A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 835 Death in infancy
Old Wang from Tongjifang,

Entering Luoyang city to the sound of drums closing the city gates.

Fortunately, Tongjifang was very close to the city gate.

Wu Hou, standing at the street corner, watched him hurry back with a bag on his back and asked with a smile, "Old Wang, how many locust eggs did you dig up today?"

Another warrior said, "Hey, the bag you're carrying today looks pretty heavy, you must have emptied quite a bit."

Old Wang smiled bitterly, "It's not easy to dig up locust eggs now. We've almost dug up all the riverbanks. We have to go to very far places. We waste time on the road. It's good if we can dig up a pound a day."

“You’ve exchanged more than three jin and three dan of rice; I think it must be five or six jin, right?” said Wu Hou, who was holding a spear.

"This isn't millet we're exchanging for, it's Four Treasures Tea. One pound of millet can be exchanged for two pounds of Four Treasures Tea."

With grain prices soaring, grain shops are closing down after only an hour or two of business each day.

More and more people had no choice but to go to the riverbanks and fields to dig up locust eggs. Even if they only dug up five or six ounces, they could exchange them for a pound of millet. They could also dig up some wild vegetables along the way, which was not bad.

With more people around, locust eggs become harder to dig up.

Previously, there were many digging sites along the Luo River near Luoyang City, but now you have to go to the Yellow River beach to dig, and even the closer ones have already been dug up, so you have to go further and further away.

What can we do?

Now every morning,

At each city gate, hordes of people were leaving the city to dig for locust eggs and gather wild vegetables.

Old Wang, carrying the four treasures of tea and rice he had exchanged for locust eggs, squeezed his way in before the neighborhood guards closed the gates.

"Thanks, Lao Zhang."

"Old Wang, come back earlier next time, or you'll be locked out of the city gates," Old Zhang reminded him.

"Ah."

He didn't have time to say more and hurried home.

His wife and children would go with him to dig for locust eggs in the morning, but he would make them come home early.

Enter the door,

His wife and children were lighting a fire in the kitchen, waiting for him to come home.

The whole family was overjoyed to see her husband return.

"Come and warm yourself by the fire."

Old Wang handed the bag to his wife, "We're almost a pound short of locust eggs today. The manager of Chanhe Manor just charges by the pound; they were supposed to give us three and a half pounds of millet."

Their workshop now offers "Four Treasures Rice," made with corn, wheat flour, and locust egg powder. One pound of millet can be exchanged for two pounds of "Four Treasures Rice."
I think it's a great deal. Today's 3.3 jin of millet has been exchanged for 6.6 jin of Four Treasures Rice.

With some wild vegetables, that should be enough to eat for a few days.

"Four Treasures Tea and Rice?"

The whole family was very curious.

Old Wang then asked his wife to open the bag and take out several packages from it.

“One piece is half a catty, and this one is thirteen pieces. The steward of the Li family is very generous. It was originally six catties and six liang, but he gave six catties and eight liang.”

Pick up a piece, open the dried lotus leaf wrapping, and inside is a very hard, round cake.

Each piece weighs half a pound and feels quite heavy in your hand, and it has a slightly fishy smell.

"Is this food edible?"

"Yes, I've tried it there. You can eat it by cooking it into a porridge, and it tastes even better with some wild vegetables."

Moreover, the Li family adds a little salt to their Four Treasures Tea, so we don't need to add any more salt.

Although little salt was added, at least some was added.

Old Wang used a hammer to smash the tea cake into pieces.

My wife said it looked a bit like the cake left over from pressing oil in an oil mill.
She had never seen tea cakes before, as ordinary people couldn't afford tea, but she had bought oil from an oil mill and seen the cakes left over from pressing oil.

This one is a little smaller.

None of the three children are very old.

Looking at the crumbs, I couldn't resist picking some up and putting them in my mouth.

"good to eat."

All three children said it was delicious.

"This needs to be cooked before eating, it's very compacted."

"This is a good thing. I heard it won't spoil for a long time. If you're fleeing from famine, you can get a small piece, soak it in cold water, and it will be firm and filling."

Old Wang picked up a piece, estimating it to be about two ounces, and said, "If I boil this piece and add some wild vegetables, we can have a meal."

The two ounces of relief grain were packed tightly, but there were still only two ounces. For a family of five, each person could not eat much.

But with famine looming, all they could do was tighten their belts as much as possible.

The family gathered around the stove, watching the pancake slowly boil.

The aroma of grain wafted out.
Several people's stomachs were rumbling. No, no, no, they only had thin porridge twice a day, and the food was scarce, so they couldn't keep up with the hunger.

"I asked about the matter of settling down in the south to cultivate land again today."

The Li family in Chanhe Village is also recruiting people to go south to cultivate the land. They'll be hired as long-term laborers, managed along the way, and will be provided with accommodations upon arrival. I've heard that in addition to rations and wages, those who do a good job in the land cultivation will receive a share of the grain.

“Many people want to go, and I want to go too. This can’t go on forever. Locust eggs are getting harder and harder to dig up, and grain prices will only keep rising.”

Old Wang's wife was still somewhat hesitant.

"Where in the south are you going?"

"I heard it's from Lingnan."

"Lingnan, huh? I heard the imperial court is exiling criminals, and the furthest they're going is Lingnan," Old Wang's wife said immediately upon hearing it was Lingnan. The couple discussed it...

But they didn't notice,
Their three-year-old daughter was so hungry that she couldn't wait for the porridge in the pot.

While the adults weren't looking, she secretly picked up a piece of tea rice cake. That finger-sized piece had a fishy yet slightly fragrant smell that kept tempting her.

She was so hungry.

Finally, I couldn't resist and put it in my mouth.

At first, I sipped it slowly.

It was pressed too tightly, and it didn't dissipate even after sipping for a long time, so she swallowed it in one gulp.

You can swallow half of it.
It suddenly got stuck.

She felt unwell and couldn't breathe.

bang,
She fell to the ground.

Old Wang turned his head and saw his daughter covering her throat with both hands, her eyes rolling back, and her legs kicking wildly.

The room was dark.

By the light of the fire, watching his youngest daughter struggle, he suddenly stood up.

"Ni, what's wrong?"

Old Wang's wife panicked, "What's wrong? What happened?"

"She's choking," Old Wang said anxiously, and began to shake his daughter while holding her.

But his frail daughter's eyes rolled back even whiter as he shook her.

Old Wang's wife was at a loss, patting her legs and crying out. That was her child, whom she had carried for ten months and raised to the age of three with great difficulty.

Old Wang shook the child for a while without success, then turned the child upside down, grabbed the legs and continued shaking, but it still didn't work.

The child was no longer moving.

Old Wang pried open his daughter's throat and reached out to try and rip it out, but his hand was too big and her mouth too small.

"Bring me chopsticks,"

···
The broken earthenware pot on the fire finally boiled, and the four-treasure rice was completely cooked. Adding some wild vegetables made it ready to eat.

But no one cared about that at the moment.

In just a short while,

The three-year-old daughter choked to death and stopped breathing.

Old Wang's wife cried and wailed.

The eldest daughter said that her younger sister might have choked on bits of the Four Treasures Rice.

Old Wang covered his face with his rough hands, not wanting to shed tears in front of his children.

It got dark.
The cold wind howled.

It crept in through those drafty cracks.

Everything happened so suddenly, so quickly.

"Hey, how come I didn't see you pick one up and eat it?"

Old Wang's eyes were lifeless.

The family endured a day of cold winds and finally managed to dig up a pound of locust eggs. He wanted to exchange them for more grain, so he traded millet for this four-treasure tea and rice.

But not grains,
The hungry daughter couldn't wait for the food to be cooked, ate a single dry grain, and choked to death.

Who should he blame?

The two older children huddled in the corner, watching the attack with a mixture of fear and numbness.

Finally, Old Wang called out to his wife.

"Let the two kids eat," he said in a low voice, picking up his younger daughter.

Where are you going?

"Ni is asleep, cover him with a blanket."

The woman's tears, which she had stopped, started flowing again. "Ni is dead, not just asleep."

She snatched the child and held him tightly in her arms, reluctant to let go.

Her voice became hoarse from crying, and her tears dried up.

With red eyes, the woman said to her silent husband, "Tomorrow morning, find a place to bury Ni. Dig a deep hole so no one can steal her."

"In times of famine, people are capable of anything."

"Also, I've thought it through, sir. Let's go to Lingnan to cultivate the land. Staying here will only lead to our demise sooner or later."

"Didn't you say that the Chanhe Manor belongs to the Li family of the current prime minister, and that he is a good person and his subordinates are good too? Then let's go with his family to Lingnan to cultivate the land."

Old Wang looked up at his wife.

"Have you made up your mind?"

"I've thought it through. If I had agreed a few days earlier, we would have already set off, and our girl wouldn't be dead."

Old Wang looked at his wife, then at the daughter she was holding tightly, and then at his son and daughter huddled in the corner.

Gritting my teeth, I finally made up my mind.

"Yes, I'll go to Chanhe Manor first thing tomorrow morning and register with the manager."

(End of this chapter)