As soon as Wang Siniang came back, she showed a different "wealth and wealth" than before. According to the villagers who went to do odd jobs in the yard, the silkworm-raising houses were all made of bricks and tiles, and the floors were all made of bricks and tiles. Square bricks - the houses where most people in the village live are just rammed mud floors.
Duoduoniang, who is next door to Shen Kaibao's family, and Wang Siniang's natal family are from the same village, and they have a relatively good relationship. She ran away as soon as Mr. Shen and his wife came back. Her family had many children and the family was tired, so she moved to Wang Si. My mother-in-law started doing odd jobs. According to her, the Shen family's silkworm house had many exquisite features - not just a square tile floor.
"...The windows in the silkworm house are all covered with screen covers!" Duoduoniang was squatting by the stream washing clothes and talking about her experiences. She was very happy when she said, "Such a long silkworm house has large windows on the front and rear walls. How much screen is used just to cover these windows? What a crime!"
She said she was doing evil, but it didn't feel like she was "doing evil" at all. It seemed like she was boasting smugly, and it seemed that even odd-jobbers like herself were becoming "higher".
The person next to her who was listening to her words laughed: "Duo Duo Niang, you ate several bowls of cold soaked rice and dried radish from Wang Si's house, and you even had to blow up a silkworm room for others."
"Eating steamed rice?" Duoduoniang raised her eyes, "You can't even eat steamed rice. The fourth mother's family gives us nothing but dry rice."
There was a burst of envious tut-tuts at the streamside. The silkworm season was approaching, and at the time when there was no harvest, every household was about to lose its income. It was the norm for most families in the village to have a bowl of porridge mixed with grains and rice bran. Since the beginning of the month, some families have had to borrow rice from relatives in other villages with better conditions. The Famine Relief Bureau has also distributed some relief rice. However, the quality of this rice is very bad. In the past, even pigs would not be willing to do so. Even if you use the food to make porridge, you won't be hungry.
Dudoniang seemed to be intoxicated by this atmosphere - she became the rare protagonist of the "streamside talk meeting" and continued to brag about her experience working in Wang Si's family.
The silkworm house in Wang Si's family was actually built according to the same design concept as the breeding farm built by Li Yaoer in Fenghuang Villa. Of course, the equipment was far less sophisticated than the one in the villa, and even more useful than the silkworm farm in Cihuitang at the foot of the villa. The room is even worse. There are no large-area glass windows, blinds or any other overly impactful things, and the brothel is not equipped with copper pipes for hot and cold air conditioning. However, other facilities are built according to standards.
According to the standards of the old time and space, these facilities can only be regarded as "a substitute for melons and vegetables", but in this time and space, they are already "luxury configurations" that silkworm farmers have never dreamed of.
Shen Kaibao happened to be passing by the stream and saw Duo Duo Niang blowing on Shen's wife again. He felt angry: originally he had nothing against these two couples. Especially after their misfortune, he felt vaguely sympathetic. Ever since they came back in glory, he had been feeling uncomfortable, always feeling that Shen and his wife "shouldn't be like this."
"It shouldn't be like this." Shen Kaibao himself doesn't know exactly what it should be. In short, every time he hears someone talking about these two couples, he gets angry. Now that he hears Duo Duoniang bragging again, he can't bear it. He said something:
"What are you doing with these fancy things in raising silkworms? You have been raising silkworms like this for so many years. How can she, Wang Siniang, come up with a 'new method' and still be able to raise fairy silkworms? There must be retribution for wasting things in vain!"
Shen Kaibao's beard-blowing and glaring words surprised all the women in Yixi. Men always ignored the chats among the women by the stream, let alone interrupted. His "jabbing spear" momentarily All the women were blinded.
He fired this shot, but he also felt that it was not appropriate - what was he doing with women? He wasted his "net worth". He turned around and walked away angrily.
"I don't have meat to eat, and I can't see others eating meat!" Suddenly, someone among the group of women behind him cursed softly.
The voice sounded probably that of Duo Duo Niang. Shen Kaibao was so angry that his muscles swelled up. But he couldn't get angry - he was already in his fifties, and if his quarrel with a woman spread, it would be a joke to the villagers.
I was very angry and returned home. The women and children at home were all pasting "silkworm paper" on the eaves of the corridor. His wife and Daqing's wife were very skillful in their craftsmanship. They pasted the newly bought "Cantonese paper" very flat. Shen Kaibao was somewhat relieved - he had always been afraid that the Cantonese paper he bought cheaply would not be suitable for use and would cause a joke.
Paste the "Silkworm Trap" top-grade font and then paste it with three small pieces of floral paper - they were bought together: one is printed with the color "Cornucano", and the other two are printed with sharp corners. The person holding the flag is riding on a horse and is said to be the "Prince of Silkworm Flowers".
After the paste is good, the "silkworm basket" is left to dry in the sun. This has been an old rule for many years - you can never go wrong if you follow the old rules. Shen Kaibao thought. Daqing's daughter-in-law clapped her hands on the skirt, explain:
"Dad! There is no rice at home, even the barley flour is almost gone..."
"Where is the rice distributed by the Famine Relief Bureau?"
"We only gave a total of thirty kilograms of rice, and the smaller half of it is gray sand and chaff. How many days can the whole family eat?"
Shen Kaibao couldn't think of a way. There was rice on the street, and there was no gray sand or chaff, but the price of three qian per bucket was beyond their reach. It was important to keep the few money they had at home. I buy mulberry leaves when I go to school.
At this time in previous years, I would borrow some from the village, my daughter-in-law in Daqing would go to her parents' house to borrow some, and then go to a familiar shop on the street to get some on credit. I could somehow get by this month, and as long as the spring silkworms appeared on the scene, I would be able to survive.
But last year's drought left every household destitute, and there was nowhere to ask for a loan. Even the familiar shops on the street refused to take credit - they had suffered too many debts after the famine, so they could continue to open their doors. If you are so lucky, how can you dare to lend money on credit?
Going to Mr. Cao's house to borrow money would certainly be a gain. But the debt that was already weighing him down would increase again. Shen Kaibao felt flustered when he thought of the little land in his house that had been taken away.
"I don't have rice to cook with, so I have rice?" Father Shen said angrily. He and his wife had already been unhappy about whether to go to Wang Si's parents' house to do odd jobs.
Originally, Daqing's daughter-in-law wanted Shen Kaibao to use her relationship with the doorman brother to introduce her to Mr. Shen's house to work. There were many women who wanted to work in Mr. Shen's house. Daqing's daughter-in-law was too late to think about it and couldn't afford it. I had no choice but to ask my father-in-law to come forward and show off his old face.
Unexpectedly, Shen Kaibao was displeased with Wang Siniang, and felt that it would be embarrassing to ask Shen Da for help, so he was unwilling to open the door. The two often argued over this matter.
"I have long said that this year is no better than in previous years, so everyone can only tighten their belts and be more frugal-"
"The porridge you cook is like a mirror, how can you save money? The adults can hold on, but can the little one hold on?" Daqing's sister-in-law replied angrily, "I only know that there is rice to cook rice, but there is no rice. Hungry!" She added at the end, "You can't eat your face!"
Shen Kaibao's face turned purple with anger. The two of them never said a word again.
The period of "harvesting silkworms" is approaching day by day. Preparations for raising silkworms in the village are becoming more and more tense. But the dilemma of not having rice to cook makes everyone feel very uncomfortable. The difficulties encountered by Shen Kaibao's family, the village Almost every family is like this. At this time, Wang Siniang came out and said that she could lend money to everyone to tide over the difficulties.
The loan is rice, and the account is recorded according to the market price of three qian per dou. When repaying the money, you only need to convert the cocoons into silver according to the market price.
"This is the 'good deed' of the slave's master, Mr. Zhao," Wang Siniang said to a group of villagers who came after hearing the news. "The interest is only one cent. You can pay it back when the silkworm cocoon is formed!"
It takes about a little more than a month to raise silkworms, which means that the monthly interest is less than one cent. This is a good deed when the market price outside is generally more than three cents.
What's more important is that the debt can be repaid with silkworm cocoons - if you want to pay back cash, you will inevitably have to be exploited by the silk cocoon trade. Directly returning the silkworm cocoons also saves the labor of reeling the silk yourself.
The conditions were too generous to be true. However, Shen Da and Wang Siniang both swore to it and expressed their willingness to put down the conditions in black and white.
The villagers hesitated for a few days, and finally couldn't bear the hunger anymore, so they all wrote receipts to borrow rice from the Shen family. Not only people from their own village came to borrow rice, but even neighboring villages, after hearing the news, also asked people to borrow rice. It's like a bustling city.
The loan procedure is very convenient. For those in the same village, neither a middleman nor a guarantor is needed, while for those from other villages, a villager from the same village must be a guarantor. The documents are all in a printed format, and the ghostwriter uses a sharp iron The number is filled in with the bamboo pen at the end of the pen, and the borrower is asked to fingerprint it in duplicate, with each party holding one copy.
After the receipt is established, the ghostwriter will directly distribute the rice chips according to the number, and the villagers will go to the rice shop in the town to collect the rice. It is convenient for everyone.
Shen Kaibao originally refused to borrow it. He thought he had to be tough no matter what, but his stomach couldn't be fooled after all. When Ah Qing's wife angrily pushed several children in front of Shen Kaibao, she saw Seeing that these children were already ashamed, he finally gave in.
Smoke rises from the chimneys of every household, and the long-lost aroma of rice emerges. The villagers have smiles on their faces again, food in their stomachs, and work harder. Now their only hope is that all temporary loans will be repaid by Spring Silkworms. It means that it will be repaid in this "spring silkworm harvest".
The "Grain Rain" Festival is approaching day by day. The "cloths" of the villagers are all showing a faint green color. Here, silkworms are raised at home every year. Only those who are unlucky and have not raised silkworms that year will buy them from outside.
Silkworm seeds.
If you keep your own seeds in this way, the silkworm seeds will be seriously degraded and often infected with viruses. Therefore, silkworm breeding at that time was almost entirely based on luck. It is not surprising that the silkworm flowers are good and bad.