Three Kingdoms.

  Chapter 2170 Water and Oil

   There are many people in Chang'an.

   The more people eat, the more they use. The daily consumption is astonishing.

  After entering the winter, one item of supplies is consumed more.

  That is coal, coal is mostly used by the poor, and charcoal is mostly used by the rich.

Wang Sanlang is still very satisfied with his own life now, although since the day he was born, it seems that he has not gotten too good things, and any thing he wants must go through a lot of painful tempering before he can get it. Obtained, of course, sometimes even after hard work, you still can't get anything.

  Then Wang Sanlang understood one thing very early on. People are different. For himself, he should not have too high expectations for life...

  Poor people, if they have too high expectations for their own lives, it may not be a good thing.

  Now Wang Sanlang just hopes to carry coal two more times, and then exchange some money for his baby.

  By the way, Wang Sanlang is only sixteen years old this year.

A sixteen-year-old father is not uncommon in a big man. It is not empty words for a poor child to head a family early. If a poor man does not marry and have children at this age, then his child may lose his father before he grows up. .

  The average age of a big man is around forty.

   This is still raised by some gentry children, just like the average income of later generations. Those who are holding back the average income of society, please go aside and play with mud...

  If only the 80% is calculated, I believe it will be an even more terrifying number.

  In the early morning, the sky was gloomy. Although the snow had stopped, the weather was still not very good. Wang Sanlang was very worried. He was very worried about whether his children could survive the weather smoothly.

  The death rate of Dahan babies is about 30 to 40%.

  Many young children can't even open their eyes seriously, take a look, touch the world, and die.

  Wang Sanlang hopes that his child will survive and not be like his elder brother...

   Carrying coal is not an easy task.

  Most of the time, physical labor is not an easy and happy thing.

  The coal is very heavy, and because he was reluctant to use the sackcloth strap, hemp rope was used. At the beginning, both shoulders would be blistered, and then they would be torn, and another layer would be worn out, until thick calluses formed and deep grooves formed, and then it would get better. There are two hemp ropes on the shoulders, and a wider belt on the forehead. This has the advantage of being able to use the strength of the whole body more effectively when bending forward.

There is also a T-shaped wooden stick under the coal basket, which is used to push the bottom of the coal basket. Its function is not to let these coal bearers relax completely, but because these coal bearers are afraid that when they are tired and weak, they will not be careful and keep calm. Keeping the balance makes the coal basket tilt, and the coal falls out, making today's work all in vain...

  Experienced coal bearers walk a fixed distance and route every day. Because every stone and every pothole on that road is familiar, and there is no chance of tripping and tripping, and then, like worker ants, silently carrying coal baskets, back and forth on a fixed route, even When I met a familiar coal-carrying companion, I seldom talked, let alone spent time chatting. At most, I just touched each other's eyes, as if encouraging each other.

  Since General Hussars replaced charcoal with coal, Chang'an has changed from a large user of charcoal to a large user of coal. Of course, the 20% of the people still use charcoal, even silver charcoal. Ordinary charcoal is not bothered to use it, but most of the people in Chang'an like coal. Coal is more beautiful and more beautiful. , can burn longer than charcoal, and is more practical...

   Well, in fact, none of the above may be correct. The fundamental reason why coal is more popular than charcoal is that coal is cheaper.

Charcoal needs to be cut down, dried in the shade, and then burned into charcoal. Not to mention time-consuming and laborious, the output is also small, and not much can be burned in one kiln. Coal is relatively better. In addition, it can be mixed with loess to make honeycomb briquettes. Much cheaper than ordinary charcoal.

  Hussars have an order that charcoal and coal markets are not allowed in Chang'an City, so the people in Chang'an City and surrounding Lingyi want to use charcoal and coal, or they can only use vehicles or carry them on their backs.

  The vehicle capacity is large, but the cost is also high.

Animals are also afraid of the cold in winter, and they have to eat a lot. Fodder money is also consumed, and people are much cheaper, and they don’t need special care. In the surrounding villages, there are many people who come out to find some work during the winter slack. Give some Scattered money and items are also sent away, saving worry, effort and money.

   What's more, this job is seasonal, and three melons and two dates can't support people. It's only suitable for farmers like Wang Sanlang who work hard to subsidize some households...

   Carry a basket of coal, get a piece of wooden chips, and then carry it to the ground, and stamp the wooden chips. At the end of the day, a few wooden chips are several rewards, simple and easy to recognize.

  There are two types of briquettes in Chang'an, government-run and private.

The official camps are naturally set up by the Huang's workshop under the hussars, and the rewards will be more, and because the wife of the general hussars is kind, so if the weather is bad such as snow and strong winds, it will end in one day At that time, in addition to the original remuneration, everyone might be given a small piece of multigrain pancake...

  There will be normal weather, occasionally.

   Today, it should be gone...

   It was just cloudy, neither rain nor snow, and the wind was not strong.

Wang Sanlang sighed, although he said that bad weather such as rain and snow would make it harder to carry coal, but the multi-grain pancakes that are **** long and three fingers long, boiled in some water, added some wheat bran, It's another meal...

For the private ones, the remuneration is average. In the beginning, because there was less coal in the basket, the remuneration was deducted for various reasons, so most people would choose to recite it for the government-run ones, and later the private ones The coal shop couldn't bear it, so they raised the salary, but still few people would go.

  Because the pole of the hussars battalion is over there...

  In the coal shop of Hushi Workshop, the steward in charge of exchanging wooden chips was a **** who lost half of his leg. His left calf was gone, and he replaced it with a piece of wood. It is said that the steward was a soldier of the hussars before. He lost his leg on the battlefield, and survived. Because he lost half of his leg, it was inconvenient to ride a horse, and he couldn't be used as an inspection. Little stewards who need to run.

  『Hey, it’s ok, I recited it six times today? The coal shop steward took Wang Sanlang's wooden chip and praised, "Young man has some strength!" What to replace? Money or things? 』

  『Change beams! All for sorghum! ’ Wang Sanlang said loudly, this is also the choice of most coal bearers. First prepare enough food for the winter at home, and then it is possible to think about other things.

  The reason why sorghum is replaced instead of other grains is because sorghum is the cheapest and the most exchanged.

In ancient times when there was no high-quality chemical fertilizer, the yield of sorghum could be twice that of wheat, and sorghum didn’t pick the fields very much, it could be grown in good or bad ways, and it could be planted in eaves, corners and courtyards, and the harvest was more or less, but the problem is There is tannin in sorghum, which is the kind contained in many fruits before they are ripe, such as green persimmons.

  So the taste is naturally conceivable.

   Coupled with the fact that sweet sorghum came out before, the price of sorghum, which was originally bad in taste, dropped even more.

  But people like Wang Sanlang are not afraid that the sorghum is unpalatable, what they are afraid of is that they will not eat it.

  Carrying a small half bag of sorghum, Wang Sanlang felt that his fatigue seemed to be much less. With the addition of this small half bag, there will be at least three more days of chewing at home, and then I will carry it for another ten or twenty days, maybe I can change some cloth heads or something...

   Carefully protecting half a bag of sorghum with his arms, Wang Sanlang and several people from the same village were preparing to go back.

  Although it is said that Chang'an Mausoleum is generally calm these days, some bad rumors are still spreading. It is said that there are even riots in some places in Zuo Fengyi, robbing food, killing people, and burning shops, which is very scary. Then I heard that some people died in Chang'an Mausoleum...

  But Wang Sanlang feels far away from these rumors. Where is Zuo Fengyi? He didn't know that even he rarely entered the rice shop, because he couldn't afford the high-priced grain in the rice shop. Everything in the rumors seemed to have a certain distance from Wang Sanlang, and the happiness that was closest to him , is the small half bag of sorghum in his arms.

  Turning the corner of the street, I saw a group of people standing on the cross street from a distance, almost blocking the intersection, talking about something, gesticulating and spitting...

  Wang Sanlang and the others were in a daze for a moment, and then subconsciously prepared to take a detour to avoid it, but saw a team of inspectors coming, and dispersed some of the crowd blocking the intersection to make way for them.

  Wang Sanlang found out that it was just a new notice posted, which sparked discussions, not gathering crowds to make trouble...

  When the inspector saw Wang Sanlang and others, he waved his hand to signal them to pass, don't stand in the way.

  With the presence of the patrol inspector, Wang Sanlang and others naturally became more courageous, and crossing the cross street is also the most direct shortcut. If you want to detour out of the city, you have to walk a long way, so they lowered their heads and hurried past...

A group of gentry children discussing announcements on the cross streets did not pay attention to Wang Sanlang and others at all, as if they were at the same time and the same place at this moment, but the ones in brocade robes and the ones in sackcloth, the clean and the full The marl, like the distant cape and the end of the world, are two different worlds.

  Like water and oil, even if they are temporarily mixed together, they will gradually separate.

  …(··;)(··;)…

  In Chang'an, the waves created by the cross streets gradually spread.

   Those who are still in the officialdom, or the sons of the gentry around Chang'an, can feel it more or less quickly, but there are some "hermits", there is no way to say that the news is so convenient, and they can quickly detect it.

  In the Han Dynasty, there has always been a habit of admiring hermits.

  Retirement and hermit should be a kind of individual behavior that pursues freedom, and it is also a special social phenomenon in Chinese history.

  In the Han Dynasty, the phenomenon of seclusion at every turn was very serious.

  There were many Tang Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty was much better, because there was Zhu Yuanzhang...

  Old Zhu classmate loves to turn his face, so the Ming Dynasty hermit is also a high risk...

Among the twenty-four histories, in the Han Dynasty there was a special book "Book of the Later Han·Yi Min Biography" written for hermits. , is enough to explain the attitude of the whole society towards hermits at this point in time.

  Perhaps it was because of the official recognition of hermits, or the admiration of the social atmosphere at that time, not only in the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty", but also in the "Book of Han" there are a large number of biographies about hermits.

  The theoretical basis of the hermit is probably because someone once said such a sentence, "A gentleman is like a gentleman, and you can be an official if the state has the way, and if the state has no way, you can remember it." 』

  But this person has said too many things, he has basically been talking all his life, so sometimes each word has its own meaning, and even he himself may not remember all of them...

  So in the Han Dynasty, especially during the Wang Mang period, "...the scholar's implication of righteous indignation was so great that it was time to break the crown and destroy the crown, and there were countless people who carried it away..."

  These hermits, most of them are scholars, it can be said that basically they all have a certain cultural quality, and in some cases they are even Confucian masters. Because the most classic sentence of Confucianism is "learning and excellence will lead to an official", and then when it is difficult to "benefit the world", you can honorably flick your sleeves, and then express "be kind to yourself" and hide in the mountains and forests. "Do not stand under a dangerous wall".

  Especially among the officials, when they pick up a bowl to eat, they say it’s okay, and then something goes wrong, they immediately throw the bowl away and "retire" to the countryside...

   Of course, there are also some people who are naturally indifferent and have a diluted temperament. Just like many people in later generations are socially phobic, they feel uncomfortable when there are too many people, so they naturally choose to live in seclusion. These people had the ability to be officials but were not officials at the time, and they even rejected being officials. They can be regarded as the purer kind of hermits. state of seclusion.

There are actually not many such true hermits, and they are relatively rare in the entire history of China. Most of the "hermits" are just "living in the rivers and lakes, aiming at the high hall", and seeing some benefits, they are immediately It smells so good.

  Yin Mo is the one who is waiting for the arrival of "True Fragrance".

  『In the past, I held the sword in Guanzhong, and today, I swayed the bamboo forest. Cooking wine, accompanied by poetry and painting, retiring in seclusion, to support the old age...』

  Yin Mo smiled and held up the wine baron, and his words were heroic, a bit disillusioned. Of course, if Yin Mo didn't have a beautiful girl in his arms, he would look more like a hermit.

  Dayin, as Dongfang Shuo said, "Lu sinks into the vulgar, and hides from the world at the Golden Horse Gate." You can escape the whole body in the palace, why do you need to be in the mountains, under the wormwood? 』

  So Yin Mo didn't run to Zhong Nanshan at the moment, because he was afraid of bumping into Fei Qian, and Zhong Nanshan was near Lantian. So in the other courtyard beside the bamboo forest outside the Changling Mausoleum, drinking and singing...

   No matter which dynasty it is, the price of raising a beautiful woman is not low.

  But Yin Mo didn't care much about the cost. Isn't it just to spend money to make money? Don't take advantage of the fact that people are not old yet, but Microsoft is not yet Panasonic, and enjoy it. Do you still wait until you are older before crying to your children and grandchildren?

  Plus this is another courtyard of his own, so there is no need to be jealous, so Yin Mo is more open-minded. In the hall, he just wants to stick his big head and small head into Meiji.

  Mei Ji is also divided into grades. The more in line with the aesthetics of most people, the higher the price will be. Of course, there are also some special hobbyists who will choose some special people...

  In Chang'an, the cheapest ones are naturally some bearded women. These bearded women have rough hands and feet, are illiterate, and don't like to be clean, and they don't even like to take a bath. Most of these bearded women were treated as slaves or commodities, and were even sent to Chang'an by their tribal leaders to exchange some goods from the Han people.

  Most people have some spare cash in their pockets and can't help it, so most of them will choose such a bearded girl.

   Cheap and affordable.

   And Yin Mo naturally disdained to do such a thing, he chose domestication.

  The cost of raising a beautiful girl at home is high. Whether it is food and clothing, rouge, gouache, spices, silk and satin, money is like flowing water, and it goes out. Especially the type of beauty that Yin Mo is holding now is the most expensive. She can talk poetry, play ditties, and seduce people's souls. Her face is always as timid as a deer, and her eyes are wet. If you want to refuse and welcome, shy blushing is a common skill.

  Therefore, some people even specialize in this kind of business, raising…

  Mei Ji hugged Yin Mo's head, she didn't know whether she was pushing it out or pressing it into her arms, "Master, is this true resignation?" 』

  『Is this still fake? ”Yin Mo’s voice came out vaguely, and he didn’t know if he had something in his mouth, “I ate it... calm down...”

  Meiji Xuexue let out a cry of pain, then frowned slightly, and there seemed to be some different emotions in her expression, and the strength in her hands was naturally weaker.

  Yin Mo noticed it keenly, rolled his eyelids, sat up, slapped Meiji to the ground with a slap, "Little Lang Hoof, what are you thinking?" My lord, even if I quit my job, I can still support you! 』

  Yin Mo was a little annoyed.

  He resigned, of course not his original intention.

   It’s like geckos don’t want to dock their tails casually.

   Well, who wants to resign? Are you willing to let go of the power in your hands, from the superior to the one who is under the pressure?

   But it is impossible not to resign.

  Thinking of this, Yin Mo was filled with anger. Although on the surface it seems that the wind is light and the clouds are calm, and the authority is like dung, but in reality, the heart is like a knife...

  Meiji hurriedly kowtowed to intercede.

  Yin Mo looked at Meiji's smooth neck and the beautiful curve of her high pout, and suddenly an idea popped up in his heart. He had thought about it before, but he had always been reluctant, but now...

   It's better to enjoy yourself in time.

  Yin Mo laughed loudly, and then grabbed Meiji's hair, hearing Meiji's pain, the sadistic pleasure in his body gradually became high, and he pushed up his robe...

  At this moment, a servant's voice suddenly sounded outside the courtyard, "Master..."

"roll! 』Yin Mo roared towards the outside.

  Yin Mo didn't intend to stop, he was still twisting, pinching, slapping, biting, and then hearing Meiji's painful cry, he became more and more excited...

  『Master...Si Zhi is here...I want Master to go...』

  The servants outside the courtyard were obviously hesitant, but they still insisted on reporting.

  Meiji suddenly discovered that Yin Mo, who seemed to be fierce and fierce just a second ago, was not only stunned at this moment, but also shriveled like fallen leaves in winter...

  (end of this chapter)