Break out of the courtyard

January 1963, 1, New Year's Eve.

Capital, the courtyard at No. 95 Nanluogu Lane, Zhang's house in the front yard.

Early in the morning, a teacher and a group of young pioneers came to post Spring Festival couplets and hang glory lanterns on the Zhang family!

The mother, Ma Xiuzhen, carried a bowl of candy and peanuts, grabbed a handful for the teacher and the children, and happily sent the child out of the hospital.

Zhang Heping was wearing a thin green military uniform, a thin cotton-padded jacket with velvet lining, and black snow boots. He took his dog Laifu outside for a morning run. When he came back, he saw Yan Bugui at the long bamboo table in front of his house, helping the courtyard. People write Spring Festival couplets.

When Zhang Heping saw the door of his room, he was stunned for a moment. Who wrote these Spring Festival couplets?

Hengpi: Home of Glory.

Only bravery and fearlessness.

In order to safeguard peace.

What’s more, the street lamp at the door of the east wing has a big red five-pointed star lampshade.

After Zhang Heping asked his mother at the stove, he found out that it was given to military families by a group of young pioneers, and it was the only one in the courtyard!

Zhang Heping stamped his feet at the door, opened the door to the east wing, pushed open a windproof and warm quilt hanging in the door frame, quickly got into the room, and found that a customer had already come to inspect the custom-made clothes.

The clothing business at my cousin's sewing stall only started to boom after this year's cloth coupons were distributed on January 1.

From January 1rd to 3th, my eldest cousin Ma Lili received 24 sets of new clothes orders, 33 of which were ordered by the Zhou family of the Zhongyuan. The couple and their three children each have one set, which makes people lament the welfare of the textile factory. There are so many cloth tickets.

You know, the Zhang family has 5+1 urban residences. The total amount of cloth stamps this year is only feet, which is more than enough to make one set of clothes, but two sets are not enough.

However, Chen Liqin, the Zhou family's daughter-in-law, was still easy to get along with. She helped Zhang Jiatao exchange a lot of cloth stamps, while the Zhang family only gave out some food stamps.

However, there are many shoe tickets this year, two per person, 1 in total, so you can save some for thin leather shoes in the spring and sandals in the summer.

After Zhang Heping asked about the progress of the garment making, he ignored them.

The new clothes order has been completed and is just waiting for the customer to pick it up today.

What they are doing now is just some simple sewing, which can be done at noon.

For this batch of new clothes orders, the eldest cousin Ma Lili did not even return to her hometown of Majiatun.

Grandpa Ma Changming and the others were very relieved. Ma Lili had no worries about food and clothing at her second aunt's house. In the winter, she made clothes in the house with a burned kang, and she was raised as a daughter-in-law.

Glancing at Master Zhang, who was busy making tactical boots at the coffee table in the living room, Zhang Heping turned on the radio, took a plate of melon seeds and went out. He sat on an armchair next to the small coffee table under the window and ate melon seeds leisurely.

A group of little kids who had run out of firecrackers ran up to Zhang Heping and looked at it eagerly, almost asking: Is it delicious?

Zhang Heping gave each of them a handful of melon seeds. After sending them away, his mother, Ma Xiuzhen, asked someone to serve dumplings.

Zhang Heping stood up, knocked on the window, and signaled the two sisters behind the window who were working on sewing machines to come out. He ran outside the door and called back Xie Ermei, the red-sleeved grandmother who was not afraid of the cold.

Zhang's dumplings are hand-rolled and filled with wild boar and cabbage fillings.

After making the dumplings yesterday, her mother, Ma Xiuzhen, packed them in two white cloth flour bags and left them outside the door to freeze for a while.

After that, she scattered the frozen dumplings in the cloth bag and hung them in the right room without the fire bed, where they lived next to the remaining pieces of bacon, dried rabbit, air-dried chicken, and smoked fish.

While everyone was eating dumplings in the house, Zhang Heping reminded his mother, Ma Xiuzhen, to take her eldest cousin Ma Lili to call the commune in her hometown. This was agreed with her grandfather Ma Changming at the beginning of the month, and she would call her uncle and the others back at 10 o'clock this morning.

After breakfast, Zhang Heping took his dog Laifu, who was not afraid of the cold, for a walk around Houhai and stared at a few unused ice caves for a while.

After that, Zhang Heping wandered to Beihai.

There is a shoemaker on the roadside who changes "skates" on the spot. Give him the cotton shoes on his feet. He will use a few large-headed short iron nails to nail a short wooden strip to the cotton sole, and he can go skating on the ice.

There are also homemade wooden skate racks made of wooden boards and wooden slats. The wooden boards fit the feet and are directly tied to the shoes.

The better ones are sold in street shops, with leather shoes, iron soles, and steel skates, and you need a shoe ticket.

Zhang Heping is interested in a skate rack made of thin iron sheets and steel skates. The rope is passed through the rope holes in the thin iron sheets and can be tied to the uppers. It can adapt to more shoe sizes.

The key is, you can buy it with industrial coupons.

In the afternoon, Zhang Heping took his three sisters to Beihai and spent 3 yuan and 2 industrial coupons to buy 8 pairs of steel skate racks.

After the four siblings tied up the skate racks on the edge of the ice, they started to learn how to do it.

The one who learned the fastest was naturally Zhang Heping.

The four siblings played until it got dark, then went home to take a bath in a bath bucket, changed their underwear, and kept the new clothes until tomorrow morning.

Front yard, Zhang family’s New Year’s Eve dinner:

Bacon slices, shredded rabbit, air-dried chicken pieces, smoked fish pieces, steamed eggs, fried cabbage with bacon, stewed wild boar and cabbage vermicelli, vinegar cabbage, spicy and sour potato shreds, radish bone soup.

Seeing the various dishes being put on the table, her mother Ma Xiuzhen tilted her head and wiped her tears. Grandma Xie Ermei seemed to be thinking of last year's mushy New Year's Eve dinner, and looked a little sentimental.

"Here come the steamed buns and steamed dumplings!" Zhang Heping used his elbow to push the warm quilt hanging on the door. After getting into the house, he said dissatisfiedly: "Are you eating on the sly? You don't even help me serve the food. There is still food on the stove. There is a basin of steamed buns, who can bring it in?"

"I……"

"I go!"

The eldest sister Zhang Zhaodi and the second sister Zhang Pandi spoke up at the same time, but they were overtaken by the silent eldest cousin Ma Lili.

"Take out the Arctic Ocean soda that I have treasured for many days!"

Zhang Heping took out 12 bottles of soda from the gift cabinet on the north wall, and then took out a bottle of Maotai and put it in front of Lao Zhang. He said to Zhang Cuishan: "Cousin, sit next to my dad and have a drink with him."

After the second sister Zhang Pandi got the soda bottle, she wanted to bite open the bottle cap with her teeth.

"Second sister, your rude way of opening bottles makes me worried about whether you can get married!" Zhang Heping easily pried open the bottle cap with two chopsticks and handed the soda bottle to his grandma.

Zhang Pandi snorted and imitated Zhang Heping, pressing her chopsticks on the bottle cap one after another.

As a result, Zhang Heping opened 6 bottles of soda, but she didn't open even one.

"Cough cough..."

"When the family is about to give an important speech, everyone applauds!" The second sister, Zhang Pandi, clapped funny in retaliation for Zhang Heping's taunting just now.

Zhang Heping raised the soda bottle and said with a smile: "I wish everyone good health and all the best in the new year!"

"cheers!"

When a family closes the door and happily eats the New Year's Eve dinner, the joy, anger, sorrow, warmth, hunger, and cold of outsiders have nothing to do with them.

……

The west wing of the front yard, the Yan family.

Yan Jiecheng asked dissatisfiedly: "Dad! Are you giving us dumplings stuffed with cabbage during the Chinese New Year? Don't we have two fish and a rabbit at home?"

"What do you know? If you don't have enough food, you don't have enough clothes. If you don't calculate it, you will be poor!" Yan Bugui took a sip of wine, picked up a peanut and put it in his mouth, and said:

"I keep fish and rabbits to deal with the guests who come to my door. If I eat them today, what will happen if guests come to visit me in the future to pay New Year greetings and give gifts? What gifts will I give in return?"

"Come on! If you don't have enough to eat these days, who will give you gifts?" Yan Jiecheng muttered and immersed himself in eating dumplings.

Yan Bugui did not argue that those fish and rabbits were given to him by Zhang Heping, but he was thinking about who to give gifts with fish and rabbits, so that he could arrange a job for Yan Jiecheng.

……

The west wing of the middle courtyard is the Zhou family.

"Mom, didn't you agree to save the dried rabbit until my dad comes back? Why did you make it tonight?" Zhou Chengwen, the eldest son of the Zhou family, said to his mother with some dissatisfaction.

Chen Liqin patiently explained: "A telegram came in the afternoon. Your father said that he can't come back this year."

"How could my dad do this? He hasn't been home for three years!" Zhou Chengwen turned his dissatisfaction to his father.

Chen Liqin touched his eldest son's head and said with a smile: "He cannot go home because of national construction. We should understand him and support him!"

The third sister of the Zhou family, Zhou Chengchen, looked at her mother, Chen Liqin, and asked hopefully: "Mom, can we go see dad? I've even forgotten what he looks like."

"Third sister, be good! Mom will send a telegram tomorrow to ask dad. If he can go, mom will ask for leave to take you there, okay?"

……

The main room in the middle courtyard is the He family.

Qin Huairu praised while eating: "Zhuzhu's cooking must be the best in this courtyard!"

"Nonsense!" Banggan said dissatisfiedly, holding a half-eaten bun, "Zhang San's is the most delicious!"

"Hey! You little brat." Silly Zhu put down his wine glass, pointed at the stick and said loudly: "Now go ask Zhang San for food and see if his cooking is delicious."

"Zhuzi!" Qin Huairu hugged the stick and cried, "Are you even going to bully us orphans and widowed mothers?"

"Silly Zhu, Bangge is still a child, how can you compete with him?" Yi Zhonghai helped, "That brat from the Zhang family has never learned cooking, how can he do as well as you?"

BangGeng quit, "Yan Jiefang and the others said that Zhang San's cooking is the most delicious!"

……

The east wing of the backyard is the Liu family's house.

"Liu Haizhong! If Guang Qi doesn't come back, go beat him! Why are you beating the second and third children? If you beat them away too, who will support us in our old age!"

After being contradicted by his mother-in-law, Liu Haizhong not only did not wake up, but intensified his actions. He swiped the belt in his hand directly towards his mother-in-law...