North and South groceries

Around Qingming, the weather gets warmer and warmer every day. In the past, eating cherries became popular in Chang'an City at this time. After all, there are no other fruits except cherries at this time of year.

The most popular way to eat it is butter cherries, which is to pour some cane milk cheese on top of the cherries. The price is quite expensive, and most people who are not wealthy can afford it.

In the past few years, eating canned fruit has become popular again in Chang'an City, even loquat bayberry, lychee and longan, many people have never even heard of it before.

The price of canned loquats and canned bayberries transported thousands of miles from the south of the Yangtze River is very high, and canned lychees and canned longan from Lingnan are even more expensive. Those canned oranges from Huainan are expensive. relatively low.

There are also many Chang'an people who use some local fruits to make canned food. When some seasonal fruits come down in summer and autumn, they buy some with the farmers who push their carts into the city to sell the fruits.

It doesn't need to be the best in appearance, it's okay to be ugly, peel and remove the core, and tidy up one by one carefully, and make a jar of canned food according to the methods of making canned food circulated in the market. in the corner.

In winter, when the kang was burned in the house, adults and children felt thirsty, so they opened a jar of canned food to share and eat.

The weather is getting hotter these days, which is also the time to do canned food business. Many vendors have taken up the burden and walked through the streets to sell canned food, such as canned peaches, canned apricots, and canned pears and canned plums.

Some people’s canned food is sweeter, while others are stingy. They are reluctant to put syrup in the canned food, and the taste is very bland. Yes, only half a bowl for a penny.

Whether it is a large bowl or a small bowl, sweet or not, the people of Chang'an can buy a bowl of canned fruit for only a penny in this season when there is almost no fruit to eat.

Before and after Qingming, the sun was quite high in the daytime. After walking outside for half a day, I felt thirsty. After eating a bowl of canned fruit, it was cool and sweet, and it was indescribably refreshing.

In this era, the people in the whole world who live the best life and live the most convenient life are probably the people of Chang'an.

Far away in Changle County at the western end of the Hexi Corridor, canned fruit is still far away for the local people.

There are not many melons and fruits in this place all year round. In the east of the Hexi Corridor, there are still some fruits such as persimmons and dates, but there are very few fruits west of Zhangye.

Grapes can be grown in Gaochang, but the distance from Gaochang City to Changle County is basically the same as from Changle County to Liangzhou City, and there is still a large stretch of Gobi Desert along the way.

On the streets of Changle County, you can see some cold melons and melons in summer, but there are not many people who can grow melons in the area, and they are willing to grow even fewer.

Mostly those families with a better life would plant a small piece of melon to satisfy their children and grandchildren's greed. If the knot was good, they would pick a few dandelions and sell them in the city. Sometimes they could fetch a good price. Time can't, it depends on the year.

At the beginning of March in the lunar calendar of this year, two days after Luo Erniang and her cashmere workshop sent the goods to Liangzhou City, a group of vendors selling melons came from Yizhou.

These people hired more than 20 wooden carriages and traveled all the way from Yiwu City. One batch of goods was unloaded in Jinchang, another batch was unloaded in Changle, and the rest were transported to Dunhuang.

County magistrate Luo heard that Yiwu people came to their city to sell melons, so he also went out to watch the excitement.

When Luo used to pass by, he saw those Yiwu people spread a few straw mats under the wall, and placed the melons on the straw mat one by one, and some people cut a few melons into pieces with a machete, and there was no one next to them. Shaochang Leren stood there swallowing, and County Magistrate Luo squeezed in to take a look, and then swallowed.

The last time someone gave him a melon was more than half a year ago. Now when he smells the sweet melon fragrance, his saliva will come out immediately.

To say that if this era has not developed to a certain level, no matter how capable you are, you still can’t eat the things you shouldn’t be able to eat.

"How do you sell this melon?" Luo Yong pointed to the melon on the straw mat and asked those Yiwu people.

"Forty Wen a piece, ten Wen a piece." One of the men replied in Chinese with a Yiwu accent.

Those Changle people who were watching, no matter whether they knew the price earlier or not, when they heard him say that, they sighed again.

"Too expensive, too expensive..."

"Ten cents, I can earn this melon in two or three days."

"Gollum."

"I can't afford it..."

"Tsk tsk."

"..."

The surrounding Changle people swallowed their saliva and complained that melons were too expensive. Those Yiwu people pretended not to hear what they heard, and continued to move melons, cut melons, and stood still.

Even in their Yiwu city, only a few wealthy people in the city can afford the melons after spring. If they are transported to their Changle County, the price will naturally be more expensive if the freight is added.

Take a look at these Changle people in front of you, all of them are not well-dressed, and they still have the temperament of the working people at the bottom, and they tell them that it takes two or three days to earn a piece of melon, and it takes two or three days to earn a piece of melon. Not bad either.

"Three, one hundred Wen." County magistrate Luo has already started bargaining.

"Not for sale." The Yiwu man on the opposite side waved his hand, then turned around and went to work on his own.

"110 papers." County magistrate Luo said again.

The man stopped and thought for a while, then nodded, pointed to the melons on the straw mat on the ground, and said, "You pick it yourself."

So Luo Yong picked three big ones from the melons on the ground, and then took out a bunch of copper coins from his pocket.

"The county magistrate only bought three melons?" Someone asked beside him while he was paying.

"Just eat something fresh." Luo Yong said with a smile.

When the man heard that the melon buyer in front of him who had just bargained with him was actually the county magistrate of Changle, the hand that was waiting to collect the money immediately retracted.

"Is this Lishi Luo Sanlang under your feet?" He asked Luo Yongdao.Several Yiwu people nearby also looked over at this time.

"Our county magistrate is Luo Sanlang from Lishi." The common people in Changle beside him answered Luo Yong.

"Luo coffin board." Someone behind added with a smile.

The Yiwu people heard about it, and the expression on their faces immediately changed. It was quite scary to look at that big and thick guy.

He quickly picked a few good melons from the straw mat and stuffed them into Luo Yong's arms. Although Luo Yong had grown in the past two years, he was still no match for the man from Yiwu across the way. , I was stuffed by these melons, and there were two others who didn't hug me. Gululu fell to the ground and rolled several times. Fortunately, the melon has a thick skin, so it didn't break.

"Take it and eat it, you don't need money." The Yiwu man said in a low voice.

"What should I do?" Although Luo Yong paid back the price, he didn't mean to eat others for nothing. Judging by the attire of these people, they didn't look like a wealthy caravan. Is it for the autumn wind?

"My elder brother is straightforward, don't blame the county magistrate." At this time, the young man who was squatting on the ground cutting melons also stood up, put away his machete and bowed to Luo Yong.

The rest of the Yiwu people looked at me and you, as if they didn't know what to say. Judging from the appearance of these people, they didn't seem to come out often to do business.

"I'm just here to buy a few melons, you don't need to be so polite." Luo smiled and put the melons in his arms back on the straw mat, and asked someone to hand over the two melons that had rolled on the ground. He took down the dagger hanging from his waist, cut up the two melons, and distributed them to the people present.

"I'll accept these two melons, and I'll keep the rest and sell them for money." Eighty Wen for two melons is obviously not a small sum for the Yiwu people in front of them.

Everyone divided the two melons and ate them, talking while eating the melons, and the atmosphere at the melon stall suddenly became much warmer than before.

Some people in Changle asked what these Yiwu people did at home, and they didn't look like merchants, so why did they come to sell melons so far away in Changle County.

Those Yiwu people said that they were originally from farming households, and some of them raised sheep at home. Most of them were mainly engaged in farming. Their villages are not far from Yiwu City, so some people will grow Some melons supplement life.

Last year there were rumors that the Turks were going to beat Yiwu, which made everyone in Yiwu feel in danger, and there were fewer merchants from other places. From last winter to this spring, this melon has not been very valuable. They people That is to say, with the attitude of giving it a try, I made an appointment with some acquaintances in the nearby villages, and together they went to pack more than [-] wooden rail carriages, and transported the melons to Dunhuang Jinchang Changle for sale.

From Yiwu to Jinchang Dunhuang, merchants used to carry mostly gold and silver jewelry, precious utensils, and selling melons, which probably no one thought about before.

After all, the journey is so long, the transportation is so difficult, and the melons are heavy. How much does it cost to sell a melon to make a profit after being transported from thousands of miles? It's not called earning.

That is to say, after this wooden track was opened, the traffic became very convenient all of a sudden. Many merchants passed by from Changle. These people were doing business in Yiwu, including tea sellers. There are those who sell liquor, those who sell needlework, and those who sell sauces.

It is precisely because of this that these Yiwu people, who are worried about selling melons, came up with the idea of ​​selling melons in their Changle County via wooden tracks.For the local people in Changle County, this is the first time such a thing has happened.

The city of Changle County is not big, so the news spread quickly. After a while, people who got the news came to buy melons. There were those rich local households and later tea merchants. It is Luo Erniang's cashmere workshop.

These carts of melons were all eaten up in half a day, and the Yiwu people were also very happy. They found a food shop in the county town and had a good meal. They left Changle County in a wooden carriage early the next morning. .

More than ten days later, Luo Yong saw these people again. These Yiwu men chose a better location under the wall on the right hand side of the gate of Changle County, and set up a long-term stable melon stall.

After a long time, the melons in the back are not as easy to sell as the first time, these people are not in a hurry, they leave two or three people to guard the stall in Changle County, and rent a house, every day on time When there is no business, he sits under the wall and grinds needles. Looking at his posture, he plans to take root in Changle County.

These people’s business was rough at the beginning. A piece of melon was as big as a quarter, and it cost ten yuan. The smaller one, the larger one is two pennies, and the smallest one is one penny.

Generally, if a child can eat a penny worth of melon every few days, it is already considered a very good life. These days, an adult only earns a few pennies a day and has to support his family. How can he give a child every day? Buy these snacks.

County magistrate Luo is rich, and every time he goes there, he buys melons worth two cents, and the stall owner even cuts a big piece for him, which makes these children very envious every time.

The author has something to say:

Yiwu is the current Hami area, and melons are Hami melons~