Go back to the prosperous days and become a layman

Chapter 446 445 "Coincidence"
The next day, Monday, November 11, was sunny and the temperature rose slightly.

Tang Zhitong got up early and squeezed the water from the cabbage that he had killed last night. Then he peeled the apples, pears and ginger and cut them into small pieces.

There is not much garlic, so in order to increase the spiciness, you cannot dice it, you have to use a garlic mortar to smash it.

This is very strange. Although the garlic is of the same weight, the smashed garlic is much spicier than the cut garlic or the directly eaten garlic.

Add the chili powder rolled out last night, sugar, a little salt, mix with boiled water and stir into a paste.

People who are particular about their cooking will not add water. Instead, they will use glutinous rice paste, which is made by mixing glutinous rice flour with water and then boiling it on the stove into a paste.

However, Tang Zhitong was not so particular, since he didn't have any at home, so he could only make a simple version.

After preparing the soul juice, you cannot just pour it on the cabbage. You have to spread it on the cabbage piece by piece and finally put it in a container for fermentation.

Adding white sugar is not only to increase the sweetness, but also to make the lactic acid ferment better.

After doing all this, there were still some fallen cabbage leaves at the bottom of the basin. He wiped the soul juice in the basin and ate breakfast with it.

"Is it delicious?" Tang Zhitong asked.

"Hmm, hmm, delicious." Student Wang smiled. She was very satisfied with the taste.

"Well, it looks like we won't be able to keep it till the day when it's fully fermented." Tang Zhitong teased.

"Hate it! Don't say I'm greedy." Student Xiao Wang hit her husband lightly.

"By the way, I have to go to the escort office after school from now on. Can you pick them up in the afternoon?" When school started, Tang Zhitong remembered about picking them up in the morning and evening.

"Just leave it to me, and I will be your solid support on the road to progress." Xiao Wang straightened her husband's collar and was very satisfied with her persistence in love.

Among people of the same age, even with the support of their families, few can achieve this level at the age of 20.

The only drawback is that the shirt my husband is wearing doesn't have four pockets.

"Okay! I'll make tofu for you tonight." Tang Zhitong noticed that the soybeans had been soaked and Zhang Guifang had gone outside with a bucket to clean the stone mill. It looked like she would start grinding the mill after his group left, so he would definitely be able to eat tofu tonight.

"You can fry some pine nuts tonight. I think Doctor Lu likes them very much. You took so many cigarettes from Brother Wu, we have to give something in return." When Xiao Wang saw her husband taking out a cigarette with one still in it, she remembered the two packs of Huazi that Wu Haiyang gave her last time.

"Okay." Tang Zhitong struck a match and lit it. He had been busy all morning and had no time to smoke a cigarette. He couldn't leave immediately after dinner and had to wait for Fengzhen to finish eating.

"The cigarettes are in the closet, on the inner door. Money is tight this month, so don't buy cigarettes. Just take the ones from inside." Xiao Wang said as he was busy packing his lunch.

"That's Huazi, are you willing to give him up?" Tang Zhitong was a little surprised.

"Why should I be reluctant to throw away? This thing can't be kept and will get moldy after a long time. Pay attention when you smoke it, and throw it away if it gets moldy." Classmate Xiao Wang glanced at Tang Zhitong with a smile on his face, as if saying that he was ignorant.

"You know a lot, so just stick with the one Brother Yang gave you." Cigarettes of that era not only had no filters, but also no plastic film on the outside of the packaging. Their shelf life was obviously shorter than it would be decades later.

"My dad also smoked at that time, so my mom hid cigarettes for him. They often battled wits and courage over cigarettes. Later, my mom found the cigarettes she had hidden, and they were all moldy. I asked Doctor Lu the other day, smoking is really bad for you, do you plan to quit smoking?" Student Xiao Wang asked after he packed up the lunch boxes of the three people.

"Quit it. Let's quit before we plan to have a baby. Not only quit smoking, but also quit drinking." Influenced by eugenics, Tang Zhitong personally paid great attention to this aspect. Medical technology was not advanced enough these days. If there was any defect that could not be detected, both adults and children would suffer.

There are examples of this. There are blind, deaf and other disabled people on this street.

Those who are soft-hearted in the family will keep the child and raise him, but if either the mother-in-law or the husband is hard-hearted, the child will be thrown into the dead child ditch in the east after he is born.

When he arrived at the school, Tang Zhitong learned the good news. Although physical education classes were not allowed to be cancelled, the college tacitly agreed to reduce the intensity, and the specific scale was flexibly controlled by each department.

Since it is mastered flexibly, it is flexible.

During lunch break, Tang Zhitong asked Luo Zhiping, "Class monitor, can you come to the playground to take attendance for the physical education class tomorrow afternoon?"

"We are not well fed and our enthusiasm is not high. I will talk to the Sports Committee this afternoon." Luo Zhiping came for duty with the goal of getting a high fixed amount of food, but his fixed amount was reduced after only two months. He has been feeling unhappy for several days and his enthusiasm is naturally not high.

"Hey, thank you, squad leader. I'll bring some food tomorrow and we can eat in the dormitory?" Because there is a physical education class tomorrow afternoon, Tang Zhitong made the suggestion after Luo Zhiping finished speaking.

"Oh, that's great. I'll go to the cafeteria to get some food tomorrow." The roommates in Room 219 spoke up one after another, expressing similar ideas.

Tang Zhitong did not refuse. The vegetables he could bring were limited. He only had tofu and some pickles. Forget about other vegetables and meat because he couldn't explain where they came from.

Physical education classes can reduce the intensity, but labor practice cannot.

In the afternoon, the Cable Department organized everyone to work in the carrot fields.

It was not until this moment that Tang Zhitong remembered that he had been busy harvesting cabbages a while ago and had completely forgotten about the carrots.

"Wow, is this covered with straw?" Looking at the carrot field in front of me, the spaces between the ridges were filled with straw. The radish tops were some that were frostbitten, but it did not affect the growth of the radishes below.

"Hey, the day it rained was Sunday, right? If you lived in the school dormitory, you would have to go to the commune with us to move straw." Seeing Tang Zhitong's surprise, Lu Jian gave a general explanation.

It turned out that the department head was keenly aware that the weather was not right after the wind started, and contacted the nearby commune through the logistics department, agreeing to purchase cabbages in exchange for some straw and stalks. This led to the students helping the commune to harvest the crops.

This promise was not important, as students in the Wiring Department were blessed because they not only had to move the straw stalks, but also had to spread them carefully on the ground.

"Even though the weather has changed, why don't you harvest the cabbages?" Tang Zhitong was not surprised by the straw and rice stalks, but it was a pity that so many cabbages were frozen that day.

"It's not individual's. Some people want to be lazy, some want to wait, and what one person says doesn't count. As a result... we end up eating frozen cabbage." When Lu Jian said this, he clenched his fist, put it to his mouth, opened his mouth slightly, and muttered softly.

"Alas..." Tang Zhitong could only sigh upon hearing this.

In today's Beijing, outside the outer city, apart from factories and large compounds, most of the rest are rural areas.

Although people in rural areas can buy coal, it costs money. However, straw and rice stalks are natural fuels that are free of charge. Sometimes they can also be used as thermal insulation materials and building materials, so these things will not be thrown away easily.

However, it will become moldy after being exposed to rain, so it can only be used as fuel.

After these straws are collected, they will be transported to the canteen and bathhouse respectively.

This work was still done by students. Tang Zhitong's bicycle exerted great power, and the amount of straw and rice stalks he pulled was equivalent to that carried by five or six people.

At present, burning straw is very normal. Even in the next 30 or 40 years, straw will be an important fuel supplement in rural areas. It is very useful for making stoves and pancakes. Burning straw can not only increase fertilizer on the spot, but the high temperature of burning can also effectively kill insect eggs in the ground.

cough cough...

As for causing air pollution, Tang Zhitong felt that it was only partially true.

Let me give you a small example.

Many places have hosted large-scale events or important conferences. Before such important events, many factories will limit production, rotate production or even stop working, and then the air will magically become refreshed.

After the busy farming season, even if the straw is burned, there is no noticeable change in the quality of the space...

After transporting the straw, many students returned to the classroom to continue their self-study. Tang Zhitong had no plan to go back. He went back to the dormitory, packed his lunch box, and rode his bicycle out.

Having worked in the postal and telecommunications system for more than a year, Tang Zhitong has heard a lot about the system's past.

In 51, a local director of the postal and telecommunications system asked people to send congratulatory messages. They did it very fiercely, and there were obviously many more congratulatory messages here than in other places.

The consequence is that the person who cannot be mentioned is furious and does not believe it was voluntary at all.

In short, everyone in the Municipal Bureau is very happy that it can be upgraded this time.

For Tang Zhitong, it is not important whether he gets promoted or not. What is worth being happy about is a salary increase that can legitimately improve his family's living conditions.

As for the credit for promoting melon and vegetable growing, Tang Zhitong doesn't care. Not showing off himself is also a form of protection, isn't it?

If a child carries gold bricks through the busy streets, there are at least 108 ways to die, and none of them are the same.

Humming a little tune and pedaling his bicycle, Tang Zhitong slowly headed towards the escort office.

Forget about whistling, it is considered indecent these days. If people hear it, they will definitely roll their eyes. After a few years, you may even have to eat peanuts.

It is said that Tong Wang waited at various intersections in Dongsi for more than ten days, and did not even see a hair of Tang Zhitong, so he finally changed his strategy.

He is an old man and also a rich man.

After lunch, when Tang Zhitong was working, Tong Wang did not pedal his tricycle again. Instead, he put on a green jacket, a small hat and glasses, leaned on a walking stick, carried a basket, and pretended to be buying vegetables.

Of course, Tong Wang did not plan to buy vegetables. Instead, he put a small stool in the basket and planned to try his luck at the place where he first met Tang Zhitong.

"The west entrance of Huguosi Street." Tong Wang went out and waved to call a rickshaw.

"Okay! Please go ahead." After Tong Wang sat firmly in the car, the driver got on and shouted "Let's go" before starting to pedal.

Just in the old city, there are quite a lot of rickshaws. The one pulled by Xiangzi is called a rickshaw, and the human-powered tricycle is more upscale than that one.

According to statistics, in the early days of liberation, there were 200 rickshaw drivers in Beijing. It should be noted that there were only about million people in the entire city at that time, which was a very exaggerated proportion.

In order to solve the employment problem of rickshaw drivers, some of them were diverted. A group of them were taken in by patrol teams and various companies. Of course, there were also those who changed from pulling passengers to pulling goods.

In order not to destroy the jobs of rickshaw drivers, the ticket prices of rickshaws were also adjusted accordingly and no one dared to set them too low.

At the time of liberation, the tricycles did not belong to the drivers individually, but mostly to foreign companies. To put it bluntly, the drivers were just working as laborers, no different from Xiangzi.

It was not until the joint venture and the four horses shared the profits that the rickshaw drivers were able to get a partial share of the profits and their status was improved.

Even so, not everyone can afford to ride a rickshaw. It costs 20 cents per kilometer, the price is clearly marked, and you need a ticket.

It is precisely because there are many rich people and rickshaw drivers waiting for work in the area where Tong Wang lives that he can call a car so conveniently. At this time, more rickshaws, whether they are carrying goods or people, are waiting for work at the train station.

(If you don’t show your face, then you can just make it famous)

"Old man, today is not the time for the Huguo Temple. Everyone is setting up stalls at the White Pagoda." The driver got on the tricycle and kindly reminded Tong Wang as he rode.

"Haha, I'm going to visit over there." Tong Wang deliberately stretched out his hand and waited for a while before he lied to deceive the man.

Tong Wang looked down on these laborers from the bottom of his heart, and was even more unwilling to pay attention to them. In the past, which rickshaw driver would dare to chat with him? But now, times have changed!

"Okay!" The driver could tell the good from the bad, and felt that Tong Wang didn't want to argue, so he stopped talking and drove forward.

Taxi drivers in old city are called "Kanye", which probably has a historical origin. With their status improved, they dare to say anything. Before liberation, they might not dare to say a word even if they were beaten.

When they arrived at Huguosi Street, the driver dropped off the passenger, collected the money and left.

Tong Wangze looked around, chose a sunny place, took out a stool from the basket, slowly sat down on the side of the road, and waited!

Hard work pays off, and Tong Wang was lucky today as he finally saw Tang Zhitong.

"Hey! Little comrade, little comrade!" When Tong Wang saw Tang Zhitong, he put away his stool, walking stick, and basket, and stood up and went to meet him with great agility.

Tong Wang's outfit was very conspicuous, and it was hard for Tang Zhitong not to see him, but at first he just felt that his voice sounded familiar and did not recognize him.

"Little comrade who wants to buy hot pot! It's me, Tong Wang." Tong Wang took off his glasses, trotted forward, and after Tang Zhitong got off the car, he grabbed his handlebars.

"Hey, isn't this Mr. Tong? He's dressed so smartly today that I didn't dare recognize him. Are you here to buy hotpot again?" Tang Zhitong looked at Tong Wang's eyes and was reminded of Boss You in "Party A and Party B", with an untidy beard and a cotton-padded jacket, with tears and snot streaming down his face.

"Hey~ Can you still buy hotpot every day? I, an old man, came here just to wait for you. Come on, let's talk on the roadside." Tong Wang heard Tang Zhitong's teasing, but he didn't put on airs, for fear that Tang Zhitong would run away again.

Tong Wang thought very clearly. In this day and age, as long as there is food, what does face matter? There is an old Chinese saying that a man who knows the current situation is a hero. It is not too late to show off when the young man fails to come up with anything.

"Hey, why are you waiting for me? I don't lack a penny for the hotpot money." Tang Zhitong pretended to be ignorant even though he knew the truth. Although he went to Tong Wang's house that day, he had not made up his mind to sell anything to Tong Wang. The reason was that his house was too sensitive and unsafe.

Although he said so, Tang Zhitong still followed the direction Tong Wang pointed and pushed the bicycle over.

It's not a good idea to argue these days, especially when the other party is an old man who is about to die.

Respecting the old and loving the young is a traditional virtue. If a dispute arises nowadays, passers-by don’t need to ask anything, the majority will definitely stand on the old man’s side.

(End of this chapter)