I played as an assistant in ancient times

"Of course. The purchase price of the southern cloth shipped to the local area is 1.5 cents or even lower. With the addition of the shipping tax and other expenses, it may be 3.5 cents. But when it is placed in the cloth shop for sale, the most ordinary white cotton cloth costs 5 cents a piece, which is almost half a tael of silver.

The cotton cloth woven in our village, after being dyed, is sold for only four or five cents a piece, pure fine linen is sold for one and a half cents, and coarse linen and ramie is only one cent.

Then, how many adults in the village do you see who buy cloth to make new clothes for themselves every year? They are mainly willing to use cotton cloth to make new clothes for children and the elderly. "

Last year, Shen Xiaoye and his uncle conducted a survey at the ferry. Combined with the data of them buying soaked cloth and reselling it in the big market town, it was easy to figure out the answer.

"My great grandfather and the head of the village were both from wealthy families. They rarely wore fine cloth, but mostly coarse cotton and fine linen.

Cotton and linen are difficult to weave, take twice as long as pure cotton, and are not easy to collect.

But if we collect raw coarse cloth or fine linen from various villages, we don’t have to spend a penny. After we dye it, it only costs one or two cents cheaper than in the county town. There are many people who buy it at the big market.”

Mainly because coarse linen and burlap are hard, families with better financial conditions are always willing to buy some cotton cloth for lining.

Shen Cungeng thought about it carefully and realized that there was some profit to be made. "But the key is that you have to have the capital to buy the cloth, right? Also, you said that the size of southern cloth is shorter than that of northern cloth. Can you buy northern cloth for one penny?"

"Take your time. A piece of coarse cloth costs just over one penny." Shen Xiaoye paused in pinching the petals of the safflower. She was a foreign language major. Apart from having seen her roommates dye cloth in her hometown and having tried her hand at it, she didn't have any other skills to make money.

Even if she was engaged in buying and selling, she would need initial capital.

In the past two years, I have tried selling so-called ancestral recipes, making local snacks, setting up a stall at the ferry, hunting wild animals and selling saltpeter to the county town, improving the bellows and selling flowers, etc., but without exception, I could not save much.

The reason is very simple. In addition to the fact that the core skills are not core, the family is now so poor that they have to live in mud houses. After experiencing a drought, a family member who has just recovered falls ill again. In addition, they have to look for their parents, so everything costs money.

My uncle did remember to innovate the steel-smelting technology, but finding a buyer now would undoubtedly cause trouble.

I remember when I sold that batch of soaked cloth, it was only worth a few dozen taels, but it was almost ripped off by someone.

As for "inventions and creations", I'm sorry, there are many things that we thought the ancients did not have, but in fact they have been developed or are in use. For example, soap is called soap ball in some places, and glass is called medicine glass in the glass workshop.

Toothbrushes and iced drinks are sold on the streets. Fresh ice cream and heat-insulating food boxes and porcelain are used in restaurants and hotels, and they also deliver meals to people's homes.

Even glasses have an elegant name: tortoise shell.

Not to mention that hotpot is a special dish, and all kinds of pickled vegetables are the conventional way to preserve dishes, such as grilled skewers, fish sashimi, etc.

By the way, sweet potato and corn are also being promoted in Dazhou. Her family grows some on the sloping land. The yield of corn, which has not been domesticated many times and has no chemical fertilizers, is impressive. An average of 100 kilograms per mu is considered a high yield.

Well, this proves once again that you can’t get rich by planting a few acres of land and harvesting food.

She said, “That’s why I wanted to learn more about rare medicinal herbs from my grandfather, and then go into the mountains to collect them and exchange them for some money.

Oh, I miss my grandpa and uncle, I wonder when they will come home."

"Xiaoye, I think those who have collected 100-year-old ginseng and 1,000-year-old Ganoderma lucidum will dream faster at night.

It would be better for you to fish with me more often and let mother cook it into jars and sell it faster." Shen Cungeng really believed this. With her mother's ancestral craftsmanship, a jar of fish could be sold for a hundred coins.

"The newly grown crucian carps in the river can't catch up with the speed of your net, so you can't drain the pond to catch all the fish, cousin.

I'd better take good care of those old hens, so that I can eat their eggs and sell them at a good price." My aunt worked hard to earn money to supplement the family income, so why should she use it to cause trouble?

Only what you earn yourself can be used with peace of mind.

Quickly pinch the flowers of Shen Xiaoye and soak them in water. Unlike Indigofera ovata, which needs to be soaked for seven days before building a jar, Red Flower only needs to be soaked for an hour, then rubbed and soaked in water overnight, and you can start making it the next day.

Shen Cungeng chuckled and walked away with the empty bucket, "Don't ask me to help you raise earthworms in the future."

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard Huang's voice, "Geng brother, why haven't you gone to fetch water yet?

Hurry up, or it will be completely dark and you won’t be able to see the road clearly.”

"I'll go right away." Shen Cungeng turned around, made a face at Shen Xiaoye, and ran away.

She also made a face and laughed back, while her men continued to destroy the flower with their ruthless hands.

The two people she was talking about were less than 500 miles away from the capital. Grandpa Shen Shanyou was standing at the stern of the boat with a bag on his back, thinking about how to tell his little granddaughter when he returned.

"Dad, it's dangerous to sail at night, why are you standing outside again?" Uncle Shen Changshou, dressed in tight clothes, walked over with a lantern in his hand. There were still bruises on his face from the fight.

Shen Shanyou blinked away the tears in her eyes, coughed lightly and said, "Go home and tell Xiaoye that we have collected the remains of her parents."

"Dad, isn't that what you wrote in the last letter?" Shen Changshou helped him back to the warehouse. "I will take good care of Xiaoye and find him a good husband in the future, with a nice in-law and a small but harmonious family."

I must not be like my sister. My brother-in-law was obviously forced to wander outside because his family members seized his property. But after he passed the imperial examination with the help of my father, that group of people came back and kept pounced on him.

When the disaster was about to cause chaos and there were refugees wandering everywhere, he and his wife were forced to go back that day to attend the funeral of his great-uncle who had occupied his brother-in-law's land and house. Otherwise, they would go to the government to sue him for being disrespectful and unfilial, and threatened to expel him from the clan.

This is to cut off my brother-in-law's path to the imperial examination.

As a result, when Wujiazhuang was robbed and the Ye family's property was looted by refugees, my sister, brother-in-law and the coachman Uncle Gu stood up to protect the young members of the family and were killed. They actually kept saying that the three of them were separated on that day and no one knew where they were.

Later, the news was passed on to my family, and someone saw my sister and several others heading north.

This time the truth was finally found out, and Shen Changshou gave some people from the Ye family a good beating, but his sister and brother-in-law were no longer there.

This situation was not stated in his letter, so Shen Changsui didn't know about it, and Shen Xiaoye didn't know even more.

She waited until the safflower had been soaked for half an hour, rubbed and washed it carefully, and squeezed out the red juice for later use.

Place the kneaded flower balls in coarse cloth, sprinkle some white vinegar on them and pour in clean water, then knead and press them to drain the water.

My aunt wanted to help, but she couldn't. After rubbing and washing, there were fewer petals. "Xiaoye, I'll drain the ash water for you. How long will it take?"

Huang didn't mind the slow work, she just felt sorry for spending money on the oil lamp, so she could just do it during the day tomorrow.

Lin and Geng, who were standing next to them, were pushing a cloth bag filled with wood ash water back and forth while the other was trying to knead the flowers.

Shen Xiaoye said calmly: "Just rub it over and over again for a dozen times.

Cousin, help me pour this squeezed water together with the previous one."

"Okay." Shen Cungeng was happy to help. He almost forgot about meeting Qian Jin to accompany the Taoist priest overnight.

But after pouring it several times, when the filtered water became increasingly light yellow, Shen Xiaoye asked him to use another basin.

After a while, the filtering and pressing is completed. Then put the safflower mud on the coarse cloth and put it into the basin. Add the alkaline water drained from the wood ash and press it evenly.

Shen Xiaoye covered it and said, "Okay, ferment it overnight and use it tomorrow.

Next, we need to find two portions of red and yellow slurry.”