Pastoral Jiaoyi's mother and father are here

Chapter 234 Poor Mother (Part [-])

Yang Baihua carefully watched the vermicelli making process. Zhen Xi put the cooked vermicelli in cold water for a while, then listened to Gu Xiangsi's instructions, set it up to dry, and made pork stewed vermicelli for guests after a while.

"Auntie, you have also seen that this kind of vermicelli is relatively long and thin. In order to distinguish it, this kind is called fine vermicelli. There are also wide and short vermicelli called vermicelli. There is no suitable colander for this time, so it is difficult to get it. Let's try this kind of fine powder first." Gu Xiangsi carefully explained the steps for the two of them, and asked them to remember these steps, after all, she is a month old, and the remnants of the Kang and Gan princes are everywhere, and Xiling Yan is absolutely It is impossible for her to leave Xilan City and go to Shanghe Village to guide everyone to make fine powder.

This time, she is only a free choice of the people of Xihe Kingdom, just like the corn and sweet potatoes distributed by the imperial court last year, they are also free for everyone to grow as they want, and they are not forced to grow if they don't want to.

As for who can make the first pot of gold this winter, it depends on who is brave enough.

After all, making powder is tiring and the final collection of powder is relatively small. Few of these people who only see immediate benefits dare to take this risk.

For example, in modern times, when phosphorus fertilizers appeared, many people did not believe them. The old people even cursed and said that the harvest of so much manure in previous years was not very high. How could this small bag be so useful?
At the beginning, some people believed it, and some people didn't believe it. Those who believed it were indeed productive, and those who didn't believe it just missed a lot of benefits.

This is especially true for the promotion of new products. For the first batch of people, when new food is launched in the first year, everyone will always join in the fun and buy it to try because the picture is fresh and no matter how expensive it is.

Especially for those wealthy families who are not short of money, what they eat is not only fresh, but also a mentality of showing off their wealth.

Anyway, for the first batch of noodles produced this year, the imperial court has already set the price for the common people, one tael of silver per catty of noodles, whether you like it or not, that's the price.

The imperial court can't really keep giving like this without getting anything. If this continues, won't the treasury be empty?
It is also for this reason that the condition for the imperial court to help the people develop is that for every catty of noodles sold by the common people this year, they will pay the imperial court three-tenths of the profits as taxes.

This tax will be decreed by the emperor, and the official department will personally select tax officials to go to various places to collect. Each imperial envoy is responsible for the people within two hundred miles.

Later, officials will be sent down to record records, each with a cavalry for protection, and they will supervise each other.

Therefore, this is a drudgery that is lucrative and dare not be flooded. Many people don't want to do it. Those who want to do it are almost all Jinshi in this year's imperial examination.

There is no way, instead of doing this and waiting for the official department to send them officials to do it, it is better to take this job and reward them for their merits. Their future careers will not be too bad, right?
Therefore, these Jinshi responded with such a mentality, and recommended themselves to the Ministry of Officials one by one. Li Mingjing is asking Tu Li and Gu Yuyan to do these things recently.

The people in Shanghe Village basically believed in Gu Xiangsi. Only some people who liked to sing the opposite and look for a sense of existence directly sold the sweet potatoes on the street, or sold them to restaurants, some wealthy families, and started their own roasted sweet potato business.

Of course, these people grow relatively few sweet potatoes, so they can sell them in this way, and the income is not too much, nor too little.

As the head of the family, Wu Bing was very assertive. Although Yang Baihua was a bit worried about her views as a woman, she would not object to Wu Bing's decision because of this.

What's more, she also trusts Gu Xiangsi and believes that she will not harm their family.

That's why, in Gu Xiangsi's words, all the fields in their family, except for a vegetable garden, are all sweet potatoes.

In the season when the sweet potato seedlings are in full bloom, they pick the leaves and stalks and sell them for a lot of money.

Now that the sweet potatoes are growing, and the old seedlings are fed to the pigs, they can raise two big fat pigs for the New Year.

Those sweet potato dregs that have become flour noodles can also be dried and kept to feed pigs. This time the sweet potatoes were planted, but there was a lot of feed left for their family.

Now it's just a matter of how the noodles are made. If they can really make a lot of money, the sweet potatoes they grow this year will be worth it.

"Xiangsi, you said earlier that smaller sweet potatoes can be cut and dried. I... I dried a lot and brought you some. You can cook porridge later." Tao Niang is a traditional daughter-in-law, usually in At home, she listened to her father-in-law and husband in the open, and listened to her mother-in-law's teachings behind her back. She rarely took the initiative to talk to people in front of her parents-in-law and husband.

Of course, it's not that the Wu family treats her too harshly, but that traditional wives like them are all like this.

On weekdays, she also chats with women in the village, and she is quite talkative, but on some public occasions, she doesn't talk too much.

"Thank you, sister-in-law. I'll ask someone to fetch some. Let's boil it right away. This is a time-consuming thing. The longer it is boiled, the more rotten and sticky it will be, but the sweeter and more delicious it is." Gu Xiangsi went to the countryside before I have eaten dry sweet potato porridge cooked by an old man. The porridge is sweet and delicious after being smashed with a stone mortar.

Before, Tao Niang thought that her mother-in-law wanted to bring those dried sweet potatoes for free. After all, they were just rough things. Acacia is used to eating delicacies from mountains and seas.
But Xiangsi didn't dislike her, and asked someone to cook her lunch. This... This really made her feel embarrassed.

Yang Baihua looked at his daughter-in-law and said with a smile: "Xiangsi is not a person who dislikes east and west, otherwise, she wouldn't have invited us to visit King Zhen's mansion."

"Auntie is right, I'm very casual and don't have so many rules." Gu Xiangsi said with a smile, and then walked over to see that Wu Shuan's disturbance was about the same.

Seeing her approaching, Wu Shuan turned his head and said with a simple and honest smile, "This is really physical work, and it feels more tiring than that of making powder and stepping for half a day."

"It's natural. Human arms don't have the stamina of legs." Gu Xiangsi looked at it for a while and asked Wu Shuan to stir it up.

She went to see the dried sweet potatoes, and asked the cook to find a larger stone mortar, put some dried sweet potatoes into it, and smashed them into small cubes bit by bit, so that it would taste better when cooked.

At this time, the sweet potatoes are all purple-skinned and white-fleshed, and there are no sweet potatoes with red flesh.

It can be said that this dried sweet potato porridge is the most delicious, and it is still white-fleshed, and the red-fleshed one is not as sweet and sandy when boiled.

In addition to stewed pork vermicelli and sweet potato porridge, Gu Xiangsi felt that they had to eat something good, preferably something they hadn't seen before, so that it would be fresh to eat.

Qiao Xue went to fetch a few soft-bodied abalones, as well as prawns and a dragon sturgeon from the big kitchen.

By the way, there is some venison sent by the palace before, and some venison meatball soup can also be made.

As soon as the kitchen started cooking, the smell of oily smoke was too strong.

Chu Qing and Fei Shu coaxed and helped their princess out of the small kitchen.

Zhen Xi walked over, patted Wu Shuan on the shoulder, and then reached out to take the rolling pin in Wu Shuan's hand, and started to stir evenly with one hand behind the back and the other with a steady and straight hand.

Wu Shuan looked at him dumbfounded, the king's mansion in this town is really Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, even a girl is so powerful.

Qiao Xue invited Wu Shuan out and sent him back to the hall to rest with tea.

Baozhu is still playing with Wu Shuan's son, from hide-and-seek to swinging, and now he is playing marbles on the stone table in the gazebo!
These beads are ground from jade scraps, beautiful in color and shiny and oily.

Gu Xiangsi and Yang Baihua were sitting together chatting about the housework, they turned around, and Yang Baihua turned the conversation to Gu Xiangsi's baby again.

"Back when Bao Zhu was born, she was so weak that it was difficult to raise her. It was Lao Qin's sister-in-law who took good care of her all day long and slowly raised this child." Yang Baihua shook her head when she said this. With a sigh: "At the beginning, we were worried that Jun'er would be taken away by Qin Shouren, maybe... alas! Old Qin's sister-in-law, I will feel guilty for this incident until the end of my life, but there are unspeakable sufferings, and I will die with regret in the end."

"Auntie, I've never blamed A Niang, she's just a helpless mother." After all, Gu Xiangsi is not a daughter raised by Qin's mother, she sees things from the perspective of a bystander, Qin's mother is understandable for doing so.

After all, people are selfish, saying that the palms and backs of the hands are fleshy, and the needle will hurt no matter what, but in fact, the degree of pain is still different.

No matter how bad Qin Shouren was, he was also the son of Qin's mother who was conceived in ten months and suffered all kinds of hardships. How could the blood-linked family relationship not be more important than an adopted daughter?
Apart from this matter, Mother Qin treated her adopted daughter really well.

If it weren't for Qin's mother's desperate protection, with her face, let alone Qin Shouren, even those local ruffians in the village would have ruined the original owner to death long ago.

So, even if the original owner knew about the child, he couldn't really hate this adoptive mother who treated her so well and protected her so much, right?

What's more, Jun'er is fine now, let alone this hatred.

What Yang Baihua has always liked the most is the sincerity and warmth of Gu Xiangsi.

A few people were talking, and the time passed quickly.

When Qiao Xue said that the meal was ready, all of them just smiled, thinking that they didn't say enough!

Gu Xiangsi asked Qiao Xue and the others to serve food. Rural people don't pretend to eat two bites of food. When they go to relatives, they must be full, otherwise they will be said to be stingy when they go back.

Yang Baihua had never seen an abalone, let alone a runny abalone.

"Clam!" The little guy came to the table, pointed at the abalone and said with an innocent smile.

"It's not mussels, it's abalone. It's still soft. It's delicious." Baozhu inserted a piece of abalone with a jade chopstick, took a big bite, and taught his younger brother how to eat it.

The little guy followed suit, after Zhen Xi put an abalone in the bowl in front of the little guy, he also used chopsticks to insert the abalone and took a bite, saying inarticulately: "Good time!"

Gu Xiangsi glanced at the two children with a smile, and asked Qiao Xue to serve them for dinner, while she told Yang Baihua and the three of them to eat while it was hot.

Yang Baihua and the others have never seen this kind of abalone, and they have only heard of it before. It seems...it is quite fat, and I don't know if there are many thorns in it?

"Auntie, eat it while it's hot, it doesn't have any thorns." Gu Xiangsi smiled and asked Chu Qing and Fei Shu to give them cloth vegetables. If they don't eat any more, it will be really cold.

Yang Baihua heard that this abalone had no spines, so she was curious, does this fish have any spines?
Yong took a bite between his chopsticks, eh!It's delicious, and it doesn't have any thorns.

Wu Shuan and Tao Niang had never eaten this abalone before. They bit into it and it was juicy and delicious. They didn't know what kind of sauce it was. It was so delicious to make this kind of abalone!
Chuqing and the others brought spicy sturgeon fillets and thirty thousand venison meatball soup for them.

"What kind of fish is this?" Tao Niang had never eaten such delicious fish, nor had she eaten this kind of meatballs, so she couldn't tell what kind of meat it was made of.

"This is dragon sturgeon, and this is venison meatball soup, isn't it delicious?" Gu Xiangsi watched them laugh casually, scooped up a spoonful of dry sweet potato porridge, and then ate the vermicelli, fine powder stewed with pork , Eating is delicious.

"Deer...venison?" Yang Baihua didn't know what a dragon squid was, but she knew deer!Are these meatballs made of venison?How much does it cost?

"The venison sent by the emperor happened to be used to make meatball soup!" Gu Xiangsi said with a smile, not at all feeling that her heartless words would make people gnash their teeth.

Yang Baihua regretted not letting Wu Bing come. It was a pity that the child's father could not eat such a sumptuous meal.

"Auntie, eat it while it's hot. I'll ask someone to prepare a food box. After eating, I'll send you back home. You also bring these dishes to Uncle Wu for a taste." Gu Xiangsi guessed Yang Baihua's name at a glance. This is a little careful, which is very good!Although their husband and wife are not so loving as glue, they will always think about each other in their hearts, isn't that enough?

Yang Baihua blushed, and didn't say anything to refute, just said with a smile: "Now, I really eat and take."

Gu Xiangsi smiled, thinking that this aunt is nice, and it would be right not to be polite with her. If you are more polite, it will make everyone unfamiliar.

It was already three quarters of an hour after the meal was finished.

Gu Xiangsi told Yang Baihua how to eat this pot of jelly, let it stand overnight, it will freeze the next day, then cut it into slices with a knife, fry it with chopped green onion and eggs, it tastes good.

Yang Baihua nodded and wrote down, these are not too complicated, they will teach everyone how to do it when they return to the village to try it out.

Gu Xiangsi promised to bring them a few pots of flowers, besides green chrysanthemum, pink chrysanthemum, black chrysanthemum, and hundred chrysanthemum, there were also emperor chrysanthemum and dragon's claw chrysanthemum.

These chrysanthemums are treasures, and they are definitely rare chrysanthemums that ordinary people can't see.

Wu Shuan was really embarrassed to accept these flowers. They were eating and taking them at the same time, so it was really embarrassing.

Zhao Sheng sent someone to take them back, because they also came in a carriage into the city, so it was really hard to find a carriage when they walked back.

Gu Xiangsi sent them to the car, said a few words to Yang Baihua, and then sent them away.

Where did Yang Baihua sit in such a comfortable carriage before, reaching out to touch the tea set on the table, she couldn't help sighing: "We haven't lived our whole life in vain, and today we... have a really good meal."

"Grandma, mussels are delicious!" The little guy doesn't know abalone, so he regards abalone as mussel meat, but the mussels from Aunt Xiangsi's house are more delicious than the mussels caught by Dad.

Tao Niang was also amused by the child's innocence, she hugged her son, patted his back, hummed a folk song with a gentle smile, and coaxed him to take a nap.

Wu Shuan looked at the food box on the table, thinking that this meal should be able to support the family's rations for a year, right?

(End of this chapter)