Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 623 New Year's Festival (Part 3)

On the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, the sky was clear and blue, and the winter sun shone generously and without reservation on the countryside of Dongping County in Xinzhou.

It was a bright and sunny day, a day that was especially precious during the rainy winter on Qiming Island (now Vancouver Island).

As the saying goes, "Making oil on a sunny day prevents it from getting damp and brings good fortune."

According to the Wanshu Zaji (Miscellaneous Records of Wanshu) from the twelfth year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty, there is a tradition of celebrating the New Year: "In the last ten days of the twelfth lunar month, every household prepares fruits and fried foods to prepare for New Year's Day sacrifices and gifts for relatives and friends."

This tradition was fully inherited by the new Chinese immigrants who came from overseas, and they took root and flourished on this new land.

For farmers, making these fried foods for the New Year is an important ritual, and the timing is quite particular.

Usually after the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month, after cleaning the courtyard and purchasing all the necessary items such as flour, oil, and fillings, the aroma of boiling oil begins to rise from the kitchen of every household.

The order of preparation follows ancient wisdom: first make the types that can be stored for a long time, such as the long and crispy fried dough twists that can be stored for ten days, and various shapes of fried dough sticks.

Fried fish and meat, which are intended for short-term consumption, are prepared close to Lunar New Year's Eve to ensure the freshness of the ingredients.

On New Year's Eve, the kitchen is busiest, as essential items for the New Year's Eve dinner and New Year's Day breakfast are fried, such as fried dough sticks in the northern style or fried lotus root sandwiches and spring rolls in the southern style, all to be fried and eaten immediately for the best taste.

In some areas, the ancient custom of "frying food on New Year's Eve to ward off evil spirits" is still preserved. People believe that food fried at midnight can drive away evil spirits and bring good fortune. Although resources are not abundant, the wish for a better future has never changed.

In the early days, Xinhua was in a pioneering period, with scarce resources. It was difficult to even have enough to eat, let alone fried food.

However, with the rapid development of the industrial and agricultural economy over the past two decades, people's lives have become increasingly prosperous. Those New Year customs that represent wealth and joy from the depths of memory have reappeared like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, and have become increasingly rich and colorful.

The kitchen in Mo Xiaoshan's house was filled with a rich aroma of oil from early morning.

Mother Chunniang, wearing an apron, busied herself at the stove for half a day. The rapeseed oil in the large iron pot bubbled with fine bubbles, while in the large wooden basin next to it, golden and shiny fried dough twists and fried dough sticks of various shapes were piled up like a small mountain. A lot of flour had been used, and a lot of precious oil had also been consumed.

However, by noon, upon careful counting, the amount of fried food remaining in the basin was not more than expected.

The reason is none other than those few "little gluttons" who are always lurking at the kitchen door.

The aroma of fried food is an irresistible temptation for children. From the moment the first batch of fried dough twists came out of the pan and cooled down, the younger siblings would find all sorts of excuses to wander around the kitchen.

One would offer to taste the saltiness, another would check the heat; pairs of small hands, slightly covered in dirt but impatient, would always seize the moment when their mothers turned away to quickly "steal" one or two still-warm fried dough twists or fried dough sticks from the wooden basin, then swiftly stuff them into their mouths, gasping for breath from the heat, but their faces beaming with satisfied smiles.

Chunniang naturally saw it, and scolded her a few times for being "greedy" and "saving it for the New Year," but a indulgent smile appeared on her lips.

By the end of the day, the children had eaten their fill, their mouths glistening with oil, but the fried food reserved for New Year's sacrifices and entertaining guests inevitably shrank.

With the family's oil supply running low, Li Ergou carried a heavy half-bag of rapeseed out of the dimly lit storage room, intending to go to the oil press at the west end of the village to exchange it for some new oil, to prepare the last batch for frying New Year's dishes and for New Year's Eve.

Just as he stepped out of the courtyard gate, he was spotted by several familiar men from the neighborhood. They were shouting that they were going to someone's house to join in the fun and have a few drinks. When they saw Li Ergou, they tried to drag him along without saying a word.

Unable to refuse, Li Ergou looked at the rapeseed in his hand with a troubled expression.

"Um... I'll go." Seeing this, Mo Xiaoshan took the initiative to step forward and take the half bag of rapeseed. "I'll take Daya and Erya to the oil press."

Li Ergou breathed a sigh of relief and said repeatedly, "Hey, good, good! ...Do you know the way? It's at the west end of the village, Li Laoyao's workshop."

"I think I recognize it." Mo Xiaoshan nodded and steadily hoisted the sack onto his shoulder.

Two younger sisters, around ten years old, clapped their hands excitedly when they heard they could go out with their older brother, and followed him on either side.

Walking on the dirt road leading to the west of the village, Mo Xiaoshan's gaze swept over the neat fields on both sides of the road.

At this time, most of the fields are fallow, covered with a thin layer of frost or remaining crop roots, making them look somewhat desolate.

The climate of Vendôme Island (Vancouver Island) is not actually suitable for the large-scale cultivation of traditional staple foods such as wheat and corn.

This area is influenced by warm and humid air currents from the Pacific Ocean, resulting in cold and rainy winters and cool summers. However, the amount of sunshine is relatively insufficient, which is far from the ideal growing environment for grain crops in continental climate regions with abundant sunshine and large temperature differences between day and night.

Forced planting not only results in a longer growth cycle, but also yields far lower yields than in sunny inland river valleys.

In the early days of the settlement, in order to maximize food production and solve the most basic problem of food and clothing, the immigrants had no choice but to "hold their noses" and plant relatively familiar wheat and high-yield corn, supplemented with a large amount of potatoes, which are highly adaptable and have stable yields, in order to barely get through the initial difficult years.

Later, with the expansion of the colonization area and the introduction of more crop varieties, the situation began to improve.

Crops such as oats and rye, which are more cold-resistant and less demanding in terms of sunlight, are being widely promoted in the farmland of Qiming Island, truly realizing a planting model that is "tailored to local conditions".

Later, when Xinhua's sphere of influence expanded to the mainland across the sea, especially to the Jinsha River (Fraser River) delta, the Ziwu River (now Columbia River) basin, and the Qiongjiang River Valley (now Willamette River Valley), Xinhua's influence expanded further.

The land there is fertile, with plenty of sunshine, making it more suitable for large-scale agricultural cultivation.

After large tracts of fertile land in the aforementioned areas were developed, Xinhua's grain production began to soar year by year, resulting in a large surplus.

From then on, agriculture on Qiming Island, including Dongping County and Guangfeng County, gradually began strategic adjustments.

In recent years, the island has basically stopped growing wheat and corn, which are considered "laborious and unprofitable" food crops, and has instead focused on developing cash crops with higher added value.

Today, the farmland of Qiming Island is mainly planted with flax—whose fiber is an important raw material for hemp clothing, ropes, and sacks; rapeseed—whose seeds are used to extract valuable edible vegetable oil; turnips—which are both a dish on the table and excellent livestock feed and green manure for farmland; as well as potatoes, which have always occupied a place, and some oats and rye.

These crops are not only well adapted to the cool and humid climate and soil conditions of Qiming Island, but their economic output is also far higher than that of ordinary food crops grown in the past, bringing farmers greater returns.

This adaptation to local conditions signifies that Xinhua Agriculture is gradually moving from its initial survival-oriented model to a more professional and commercialized specialty agriculture.

Before long, the oil press at the west end of the village came into view of Mo Xiaoshan.

It was a shed built of large logs, spacious but somewhat old, with a thick thatched roof and walls blackened by years of soot.

Even from a distance, you can hear the dull, rhythmic thumping sounds coming from inside: "thump...thump...thump..." It's the sound of a large, manpower-driven wooden mallet striking an oil wedge, a unique rhythm of a traditional oil press.

The air was filled with the unique aroma of raw rapeseed and cooked oil.

Stepping into the workshop, the light was dim, but the atmosphere was bustling with activity.

The workshop owner, Li Laoyao, a man in his forties, was shirtless and busy with his two sons.

Together they pushed a huge, suspended battering ram, chanting slogans as they precisely struck the tightly packed oil wedges on the press bed.

The immense pressure caused the golden oil to slowly seep out from the straw bag containing the roasted rapeseed, flowing into the oil trough below and then into the placed oil drum.

The entire workshop was steaming with heat, filled with a sense of power and the atmosphere of primitive labor.

"Uncle Li..." Mo Xiaoshan greeted.

Hearing the sound, Li Laoyao stopped what he was doing, wiped his face with the towel draped around his neck, and greeted him with a smile: "Oh, it's Xiaoshan! You're back from the university holiday? What brings you here... to get your oil changed?"

His gaze fell on the burlap sack that Mo Xiaoshan had placed on the ground.

"Well, we're running low on oil at home, let's get some extra in case." Mo Xiaoshan reached out and pulled his third sister, who was standing on tiptoe looking around, back to him.

Li Laoyao grabbed a long gown from the wooden rack, put it on, then bent down, untied the burlap sack, grabbed a handful of rapeseed, examined it carefully in his palm, and then put a few seeds in his mouth and chewed them.

He then nodded and said, "Good quality, dry and plump."

He asked his wife to bring a large scale and weighed the entire bag of rapeseed.

“Almost, just twenty-seven jin!” His wife reported the number, then looked up at Mo Xiaoshan with a smile. “Well, I’ll round it up for you, twenty-seven jin.”

Li Laoyao did some mental calculations and said to Mo Xiaoshan, "Same as always, three catties of seeds for one catty of oil. Twenty-seven catties, I'll give you nine catties of oil, no problem, right?"

“No problem, Uncle Li.” Mo Xiaoshan nodded.

This exchange rate is the common practice in village and town oil presses.

Judging solely from the oil yield of rapeseed (good rapeseed typically yields around 30% oil), the workshop owner doesn't seem to have made much money; in fact, he lost money on processing fees.

However, the main source of profit for oil presses is not cash, but the "oil cake" left over after pressing the oil.

These oil and protein-rich cakes are excellent fertilizers and livestock feeds, highly sought after by farmers and herders, and their value is enough to support the operation of oil mills with a surplus.

This "payment in the form of cakes" model not only lowers the transaction threshold and cost for farmers to barter, but also ensures that traditional oil mills can survive stably in rural environments where there is a lack of cash flow.

As his wife bottled cooking oil for Mo Xiaoshan, Li Laoyao, wiping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, sighed and said to Mo Xiaoshan, "Xiaoshan, you're a college graduate who's seen the world. To be honest, this old workshop of ours probably won't last much longer!"

He pointed to the heavy wooden press equipment in the workshop, his tone filled with deep worry: "I went to Shixing City a few days ago to deliver oil cakes, and I took the opportunity to visit the newly opened oil pressing plants in the city."

"Good heavens, that scene! They used coal-fired steam engines! These iron machines, with a 'boom,' would grind the rapeseed into powder with those huge iron millstones, and then with that... 'steam pressure machine,' in just a few strokes, the oil would gush out, fast and clean!"

"I estimate that their daily oil production is enough to keep me busy for ten to fifteen days!"

He shook his head, his wrinkles seeming to deepen: "This manual oil pressing is time-consuming and laborious, and the oil yield isn't necessarily higher than that of machines. If this continues, who will come to our small workshop to exchange oil? They'll all just sell their rapeseed to the big factories in the city. We... we're afraid we'll be eliminated by these lumps of iron."

Mo Xiaoshan listened quietly, understanding the situation.

He studied physics and mechanical engineering at New South Wales University and was well aware of the industrial revolution brought about by steam power.

That's not just about improving efficiency, but a fundamental change in the way we produce.

Looking at Li Laoyao's anxious and helpless face, he pondered for a moment and said, "Uncle Li, since you've seen the trend, why not try to change it yourself? You can also try to raise some money to purchase a small steam power equipment, expand this small workshop, and turn it into a machine factory."

"As long as we achieve mechanized and large-scale production, we can not only keep our business, but we might even be able to expand and sell our oil to more distant places. This will naturally save a lot of costs and time."

Upon hearing this, Li Laoyao gave a wry smile and waved his hands repeatedly: "No, no! Xiaoshan, you make it sound so easy. That machine is a 'high-end' product, very expensive! It costs several hundred or even a thousand silver dollars! I can't raise that much money even if I sell everything I own!"

"Besides, those iron things are such a hassle to take care of. They need coal to burn, they need maintenance, and I heard they need a skilled craftsman to watch over them. If they break down, who am I supposed to get them to fix them? We roughnecks can handle wooden things, but those iron lumps... we just can't manage them, we just can't manage them!"

Looking at his workshop, which he had run for many years, his eyes were filled with worry about mechanized production and a sense of reluctance and helplessness at the possible extinction of traditional crafts.

Upon hearing this, Mo Xiaoshan smiled and did not continue to persuade him.

He understood Li Laoyao's concerns; change always comes with risks and discomfort.

But he was even more convinced that the path for Xinhua's industrial development was to resolutely replace manpower with machines and replace scattered and inefficient manual labor with efficient and large-scale production.

This is not only to make up for the shortcomings of Xinhua's relatively insufficient local population and expensive labor, but also to minimize the production costs of various commodities and increase the material abundance of the whole society.

Only when the high-quality, inexpensive goods produced by machines flow into ordinary people's homes like a vast ocean, allowing more ordinary people to enjoy more and better living materials with less money, can the whole society share the benefits brought by industrialization.

This is the power of industry, and also the inevitable direction of progress.

Mo Xiaoshan took the wooden bucket filled with nine catties of vegetable oil from Li Laoyao's wife. It was heavy and warm to the touch.

He thanked Li Laoyao, then led his two younger sisters on their way home.

Behind me, the heavy, rhythmic thumping of the wood in the oil press still echoed, as if striking the end of an era, or stubbornly guarding some kind of tradition that was about to disappear.

The fresh aroma of freshly pressed vegetable oil mingled with the stale smell of old wood and fried dough, drifting in the air.
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(End of this chapter)