Republic of China: Guandong Ginseng King

Chapter 413: Killing Pigs to Sacrifice to the Gods
"Lord Zuo fought to the death, died heroically, and sacrificed his life for his country, which can be described as loyal and righteous.

He is a hundred or a thousand times stronger than those generals who shrink back from fighting and flee in the face of danger.

If the Qing Dynasty were full of loyal and righteous generals like Lord Zuo, how could it have suffered successive defeats?

It's a pity that the whole court is full of people like Ye Zhichao, and the war situation is doomed to be pessimistic. "Qu Shaoyang couldn't help but sigh.

"Master, I have arranged for someone to take care of the Starry Sky Gold Mine.

Master, don't worry. Just take a good rest at home. It's important to take good care of your body.

In the next few days, I have to take people to Xigang. The ginseng there is about to be harvested and sold. I don’t know how it is growing, so I have to go and take a look.”

After talking about the affairs of the court, Qu Shaoyang finally had the opportunity to talk about family matters.

Over at the Xigang Ginseng Garden, it has developed very well in the past three years, and now there are already 1,600 to 1,700-meter-high ginseng.

If the cycle continues at this rate, in another five or six years, the Qu family will have about five or six thousand feet of ginseng land, and the annual output will be considerable.

This year is the first year of ginseng harvest, and Qu Shaoyang wants to go and see it in person.

Of course, it was not just for ginseng. He also wanted to take the opportunity to go to Shuangdianzi to meet Zhao Zhengguo, Zheng Tiezhu and others.

The current situation is clearly unfavorable to the Qing court. The naval battle has come to an end, and the next step will be the land battle.

Andong and Kuandian are located along the Yalu River and are both under the jurisdiction of Dongbian Dao. Their geographical location is very important.

Once the land war begins, these places will be the first to bear the brunt.

Although Maoer Mountain is not close to the battlefield, it is under the jurisdiction of the East Road. If the war goes badly, there is no guarantee that the higher-ups will dispatch the Maoer Mountain Patrol Team to provide support.

Besides, Chen Yunhan is still in Kuandian, which is the root of the Chen family.

If something happened over there, Qu Shaoyang couldn't just watch his uncle fall into danger, right? At that time, regardless of whether there was an order from above, he would definitely lead his troops to help.

Besides, the invaders this time were the small Japanese.

Past and present lives, national hatred and family feuds, not to mention that Qu Shaoyang now has someone and a gun, even if he is alone, he has to find a way to kill a few Japanese to vent his anger.

Because of this, Qu Shaoyang had to go to Shuangdianzi to take a look and inform the backbone members of the security team.

"Okay, you can go without worry. I'm at home." When Liu Dongshan heard it, he knew what his disciple meant and said immediately.

The master and disciple had a detailed discussion, and the next day Qu Shaoyang and Meng Lanxin, led thirty or forty guards, set off for Xigang Ginseng Garden.

The reason why Meng Lanxin was brought along was because all the ginseng gardens were managed by her.

Last autumn, Qu Shaoyang was busy planting ginseng and sowing seeds in the ginseng garden and had no time to spare.

Despite the objections of Qu Shaoyang and Chen Xiuyun, Meng Lanxin took her son and others to the Xigang ginseng garden to watch the workers work.

Only after finishing the work on the ginseng field did Meng Lanxin return to Maoer Mountain with her children.

At the beginning of this year, Meng Lanxin weaned her son, left the child at home, and took people to the ginseng garden to supervise the work. She stayed there for more than 20 days.

After that, Meng Lanxin was also in charge of picking flowers, growing ginseng seeds, and picking ginseng seeds.

When it comes to the affairs in the ginseng garden, Meng Lanxin is more knowledgeable and attentive than Qu Shaoyang.

Now that the ginseng garden has reached the harvest season, Meng Lanxin naturally has to go and take a look.

In the past, the roads from Maoer Mountain to Xigang were all mountain paths, and it was quite troublesome to cross the mountains.

Ever since Qu Shaoyang built a ginseng garden in Xigang, he organized the refugees to build roads and bridges.

This would give the refugees something to do temporarily and prevent them from gathering together to cause trouble. At the same time, it would also facilitate communication between villages along the way.

At present, the road from Maoer Mountain to Xigang has been completed. It has been widened a lot than before. The road surface has been paved with several layers of crushed sand and gravel by tamping.

Although it is not as good as cement roads or asphalt roads, at least it is not as muddy and difficult to walk on when it rains.

For some winding and difficult sections of the road, explosives were used to blast through the mountain to straighten the road.

Therefore, it is now much more convenient to go to Xigang Ginseng Garden and you can get there in less than a day.

At the end of August, the ginseng in the field is at its most abundant. It is time to dig up the ginseng and make it into food. The sun-dried red ginseng is rosy in color, without any streaks or white skin.

By mid-September, the ginseng will have turned into pulp. If we take it out and process it, its quality will not be good and it cannot be weighed.

Over at the ginseng garden, the foreman had sent a letter to Maoer Mountain early, waiting for the boss to arrange for someone to come and look after the ginseng.

These days, everyone is waiting, afraid of wasting time.

"Oh, Master Qu, Second Madam, you are finally here. I have been waiting for you."

The leader Huang Maosheng finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Qu Shaoyang and Meng Lanxin arriving.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting." Qu Shaoyang cupped his fists and smiled. "Well, we'll start digging the ginseng tomorrow. Is it in time?"

Huang Maosheng is an experienced ginseng farmer hired from nearby. He is very familiar with the temperament of garden ginseng, planting techniques, and seasonal solar terms.

Most of the other guys in the ginseng garden have worked in other ginseng gardens and are very familiar with ginseng cultivation.

It can be said that if Huang Maosheng had not led the people to take care of the ginseng garden, the garden would have been in a mess with Qu Shaoyang and Meng Lanxin coming here and there only to fish for a few days and rest for a few days.

Therefore, Qu Shaoyang has special respect for these bosses and waiters.

"It's not too late, it's not too late, sir, you've come just in time. We've got everything ready, and we'll start working tomorrow morning."

Huang Maosheng, the boss, was flattered by the boss's courtesy and nodded quickly with a smile.

"That's good. I brought a lot of rice and flour with me, as well as a big fat pig.

Kill the pig quickly before it gets dark, and arrange for people to stew the meat and steam the buns tomorrow morning. When everyone is full, they can work hard. "

Qu Shaoyang has this kind of temper. As long as others work for him sincerely, he will never take advantage of them.

During the autumn harvest season, there is a lot of work in the fields and the meals must keep up, so stewed meat and white flour steamed buns are a must.

Not to mention, this ginseng production is a happy event, so make the guys happy and work carefully, and everything will come out.

When everyone heard this, they were very happy, "Oh, thank you so much, boss.

Did you hear that, everyone? The boss has sent us rice and noodles, as well as a big fat pig." Huang Maosheng shouted loudly.

When the workers in Shenyuan heard this, they became happy and shouted in unison, "Thank you to your boss."

Then, under the leadership of the foreman, everyone unloaded the truck with rice, flour, oil and other daily necessities and moved them to the warehouse.

Several other strong young men lifted the big fat pig off the carriage, tied it to a long bench, tidied it up, and started slaughtering the pig after everything was ready.

Qu Shaoyang and Meng Lanxin didn't care how the guys slaughtered the pigs. After they settled down, they went for a walk in the ginseng garden.

At this time of year, the ginseng leaves begin to turn yellow, but you can see that the seedlings are still quite neat in most places.

Light seedling drop means high survival rate, and high survival rate means high yield. Qu Shaoyang even went to the plot where ginseng was about to be harvested, found a spot, dug up the soil layer covering the ginseng, exposed the rhizomes underneath and took a look.

The soil was not dug too deep, so only the shoulders could be seen, not the entire shape. But judging from this, the roots underneath should be quite large.

Qu Shaoyang was quite satisfied and patted the dirt off his hands.

"Let's go back, pack up and have a quick dinner. Have a good rest tonight and work tomorrow."

Shenyuan employs a total of twenty or so workers. They go up the mountain in mid-to-late February every year and do not go down the mountain until the snow falls in winter and the country freezes.

If you are short of manpower when you are covering the ginseng shed and weeding in the spring, or when you are planting ginseng and sowing seeds in the autumn, you can also go to the nearby villages to hire a few temporary workers.

With so many people living and eating on the mountain, and Qu Shaoyang and his group coming over from time to time, a total of seven or eight houses were built on the mountain, in addition to several warehouses.

There are many people on the mountain. In the summer, the kang is too hot for cooking, so they set up two big pots in the yard.

By the time Qu Shaoyang and his friends had wandered around enough and returned, the guys at Shenyuan had already killed the pig.

There were two large pots steaming, and the guys were using basins and buckets to scoop boiling water and pour it over the pig.

There were two young men with kitchen knives in their hands, scraping pig hair.

After all, there is strength in numbers. After a while, the pig hair was almost completely gone.

So Huang Maosheng came forward with a sharp knife, grabbed the pig's ear with one hand, and used the other hand to cut off the pig's head very skillfully.

When Qu Shaoyang saw this, he hurriedly told Huang Maosheng to keep the pig's head and tail for the time being as they would need them tomorrow, and they could do with the rest as they pleased.

When Huang Maosheng heard this, he quickly had his men cut off the pig's head and tail and put them separately, and took out all the pig's offal, cleaned it, and roasted it over a fire tonight so they could be eaten the next morning.

The pig was quite fat, weighing over 300 pounds, with a lot of water, oil and fat in its stomach.

When Meng Lanxin saw this, she hurriedly asked someone to pick all the lard for her. She led the two maids to chop up all the lard and put it into the empty pot, added some water, and started to simmer the oil.

As the water in the pot evaporates, the oil gradually seeps out and emits bursts of aroma.

The guys working around couldn't help but sniff; the smell was so delicious that it made them drool.

Several vegetable plots were opened around the ginseng field, where cabbage, radishes and potatoes were planted.

Meng Lanxin asked someone to pick some cabbages and asked the maid to soak some vermicelli.

After the oil was heated up, I used the oil at the bottom of the pot to stew a large pot of cabbage vermicelli.

For dinner, everyone had two bowls of flatbread and cabbage stewed with vermicelli, which made the guys very happy. They held their bowls and ate up all the food.

It was dark, and torches were lit outside to provide illumination. Huang Maosheng led his men to work in the yard.

Into a big pot, cleaned pork offal, such as pig heart, pig liver, pig lung, pig intestines, pig stomach, etc., are put and stewed in one pot.

In the other pot, large bones, pork belly, etc. were stewed.

There are not so many seasonings in the mountains. In addition to salt and wine, you can add some Schisandra chinensis vine, and the stewed food will taste very fragrant.

The two big pots kept bubbling until quite late, and even after the fire was turned off, there was no need to open the lids, just keep them there.

Early the next morning, Meng Lanxin got up with the maids, kneaded the dough that had been fermented the night before, and steamed it in a pot.

Then take out all the ingredients from the pot, cut them one by one, and put them on the plate.

The meat on the big bones was also removed, and the square meat was cut into thin slices. Then a few heads of garlic were chopped and mashed, and poured into the clear sauce.

Re-light the fire in the soup pot for stewing large bones, add finely shredded radish, then roast the dried chilies in front of the stove until they are charred, then crush them and sprinkle them in the soup before serving.

The steamed buns were cooked and the soup was ready, and the guys just got up, washed up, and started eating.

Breakfast was just as Qu Shaoyang described, big steamed buns, braised meat and pork offal dipped in garlic sauce, and shredded radish and bone soup.

Add some chili peppers to the hot bone soup, and it will warm your stomach and body, and make you sweat on your forehead. It's so comfortable.

After breakfast, Qu Shaoyang had people carry pig heads, steamed buns, wine and other offerings and came to a big tree stump.

Then Qu Shaoyang personally lit three incense sticks, inserted them in front of the tree stump, and then lit some burning paper, muttering to himself.

"God of the Mountain, old boss, this year we are going to harvest ginseng and make it into goods.

In the past three years, thanks to the care of the mountain god, the weather has been good and there have been no disasters, so the club moss has grown well.

I have come here today to thank the mountain gods and old masters. I ask for your blessing. May the ginseng garden prosper every year and may the ginseng grow better and better. "

After he finished muttering, Qu Shaoyang led everyone to kneel in front of a big tree stump and kowtowed three times. Everyone shouted in unison, begging the old leader for blessings.

After the ceremony of commemorating the old boss was over, Huang Maosheng directed the men to take their tools and start dismantling the shed and collecting ginseng.

The harvesting of ginseng is different from that of other crops, and it requires a lot of attention.

When planting ginseng, people work backwards, planting one row and taking one step back, until they reach the edge of the field.

When picking ginseng, you must find the right end.

Use a special tool called a three-toothed digger, also called a three-toothed hook, and dig deep according to the position of the ginseng stalks on the ground.

Then he lifted it up and the ginseng in the soil was taken out. Then he knocked it gently and carried it behind him.

Most of the dirt on the ginseng was shaken off, revealing a plump, white and human-shaped ginseng doll inside.

It takes two people to dig ginseng. The person in front holds a three-tooth hook and digs it out, while the person behind picks up the ginseng, shakes off the dirt, and then puts it into a sack.

Picking ginseng is a delicate job. You can't do it too quickly, as it's easy to lose the position. If the teeth of the three-tooth hook accidentally scratch the ginseng, then a good ginseng will be wasted.

Therefore, when Huang Maosheng assigned work in the morning, he asked the workers in the ginseng garden to use three-tooth hooks to dig.

The guards brought by Qu Shaoyang were either cutting ginseng leaves with sickles, or following behind and picking ginseng from the fields.

The job of planing a mallet is purely a matter of conscience. If the person doing the job has a bad conscience, it would be very easy to punish him.

If the three-tooth hook in his hand tilts, countless trees will be damaged.

This is also the reason why Qu Shaoyang brought so many delicious foods here, and why he said as soon as he arrived here yesterday that we could eat as much meat and steamed buns as we wanted today.

How much does a pig and a few bags of flour cost?
As long as these guys work hard and don't break the mallet, as many pigs as possible will come out.

Sometimes you should not be too calculative, as you may end up losing the big picture because of the small details.

The guys had meat and white flour buns in the morning, and they all enjoyed the food, so naturally they did their job very carefully.

Each swing of the three-tooth hook was calculated to pass just under the ginseng beard.

Just lift it up and you can get two to three ginsengs without even breaking the skin of the ginseng.

(End of this chapter)