Late Tang

The mountain stone is a three-fold courtyard with walls and seaweed as the roof. There are three main rooms and three rooms in the east and west sides.There is no fortified house in the south, but a stone gate tower and a ten-foot-high rock wall.There is also a large wooden plaque hanging on the stone gate tower, with two powerful characters written: Li Fu.

However, the mottled and peeling paint on the wooden plaque made the two large characters lose their original color.The seagrass roofs of the nine rooms in Li's house also grew a lot of wormwood and swayed in the wind.Decades of wind and rain have passed, and this courtyard house reveals everywhere that the owner's family is in decline.

This is Li Jing's home, a three-in-one courtyard with rocks as walls and seaweed as the roof.The yard is huge, and the rooms are not small. There are many traces that show the prosperity of the Li family.This kind of seagrass house is a unique building along the coast of Shandong. Wangli Village is located on the coast of Shandong Peninsula. It is rainy and humid in summer and snowy and cold in winter. Under this special geographical location and climatic conditions, the residential houses are mainly considered to keep warm and avoid cold in winter. Avoid rain and sun in summer.As early as the Qin and Han Dynasties, some people built seaweed houses with thick stones for walls and thatched roofs made of dried seaweed based on the unique architectural experience accumulated in their long-term life.

Seaweed blooms in spring and withers in autumn. When it grows to a certain height, it will be rolled towards the shore in groups by the tide when encountering strong winds and waves.When people along the coast want to build houses, they will go to the beach to collect seaweed in advance.People salvage these seaweeds, dry them in the sun, and use them when building houses.Because the seaweed that grows in the sea contains a lot of brine and colloid, it is used to make a thick roof, which is not only insect-proof, mildew-proof, and not easy to burn, but also warm in winter and cool in summer, comfortable to live in, and durable for a hundred years. It is the most favorite building for the people along the coast.

The three-fold courtyard of Li Jing's family has a history of 50 years. It is said that more than 5 catties of seaweed were used when it was first built.Not to mention Wangli Village, even in the entire area of ​​more than ten miles, the courtyard house of the Li family is also one of the best houses.

Unfortunately, after only 50 years, the Li family has already begun to decline. The few hundred acres of land that the family bought in the early years are now only [-] acres of land and [-] acres of mulberry fields, barely enough for the family to make ends meet.When the Li family was in its best years, it owned [-] mu of fertile land and three cattle.

But now, the Li family can't even get the money to repair the house.

Li Jing and Wan'er walked into the hall of the main house one after the other, the sister-in-law had already prepared all the meals.

"Aniang, sister-in-law." Li Jing greeted the two elders.

Li Jing's mother, Han Shi, was just 50 years old. Her hair was already gray, but it was combed very neatly. She was pulled up in a bun with a wooden hairpin inserted obliquely on it.She was also wearing a coarse cloth skirt, although it hadn't been patched, it had been washed and turned white.

Li Jing learned from his memory that his mother, the Han family, was born as an offshoot of the Han family, a wealthy family in Qingzhou.In the early years, father Han and Li Jing's grandfather made a baby marriage. At that time, Li Jing's grandfather was an officer under Li Shidao, the envoy of Ziqingping and Lu Jiedu who ruled Shandong. This marriage.But before Li Jing's father was born, Li Shidao was attacked and wiped out by the court, and Li Jing's grandfather also died in the army.Li Jing's grandmother moved all the way to Wendeng County with her servants, and her marriage with the Han family was a mess.Unexpectedly, more than ten years later, the Han family took the initiative to come to the door and reconcile the marriage.

The Han family, it is said that the Han family studied with the young lady of the head of the Han family in the early years.She married into the Li family when she was under [-], and gave birth to three sons and five daughters to the Li family. None of them died young and they were all brought up.Li Jing's father abandoned martial arts and literature since he was a child, and he has been studying and learning since he got married. The family affairs are almost all done by the Han family.Especially after failing the imperial examination, he turned to be an official. He was away all year round, and his family was completely lost to the Han family.

Thirteen years ago, Li Jing's father passed away. At that time, the eldest son was only 13 years old, and the other two sons were only seven or eight years old. There were several two- and three-year-old daughters in front of him.At that time, Li Jing had several uncles from the same clan who came to persuade Han to remarry and wanted to take over the Li family's property, but Han firmly refused. Never mind having that thought again.

Han is kind-hearted, hardworking, and raised a group of children single-handedly. It can be said that she is the most traditional and most praiseworthy woman in this era.

"Are you feeling better, my son? If you feel uncomfortable anywhere, please ask the doctor to come and see." Han looked at the last son with a kind face, and sighed with relief in his heart. This son is different from the eldest and second son. However, although those two sons are filial and diligent, they can't read books with all their strength.But this youngest son is different. Not only is he sensible since he was a child, but he is also smart in reading. She has always believed that her son will definitely be a Jinshi when he takes the imperial examination in the future.If it wasn't for the fact that the imperial court had already abolished the scholar department, his son would be the most powerful scholar.

It's a pity that the Li family has suffered many disasters, and now the burden of the family is all on this child, but it has delayed his future.

There was a dim soybean oil lamp in the room, and the light was not very good. Li Jing vaguely saw that the corners of his mother's eyes were wet, and couldn't help saying: "Mother, my son is all right."

"That's good, that's good." Han patted his son's palm.

"Eldest sister-in-law, where is second sister-in-law?"

The eldest sister-in-law arranged meals for the whole family, and said, "Your second sister-in-law is chanting scriptures for your second brother in the house, hey."

The second brother's July 16 has just passed, and the second sister-in-law is still in mourning.Li Jing sighed inwardly, the second elder brother was only one year older than him, and died within half a year after marrying his second sister-in-law, Wang Shi, which made the second sister-in-law miserable.He has also met the second sister-in-law a few times, she is only [-] years old, and she is still a frail girl.Now, she is a widow.

Li Jing turned to look at the elder sister-in-law again, the elder sister-in-law and the second sister-in-law were similar, and the eldest brother went there just half a year after passing the door.My sister-in-law has been a widow for four years, and she is only 21 years old now.What made him sigh even more was that neither of the two widowed sisters-in-law had a son or a daughter. They would be widowed at a young age, without even a son or daughter to rely on. What a tragic fate.

"Sister-in-law, if there is a suitable one, you can choose a good one to marry!" Li Jing couldn't imagine that such a young woman would be a widow for the rest of her life, so she couldn't help saying.

As soon as his words came out of his mouth, needles could be heard in the room.

The fourth and fifth sisters just came out of the weaving room at home when they heard these shocking remarks. The fourth sister Wanjing hurriedly said: "Brother, what are you talking about? Why don't you apologize to my sister-in-law quickly. Uncle marrying a sister-in-law, you can't say that." You can tell, thanks to the fact that you are still a person who has read the book."

The elder sister-in-law, Mrs. Zhang, bowed her head in tears and said nothing, and the whole family was silent for a while.

Li Jing opened his mouth: "Sister-in-law, I don't mean anything else, it's just that you are young, so it's not worth it to waste your life. You have no children, and now our family is in ruins. If you stay, there is nothing you can do except suffer. If you find a good family, you still have to spend most of your life."

The sister-in-law wiped her tears, raised her head and said, "Sister-in-law knows that my uncle is kind, but even though I am a peasant daughter, I also know what chastity is. What my sister-in-law admires most in her life is her mother-in-law, who raises all uncles and aunts by herself. Uncle In the future, don't say such things again, my sister-in-law is born as a member of the Li family, and dies as a ghost of the Li family, and she will never marry again in this life."

Sitting there, Mrs. Han hesitated to speak, but finally said nothing.

"Let's eat. Tonight I cooked Chinese cabbage and put two eggs in it. Eat quickly, it won't taste good if it gets cold." The sister-in-law forced a smile.

Everyone stopped talking, Li's family was strict in education, and it was the rule not to talk when eating or sleeping.The Li family eats in separate seats, with two dishes and one bowl of rice in front of each person.One of the two dishes is boiled eggs with Chinese cabbage, the other is strips of pickled vegetables, and the rice is corn porridge.Chinese cabbage is actually the cabbage of later generations, but the Chinese cabbage at this time is still somewhat different from that of later generations.Li Jing ate a few mouthfuls, the cooked wombat had no seasoning, only a little oil star seed and a little salt, bland and tasteless.The porridge is even made from chaff that is crushed together with millet and husks. Not only is there bran in the porridge, but it is also as watery as soup, with not many grains of rice in it.

He looked up in front of his mother, sister-in-law and sister-in-law, and found that the two eggs that the sister-in-law mentioned were all put in his dish, and compared to the porridge in his bowl, the women's bowl was thinner, almost like soup.

"What's the matter, Sanlang, is this porridge not enough for you?" Mrs. Han couldn't help asking when she saw Li Jing stop her chopsticks, and then turned to her sister-in-law Zhang and said, "Master, there are still two woven horses at home. cloth, take it back tomorrow for some rice noodles. Sanlang just happened to be seriously ill, and he can recover without some food."

"Hey, I see mother-in-law."

"Aniang, how much is a bucket of food now?" Li Jing asked.

"A bucket of rice costs 160 yuan, corn costs 180 yuan, and wheat costs [-] yuan. A few years ago, the bucket of rice was only [-] yuan, but now it has increased tenfold. How can it go on like this. Mother thought Ah, if the grain price continues to rise, we will take all the rice at home to Wendeng and replace it with sorghum, and we will add some bran and wild vegetables, and this year should be able to pass through.”

Hearing this, Li Jing's heart was extremely heavy. Seeing that the six or seven members of the family looked hungry and malnourished, they still wanted to let him eat the two eggs, and even gave him too much porridge. Serve dry.

My heart was blocked for a while, how could a big man make a family of women not even have enough to eat.Anyway, he is also a descendant, so he can't let a big family and women support him.It seems that the most urgent and most important thing is to solve the problem of food for the family.But, how to solve this food problem?

ps: I strongly beg for recommendation tickets!