In the years of ancient traders

"Guest officer, where are you going?"

"Go to Xianghe Village."

"The guest officer is a businessman. Go east from here and you will be Xianghe Village."

"Well, I know, a bowl of tea."

"Guests, please try the sour plum soup. It's also made by Song Silang from Xianghe Village. It's sour and sweet to quench your thirst."

The owner of the tea stall handed Song He a cup of soup, dark red, and the soup swayed with his steps, reflecting his bearded face.

Cai Erlang and Jiang Wulang followed Shi Sanlang to build a firewall. He couldn't hold back and wanted to go back and have a look first.From the west of the city to the east of the city, the scallion pancakes, deep-fried dough sticks, soup cakes with toppings, as well as the white steamed buns and bean paste steamed buns are all things I have never seen before, and all these things are branded with Song Silang's name.

He originally thought that since he and his second brother were not here, A Niang was getting older, and the family must be in a difficult situation.He first finds a job in the city, earns some money and then goes back, so as to make them happy.But after not returning for two years, Datu County has undergone such earth-shaking changes.Even the tea stalls sell drinks that I have never had before.

Song He drank the cup of sweet and sour plum drink in one gulp, and set foot on the way home.

Two years ago, Hengzhou was not yet under the control of the Yicheng Army. The imperial court forced conscription, and the farmers were healthy and obedient, so they were naturally the primary goals.

At that time, seven out of ten of the young and middle-aged people in their area were expropriated.Although everyone walked together, they were assigned to different tents, and he didn't know the whereabouts of the fellow villagers, even his second brother.

After he joined the army, he joined the army to conquer the Qiushan rebels who provoked the Tianxi Rebellion, and was captured by the Yicheng army led by his adopted son Li Xing.Fortunately, Qiu Shan was killed by his parents and sons at that time, Li Xing's general Yin Rong took advantage of the chaos and killed Li Xing to replace him, so they escaped the fate of being buried alive.

Later, Yin Rong negotiated with the imperial court and demanded that Hengzhou and other seven places be brought under the jurisdiction of the Yicheng Army. After the imperial court agreed, he put down his arms and surrendered, and the people in the seven states of Yicheng finally ushered in a peaceful day.

Now Yicheng nominally submits to the imperial court, but in fact he has a large number of soldiers. He does not listen to the imperial court's restraint at all, and refuses to pay taxes and taxes, and even revises the household registration system.According to the law of this dynasty, once a farmer leaves the land and becomes a refugee, he is the same as a sold slave and can be killed at will. However, Yin Jiedushi ordered that the refugee can be registered as a guest, and become the main household after three years. This decree has always been Later, refugees from other feudal towns and even the Guanzhong area also poured into Yicheng Qizhou, which greatly increased the population of the area.

Not only that, Yin Jiedu envoy also ordered to release a group of soldiers who had been forced to leave the army and return home.Song He is one of them.

The road from the county seat to Xianghe Village is much more lively than it was two years ago.Along the way, Song He saw many peddlers carrying bamboo baskets or shoulder poles, and some even drove mule carts.

If it was Datu County two years ago, there would be no mules at all.

Even if there is, it is only big merchants like Fu's family and Wang's family who can afford it. How can such ordinary people in the market own it?

The things that these vendors carry are also different.

For example, the broad-shouldered man in front is carrying two jars wrapped in straw ropes, like wine jars.And the woman who was walking towards her was carrying a basket on her back and back. The basket was filled with hay and covered with a quilt. The quilt leaked a little gap, and the material looked like a bamboo steamer.

Song He remembered what Shi Sanlang had said to him, and guessed that the jar should be soybean oil, and the steamer was probably filled with steamed buns or something.

At this time, I happened to be passing by a village entrance, and I saw the woman turning a corner and walking in, and then I heard someone shouting from that direction: "Is it the steamed buns from Xianghe Village? Give me a dozen!"

A dozen steamed buns cost twelve, and according to the price Song He found out, they cost five or six yuan.

Could it be the rich man who shouted this?

But the most famous Zhang Fuhu in this area is not in this village. Besides him, who else can have such arrogance and spend casually five or six renminbi cash on food.

Song He couldn't help but look, but saw that the person surrounding the woman was not a rich man, but a big man wearing an ordinary linen shirt.After him, there was an old woman and a young man who came over and offered four or eight steamed buns. They also brought wheat, which should be exchanged.

If that liter of wheat is made into pancakes, they can eat for ten and a half months if they save some, but they don't even blink and change the steamed buns that are only enough for a day or two.

He came out of the military camp and passed through many villages and towns along the way. The life of the big guys is much better than it was two years ago, but he has never seen such affluent people.

When he was in the county just now, he noticed that there were obviously more soup cake stalls, as well as the stir-fried vegetable stalls and fried dough stick stalls, which were full of people.There are also people carrying oil and firewood to walk through the streets and alleys. I heard from Shi Sanlang that because every family has built a kang and built a fire wall, the firewood in the city has increased slightly, and many surrounding villages have emerged. A firewood seller in the city.

It seems that this place is indeed much richer than other places, but when he was still there, there was nothing special about Datu County. Could it be because of the things his fourth brother tossed out?

When Song He was still at home, he didn't communicate much with his fourth younger brother. Although his younger brother was smart, he had too many moths, which gave him a headache.Unexpectedly, he, a troublesome moth, would one day make his hometown rich.

Walking into Xianghe Village, it was even more lively, and almost all the people coming and going at the entrance of the village were new faces.

Passing by Zhou's yard, there were rows of white bags hanging in the air, but I couldn't tell what they were.The Zhou family's men were conscripted in the same batch as him, and I don't know if they have returned.

He looked around, Zhou's daughter-in-law and Zhou Dalang didn't seem to be there, only a strange young gentleman came out of the house and rushed out of the courtyard gate.

Song He quickly stopped him: "Excuse me, where is this family?"

"Are you looking for Aunt Zhou? I went to fetch the silkworm cocoons. Zhou Dalang is not at home." Chu Ning said.It was time for him to go to work at the steamed bun workshop, and now he was holding his precious kitchen knife in his hand, and was about to run away anxiously.

Song He looked at him vigilantly. After he got off the battlefield, he was naturally not afraid of this mere kitchen knife, but the people around him didn't seem to care either?

"You live here?"

"Yes, what's the matter with you?" Chu Ning took a look at the bearded man, who didn't look like a merchant.Those traders always went straight to the Song family's workshop, and rarely wandered around the village.

Song He felt a little uncomfortable, and said dryly, "It's all right. Can the Song family still live in the original yard?"

"That's natural." Chu Ning gave him a strange look.He was about to be late, and Manager Nan asked those who were late to stand for as long as they were late. He didn't dare to delay, so he turned and left.

Song He felt that he was a little strange to his hometown.

He walked to the front of his house, opened the door and entered: "Silang? Sanniang?" It was quiet, no one was there, only two hens were walking outside the stove.

"Mother?" He walked in and pushed open the door of the main room, dumbfounded.

The dusty floor was gone, and the floor was covered with crisp mats, with a round wooden low table in the middle.A piece of the wall on the left protruded, reaching waist height, about the length of his outstretched arms. This should be what Shi Sanlang called the wall of fire.On the right is a large wooden frame. The wooden frame is divided into two layers. The lower layer is covered with sheets and a quilt, and the upper layer is also connected by a wooden ladder. It looks like two stacked beds.The walls and even the ceiling of the room are covered with pepper mud for heat preservation.

Is this... still his home?

Song He couldn't recover for a long time.Before he left, their house was bare, with nothing on the floor. There was only a straw mat in the main room for sleeping. When eating, the dishes and chopsticks were placed on the ground. There was no low table available. They sat around the simple stove in winter, surrounded by smoke I was so smoked that I burst into tears, but I had never seen a wall of fire.

Song He took off his shoes and shook the dust off his clothes before he dared to approach the house.

In the other compartment, Song Shu crushes the bean cakes left over from oil extraction, mixes them with wheat bran, and puts them in a wooden steamer to cook over high heat.

This is a way to make soy sauce that he accidentally saw.

Generally speaking, soy sauce needs to be brewed from soybeans, but in this method, only the bean cake and wheat bran left over from oil extraction are steamed, mixed with soy sauce koji to ferment, and then placed in a soy sauce jar to dry for several months.

This is a method of making sauce that appeared among the people after the wedge-type wooden press became popular in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Later, after this ancient method of oil pressing became less and less used, this method of making sauce was rarely mentioned.

I don't know if this method will work, anyway, bean cakes and wheat bran are ready-made, and he found the ancient method of making koji, so he planned to try it.

After steaming the bean cakes and wheat bran for an hour and a half, Song Shu took them out, put them on a bamboo dustpan to cool a little, and mixed them with soy sauce, and then put them in the stove of the steamed bun workshop, where they were fermented in the warm and humid environment .

There were only two workers in the kitchen, and Song Anan was nowhere to be seen in the yard. Speaking of which, Sanniang and Liuniang were also absent, which is rare.Song Shu walked around the workshop. Now the silk workshop is managed by Mrs. Peng, the steamed bun workshop is watched by Song Anan, and the soybean oil workshop is run by Boss Guo. He only needs to go to these places every day to show his face. Well, it's much easier than when I was rushing to make mooncakes.

If soy sauce can be brewed successfully, another soy sauce workshop can be established.

Speaking of which, although there is no soy sauce made from beans here, there is some soy sauce made from pork and mutton. When Song Shu made moon cakes before, a little meat was mixed into the filling, and now there are meat buns.But because it is made of meat, it is expensive, and it is even more difficult to produce in large quantities, so ordinary people rarely use it.When soy sauce is made, it can be easily replaced.

Just as Song Shu was thinking, Song Liuniang rushed in anxiously.

"Brother, brother, brother is back!" She grabbed Song Shu's hand and ran out.Song Shu was pulled by her, wondering in his heart, isn't he right here, what does brother come back?

Song Shu was dragged all the way home by her, only to see that Sanniang, Wuniang, Qilang and Song Anan were there, Cheng Erniang was holding a tall man with a beard, her shoulders twitched, as if she was crying.

"What's going on?" Song Shu walked to Anan's side.

Song Anan glanced at him and said, "Brother."

In name, Song Anan was his younger brother, but this kid never called him brother.This sudden sentence made Song Shu feel at ease when he heard it, and was about to praise a few words when he suddenly realized it.

Song Anan is not calling him.

The unshaven man hugging Cheng Erniang is really his elder brother - Song Dalang, Song He.

The author has something to say:

Thank you for your support, okay~ Thanks for the little angels who voted for me or irrigated the nutrient solution for me~

Thanks to the little angel who irrigated [nutrient solution]:

20 bottles of all wasted; 10 bottles of wind chimes; 4 bottles of snowy;

Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!