North and South groceries

After this autumn, the needle workshop in Changle County began to distribute the work of grinding needles to various towns below.

The enthusiasm of the people in the villages and towns for grinding needles is even higher than what Luo Yong expected. In those days, the processing speed of the needle workshops could not keep up with the speed of grinding needles by them, which made the towns and villages under the jurisdiction of the villages and towns. When Muramasa came to deliver and pick up the goods, he often encountered the situation that there was no goods to pick up.

In recent days, after several punching machines were put into use in the needle workshop, the situation has been slightly alleviated.

Now they are making wire drawing machines again, saying they want to build [-] machines, but the needle workshop doesn't have enough money, so the government will lend them.

In addition to technical work such as frying iron and forging needles, the needle workshop also recruited a lot of young and strong people who did physical work, and some women who did sorting and packaging.

The sorting work is also done very carefully, and those with unqualified quality must be picked out. Finally, there are special stewards who are responsible for spot checks. dismissed.

The packaging is simpler. There are packs of five or ten. There are also trocars, that is, needles of various types and sizes are packed together one by one.

Wrap these needles with hemp paper, and there are words printed on the hemp paper. The three largest characters are "Heirloom", and there are two small characters "Needle Industry" next to it, and there is a line of small characters on the other side, which states that so-and-so How many needles are there for the model? If it is a trocar, write "trocar XX pieces".

Use this piece of hemp paper to wrap the needle, fold it neatly according to the prescribed folding method, stick some paste on the closed part, and then stick a cyan slender paper strip as wide as the little finger on the outside, wrapping it around the outside of the natural color hemp paper package , The place where the end and the end meet is also glued with paste, and there are also four words on the blue note: "North and South Groceries".

The needle workshop only arranges board and lodging for those skilled craftsmen. If the craftsmen do not eat and live in the needle workshop, they can get some food and silk as subsidies every month.

Others don’t get this kind of treatment. They go to the needle workshop from their own homes every morning to go to work, and then go back at night. Some people will bring some food by themselves at noon. If they don’t bring it, they will have to starve. Quick, basically everyone is paid on a piece-by-piece basis, and the more they work, the more they earn. From morning to night, they are not willing to stop for a moment.

Those young or elderly women pass by the cashmere workshop every day when they go to and from the needle workshop, looking at the high walls of the cashmere workshop, most of them are very envious.

They do such hard work in the needle workshop every day, the working environment is very dusty and noisy, but the little ladies in the cashmere workshop sit in a big clean room spinning and weaving clothes, sitting on the kang. The hundreds of little ladies who work here have no frostbite on their hands and feet, eat well and dress well, and they will be very popular when they learn the craft and marry in the future.

"I only hate that I was born a few years earlier." Apart from envy, there is also inevitably some sentimentality.

The little ladies in the cashmere workshop really caught up with the good times, so they all lived like flowers in the greenhouse, clean and delicate.The ones who didn't catch up with them are like the weeds on the wasteland, exposed to the wind and sun, they withered and turned yellow before they were green and tender for a few days.

However, working in this needlework workshop, as long as you have more dexterity in your hands and feet, you can still earn more than those little ladies who pick cashmere and spin wool in the cashmere workshop.

If you earn more, you will naturally have more status in the family than before.In the past, these women had no property and no ability to earn money. From their natal family to their husband's family, they had to watch the face of Weng Po's husband all day long. If the husband's family is a good family, life will be easier, if not, Day by day, it was really like boiling oil.

In fact, the little ladies in the cashmere workshop who are envied by these women are also working all day long.

The cashmere workshop also has some rules, if violated, it may be dismissed.There is also a statistics at the end of each month. There are requirements for the minimum amount of work each person needs to do every day.

Since getting those glass beads from Luo Yong last time, Luo Erniang has started to buy cashmere in large quantities. Previously, those little ladies were worried that the cashmere sweaters and trousers they produced here would not be sold. This cashmere workshop will close down sooner or later. Now there is no need to worry. .

The steward who went to Liangzhou City with those Hu merchants has also come back recently, saying that the matter has been settled, and also brought Luo Erniang the current operating conditions of the cashmere workshop in Liangzhou City, and the stewards. work report.

During this period, some Hu merchants also came to Luo Erniang to see the goods and place orders. Except for a few Gaochang merchants, most of them wanted to pick up the goods in Liangzhou City.

Some people were worried, and still asked Luo Erniang to arrange a steward to go with them. Luo Erniang said that her cashmere workshop can only arrange one steward to go out every month. One day, I went to Liangzhou City with the manager of their cashmere workshop.

This was the beginning. After everyone became familiar with the process and established trust, Luo Erniang no longer needed to let the stewards go back and forth between Changle County and Liangzhou City.

There are also some people who don't know how to worry about the character of the Luo family. They paid the money and took the glass beads and proof of receipt of the detailed order and left without worrying about the problem of picking up the goods.

Luo Erniang guessed that they might have come here for this glass bead. Although she was a little distressed, she felt relieved when she thought that she still had so many on hand. It is also good to maintain the operation of the cashmere workshop.

In this era of underdeveloped logistics, it takes a lot of capital to run a cashmere workshop like Luo Erniang and the others, especially this year when there is a war, not to mention the difficulty of selling goods, and the price of food in Xiali has soared, and there are so many cashmere workshops in their workshop. Workers have to feed.

In order to maintain the business, when Luo Yong was doing a big sale in the county, Er Niang and the others also sold a lot of cashmere sweaters at a low price. Even the cans she brought from Liangzhou City were sold to some locals. The wealthy households with sufficient food reserves returned in exchange for food. When they were the poorest, they really wanted to deduct the eucommia gum from the soles of their shoes in exchange for money.

Erniang didn't talk much about these things with Luo Yong. During that time, it was not easy for everyone, and Luo Yong also had a lot of things to worry about every day.

"I just came back, and I have to go out again in a few days. It's really hard for you." On this day, Luo Erniang said to the manager who just came back two days ago.

"What's the matter, you also know that I don't like to be restrained. It's more comfortable to run a horse outside than to sit and work in a workshop." The manager laughed.

This steward was from a military household, and she, Aye, was considered a humble official in the army. Although there were many unsatisfactory things in life, the life of their family was better than that of ordinary people.

When she was young, the world was still in chaos. She, Aye, taught the children in the family to ride horses early on, and she also learned a little bit of boxing, just to be able to have a skill to escape and protect herself at critical times.

Later, when the world was peaceful, she also got married, but she didn't get along with her in-law's family. After a year or two of quarreling, she reconciled and left, and went back to her mother's house to live, and was often gossiped.

Later, Luo Erniang opened a cashmere workshop in Liangzhou City, so she also went to work. She looked rough, but her work was very good. In addition, she was able to ride horses and martial arts, and she was very courageous. Mother often arranged for her to do some foreign affairs and promoted her to be a steward. This time she came to Changle County and brought her along.

Luo Erniang's subordinates each have their own stories. As a woman, born in such an era, there is no such thing as a perfect life. After all, each has her own unsatisfactory.

Like this steward who was born in a military household, a woman who has divorced, and she doesn't get along well with her natal brother and sister-in-law. Luo Erniang's cashmere workshop is her shelter.

If one day this cashmere workshop can't continue, maybe someone else will come to invite her. After all, she has craftsmanship, but what kind of situation will it be like?Whether she can still be respected by others and live as comfortably as she is now, who can guarantee it.

She really regards the cashmere workshop as her home, and she regards the cashmere workshop as her own business.

"I was in Liangzhou City, and I heard people talking about Li Daozong, Duke of Lueyang County, who returned home victorious this time. The sage has his own rewards, and the alcohol he brought back and the method of burning alcohol are even more talked about. road."

"I heard that even Sun Simiao, the genius doctor Sun Simiao who returned to the mountains and forests, went to Chang'an City after hearing about this incident. Previously, the sage ordered people to invite him several times, but he refused to come out of the mountain. This time he came out by himself." She told Luo Erniang everything she had seen and heard along the way, especially when it came to things related to the Luo family, she always paid more attention to it.

"I don't know what the saint means." Luo Erniang said.

"I don't know." The steward shook his head: "Everyone only said that the alcohol was rare, and they also said that the miracle doctor Sun went to Chang'an City, but no one mentioned the words of the saint."

"Then don't care about it." Luo Erniang said with a smile: "You and I just wait for the good news."

After all, it is not a bad thing to offer a prescription. Even if the saint is a verbal reward, it is still a reward. No, they can't be fined to go to the Luo family.

However, during this period of time, a major event happened in Chang'an City. Because of the long distance, Luo Yong and Luo Erniang were in Changle County, and they were unable to get news for a while.

It is said that since Luo Yong and Qiao Junlin went to Longxi, and Hou Lin also moved out after marriage, Si Niang and the others lived in the same small courtyard with A Zhi.

Now Mai Qing and Dou Li'er have grown into two good dogs who can guard the house, and the neighbors in the neighborhood also take good care of them, and they have a relationship like Xing Er's. Ordinary people dare not beat them at all. This family's idea, so this day is also An Ansheng, and nothing went wrong.

A while ago, that is, on the night of November [-]th, Si Niang slept until midnight, when she suddenly heard a dog barking in the courtyard, the sound sounded a bit wrong.

Regardless of the fear in her heart, Si Niang grabbed the two machetes by the bed and hid behind the door. Soon, someone opened the door on their side from the outside somehow, and when someone came in, the four of them Niang Hengdao wiped the man's neck!

Siniang knew that she was small and weak, if she got into a fight with someone, she would definitely not be able to please him, she had to take advantage of this person's defenselessness, and knock him down with a single blow.

In this dark night, a dark machete slashed across without a sound, cutting a deep gash on the man's neck, and the warm blood sprayed on Si Niang's head and face... …

Si Niang couldn't remember what happened afterwards.

When the neighbors on the left and right rushed over, Si Niang was sitting on the steps under the porch in a daze, wearing only a single dress, swinging it up and down.Ah Zhi took a robe from the house and put it on her, and wiped the blood on her face with a cloth towel.

Goro squatted in the yard, holding a bloody big dog in his arms, and another big dog lying on the ground whimpering and whining, Liu Lang Qiniang cried into a ball.

There was a dead man lying in the yard of their house, and another in the house.

The wide-eyed death looks especially terrifying on this cold winter night under the flickering firelight.

Before dawn, officials from the Chang'an County Government came and took Luo Siniang away overnight.

Azhi entrusted Goro and the others to his neighbors, and hurried to the Bai Mansion by himself. In the middle of the night, he slammed on the gate of the Bai Mansion, begging the servants who were guarding the gate, and begged them to wake up the sleeping adults of the Bai family. How can the public prison be so easy to treat, Si Niang is just a teenage girl, and she doesn't know how to survive the night in such a place.

Not long after, Bai Dalang and Bai Erlang got up. When Bai Yimao heard that Siniang was in prison, he ran out in a panic and said he wanted to see her, but his father forced him to lock him up at home and not let him stay in the prison. Add chaos at this time.

"You can stay here until dawn. The curfew is over now, so you don't want to go out again." Second Uncle Bai told Azhi before going out.

It was still midnight at this time, and the doors of all the workshops were locked. A Zhi ran all the way from Feng'an Square, needless to say, he must have climbed over the wall of the workshop.

Second Uncle Bai said that, and went out with a servant, who held a quilt in his arms, and the two walked along the street with a lantern, not daring to ride a horse to drive a cart.

Seeing them, Zhi Jinwu, who was watching the night, asked who was in front of him and why he committed the night. Uncle Bai said that a teenage girl from an old friend's house was arrested and imprisoned by the Chang'an government in the middle of the night. The bed quilt, the Jinwu executives have also heard about the murder case of the Luo family at this time, and someone recognized the person in front of him as Erlang of the Bai family, so they let them go.

On the Baifu side, Bai Weng and Bai Dalang are asking Azhi what happened.

A Zhi forcibly suppressed the uneasiness in his heart, and told them everything he knew in detail.Luo Yong is not in Chang'an City at this time, and Hou Lin's official position is so low that he may not be able to take care of such a big matter. Fortunately, the Bai family is very concerned about this matter and has no intention of staying out of it.

On the other side, Second Uncle Bai and the others soon arrived at the Chang'an County Government Office. With such a murder case, many officials in the County Government Office did not even want to sleep that night.

Second Uncle Bai went to visit Siniang in the prison first, and seeing that she was locked in a cell alone, he felt relieved, and ordered the guards to open the cell door with money, sent quilts in, and went in again. Tell her not to worry, in his opinion, this murder case is judged as "manslaughter" at most, and she can be redeemed with some copper coins.

After coming out of that prison, Second Uncle Bai went to the yamen to talk to those familiar officials, asking them if they already knew the identity of the deceased, why he died, how could Luo Siniang kill those two strong men at such a young age, Was someone maliciously framed?

"Hey, how could this be framed? You didn't see the death of those two people. There was a gash on one of their necks, which was deep and accurate, and the blood was almost drained..."

The official also knew that the Bai family and the Luo family had a very close personal relationship, but to say that the two thieves were not killed by the fourth wife of the Luo family tonight, but were planted by others, I am afraid that this matter cannot be justified anyway.

"Can you let me go and have a look at those two corpses?" Second Uncle Luo asked.

"..." The man glanced at Second Uncle Bai, and promised, "Follow me."

After seeing the two corpses, Second Uncle Bai also knew that what this person said just now was not biased. According to this situation, Luo Siniang should have killed these two people.

"But have you found out the identities of these two people?" Second Uncle Bai asked again.

"No." The murder has just happened, and it will take some time to find out the identities of the two thieves: "However, judging from the situation at the time, it was not like ordinary thieves who would run away when they heard the dog barking. And stabbed a big dog with a knife."

As the man was talking, he asked people to quickly cover the corpses of the two people with straw mats. It was really scary to look at the corpses with a torch in the middle of the night.

This Second Uncle Bai can do this for the Luo family, it seems that the friendship between the Bai Luo family is indeed very deep.

Early the next morning, the news that Luo Siniang killed two thieves in her courtyard last night spread throughout most of Chang'an City.

When Luo Siniang was interrogated by the county government, many people gathered outside. The trial hall was facing the gate of the county government. The county magistrate was sitting on a high wooden couch wearing official warm boots. Luo Siniang lay on the ground with her hands shackled.

The county magistrate was a middle-aged scholar who seemed to be very disgusted with women's power, and knew that the previous Chang'an county magistrate resigned because of their Luo family's affairs, and this time it was his turn to be the county magistrate. Another moth came out of the house.

"...Since you are a thief, you naturally want to steal property. Since you are good at martial arts, you can just injure them. Why do you want to kill them both?"

"And she is a woman, and she is so young, why is she so vicious and cruel..." In front of all the Chang'an people, the Chang'an county magistrate reprimanded Luo Siniang for being a vicious and cruel person.

Luo Siniang slowly raised her head at this time, and was kneeling upright on the ground of the county government hall.

I saw that she was thin and pale, her hair was still stained with blood clots that were not cleaned up last night, she looked in a state of distress, but her back was straight:

"People who practice martial arts naturally want to protect their families and defend their country. Since ancient times, when men fight on the battlefield, the king has rewarded him generously, and the people all praise him. I just killed two thieves who broke into my house in the middle of the night. Why did the county magistrate say that I am vicious, but because I was born a woman?"