After the Double Ninth Festival, all the villagers in Dongchen Village peeled cotton seeds at home, including the Jiang family.
Yingbao thought about it all morning, sorting out the plot of the book, and found that it mainly focused on the heroine, and there were not many descriptions of peripheral characters.
He didn't even mention the parents and younger brothers of his tool man, let alone Chu Chu and others.
However, the book describes the process of ginning and weaving by cotton farmers. It is said that they use a cart gin to remove seeds from seed cotton, which is very fast, much faster than manually picking them one by one.
It is said that a bookshelf is fixed on the table, and a wooden shaft and an iron shaft are installed across the top of the shelf.
The iron shaft is here, and the wooden shaft is in the east. A crank is installed on the right side of the wooden shaft. A flywheel cross-shaped wooden frame is installed on the left side of the iron shaft.
During operation, the two axles are rolled against each other, and the left leg adds seed cotton between the axles. The cotton is taken out of the front of the car, and the cotton seeds fall behind the car.
Yingbao took a charcoal pencil and drew the shape of the cotton gin on the paper. Some of the details seemed to be just that, and he probably begged the carpenter to think more about it.
"Dad, let's use that to roll out the cotton seeds. It should be faster than picking it up with legs." She handed the drawing to her father.
There is so much cotton at home that collecting cotton seeds is a big project. The entire family is involved in the process, and it cannot be completed within a month or two.
Jiang Sanlang took the picture handed over by his daughter, looked at it carefully, and nodded: "He will ask Wang Ke to try it. If it works, we will make more."
If it turns out that he is not a village official, he will have to take care of all the big and small affairs in the village, including cotton ginning.
Because Sun Li was urging him to sort out all the cotton seeds quickly, keep some of the seeds for the villagers, and sell the other part to the county government.
It is said that the imperial court valued that batch of cotton seeds very much and asked the county magistrate to send a batch of cotton seeds and cotton to the Ministry of Household Affairs in Kyoto.
Ying Bao suddenly remembered something and asked, "Dad, why did the two looms our family ordered from Manager Zhou not arrive?"
"He asked Manager Zhou, and Zhou Mao said he would definitely bring it when he came to collect the golden ears."
Jiang Sanlang often took his wife to the county town to visit his eldest son, so he had more contact with Zhou Mao.
Yingbao nodded.
Her gold ears could be harvested in about half a month, so she would go to the county town first and stay there for a few more months, then come back after finishing the business of the store.
At noon, Jiang Quan moved several baskets of chestnuts onto the carriage and hung several large gourds on the roof.
Those gourds are each as big as a bathtub, and hanging on the sides of the carriage is simply scary.
Erni climbed into the carriage carrying a bundle and walked with her little cousin.
Ming'er's third uncle asked her to accompany Yingbao to the county town, and Erni was extremely happy.
She has never been to the county town even once when she has grown up. At that time, she had to spend a few days in the county town.
"Bao'er, take Xiao Hei over. Dacheng said that there is a dog at home to guard against thieves in the morning." Chun Niang hugged Xiao Hei in the carriage and told him: "Xiaojie also wants to take a look at Xiao Hei, so I will keep him there from now on."
It’s the county seat.”
"Okay." Ying Bao held Xiao Hei in her arms and waved her legs towards Chun Niang: "Aniang, he's gone."
"Be careful on the road."
"knew."
Jiang Quan whipped his horse and drove away, quickly leaving the village.
We hurried all the way and finally arrived at the door of the county store before dark.
The shop was closed at this time, but fortunately Jiang Quan had a key in his leg.
Jiang Quan and Erni unloaded the chestnuts and gourds, put everything into the shop, then closed the shop door and led the carriage into the backyard.
There were many bricks and tiles piled up in the backyard, almost filling the huge yard.
"Where's the eldest brother?" Erni walked into the thatched house and didn't see Jiang Cheng, so she couldn't help but ask Jiang Quan: "Don't he stay there in the morning?"
"Eldest brother should go to Plum Blossom Lane." Jiang Cheng was sleeping in the shop for a long time. He probably didn't know that his second brother Mingyue Qiu was coming back, so he went to Plum Blossom Lane.
Jiang Quan lit the oil lamp with a fire stick and said: "We will stay there tomorrow night and wait for the bright moon before returning to Plum Blossom Lane."
"Yeah." Erni had no objection, took the oil lamp and looked around.
The outside of the house is quite neat and clean, with a wooden bed and complete bedding, barely enough for two people to rest.
"Don't people in the county build kangs?" Erni asked, "Isn't it cold in winter?"
"I don't know. Anyway, we don't sleep on the kang and we don't feel cold."
Jiang Quan: "Yingbao and I don't run around in the house. He went out to buy some food. What can we ask for?"
Yingbao said: "He wants to eat sweet-scented osmanthus glutinous rice balls, and he also wants to eat donkey meat on fire."
He turned around and asked Er Ni: "What do I want to eat? Let my second brother buy it for me."
Er Ni didn't know there was much to eat, so she said, "Just be like me."
"Okay." Jiang Quan took out three hundred coins and went out happily.
The advantage of living in a county town is that you can eat many kinds of delicious food every day. As long as I have money, I can buy everything.
The little black dog barked after him, as if he was very interested in him.
Ying Bao ran to the door and shouted in the direction where Jiang Quan disappeared: "Second brother, buy something more for Xiao Hei to eat."
"I know!" Jiang Quan ran away quickly.
Erni walked around the bed, touched the edge of the bed, and asked her little cousin: "Yingbao, Mingyue, where are we going to play?"
Yingbao thought for a while: "He's not going anywhere tomorrow. He wants to tidy up the shop and customize something. He can take me out to play the day after tomorrow."
"Okay." Erni didn't mind either.
But she was very satisfied with going to the county town. Besides, she really didn't know what fun places there were in the county town.
After a while, Jiang Quan bought back a lot of delicious food.
There are donkey meat barbecue, sweet-scented osmanthus glutinous rice balls, mutton buns, pepper kebabs, and mutton wontons.
Except for glutinous rice dumplings and mutton buns, which Erni has eaten before, she has never seen the rest.
"Wow! It smells so good!" Erni picked up a mutton bun and took a bite.
Jiang Quan brought several pottery bowls, filled them with glutinous rice balls and wontons, and handed them to his two cousins, while he ate the wontons in the pottery pot.
A bite of pepper kebab and a spoonful of wontons, not to mention how delicious it is.
Yingbao picked up a bowl of glutinous rice balls and ate it, and asked her second cousin, "Where did I buy those fruit baskets from? He ordered a batch of bamboo woven boxes to pack those preserved fruits."
Jiang Quan took a bite of the meat skewers and said, "I bought it from the hawker's leg before. Then he saw that the prices in the bamboo shop were about the same, so he bought it in the bamboo shop. He will take me there tomorrow."
The next day, Jiang Cheng came over from Plum Blossom Lane, bringing a basket of steamed buns that he had steamed.
When I saw my second brother Yongtong spending money to buy food outside, I couldn't help but say to him: "We have rice, noodles and eggs at home, and there are a lot of vegetables grown on the courtyard wall, so why don't you use your own legs to cook something?"
Jiang Quan muttered: "That means both Yingbao and Erni are here, and he didn't buy much."
Jiang Cheng snorted and took the steamed buns to the kitchen to cook porridge. Erni even went to help light the fire.
After dinner, Jiang Cheng took care of the shop, while Jiang Quan took his two cousins to the bamboo shop to order a bamboo box.
Yingbao took a fancy to a delicate bamboo box as big as a book and asked the bamboo craftsman to make it bigger. She also wanted to have a delicate lid.
"If you compile it according to my request, it won't be worthwhile if you only have eight articles." said the master bamboo craftsman.
Yingbao: "Then how much should I ask for?"
Bricksmith: "At least you need twenty-five cents a piece."
"It's too expensive." Yingbao said seriously: "Can his family ask for hundreds of custom orders, and not long-term orders? My price is too outrageous, forget it, why don't he go to other stores and have a look. I am not the only one in the county.
