him and signaled him to stop talking. Shu Yan suddenly thought: Aunt Han is here, and you can't say nonsense about "Uncle Han, close your eyes". Fortunately, Mrs. Liu didn't.

Upon hearing this, he immediately changed his words and said: "The Book of Rites is complicated and some parts are difficult to understand. I will teach you when I am free in the next two days."

Before Ruoxin could speak, Zhixin said, "Okay, it's a deal. You, the elder brother, can't break your promise." Zhixin usually wears an ordinary brown linen skirt when working at home, without adding anything.

The decoration looks simple and fresh, and is naturally beautiful to the extreme.

Shu Yan just changed his story temporarily to avoid Liu's taboo, but he didn't expect that Zhixin took it seriously. Indeed, he hadn't guided Ruoxin in studying for a long time. "A gentleman's words are hard to follow. How can you regret it?"

What? Besides, with the relationship between our Shu-Han family, it is my unshirkable responsibility to tutor brother Ruoxin. Well, in the future, if I don’t have time to come to you, you can go to me, and we must catch up on our homework."

Later, Shu Yan and Zhi Xin carried the rice onto a wheelbarrow. Shu Yan pushed the cart, followed by Zhi Xin and Ruo Xin, and walked towards the direction of Shijia Shuidi. When encountering uphill or difficult places,

Zhixin helped push. From Shuyan entering the door, to asking Ruoxin about her homework, and then walking all the way

Come here, Shu Yan has always looked at his nose, his nose at his mouth, his mouth and his heart, and his heart has no distracting thoughts. Even the few exchanges he has are frank and frank, and he has never looked at Zhixin. Zhixin sees it in his eyes and is right.

Shu Yan was both respectful and angry. What he was angry about was his incomprehensible style, but what he admired was that he was a gentleman and magnanimous.

When they came to the water bank, both Shu Yan and Zhi Xin felt an inexplicable emotion. The Ru River and their former fields carried too much joy and helplessness in childhood. Clay figurines, oaths, weeding, exposure to the sun, fertilization, and floods

, lost his parents... Now he has built a tall water-operated house.

A small canal was built from the roadside to the Ru River. The water from the canal hits the big wooden wheel of the water wheeling machine. The big wooden wheel is connected to two wooden poles. The wooden poles are connected to a stone hammer. Below the stone hammer is a large stone trough.

, put rice into the stone trough, and the uninterrupted water flow drives the stone hammer to swing up and down.

In order to achieve the purpose of pounding rice and removing shells, two skilled people are busy, peeling shells and sifting bran, all in one go. In front of the water mill house, a road has been specially built to make it convenient for people who come and go to pound rice. In this piece of land, in addition to

In addition to the original small area of ​​​​the Shu and Han families, there are two buildings on the east and west sides.

The large area belongs to the Shi family, with paddy fields to the east and dry fields to the west. After the Shi family transferred the land from the Shu and Han families, they built a large canal and transformed the dry fields to the west into paddy fields. In this way, no matter what happens,

In drought-prone years, this large area of ​​land can be cultivated and irrigated in time.

This machine-connected water hammer is very efficient and can grind rice quickly, so there is no need to queue for a long time. After waiting for a while, it was Shu Yan's turn. Shu Yan first poured Zhixin's rice into the stone trough. The water hammer was started, and he

Watching the stone hammer hit the golden rice in the stone trough, it slowly turned white.

Shu Yan couldn't help but be happy: The Shi family had really brought some blessings to the people and saved them a lot of time. Thinking about it this way, even though his family lost this good land, it was still worth it.

At this moment, he heard someone arguing behind him. When he turned around, he saw that it was his neighbor Shu Xiaoliu and the head of the Shi family's farm.

Shu Xiaoliu asked the farmer: "How do you get paid for pounding rice here?"

The head of the farm said: "Xiao Liu, didn't you ask knowingly? You've come here more than once. Of course it's 1 out of 10. Isn't this the same price in other places?"

"Since it's one out of ten, should we charge ten liters of rice for pounding one handful of dendrobium rice?"

“That’s right, one bushel of dendrobium is worth ten dou, one bushel is worth ten liters, one bushel of dendrobium is worth one hundred liters, and one hundred liters is worth ten liters, that’s right!”

"Then the rice I pounded here just now was charged my labor fee for twelve liters of rice?"

The leader of the farm said: "There are so many rice pounders, how can I remember who has how much rice?"

A rice-pounding master next to the Shuidi responded: "Yes, I know Xiaoliu. I remember that I received twelve liters of rice from him."

Gianzhuang glared at him: "You don't have to talk, just do your job well." Then he said to Shu Xiaoliu, "Oh, you pounded a total of one handful and two buckets of rice, and you should be charged for the labor of twelve liters of rice.

.”

Shu Xiaoliu asked anxiously: "What is one handful and two measures of rice? My family has a large population and we often pound rice. I felt something was wrong last time and charged me two liters more rice, but I was not sure. This time, I deliberately made sure

After knowing the quantity, I measured it again when I got home. It was obviously one dendrobium and it was not quite full, so why did it become one dendrobium and two dou?"

Faced with Shu Xiaoliu's question, Tianzhuangtou calmly asked: "Do you have dendrobium at home?"

Of course, the head of Tianzhuang knew that ordinary people did not have a measuring device like "dendrobium", so he was confident to ask this question.

"Of course I don't have dendrobium at home, but I have dou and liters at home. Just now, the amount of rice I measured at your place was one huo and two dou, but the amount I measured at home was only nine dou and eight liters, so you charged me two liters more.

rice!"

"What a joke, how could we charge you more for your wages! Our Dendrobium is made according to the imperial standards, which is the most standardized, but your Dou and Sheng are passed down from several generations of your ancestors, or even which dynasty."

You can't even explain it yourself. Do you own such an old measuring instrument?

Just use it secretly, do you dare to calibrate it like me? Besides, even if it is the same standard, if the size of the measuring instrument is different, there is also a saying of "one pound is divided into one hundred ounces" - put it in a large amount

If the contents of the container are divided into small portions and measured, it will naturally not be enough."

The Dou Hesheng in Shu Xiaoliu's family was indeed an old measuring instrument left over from earlier, which made him feel aggrieved. However, he still refused to accept it and grabbed the last clue to argue: "Even if it's 'a hundred ounces per catty'

', the difference is only a fraction, how could it be so much different? It's obvious that you want to deceive the people and make more money from them."

After two arguments, the rice grinders on the scene all listened attentively. The more people watched, the less able the head of the farm could admit that there was something wrong with his dendrobium. In the past, the standards of weights and measures in various dynasties were very inconsistent and very confusing. Even after Qin Shihuang unified them

After the introduction of weights and measures, the standards of weights and measures also often changed, especially in the late Han Dynasty

Afterwards, when politics became chaotic, everything else became even more chaotic. It was precisely because there were no standards and ordinary people did not have a measuring device like "Dendrobium" in their homes that the Shi family used small Dendrobium to pretend to be the standard Dendrobium. Unexpectedly, they encountered it today.

A fussy person like Shu Xiaoliu actually went home to correct his dendrobium with dou and sheng.

After listening to the argument for a while, Shu Yan had already guessed in his mind that there was probably something wrong with the Shi family's dendrobium and they were overcharging the people. He decided to take care of it, even though he remembered how Shi De took care of him when he sold firewood a few months ago.

, but one code must be treated as one code, and the interests of many people cannot be ignored because of personal relationships. One handful of rice is pounded, and two liters more are collected. After a long time, how can these poor folks bear it?

So Shu Yan came over and said hello first: "Uncle Six, head of the farm."

When Shu Xiaoliu saw Shu Yan, he said hurriedly: "Yan'er, you happen to be here too. I am a rough man and you are a scholar. You are here to comment. If there is something wrong with his dendrobium, he will charge more for pounding the rice."

Tian Fu scolded: "Nonsense, how can there be a problem with our dendrobium?"

Shu Yan said: "Don't argue, you two. I heard what you just said. The key point of the argument is whether this dendrobium is standard. The Shi family opened such a large water mill house, and the villagers pounded rice here. It didn't happen overnight.

, but it is a long-term thing. No matter who is right, the difference of one or two liters of rice every time is not a big deal, but as time goes by, the difference becomes much bigger, so this issue needs to be clarified. I would like to explain,

I have been studying for a few days and often go to the west market of Ruyin City, so I know the size of dendrobium. Since the Wei Dynasty, the imperial court has stipulated that the diameter of dendrobium is one foot, three inches, five minutes and five centimeters. The depth remains unchanged, or

One foot, its area is one thousand four hundred and forty-one inches and three-tenths of an inch. We in Jin Dynasty still use the standards of the previous dynasty. As the saying goes, there is no circle without rules. Just measure the size of this dendrobium now.

It’s not standard anymore.”

When the common people heard that the Shi family's dendrobium trees were to be calibrated, they all gathered around to watch. If there were any good people in the crowd, they immediately went home and brought a ruler. The head of the farm had become embarrassed, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Shu Yan took it.

Come on, measure the depth first. Yes, it's exactly one foot.

The head of the farm said: "How about it? One foot is one foot. What else do we need to measure?"

Everyone said: "Hey, Mr. Tianzhuangtou, since we have measured it, we have to measure it all together. If the measurement is high, it doesn't matter."

The head of the farm couldn't help it, so Shu Yan began to measure the diameter of the dendrobium tree. Everyone stared at Shu Yan's ruler, and the result was a little more than one foot, two inches, and three minutes.

Shu Yan put down the ruler and said to everyone: "One foot and two inches is a little more than three points, so we will calculate it as one foot and two inches and four points. Let's calculate how much the product of this dendrobium is."

Shu Xiaoliu and everyone else laughed and said: "Yan'er, you are kidding us. We are all rough people. Those who know rulers are good. Who can calculate the accumulation of this dendrobium? You should do it for everyone."

.”
Chapter completed!