latelenovela Chapter 283 I thought you were born to do great things
Chapter 283 I thought you were born to do great things
Before they knew it, August had arrived and the people of Sancheng began to harvest rice. Ruan Qingqing also began to harvest hybrid rice and collect hybrid rice seeds.
Because the three cities took in a lot of refugees, in order to prevent looting and smashing incidents during this harvest season, both patrol soldiers and guards took turns patrolling day and night.
The people who had land were busy tidying up their own fields. Except for Chi Jianyu and his grandson, everyone in the Mo Sect was busy. The children who were being trained were too young, and it would be difficult for the three of them to harvest the sixty acres of rice.
Ruan Qingqing had no choice but to select a group of honest and hardworking temporary workers from the landless people to help harvest the rice.
After the rice is harvested, it is threshed in the field. There are two types of threshing tools. One is a rice bucket, which is a square wooden basin that is narrow at the bottom and wide at the top.
When threshing, everyone holds a small bundle of rice, points one end of the rice ear to the rice bucket, and throws it against the wall of the rice bucket with force, and the grains on the rice ear fall off. This action is also called "throwing rice".
There are certain requirements for the posture of threshing rice.
The person who threshes the rice should first pinch the back of the rice stems with both hands (if there is a lot of rice, pick up 3 to 4 rice stalks with the left hand, pass them around the thumb of the right hand, and then hold them tightly with the thumb and index finger of the left hand), then raise both hands up to the same level as the head (the hand movements should be slow to prevent the grains from being brought out of the bucket), draw an arc in the air, forming a "snowflake covering the top" gesture, and then thresh it hard against the wall of the bucket, and the grains fall down under the action of inertia.
When beating a bundle of rice, you need to shake your hands slightly. This will help the threshed grains to fall into the grain barrel and prevent the grains from being scattered when they are raised again.
The rice thresher will continue to beat the bundle of rice several times until the grains are completely detached. In this way, after repeated beatings, the originally heavy bundle of rice has basically fallen into the rice bucket, and what is held in the hand is a handful of straw.
At most four rice threshers stand near a rice barrel, and they thresh the rice one after another, one handful after another.
Another tool is a pedal-type rice threshing machine. It consists of a frame, a threshing drum, a canopy, a rice receiving bucket, a pedal and other parts. The pedal device is installed under the rice threshing mouth. When threshing rice, people step on the pedal while sending handfuls of rice into the high-speed rotating roller to thresh the rice.
Because the demand for flax-peeling boards was very high, it took a lot of manpower. The threshing drum and linkage device were time-consuming and technically demanding, so Zhuge Hong and his team only made three before harvesting the rice.
In order to harvest the rice earlier, Ruan Qingqing had to use these two tools together.
When the rice buckets or rice buckets were almost full, they were scooped out and put into baskets. They were carried to the roadside one by one and then taken away by horse-drawn carriages. If the horse-drawn carriages were not big enough, wooden carts would be used. Everyone quickly transported the rice to the flat ground that had been prepared in advance in the city lord's mansion to dry it.
There were a total of 60 mu of rice fields. It took four days to harvest all the rice in the fields and transport the rice back to the city lord's mansion. Seeing that all the rice had been brought back, Ruan Qingqing was truly relieved.
The most feared thing about autumn harvest is something going wrong.
The next step was to dry the rice. To prevent sparrows and other birds from eating the rice, Ruan Qingqing placed four scarecrows around the field. When the wind blew, the cloth strips on the scarecrows would shake in the air, making noises that would scare the surrounding birds away.
Ruan Qingqing looked at this with a huge sense of accomplishment.
You little brats! I'll let you steal the millet!
Just when she was feeling complacent, Mr. Ge came over with his hands behind his back.
"Master, the rice thresher you designed is great! We plan to sell the ones we made these past two days to neighboring countries with advanced agricultural development."
"Great! Now we have one more source of income." Ruan Qingqing had no objection to this.
Mr. Ge added: "The rice bucket is actually not bad. It is easy to make and use, and much cheaper than a rice thresher. I guess ordinary people prefer this."
Ruan Qingqing nodded.
In the eyes of the lower-class farmers, labor is actually the least valuable. If they can save money by using labor, they would rather work harder. So there must be a market for rice buckets.
"A month ago, I asked Master Yan and his men to temporarily stop their work and give priority to making rice buckets and rice thresher parts. Now I think we have made quite a few. Why not sell them together with the rice thresher? However, because the rice buckets are simple and easy to make, I'm afraid they will be easily imitated. But they are new and unique, and we can make the first money. It's not worth it if we don't sell them in the future." Ruan Qingqing suggested.
Especially the pedal-type thresher, which can thresh the grains cleanly, is highly efficient, and saves time and effort. It can be said that it is far ahead of the times. As long as there are a lot of paddy fields at home, this is the best and there is no worry about the lack of market.
"Well, we have enough labor in these three cities, so it's hard to sell pedal-operated rice threshers. But rice buckets are selling very well. It's mainly because no one has seen them before, and people are in a hurry to use them. Once everyone has recovered from this period of time, as you said, the style is simple and easy to make, and it's easy to be imitated. I guess it won't be so popular in the future."
"That's the truth!"
Ruan Qingqing and Zhuge Hong chatted as they walked.
"Master, I got a package of good tea recently. Would you like to try it? You have been collecting hemp and spinning cloth recently. In the past two days, you were busy collecting rice. You should take a break. You young people should not take advantage of your good foundation and not know how to take care of your body. You should rest properly."
Zhuge Hong sighed.
"Okay! I'll listen to Mr. Ge today, take a break, and try your new tea." Ruan Qingqing did not refuse and responded cheerfully.
Zhuge Hong's tea-making skill was indeed good, and his movements in serving the tea were calm and graceful. Although he did not do anything else, Ruan Qingqing felt a sense of elegance and grace when she looked at his hands serving the tea.
Green smoke was rising from the incense burner next to her, and the faint fragrance of green bamboo was spreading in the room, making people feel as if they were in a secluded bamboo forest, indescribably elegant and quiet. Ruan Qingqing unconsciously relaxed her whole body.
Taking the tea handed over by Zhuge Hong, Ruan Qingqing blew it gently. Before she drank the tea, the fragrance of the tea had already entered her stomach, and her spirits suddenly lifted. She took another sip, and her internal organs were instantly soothed, and the fragrance lingered in her mouth for a long time.
"Drinking a cup of tea here with Mr. Ge is equivalent to a whole night's sleep for me on ordinary days. It makes me feel so relaxed and comfortable. Mr. Ge really knows how to live." Ruan Qingqing sighed contentedly.
Zhuge Hong stroked his beard and chuckled, "You! You just live your life too rough! You keep rushing forward, you should also comfort yourself appropriately. The way to survive in the world is to alternate between tension and relaxation."
Ruan Qingqing laughed, "What Mr. Ge said is absolutely right! Aren't you living too roughly? I came from a poor family, so I don't know how to be meticulous. I'm usually busy and don't have time to be meticulous!"
"You're afraid you don't have enough time to leave the common people alone for a while?" Zhuge Hongxue raised his eyebrows and pretended to be angry.
"I want to tell you something from the bottom of my heart, Mr. Ge. That's why I gathered you all here. If we don't become strong enough soon so that no one dares to touch us, I'll feel uneasy. I'm afraid that when I open my eyes, everyone will be displaced or their families will be broken up. So I dare not let go, nor do I dare to stop!" Ruan Qingqing curled her lips and gave a bitter smile.
Zhuge Hong was stunned. "I didn't know you had such a heavy burden in your heart. I thought you were born to do great things!"
"I am not born to do great things. All I do is to cultivate a few acres of land in peace."
"If other kings heard what you said, they would vomit blood! We are stirring up trouble here in Bale, but in the end, we are preventing you from farming properly."