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

Chapter 15 Marching Rations
In the late summer evening, the breeze blew gently, shaking the ancient trees in Wuji Courtyard, making a rustling sound. The setting sun dyed the earth into a brilliant sunset, and the golden afterglow spread all over the earth.

The cicadas that had been chirping all day finally stopped singing, and the egrets and wild ducks in the fields began to fly back to their nests.

Luo San came over the bridge carrying a hoe.
"I've put the water in your rice fields for you, and I've also blocked the crab and eel holes on the ridges. The water should be enough for a few days. I'll tell Lanxiang and her two siblings to weed the fields again and pull out the weeds..."

Under the corridor of Wuji Courtyard,

Luo San's trouser legs were still rolled up high, and his body was dotted with mud.

"I'm leaving tomorrow. Please help me take care of the three siblings. Just let them cook for themselves. The kids are sensible now..."

"Uncle San, why are you being so polite to me? You don't have to worry about the farm work. I've made up my mind. I'm going to hire someone tomorrow to help take care of the rice paddies. As for the 20 mu of mulberry fields on the plateau, Feng Liulang's family in Fengjiabao has agreed to take care of the mulberry leaves this year. They raise spring and autumn silkworms as well as summer silkworms, so they're in need of mulberry leaves."

I have twenty acres of mulberry leaves, and I can harvest them for half a year this year. I agreed to give you two pieces of silk and twelve taels of cotton after the autumn harvest.

Anyway, Li Yi couldn't raise silkworms by himself, so the mulberry leaves were just sitting there idle.

"It costs a lot of grain to hire a worker." Luo Sandao said that the village custom for hiring a strong young farmhand is to provide 12 stone of grain a year, half of which is wheat and half is millet. The worker also has to provide clothes for spring and winter, as well as food. It is actually not cheap.

"Guo Erlang said he would hire someone from the disaster victims outside Chang'an City. He would pay five or six dou of grain a month and there would be people willing to do it. I thought, let's hire one first and see."

Luo San also knew that Li Yi didn't know how to farm. "Actually, there's no need to hire a farmhand. Hiring one is like planting ten acres of land for nothing. You can hire temporary helpers in our village or in the neighboring Guozhuang or Fengjiabao. Now is not the busy farming season, so the work in the fields is easy. Just do some watering and weeding as a side job. One or two bushels of grain a month will be enough."

"When the autumn harvest comes and we're too busy, we can hire people to do day labor and be paid by the day."

Li Yi didn't pay much attention to the fields, and he rarely went to see his crops now.

"Uncle San, let me make you some dry food,"

"No need. Meals will be provided when we get to the county tomorrow."

Li Yi insisted on making some dry food for Luo San to take with him, but Luo San said that he would be going out tomorrow and it was too late to make wheat rice now.

At this time, the general dry food is wheat rice.

Steam the hulled wheat first, then dry it in the sun. When you want to eat it, just soak it in water and you can eat it. If you want something simpler, you don't need to make it too complicated. Just steam it first and then dry it in the sun for a day or two.

The more luxurious ones will have nuts, honey, salt, etc.

There is also wheat rice that can be stored for a longer time and is more portable. Take one stone of wheat, steam it and dry it, then steam it again and dry it again. Repeat this ten times, and you will finally get two dou of dry wheat rice. When eating, take one he each time to fill your stomach.

This kind of food that has been steamed and dried ten times can be preserved for a long time without spoiling.

When the Tang Dynasty soldiers went to war, they were required to bring nine dou of wheat rice.

Ordinary people would prepare some wheat rice as dry food in advance when they went to perform military service or travel far away. Luo San did not prepare any because his family was short of food and had run out of food before. Li Yi lent him a stone of millet. He planned to go to Chang'an on an empty stomach and leave the food for his three children.

Li Yi planned to make some dry food for Luo San, and even make some for the four middle schools in the village to eat on the road.

Among the marching rations he remembered, such as pot cakes, flatbreads, chess pieces, wheat rice, fried noodles, and fried rice, he finally felt that fried rice was more convenient and there was still enough time.

However, it is best to use hard millet for frying rice. Millet is divided into hard and soft types. Hard millet, also called yellow rice, is used for frying rice. Soft millet, also called sorghum, large yellow rice, or soft yellow rice is used for making cakes and brewing wine.

Broomcorn millet is as drought-resistant as foxtail millet, but has a lower yield and is cheaper.

Li Yi first went to Guozhuang next door and bought a stone of hard millet from Guo Erlang.

"If you want food, you should buy rice and wheat. Millet is also better than this hard millet," Guo Erlang reminded Li Yi with a smile.

"I'll make some dry food with yellow rice."

After chatting for a few sentences, Li Yi picked up a stone of hard millet and took it home. This hard millet was indeed cheap, cheaper than soft millet, but its price was not as high as millet and wheat, and it was the same price as soybeans.

One stone is only eighteen thousand.

Luo San was quite confused when he saw Li Yi brought back a stone of yellow rice as dry food, because everyone usually used wheat rice as dry food.

Hard broomcorn millet is very similar to millet, but the grains are much larger than millet and the color is dark yellow to brown.

"How to do this?"

"It's quite simple,"

First wash to remove impurities, then soak,

Li Yi called Lanxiang to help him light the fire. When the water in the pot was boiled to 80%, he put the soaked yellow rice into the pot to cook.

"Fire."

Luo San and the others looked at Li Yi curiously. Lanxiang had seen him fry white tofu into golden tofu puffs in the afternoon, and she wondered what he was going to do now.

After the water boiled, Li Yi opened the lid of the pot, stirred the water up and down to evenly distribute it, and then closed the lid again.

"Lanxiang, Xiaohuo."

After the millet has been simmered for six or seven minutes, remove the lid and turn it upside down. After doing this three or four times, it is ready to be served.

The millet grains are now puffy and round, a bit translucent, but not yet cracked. The key to frying rice is to keep it from cracking while cooking, and the ratio of water to millet must be just right, so that the water dries up when the millet is cooked.

"The sun has set, and there's no way to dry the cooked millet. It's so hot, it will go bad overnight," Luo San said worriedly.

"We don't use the sun to dry it, we fry it in a pan. This dry food is called fried rice."

You can’t fry rice directly in the pan, you have to use sand like you fry peanuts.

There was some leftover sand from building the house in the yard. I shoveled some over and sieved it first.

First pour five bowls of sand into the pot, wait until the sand is red, then pour three bowls of dried yellow rice into it.

Seeing this scene, Luo San couldn't help but want to stop him.
How can I eat the rice if there is sand in it?

Li Yize started frying the rice seriously. The air was filled with air and the rice grains popped. He quickly poured the rice and sand into the sieve.
Sift out the sand, leaving only the fried rice, put the sand back into the pot to heat, then add new yellow rice, and repeat this process.

Pots of yellow rice were fried in hot sand.

"Is this done?"

After two steps of boiling and frying, the yellow rice is now golden and fragrant, but Li Yi said with a smile that it cannot be eaten as dry food yet.

"You have to use a stone pestle to remove the shells."

Luo San volunteered, as there was a stone pestle that could be stepped on in the village, which was shared by the entire village.

Use a stone pestle to pound the husks, use a winnowing basket to remove the coarse bran, and then sift the fine bran to make dry fried rice that is easy to carry and eat.

When eating, just soak it in water, either hot water or cold water can be used.

When Li Yi got home, he brewed a bowl of tea for each person, added a handful of fried rice, some salt, some lard, and some chopped green onions, and that was it.

"Oh, it smells so good." "Try it."

As the old saying goes, wear fur to keep warm and eat millet to feel full. Fried rice has a very low water content, is dry and durable in storage, and is easy to carry and convenient to eat.

Even if there is no water, eating dry food can still satisfy your hunger.

Compared to wheat rice, it's undoubtedly better. Not only does wheat rice taste worse, it also has to be cooked. It's extremely hard to swallow if eaten dry, and it won't dissolve even with cold water. Especially the kind that's been steamed and dried ten times, which needs to be soaked in boiling water before cooking. Otherwise, it's like a piece of iron and impossible to chew.

Luo San picked it up and blew on the hot air, then slowly tried it and found that it was fragrant, refreshing and very crispy.

Even that water, with the addition of salt and oil, becomes a delicious soup.

Gousheng and Shitou, the two little brats, were not afraid of the heat and ate them slurpingly, repeatedly exclaiming how delicious it was. Lanxiang ate more delicately, but the little girl also liked it very much.

"It tastes good even when chewed dry."

Li Yi finished a bowl, grabbed a handful and chewed it slowly. The more he chewed, the more delicious it became.

Luo San also sighed repeatedly, "I never thought that this hard millet could be made into such delicious dry food."

Fried rice is delicious and not complicated to make. It is made through three steps: steaming, frying and grinding. You can soak it in water or chew it dry. Both are convenient and delicious.

"Uncle San, each of you should bring a bucket of rice tomorrow. I'll mix some salt into the fried rice to make it easier to eat."

Luo San quickly shook his head. Although this hard yellow rice is cheap, one dou now costs one hundred and eighty coins. It takes half a day to cook, fry and grind it.

"No, no,"

No matter how Li Yi tried to persuade him, he refused. Although Li Yi was the village chief, military service had nothing to do with him. He even treated everyone to a meal yesterday. How could they ask him to send dry food again?

was saying,

Sanniang is here.

She came to invite him to her house for dinner. The fried bean curd she brought back really surprised everyone in the family. And when Sanniang said that she and Li Yi were going to set up a shop at the bridge to sell soy milk, and also make fried bean curd, bean curd sheets, etc., she went to the temple.
Luo Er, who has been selling tofu for half his life, was very surprised. He intuitively felt that this fried tofu was extraordinary and had potential.

But she was also worried about failure. Besides, her daughter was already sixteen years old and too old to get married. Before, because her mother was ill, Sanniang wanted to take care of her mother for a few more years and had been delaying her marriage.

Now that he is going into business with Li Yi, he is afraid that it will affect Sanniang's reputation. Luo Er actually hopes that the two of them can become a couple, but he took the initiative to propose it last time, but they refused.

Sanniang asked Luo San's family to come and eat together. After pushing and pulling for a while, everyone went to the thatched hut next to the canal in the rice field on the south bank of the bridge.

Sanniang and her family still live in this thatched hut.
As Li Yi has moved back to the north bank, the villagers of Luojiabao are now planning to move back, especially those whose cave dwellings have not collapsed or have not been seriously damaged.

"The soy milk has been ground. We can cook it and make bean curd sheets after dinner." Sanniang said excitedly.

"Okay." Li Yi answered calmly. In comparison, bean curd sheets are actually the least technically demanding soy product, and are much simpler than making fried tofu.

The dinner at Sanniang's house is actually quite simple.

A bowl of tofu dregs and wild vegetable porridge is a common dish in Luo Er's family. They eat the tofu dregs that are not sold themselves.

We added a dish today, which is fried tofu. The fried tofu was cooked in a large earthenware pot with some green onions, wild vegetables, and some small fish and shrimps caught from the river.

It's bubbling and smells very good.

There were two dishes shared by more than a dozen people. Everyone who had eaten fried tofu for the first time praised it highly. Each person was given two or three pieces, and they ate them in small bites, chewing and savoring them slowly.

The fried tofu has been cooked for a long time and is very soft. It is also soaked in the fish and shrimp broth and is very fresh and sweet.

The oil in the fried tofu, when boiled in the soup, also adds flavor to the soup.

Li Yi also thought it was pretty good. Although there are more delicious ways to cook fried tofu, it is already delicious when people are hungry.

After dinner,

Sanniang couldn't wait to pull Li Yi to the straw shed where tofu was made and immediately closed the door.

Although Luo Er and his family really wanted to see how bean curd sheets were made, they didn't go in to see in the end.

Bean curd sheets are very simple, just like a layer of window paper that can be broken with a poke.

To put it simply, it is stewing, skinning, and sun-baking.

A pot of soy milk can be simmered repeatedly until the skin is peeled off.

One pound of dried soybeans, purely handmade and without additives, can produce about half a pound of bean curd sheets.

The produced bean curd sheets are also divided into grades. The lighter the color, the better. The most limiting step in bean curd sheet production is the drying process. In good weather in the summer, it can be dried in one to two days. If it is cloudy and rainy, or in spring and winter, it may have to be baked with fire.

The two of them worked hard for a long time and finally finished picking everything.

Looking at the bamboo poles of bean curd sheets hanging on them, Sanniang was filled with excitement. Each piece of bean curd sheet was eight or nine inches long. "Is this it?"

"At night, when there's no sun, these need to be baked over a fire. The heat must be controlled just right to avoid any roasting or burning smell. A top-quality product should be smooth throughout, golden in color, translucent in texture, and resistant to cooking, easily softening without becoming mushy. It should also be tender, crispy, and yet springy."

"Then bake it quickly," Sanniang couldn't wait to see the finished product.

Originally, Li Yi said that it would be enough to just catch a few to try, and there was no need to do so much at night. It would be better to do it during the day and expose it to the sun, which would save time and effort.

"How many yuba can be made from one dou of soybeans?"

Li Yi thought for a moment, "One pound of soybeans can yield about eight ounces of dried bean curd sheets. One dou of beans weighs about seven pounds, so I can get about three and a half pounds of bean curd sheets."

Compared to a pound of beans producing one and a half pounds of fried tofu, a pound of dry beans can only produce half a pound of bean curd sheets. The output seems much lower, but a pound of fried tofu requires five ounces of oil, while bean curd sheets do not have this large cost.

The biggest cost of bean curd sheets is beans, and one pound of bean curd sheets costs fifty-two cents.

"How much is a pound of bean curd sheets?"

Li Yi thought about it and realized that if the cost of a pound of fried tofu was 67 yuan and it was sold for 150 yuan, then selling bean curd sheets for 150 yuan would definitely make more profit.

"We can try to make it the same price as fried tofu, 150 yuan per pound."

"So expensive?"

"We don't plan to sell it to ordinary people. This unique bean curd sheet is rare and valuable. It is only supplied to temples. When we go to Chang'an to sell it to the nobles and high-ranking officials, we definitely can't sell it cheaply."

"Believe it or not, selling something at a high price will actually sell better than selling it at a low price!" Li Yi said with a smile.

Sanniang didn't understand why more expensive things sold better.

"Leave the sales of fried tofu and bean curd sheets to me," Li Yiting was confident. He had already locked in his target customers, the thousands of fat and big-eared monks in hundreds of temples in the capital. This group of people is also one of the richest groups in today's society. They are not only big landlords, but also run many industrial and commercial industries, and lend grain and money.

(End of this chapter)