The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 54: Rescue the Melon and Vegetable Immortal
October [-]th, Xiayuan Festival.

Although the drought is right in front of them, the citizens in Quanzhou Prefecture do not feel it too deeply.

At this time, due to the prosperous maritime trade, a large amount of wealth gathered in Quanzhou. Everyone thought that even if there were refugees in the countryside and the city was closed, Quanzhou would still be a world of enjoyment.

Xiyuan Day is the rice harvest season in the countryside. Even if famine is approaching, the farmers who have just harvested new rice still have some food to eat. Therefore, every rural household will grind the newly harvested rice into small dumplings, stuff them with vegetables, and carry them to the door. I hope that the damage caused by the upcoming famine can be smaller.

The city is even more lively.

The day of Xiayuan is the day to worship Shuiguan. The Heavenly Official will grant blessings, the Earthly Official will forgive sins, and the Shuiguan will relieve misfortunes. For businessmen, this day can eliminate the bad luck in business next year and make all their business go smoothly next year. , is an extremely important matter.

So that morning, we started at Xuanmiao Temple in the east of the city. All the Taoist temples in the city were contracted by merchants and landlords from all walks of life to serve as relief temples. Quanzhou merchants were extremely wealthy, and they all opened their doors to practice.

A little Taoist boy was carrying a large plate of hot rice dumplings and distributed them along the street. He walked up to Wang Wenlong and saw that he was dressed in Confucian scholar's clothes. He smiled and said: "Heshen Baoshou, sir, please take a dumpling to eat."

Seeing his enthusiasm, Wang Wenlong nodded and picked up a rice ball from his plate. He saw that the rice ball was extremely delicately made and as white as jade. It was obviously made of the finest polished rice. When he broke it open, the filling was filled with mushrooms and vegetables. Put a lot of sesame oil, and your mouth will be filled with fragrance after one sip.

He was standing on the road eating dumplings when he heard a voice from the distance: "Wenlong, please tell me to find it easy."

Wang Wenlong looked back and saw Deng Zhimo and Wang Jingui approaching with smiles, followed by several servants carrying luggage.

Wang Wenlong said: "We originally agreed to meet at the gate of Xuanmiao Temple, but there are too many people. I'm afraid you won't be able to find me, so I have to stand at the gate."

Looking down, the three of them were laughing, but two of them were holding uneaten rice dumplings in their hands. Even the servant of Deng Zhimo's family was holding four or five dumplings in his hands and eating them while walking.

The businessmen in Quanzhou Prefecture competed with each other and asked the Taoist priests to distribute rice dumplings all over the streets.

It is said that on this day, as long as a child in Quanzhou walks around the street with an empty bowl, he can pretend that the whole family has enough food for three days.

Wang Wenlong first saluted Wang Jingui: "Uncle, thank you for your hard work on the road."

Wang Jingui looked at Wang Wenlong in Confucian clothes in front of him with great emotion.

Wang Wenlong, who returned home in despair half a year ago, has become a supervisor and a staff member of the feudal lord's house in a blink of an eye. He is no longer the same as before.

Wang Jingui said: "I packed up and came here as soon as I received your letter. Thanks to Mr. Deng who hired a boat to take care of me, I didn't suffer at all on the way."

Deng Zhimo on the side added: "It's just that there are a lot of checkpoints along the way, which is really annoying."

Wang Jingui thought that Wang Wenlong had been Gao Yin's staff before, and was afraid that Deng Zhimo's words would offend others, so he looked at him.

Wang Wenlong smiled and said: "I have stopped working in Gao Yin's mansion, so it doesn't matter." Wang Jingui smiled reassuringly.

Today, the streets of Quanzhou Prefecture were crowded with people. It was faster to sit on the slide than to walk. Wang Wenlong simply walked and led a few people to a government-run carving workshop in Quanzhou Prefecture.

Entering the workshop, I saw many craftsmen already busy in the workshop.In the Ming Dynasty, the government would recruit people from a certain place to serve in the government every year according to the yellow armor list.

The skilled people among the common people will be led to work in government-run workshops, while ordinary people will be assigned various handyman jobs.

But nowadays, with the economic development in Quanzhou and other places, the people would rather pay the exemption money than put down their work to serve. Therefore, at this time, the servants in the yamen have become people hired by the yamen with the exemption money paid by the people.

Xu Xueju also assigned two servants to Wang Wenlong. When the three of them sat down, the servants came up and poured tea for them. Deng Zhimo asked Wang Wenlong, "Why did Jianyang ask us to come here from Masha?"

Wang Wenlong said: "The lord of the feudal lord has to print a batch of important things right now. Although there is an official engraving workshop in Quanzhou, it would be too late to rush the work with the rigid method. I made an idea to your lord and asked two of you to help. ."

As Wang Wenlong spoke, he took out a stack of manuscript paper from the table next to him, and Wang Jingui and Deng Zhimo took it.

Deng Zhimo saw that the manuscript paper was divided into two parts. One part was all about agriculture-related knowledge, roughly instructing methods of growing several crops. There were also large illustrations of plants next to them. There were various arrows on the drawings, accompanied by text, and the pictures were marked. It is clear that even people who cannot read will know at a glance that these are some methods of fertilizing and ridging.

Deng Zhimo put down the manuscript paper and read another article. He saw that the other part of the manuscript was a lot of incomprehensible scriptures. The first sentence "winding vines crawling among the ridges, green leaves hanging down to cover the sweet potatoes" seemed to describe some kind of crop. , but Deng Zhimo has never heard of what sweet potato is.

The same is true when looking at the following articles. The language is very straightforward and even vulgar, but the content is easy to understand.

These articles talk about how maritime merchants brought back all kinds of wonderful crops from overseas, as well as ways to replace vegetables and melons that could resist famine.

People in a certain place used this method to successfully survive the disaster years with the crops they brought back, so they built a temple to commemorate this method and worshiped the corresponding gods.

Behind a series of articles, there are pictures of various gods. The paintings are ordinary, and they are probably the work of some painter rushing to work. However, when he saw the names of those gods, Deng Zhimo felt confused:

One of the gods at the head is called the "Famine-Rescuing Vegetable and Vegetable Immortal". He carries a "Famine-Rescuing Vegetable and Vegetable Treasure Bag" on his body, flies in the clouds, and spreads various vegetables downwards.

The next group of gods are the "Sweet Potato God", "Pan Pu Po", "Peanut God", "Potato God" and so on. Each of the gods is decorated with obvious plant characteristics: either a hairpin with grass leaves, or a Holding a walking stick with fruits hanging on it, or wearing clothes with crop patterns.

As soon as you look at the names of these gods, you will know that they are wild gods worshiped by the people in the countryside, and they are not worthy of publicity at all.

Wang Jingui was illiterate, but Deng Zhimo cast a doubtful look at Wang Wenlong after roughly reading the manuscripts.

Wang Wenlong smiled and first explained the principle of melon and vegetable substitution. After they understood it, they both said it was wonderful.

Wang Wenlong continued: "Although the principle of melon and vegetable substitution is simple, it must be difficult for the people to accept it because they have never tried it. The best way is to make up stories to let the people know. Only by hearing about successful role models can people have hope in their hearts and practice it. power."

This was Wang Wenlong's last resort.

After it was decided to implement melon and vegetable substitution, Xu Xueju quickly encountered difficulties in promoting it.

The people were very unenthusiastic about the farming methods taught to them by the imperial court, and they all thought about taking the opportunity to escape. When they saw the imperial officials asking them to continue farming, they thought that the imperial government was afraid that their escape would affect the public order around them, so they deliberately tricked them into staying on the land.

(End of this chapter)