In the blink of an eye, the stars changed, and when I opened my eyes again, I saw darkness in front of me, and from time to time, I could hear the sound of snoring coming from time to time.
After carefully searching the memories in his mind, Li Jie roughly figured out the current time point.
Now is the beginning of the plot. Tomorrow morning the Zhu family will go to Xian'er's house to welcome the bride.
Tan Xian'er and Chuan Wen were childhood sweethearts. They were engaged to be married when they were young. Because Lao Zhu's family was poor, they could not afford the bride price, so the marriage was postponed again and again.
Until recently, the Tan family suddenly relented and could bring this daughter-in-law home with just one stone of grain.
One stone of grain may not seem like much to people nowadays, but at that time, especially in the years of famine, grain was more valuable than life.
Of course, even if food is expensive, the gift of one stone of food is not much. The Tan family gave up for three reasons. First, it was to let their daughter get married early. After all, Qilu and other places suffered from a drought that had never happened in a century.
Although Xian'er is a woman and has a relatively small appetite, no matter how small her appetite is, she is still an adult. If there are more people in the family, she will consume more food.
Secondly, the Tan family is also very satisfied with the in-laws of the Zhu family, and at the same time they are also very satisfied with the child "Chuan Wen", and they want to fulfill the wish of the two children.
Thirdly, Xian'er has an older brother. His brother is almost twenty years old and has not yet taken a wife. The Tan family and his wife are very anxious. Now they finally arranged a marriage for their son.
But the woman’s family asked for one stone of grain as a bride price.
However, the Tan family has had no harvest this year. The food in the family is only enough to survive, and there is no way to squeeze out an extra kilo of food. If you really give out a kilo of food as a betrothal gift, if something unexpected happens, you may starve to death.
Therefore, the Tan family couple thought of marrying off their daughter early in exchange for a stone of grain, and then using the daughter's gift to marry their daughter-in-law into the family.
In this way, he not only fulfills his daughter's needs, but also saves one person's food rations, and at the same time satisfies his son. It can be said that it kills three birds with one stone.
Gulu!
Gulu!
At this moment, Li Jie's stomach suddenly growled.
have to.
This person is hungry. According to the memory in his mind, he drinks a bowl of gruel at night. This body has just turned 18 and is growing. How can a bowl of gruel be enough?
When you are seventeen or eighteen years old, if you eat with an open stomach, it is not a problem to eat three large bowls of white rice in one meal.
However, there is a famine now, and there are three boys at home. It is good enough to ensure that no one is starved to death every day, but there is no chance for you to open your stomach to eat.
What's more, the family still needs to collect a stone of food as a betrothal gift.
Speaking of betrothal gifts, although one stone of food is not much, it is not something the Zhu family can afford. Thanks to the fact that Zhu Kaishan and his wife are usually very popular, this wedding was all possible with the help of neighbors and villagers.
Each family scraped together some, and some from the west, and finally managed to collect a stone of food.
Gulu!
Gulu!
Before Li Jie could sort out the matter, his stomach made a thunderous sound again.
'no!'
'We have to think of something, at least we have to make sure we fill our stomachs!'
What to do?
Zhujia Village is located in a mountainous area. On normal days, hunting in the mountains is a good way to obtain meat. When Zhu Kaishan was still at home, he often went hunting in the mountains.
Every time he went into the mountains, he would not come back empty-handed. He would bring back more or less some meat. Moreover, Zhu Kaishan was a very kind man and would share some with the villagers every time he came back from hunting.
It is precisely because of this that the villagers are willing to spend life-saving rations to help the Zhu family find a wife.
However, Li Jie asked himself that his hunting skills were no worse than Zhu Kaishan's, but when it comes to hunting, you can only hunt if you have prey. In today's situation, people don't have enough to eat, let alone the animals in the mountains.
Even if all the animals did not starve to death, they were all killed by the hungry villagers.
Even if there is a fish that slips through the net, you can't catch it in a short period of time. Judging from the current situation, if you don't stay in the mountains for a few days, you may not be able to catch the prey.
After thinking about it, hunting in Zhujiacun is not feasible for the time being. If we go outside the customs, with Li Jie's method, it should be no problem to go into the mountains to collect some meat.
Since hunting doesn't work, we have to find another way.
Let's rob instead.
In the original drama, the Zhu family encountered a group of horse bandits on the way to the phone. It was this group of horse bandits that Li Jie targeted.
Who asked them to rob him?
Since you are doing business without capital, you must be prepared to be hacked.
Although the horse bandits in the play are very poor, so poor that they can't even afford food, no matter how poor they are, they still have several groups of horses, even if those horses are not war horses, but ordinary wandering horses.
But the horse is also a horse, and it can be worth twelve or eighty taels of silver no matter what.
If you can pay off all the other party's horses, you will definitely be able to earn dozens of taels of silver from him.
No matter in any era, robbers are not good people. Although in the play these robbers only robbed food and did not hurt anyone, it was precisely because they robbed the Zhu family's food that Xian'er failed to marry into the Zhu family.
Subsequently, a series of tragedies encountered by Xian'er and Chuanwen on the road were inseparable from this group of horse bandits.
If the horse bandits had not snatched food, the Zhu family would have been able to successfully marry Xian'er home, which would have prevented Xian'er from running away as a monk and not catching the boat.
At this time, Japan and Russia were at war, and the sea was full of warships from both countries. The sea route was no longer safe. The ship the Zhu family boarded in the original drama was the last ship.
Xian'er sneaked out of the house with her parents on her back, wasting time and not catching the last boat.
Seeing Xian'er's arrival, Chuanwen, who had already boarded the boat, was sweating profusely. In the end, his brother kicked him and sent him to Xian'er's side.
However, although the two were reunited, the boat was gone and they could only take the land route, heading north along the Bohai Bay, passing through Shanhaiguan and entering the border of Guandong. This road was not easy due to high mountains and dangerous waters.
It can be as fast as half a year, or as slow as a year. If you don't have enough money, you have to beg all the way, which makes it even longer.
In addition, it is now the end of the Qing Dynasty, and there is chaos everywhere. If you don't protect yourself, you will encounter robbers on the road. When the money is gone, it will be a minor matter, but your life will be lost.
Therefore, the best way to travel through Guandong is to take the water route, because the water route is fast and safe.
Only when there is a last resort, people will choose to take dry roads.
Gulu!
Gulu!
My stomach growled again.
Li Jie lowered his head and glanced at his flat belly. In desperation, he got up and walked out.
At this point, it was unrealistic to get anything to eat, so I could only drink some water.
Although drinking water does not work, drinking water can fill the stomach, increase the feeling of fullness, and eliminate the feeling of hunger in the stomach.
After walking out of the room, Li Jie followed his memory and walked to the water tank in the kitchen, picked up the gourd and scooped out a ladle of water, and drank a few big gulps.