History of Cannon Fodder Struggle [Qing]

The snow covered the entire Zhuangzi with a layer of white clothes, and a pine tree in the yard was covered with a thick layer of white snow. It was originally a beautiful scene at this time, but the people who worked hard in the yard had no time to appreciate it.

Just after the New Year, a snowfall made the festive atmosphere fade away, and everyone in Zhuangzi came out with tools in hand to deal with the snow in a hurry.

There is a large open-air hot spring pool in Zhuangzi, and five small indoor hot springs, which make the temperature in Zhuangzi higher than other places. This snow can easily melt away. The melted water is a treasure for Zhuangzi. disaster.

Zhuangzi has sewers at the beginning of the construction, and the normal rainwater and domestic water can be drained, but this time the snow is really heavy, and the water cannot escape after melting, and it is easy to soak the ground. Decompress to prevent too much water from spreading into the house.

After doing it for a while, An Minning was so hot that she was sweating all over. She pushed the remaining snow to the door, and someone would shovel it away later.

After resting for a while, she went back to her room. After Cuibi was gone, the room became hers. There was nothing to do in winter. The day laborers went home to celebrate the New Year, and only a few people were left in the village.

The Chinese New Year period is the most leisurely time for An Minning. After finishing the only work, he can rest at will, unlike in autumn when he was on the fence with fallen leaves, and another layer was laid behind after sweeping the front.

Back in the house, she looked at the dozen or so palm-sized pieces of soap on the table, all of which she made with waste kitchen oil and ash water from plants and trees. The saponification is relatively slow in winter, and it took five days to slowly saponify. After solidification, it was cut into more than a dozen small pieces after demoulding, and it was placed in the room to ventilate during the Chinese New Year period, and it would take three to five days before it could be used.

In ancient times, pancreas was made by mashing animal pancreas, adding animal fat and plant ash, kneading it into a ball, and putting it aside to slowly restore it.

And she directly omitted the pancreas, boiled all the oils together, then added the alkaline water soaked in the plant ash, separated the soap liquid and poured it into the mold. Too low, but somehow it worked.

She is confident that she will sell all of these. Now the Zhuangzi uses soap locusts for bathing and washing clothes, and even plant ash directly.

The only one who can use soap is the one who is more advanced. I heard that the master's family rewarded it last time, which aroused the jealousy of many young daughters-in-law in the village.

It was also that time that she discovered this business opportunity, and it happened that no one came to visit her house on weekdays, and she lived alone, so she had the opportunity to fiddle with these things.

But that's all. The waste oil in the kitchen is not easy to get rid of. She has accumulated it for a long time. A large part of it is the animal fat thrown away in the kitchen. The fat covering the internal organs is usually thrown away.Fortunately, it is winter now. If it is summer, it will stink after one night, and it cannot be hidden.

It took a lot of effort to make such a dozen pieces, mainly due to the lack of raw materials. The cooking in the village is made of wood and straw. Plant ash can be seen everywhere, but there is nowhere to find oil. This made An Minning very sad. Brainstorm, there is no way to make the second batch in a short time, and finally plan to limit sales.

In fact, it's just a small fight, save as much as you can, and sell it once a month.

Zhuangzi's welfare is still very good, and he can visit relatives one day a month.

An Minning didn't have any relatives to visit, so he planned to use this day to go to the capital to sell soap and inquire about his family.

That dream gave her two important clues. She had an older brother named Minxing, and there was a temple called Banruo Temple in the alley where she lived.

It's hard to find her brother, but it's much easier to find a temple with a name. As long as she finds this Prajna Temple, she may find her home.

An Minning stared at the simple soap. These are all money. Only with money can he hope to redeem himself and go to Beijing to find his family.

Five days later, it was a rare sunny day, An Minning asked for leave, wrapped more than a dozen pieces of soap in cloth, rolled it into a package and tied it on his chest.

These are her important assets, which are related to her first pot of gold. Otherwise, how long will it take her to save enough money for redemption with a monthly income of less than 100 Wen?

She remembered that the broken piece of silver thrown to Ren Yazi was about five taels. If she wanted to redeem herself, it would be impossible for her to pay the original price, at least it would have to be doubled, which would be ten taels.

Regardless of rising prices, twelve taels is [-] copper coins. With that little money in her monthly rate, it would take nearly nine years to raise enough ransom money without eating or drinking.

The day lily has been cold for nine years.

So money has become her most urgent need at present, and it is not a small expense to inquire about news in the capital.

The people who went to Beijing took a ride into Beijing together. This time An Minning did not go through the gate of the city last time, and she avoided it on purpose. After all, Sister-in-law Wang's daughter and son-in-law lived nearby.She doesn't want others to know about selling soap. Before others discover the difference between soap and soap, she can make a fortune secretly.

After all, compared to soap, this soap is poorly costly, but it takes a long time.

So even if soap is better than pancreas, she only dares to sell it under the name of pancreas instead of directly using the name of soap.

After parting with the people from the village at the city gate, they made an appointment to gather outside the city gate at Shen Shi, and An Minning lined up to enter the city with the parcel on his back.

After entering the city, she didn't go anywhere else, but directly asked where the nearest silver building was, and after she found out, she stayed outside the silver building.

In this era, women who buy jewelry in silver houses all show that their families are richer and their hands are more generous, so it is most appropriate to set them as the sales target of soap.

If she took the soap to Zhuangzi to sell, she might not be able to sell a piece of soap for half a year, because everyone was reluctant to spend this unjustified money. Although the soap horns that have no cost are not as clean as soap, they can always be used to make do.

After the soap was made, An Minning had already made a positioning, which groups were the sales targets.

The gate of the city belongs to the outer city, and is basically inhabited by Han people, so the real big silver buildings don't bother to open here, but serve the dignitaries in the inner city.

These small silver buildings basically face the common people in the city, and An Minning saw several couples with mother and daughter together.

After observing for a while, An Minning followed a mother and daughter into the silver building, followed not too far away, but made the people in the silver building mistakenly think that she was with the two people in front.

An Minning casually looked around in the store, but these jewelry did not attract her attention, she was listening intently to the customers in the store.

After hearing it, I realized that most of the people who came to the silver house were buying dowries for their daughters.

Then this would be easy, An Minning went out with a mother and daughter who had chosen jewelry, and soon after the other party walked out of the store, she hurriedly stopped the other party.

"The lady in front, please wait."

The mother and daughter in front stopped and turned around with puzzled faces. An Minning ran up to the two of them, "Ma'am, I heard in the Silver House that you were buying a dowry for your daughter. Have you considered adding two pieces of soap?" .”

The mother and daughter hurriedly shook their heads, didn't even ask, and left in a hurry.

An Minning was very puzzled, and stopped two more couples, both of whom had the same reaction.

At noon, she bought a piece of biscuits, and while eating, she thought about what happened before?

Then she looked at the greasy hands of the sesame seed seller, and asked if she needed soap.

The aunt laughed at herself: "Soap? That's for noble people. I can't afford it. I just rub it with plant ash when I get home."

An Minning suddenly realized, why did those people react like this before?

In the eyes of ordinary people, pancreas is a mysterious and precious item, which is only used by the nobles. Ordinary people would shake their heads when they hear it, let alone buy it, and they dare not even ask about the price.

It seems that in order to sell these soaps, they have to be packaged.

Having learned the lesson from the morning, An Minning didn't directly sell it this time, but mysteriously told people that he had the secret recipe of the palace cleansing face from the previous dynasty. He tried to make a few pieces, and his face was tender and smooth after washing. Now it only costs ten yuan for one piece, and then ask the other party if he wants to buy two pieces for his daughter to put in the bottom of the box, which is both face-saving and affordable.

Before the mother was moved, the daughter was moved first. No woman in any dynasty could escape the temptation to become beautiful.

An Minning didn't continue to persuade her, but said that there were only a few yuan left in her hand, and they would be gone when they were sold out.

The mother didn't say anything, the daughter was anxious first, and looked at her mother eagerly.

In the end, the mother gritted her teeth, and in pain, she took out twenty Wen and bought two yuan.

In this day and age, twenty Wen can buy a catty of flour, which is enough for the whole family to eat a few meals of white flour buns.

After receiving the money, An Minning handed over two pieces of soap, and the other mother hurriedly stuffed them into her arms, and dragged her daughter away in a hurry.

According to the same method, An Minning had both successes and failures. After more than an hour, he successfully sold the 12 yuan soap.

She didn't plan to sell the remaining piece, she was going to treat it as something she bought from the capital, and take it back as a gift to Madam Wu.Don't ask for anything else, just hope that the other party can take care of her a little bit.

Nanny Wu didn't say anything after receiving the soap, but in the next few months, An Minning successfully got leave.

In February, the imperial court was going to fight, and the emperor personally conquered it.Without the emperor in charge, it was obvious that the security of the entire capital was much looser, and even the soldiers guarding the city gates were lazy.

For An Minning, the biggest benefit is that there are more and more people on the street, and the soap she makes is famous among a small group of people, because the soap she makes has no strange smell and is more powerful than traditional soap. better.

There is no need for her to recruit people, customers spread the word, and every time they take the goods, they are looted.

An Minning has already started to buy vegetable oil to make soap. The advantage of using vegetable oil is that it is safer without having to open a fire. There will always be a peculiar smell when refining animal fat. It was almost discovered a few times before.

Later, all the soap she made was taken to the vacant servant’s room in the east courtyard for ventilation, but because she couldn’t sell too much at one time, she still kept the quantity vacant, and only paid 20 yuan a month. .

In the rest of the time when the soap was sold out, An Minning began to inquire about the Banruo Temple from the older generation. She didn't know if the Banruo Temple was not well-known. At the beginning, she said she had never heard of it, which made her a little discouraged. Did I guess wrong, Banruo Temple is not in the capital.

One day half a year later, An Minning finally got the news of Banruo Temple from an old man.