There are many people in Chang'an.

The more people we eat, the more we use. The consumption every day is staggering.

After winter comes, one item of material becomes more consumed.

That is coal. Coal is mostly used by the poor, and charcoal is mostly used by the rich.

Wang Sanlang is still very satisfied with his current life, although it seems that he has never gotten anything good since the day he was born. Anything he wants can only be obtained after some painful tempering.

Of course, sometimes even after hard work, you still can't get anything.

Then Wang Sanlang understood one thing very early on. People are different. For himself, he cannot have too high expectations for life...

If poor people have too high expectations for their lives, it may not be a good thing.

Now Wang Sanlang just hopes to be able to carry coal for two more trips, so that he can pay for his baby.

By the way, Wang Sanlang is only sixteen years old this year.

Sixteen-year-old fathers are not a rare thing in the Han Dynasty. It is not an empty saying that the children of the poor will be the masters of their families early. If the poor do not get married and have children at this age, then their children may lose their father before they grow up.

.

The average age of a big man is about forty.

This has been pulled up by some gentry children, just like the average social income in later generations. Those who hold back the average social income, please go aside and play in the mud...

If only the 80% were calculated, I believe it would be an even more terrifying number.

In the early morning, the sky was overcast. Although the snow had stopped, the weather was still not very good. Wang Sanlang was very worried about whether his children could survive such weather smoothly.

The mortality rate of older babies is about 30% to 40%.

Many children die before they can even open their eyes seriously, take a look, and touch the world.

Wang Sanlang hopes that his child can survive and not be like his brother...

Carrying coal is not an easy task.

Most of the time, physical labor is not an easy and happy thing.

Coal is very heavy, and because I couldn't bear to use linen straps, I used hemp rope. At the beginning, my shoulders would be bruised with blood blisters, and then they would burst, and then another layer would be rubbed out, until thick calluses grew.

It will only get better after a deep groove is formed. Two hemp ropes are tied around the shoulders, and a wider strap is placed on the forehead. There is an advantage to this, that is, when the waist is hunched forward,

It can use all the strength of the whole body more effectively.

There is also a T-shaped wooden stick under the coal basket, which is not used to allow these coal-carrying people to completely relax and rest, but because these coal-carrying people are afraid that when they are tired and weak, they may accidentally remain unstable.

The balance caused the coal basket to tilt, and the coal fell out, making today's work in vain...

Experienced coal carriers will walk a fixed distance and a fixed route every day. Because they are familiar with every stone and every pothole on that road, they will not stumble and fall, and then act like worker ants.

, carrying the coal basket silently, back and forth on the fixed route. Even if they meet familiar coal-carrying companions, they rarely speak, let alone spend time chatting. At most, they just touch each other with their eyes, like

Encouraging each other.

Ever since General Hussar replaced charcoal with coal, Chang'an has changed from a large user of charcoal to a large user of coal. Of course, 20% of the people still use charcoal, and even use silver charcoal. Ordinary charcoal is still used.

However, most of the people in Chang'an fell in love with coal. Coal is more beautiful, can burn longer than charcoal, and is more practical...

Well, in fact, none of the above may be correct. The fundamental reason why coal is more popular than charcoal is that coal is cheaper.

To make charcoal, you need to cut down trees, dry them in the shade, and then burn them into charcoal. Not only is it time-consuming and labor-intensive, but the output is also small. You can’t burn much in one kiln. Coal is relatively better. In addition, it can be mixed with loess and made into honeycomb briquettes.

Much cheaper than ordinary charcoal.

The Hussar had an order that charcoal and coal markets were not allowed to be established in Chang'an City. Therefore, if the people in Chang'an City and surrounding Lingyi wanted to use charcoal and coal, they could only use vehicles or carry them on people's backs.

The vehicle capacity is large, but the cost is also high.

In winter, animals are afraid of the cold, and they have to eat more, which consumes money for fodder. People are much cheaper, and they don’t need special care. In the surrounding villages, there are many people who take advantage of the winter leisure to find some work, so give some

Scattered money and items are also thrown away, saving worry, effort and money.

What's more, this kind of work is seasonal. Three melons and two dates cannot support people. It is only suitable for farmers like Wang Sanlang who work hard to subsidize the family...

You carry a basket of coal and receive a piece of wood. Then you carry it to the field and put a stamp on the wood. At the end of the day, several pieces of wood are equal to several rewards. It is simple and easy to recognize.

There are two types of coal cake makers in Chang'an, government-run ones and private ones.

The official camps are naturally opened by Huang's workshop under the Hussar, and the reward will be more. And because the wife of the General Hussar is kind-hearted, if the weather is bad, such as snow and wind, she will be there at the end of the day.

At that time, in addition to the original reward, everyone might also get a small piece of multi-grain pancakes...

It happens in normal weather, occasionally.

Today, it should be gone...

It was just cloudy, with neither rain nor snow, and the wind was not strong.

Wang Sanlang sighed. Although it is said that bad weather such as rain and snow will make carrying coal more difficult, the two-finger and three-finger long multi-grain pancakes are soaked in some water and boiled, and then added with some wheat bran.

It’s another meal...

In the private sector, the remuneration is average. In the beginning, due to the lack of coal in the basket, the remuneration was deducted for various reasons, so later most people would choose to carry it for the government. Later, the private sector

The coal shop couldn't stand it anymore, so they raised the pay, but still very few people would go.

Because the benchmark for the hussar officer camp is set over there...

In the coal shop of the Hussar workshop, the steward responsible for exchanging wood chips was a cripple who was missing half of his leg. His left calf was missing and was replaced with a piece of wood. It is said that this steward was formerly a soldier of the Hussar.

He lost his legs on the battlefield and survived, and because half of his legs were missing, it was inconvenient to ride a horse, and he couldn't be used as a patrol officer, so he became a small steward like this who didn't need to run much.

"Hey, that's ok. Did you carry it six times today?" The manager of the coal shop took the wood chips from Wang Sanlang and praised him, "Young man has some strength! What do you want to exchange for? Money or things?"

"Change the rice! Change everything to sorghum!" Wang Sanlang said loudly. This is also the choice of most coal-carrying people. First prepare enough food for the winter at home before you can think about other things.

The reason for replacing sorghum instead of other grains is because sorghum is the cheapest and can be replaced in the largest amount.

In ancient times, when there were no high-quality chemical fertilizers, the yield of sorghum could be twice that of wheat, and sorghum did not have to be chosen very much. It could be grown in any good or bad condition. It could be grown on the eaves, corners, or in remote areas, and the harvest would be more or less. But the problem is

Sorghum contains tannins, which are the kind contained in many fruits before they are ripe, such as green persimmons.

So the taste is naturally imaginable.

In addition, sweet sorghum was introduced before, and the price of sorghum, which originally had a bad taste, dropped even further.

But people like Wang Sanlang are not afraid that sorghum will be unpalatable. What they are afraid of is that they will not be able to eat it.

Carrying a small half bag of sorghum, Wang Sanlang felt that the fatigue on his body seemed to be much less. With this small half bag, the family would have at least three more days to chew on, and then carry it for ten or twenty days.

Change some cloth or something...

Carefully protecting half the bag of sorghum with his arms, Wang Sanlang and several people from the same village prepared to go back.

Although Chang'an Lingyi has been generally peaceful these days, some bad rumors are still spreading. It is said that there are even riots in some places in Zuo Fengyi, people are robbing people, killing people, and burning shops. It's so scary. Then I heard

Some people also died in Chang'an Mausoleum...

But Wang Sanlang felt that these rumors were far away from him. Where was Zuo Fengyi? He didn't know. He rarely even entered the rice shop because he couldn't afford the high-priced grains in the rice shop. According to the rumors,

Everything in it seems to be at a certain distance from Wang Sanlang, and the happiness closest to him is the small half bag of sorghum in his arms.

After turning the corner, I saw a group of people standing on the cross street from a distance, almost blocking the intersection. They were talking about something, gesticulating and spitting...

Wang Sanlang and others were immediately in a daze, and then they subconsciously prepared to take a detour to avoid the situation. However, they saw a team of patrolmen coming and dispersed some of the crowd blocking the intersection to make way for them.

Only then did Wang Sanlang realize that it was just a new notice that had been posted, which caused a discussion, and was not a gathering of people to cause trouble...

When the patrol inspector saw Wang Sanlang and others, he waved to signal them to pass and not to stand in the way.

With the inspection present, Wang Sanlang and others naturally became more courageous, and crossing the cross street was the most direct shortcut. If they had to take a detour out of the city, they would have to walk a long way, so they lowered their heads and hurriedly passed by...

A group of gentry disciples who were discussing the announcement on the cross street did not pay attention to Wang Sanlang and others at all. It was like that although they were at the same time and the same place at this moment, there were those who were wearing brocade robes and those who were wearing linen, those who were clean and those who were covered with clothes.

The marl is like the distant cape and the end of the world, they are two different worlds.

Just like water and oil, even if they are mixed together temporarily, they will gradually separate.

……(··;)(··;)……

In Chang'an, the waves on the cross streets gradually spread.

Those who are still in the officialdom or those who are close to Chang'an can feel it more or less quickly, but some "hermits" cannot say that the information is so convenient and they can detect it quickly.

In the Han Dynasty, there has always been a habit of respecting hermits.

Reclusion and becoming a hermit were originally an individual behavior that pursued freedom, and were also a special social phenomenon in Chinese history.

In the Han Dynasty, the phenomenon of people retreating into seclusion at every turn was very serious.

There were many in the Tang Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty was much better because there was Zhu Yuanzhang...

Classmate Lao Zhu loves to fall out, so being a hermit in the Ming Dynasty is also a high risk...

Among the Twenty-Four Histories, in the Han Dynasty, there was the "Book of the Later Han: Biography of Yimin" written specifically for those who had retired to hermitage. This was a biography. The so-called biographies meant "the deeds of people and ministers were recorded so that they could be passed down to future generations."

, is enough to illustrate the attitude of the entire society towards hermits at this point in time.

Perhaps because of the official recognition of hermits, or the social atmosphere at that time, there are a large number of biographies about hermits not only in the "Book of the Later Han", but also in the "Book of Han".

The theoretical basis of the hermit is probably because someone said something like this, "A gentleman is a gentleman, Zang Boyu. If the country has the way, then he will be an official. If the country does not have the way, then he can take care of it."
To be continued...