The only people who really have no food to eat or clothes to wear are the beggars wandering the streets.
Now that the adults in the court have come forward to send food and clothing, even beggars will not suffer from hunger.
Although Qiao Lan is in the inner courtyard of the house, she has heard a few news from outside.
The wife of such and such a family had a bodhisattva heart and helped the victims, and her reputation spread far and wide.
Qiao Lan couldn't understand why so many victims who could no longer afford to eat suddenly appeared.
However, it is a good thing to send food and clothing. Most of the people who come to eat and drink are poor people. Not only do they eat relief food, they can also save food for their families.
Last year's harvest was pretty good, and there was no real famine, so the first priority in winter was heating.
Duan Mingjing nodded after listening to Qiao Lan's words.
Yes, even though the weather is getting colder and the food will not be lost out of thin air, my mother is much more considerate than him.
The Duan family donated the grain, but Qiao Lan didn't know and wasn't curious about the use of the grain. It would be eaten by others.
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In previous years, there was a period when forests were closed and logging was prohibited. Since the winter of the year before last had passed and spring had passed, the court had ordered the cancellation of the forest season, allowing people to go into the mountains and cut trees at will.
In such a cold weather, it is not easy to go into the forest to cut down a tree and drag it home.
Iron tools are valuable, and those who live in thatched huts do not have iron axes or machetes. Even if they want to chop down trees, it is difficult. So even if the forest can be harvested, the poor people still cannot chop firewood, but picking up some dead branches and breaking some branches back is better than nothing.
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Long before autumn arrived, Qiao Lan built two charcoal-burning stoves on Zhuangzi.
This year's Qiangguo class is related to tools, and tool making is indispensable. Therefore, the blacksmith's work in Qiao Lan's village has increased.
Qiao Lan was granted the title of a second-grade female queen. She was considered the county head and should have had her own fief. Although the fief had been turned into fertile farmland, she still had the right to buy and forge iron.
Buying iron is only a trivial matter, but the difficult part is beating the iron into various shapes.
If Qiao Lan is not satisfied at all, the craftsman will have to re-forge for several days. Therefore, the charcoal fire on Zhuangzi is like flowing water, and a lot can be burned in one day.
The highest temperature after burning wood is only more than 800 degrees, while the temperature of charcoal is more than 2,700 degrees. To make suitable iron tools, the blessing of high temperature is indispensable, and charcoal is indispensable.
There are no coal mines around the capital, and the nearest mine is hundreds of miles away. It costs a lot of money to transport a cart of coal. Therefore, charcoal is mostly used for blacksmithing, which is more convenient.
In line with the principle of saving what he can, Qiao Lan calculated an account: the charcoal needed for daily blacksmithing, and the charcoal needed for home fire in winter.
For blacksmithing, you can use inferior charcoal, which is not a small sum of money to burn in a year.
The Duan family needs to buy a lot of charcoal every winter. What is burned in the house is good smokeless charcoal. After the whole family uses it, the cost of buying charcoal in winter alone is not even a hundred taels of silver.
A furnace specially used for burning charcoal can be built with only some bricks and loess, and the cost is less than ten taels.
The major cost tools needed to process charcoal, but some wood, are even less expensive.
When Qiao Lan started building charcoal stoves, she just wanted to save money. Saving money is roughly equivalent to making money. Therefore, she only built two simple small stoves and did not build more.
But the plan couldn't keep up with the change, and a snowstorm suddenly hit the capital, so this matter had to be discussed in the long run.
Long-term low temperature and carbon shortage are inevitable.
For those who burn charcoal, the quality of a furnace's charcoal depends entirely on luck. After burning, the prices are divided according to the quality, and then sold to different families.
Those who have money can buy good charcoal, but those who have no money may not be able to afford charcoal.
The most expensive among them is Yin Shuang charcoal. Yin Shuang charcoal is expensive, but there are reasons why it is expensive. It is not only smoke-free and resistant to burning, but also has a higher temperature than ordinary charcoal fires. Only a few wealthy households can use it.
This Tan is still the legitimate son and daughter of the family.
Qiao Lan can guarantee that all the charcoal produced in its stoves is high-quality smokeless charcoal.
Snow disaster is both a crisis and an opportunity.
Qiao Lan felt that such a good opportunity to harvest wool would be wasted if she didn't harvest it.
After all, no matter how much the money of this aristocratic family circulates, it remains within their circle and will not circulate outside.
It's better to let her help.
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Qiao Lan asked Duan Mingqing to buy a piece of forest land directly, not just for the trees in the forest. There was no order to close the forest, so there was no shortage of wood.
What Qiao Lan wants is the hills in the forest.
In winter, everything freezes, and even the soil is frozen hard, making it difficult to dig. In addition, the frozen soil is difficult to construct. To mix the mud, water is indispensable. Maybe you can pour a basin of hot water into it, and the whole mud will freeze into ice after a while.
Blocks, the stove picked out through gritted teeth may be a shoddy project, so this method will not work.
But as long as you work hard enough, there are always more solutions than difficulties.
During the years when Qiao Lan studied in Beijing, she read a lot of books. One of the books said that in places where the conditions are not very good, when people want to bake something and need a stove, they often cook on the earth wall.
Excavation was carried out to create a cellar.
There are also people who live in cave dwellings on high loess slopes, and the principle of building houses is the same as this.
Most of Qiao Lan's villages are flat and open.
Therefore, Qiao Lan asked Duan Mingqing to buy a forest land with undulating mountains and forests, and use the undulating hills to dig a cellar.
However, building an earth cellar also requires a certain amount of technology. After all, the mountain is hollowed out. It takes a lot of effort to expect it not to collapse.
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When the snow in the mountains and forests becomes thick, the Duan family's farm begins to recruit people.
Every year during spring plowing and autumn harvest, the Duan family's village recruits many farmers to help with the work. Therefore, as soon as the news came out, many people came directly to them. The Duan family has a good reputation and never criticizes the people harshly and distributes money on time.
wages.
With such a master, most ordinary people are willing to work in the Duan family.
When everyone went up to inquire about it, they found out that it was a job of cutting firewood in the mountains. There was not much work to do in the winter. As long as there was work and money to be made, it didn't matter what season it was or how tiring it was.
Everyone signed up enthusiastically!
In recent days, Duan Mingqing and Duan Mingchen have been at Zhuangzi. They have to take care of the recruitment of workers at Zhuangzi, and also go to the forest farm to see the progress of the work.
The craftsmen who are cutting the furnace have already started work.
One by one, they took the tools at hand and started digging, almost at the rate of one small cellar a day. After digging, they had to perform some processing according to the diagram given by Qiao Lan.
According to the strict length-width-height ratio, the top of the furnace was even made round, and bricks were used to reinforce the interior to make the cellar stronger.
Considering safety issues, Qiao Lan asked everyone to open the cellar slightly. If something happens and one cell collapses, it will not affect the other cellars.
After all, it was the first time for the craftsman to build this kind of earth cellar, and his skills were not yet proficient enough.
To this end, Qiao Lan personally went to the forest farm to inspect the excavated earth cellar, spent some points to have the system test it, and gave some suggestions for modifications.
After the cellar was repaired, the slaves in the village arranged the wooden blocks of uniform sizes neatly in the cellar under the instructions of the master.
Light a fire, seal the cellar door, leave only a small opening under the door, and place the bellows underneath to use the wind to make the wood in the cellar burn quickly.
When the temperature inside the cellar rises to about 400 degrees and the smoke becomes less, directly seal the cellar entrance to isolate the air.
One day later, everyone opened the mud door of the cellar and raked out the charcoal. They were surprised to find that all the wood inside had turned into charcoal with a silvery gray luster!