The Daily Life of a Down-on-Hard-Life Medicine Girl Supporting Her Family

Chapter 7 Baiyun Wharf was renamed Xiao Family Wharf

They may not know or understand, but they will learn.

The whole family is very united; everyone is eager to do the laundry, cooking, gathering firewood, and digging for wild vegetables.

Xiao Chunnuan then wanted to find out about digging up medicinal herbs and processing them into medicine.

Mulberry leaves grow on both sides of the ditch, some still very tender, unsuitable for processing into medicinal herbs. Only frost-touched or frost-covered mulberry leaves are suitable for processing. Right now, Grandma's throat is a little itchy and she coughs from time to time. In the spring, I picked a small basketful and picked the tender leaves separately to eat as wild vegetables, while I brewed the older leaves into hot water for Grandma to drink.

"Sister, didn't you say you wanted to go to the dock?" Chun Ning ran back and said, "I asked Luo Xiaogang next door, and he said the dock is three miles away from here. Sister, the dock is..."

Chun Ning's voice softened as she said this.

"What is it?" Chunnuan asked, puzzled. "A real man shouldn't stutter when he speaks. Stand up straight and speak louder."

"Luo Xiaogang said that the wharf was managed by the Xiao family, and it used to be called Baiyun Bay Wharf, but was later changed to Xiao Family Wharf."

The Xiao family is a large family. Without her great-grandfather who was a physician in the Imperial Medical Academy and her grandfather who was the head of the Imperial Medical Academy, the Xiao family would not even be considered an ordinary large family. Yet now they actually have the management rights of a dock.
According to my grandmother, when she married into the Xiao family and took over the management of the household from my great-grandmother, there was a rule that every year, gifts should be sent to the clans in Shu, and sacrificial fields should be sent during Qingming Festival. This has been done without fail for so many years.

According to Grandmother's account of the New Year's gifts and ancestral land, the Xiao family spent no less than five thousand taels of silver on the Xiao clan.

The Xiao clan owned three hills, thousands of acres of fertile land, and dozens of shops in their ancestral hall. They were one of the most prominent clans in Changzhou, and even the county magistrate held them in high regard.

The patriarch of the Xiao clan had one wife, three concubines, four legitimate wives, and four illegitimate wives, and lived a more carefree life than his grandfather.

My great-grandfather and grandfather once believed that the clan would be a safe haven for the Xiao family, even if they didn't need it, they still had to have it.

Little did they know that when they actually needed them, they would turn their backs on them and expel this branch of the family from the clan.

If my great-grandfather and grandfather found out in the afterlife, I wonder if they would take legal action against the ancestors of the Xiao family!
Xiao Chunnuan originally wanted to go to the dock to see if there was any way to make a living, but it turned out that the dock was managed by the Xiao family, and if she went to do business there, she would probably run into trouble again!
"Sister, are we still going to the dock?"

Chun Ning felt uneasy seeing that her older sister had been silent for a long time.

“Go,” Chunnuan said. “Have Luo Xiaogang take us there. Tell everyone we are relatives of his family, not that we are from the Xiao family.”

"Ah."

Chun Ning was very clever; she bribed the child by saying she would teach him to read.

Chunnuan was hiking such a long distance for the first time. Luo Xiaogang was running and jumping ahead of her, and would also talk about Xiaojia Wharf.

"The head steward of Xiao Family Wharf is the third son of the Xiao clan chief. He was born to the eldest concubine and looks very fierce. Everyone says he is a reincarnation of an evil spirit."

"The accountant is the sixth son of Chief Xiao, the youngest son born to the first wife. He is very refined and I heard that he will take the imperial examination to become a scholar."

"Ordinary people can make a living at the dock, but they have to pay the head steward, otherwise they will be thrown into the river along with their goods."

"How much money?" Chunnuan wondered. It is said that a family that accumulates good deeds will have abundant blessings, but the Xiao family is rich but heartless.

"I don't know how much money they'll offer; no one from our village goes to the docks to do business," Luo Xiaogang said. "Sister Chunnuan, are you thinking of starting a business?"

"No, I was just asking casually." Chunnuan knew that children were the least able to keep secrets, and she had a plan but couldn't just blurt it out, or it would be ruined.

Especially if the place they want to do business is still the territory of the Xiao clan, they may not be willing to see their family make a living.

"Sister Chunnuan, you don't know, but the Xiao clan is also having conflicts. My father said they are fighting amongst themselves, and they all want to be the clan leader."

"Who's having a conflict with whom?" "I don't know."

Spring is here... This child, he speaks in a way that leaves you hanging, as if he said nothing at all.

But thinking about it, it's understandable that he didn't know.

The Xiao clan chief lived in a three-courtyard house provided by the clan, and his food and clothing were all paid for by the clan members. Naturally, he wanted to pass on this privilege to his descendants; everyone wanted a piece of this lucrative property.

If you can't reach it, then forget about it; someone will naturally want to tiptoe and try to touch it.

After learning about this, Chunnuan paid even closer attention and wrote it down.

"This dock is quite lively."

This river is called Baiyun River. It is not wide, but the current is rapid, and there are many boats coming and going on the river.

"Xiaogang, do you know which way this river flows?"

"It flows into the Tuo River. There's a huge dock on the other side of the Tuo River." Luo Xiaogang himself couldn't explain it clearly, but that's what his grandfather and the others said. He was just using what he had learned to make himself seem knowledgeable and able to explain it to Chunnuan and the others, showing how clever he was.

"The big ship is here! The big ship is here!"

Suddenly, a group of people appeared on the dock, shirtless, and jumped into the river with ropes, running towards a boat in the river.

"What are they doing?"

Both "warmth in spring" and "peace in spring" spoke in unison.

“Pulling the boat along the shore.” Luo Gang became proud again and continued to show off what he knew: “The big ship’s location is a shoal. The ship can’t move there and has to be pulled by people to get it across. Usually, they’ll be pulled to the dock for a cup of tea and a quick bite before boarding the boat to continue downstream.”

"Pulling boats?" Chun Ning was taken aback. "Can you make money? How many taels of silver per person?"

Hearing this, Chunnuan gave a helpless bitter smile: This child is still not used to the life of a poor family.

“If a boatman works hard, he can earn two or three taels of silver a year.” Luo Xiaogang told the Xiao siblings, “My father pulls boats here. Sometimes he’s lucky and can pull boats several times a day. When he comes back from work, he brings us pea cakes.”

"And them..." Chunnuan was embarrassed to look at the men soaking in the river. Not only were they all naked, but some of them weren't even wearing pants. They just put on some underwear around their waists before jumping into the water.

"You mean why we're not wearing clothes?" Luo Xiaogang said, "Pulling boats is a job where you're constantly in the water. If your clothes get wet, you can't even walk properly, so you can't wear pants. My father also said that if you wear clothes and your pants get soaked, you're more likely to get sick. We're all poor, and medicine is too expensive for us, so we have to save money wherever we can."

"Yes, yes, the medicine is really expensive."

Xiao Chun-ning, the grandson of Physician Xiao, only realized this yesterday when he went to Baicaotang to buy a dose of medicine to prevent miscarriage for his elder sister-in-law. In the past, the Xiao family had a medicine warehouse, which contained all kinds of medicinal herbs. Of course, in the past, they never saw a doctor or bought medicine from outside when they were sick.

“Yes, my grandma and grandma always say that as long as we don’t get sick, we’re making money for the family. So, we don’t let ourselves get sick. If we feel unwell, we just boil some herbs in water and drink two big bowls of it…”

Luo Xiaogang and Chun Ning chatted about their way of life, while Chun Nuan observed the situation at the dock.

Sure enough, the boatmen pulled the boat to the dock, and the passengers disembarked. It was hot, so many people bought tea to drink, and others bought some local products. Every time a boat arrived, the dock would be lively for a while. After one boat left, another would come.

As spring warmed up, counting the time, there were about four boats every hour. These boats were not very big, and each carried about a few dozen to a hundred passengers.

"Xiao Gang, are there this many boats at night too?"

(End of this chapter)