Chapter 22: Labor Makes Me Happy
The houses in Hekou Village are built against the mountain. The closer the house is to the foot of the mountain, the higher its foundation is raised. The row of houses at the foot of the mountain is even lifted up with thick wooden materials, with the door opening at the back for entry and exit from behind.
Every strange architectural layout has profound significance. The reason the houses at the foot of the mountain raise their foundations high indicates that flash floods often occur here! However, the flash floods are not too large.
Similarly, after E Ji ate a roast suckling pig, because her mouth was so fragrant and the smell of her breath was too appealing, a little girl being held by E Ji kept pulling at E Ji’s mouth with her hand, wanting to find the source of the fragrance.
Yun Ce had not eaten his fill, so E Ji gave him two greenish lumps. He smelled them; this thing emitted a vegetation fragrance, a byproduct of Yi Tree Bark fiber.
After roasting this thing over fire, the outer skin becomes crispy, the inside soft and fluffy. If some honey or jam is added, the taste is quite good.
Unfortunately, Hekou Village has no honey nor jam.
While roaming the wilderness with that pretty little pig, Yun Ce had eaten plenty of sour-sweet berries. Those, after boiling, should make decent jam. The only drawback is they are not sweet enough.
Hekou Village not only lacks honey and jam; truthfully, they have nothing at all. Even though their main occupation is separating fiber for weaving from tree bark, they have no extra clothes or bedding.
Yun Ce has been in Hekou Village too short a time and has not yet figured out whether the material shortage is caused by exorbitant taxes and levies, or by their own extremely low productivity leading to poverty.
In years without disaster and famine, the causes of widespread poverty among people are just these two.
1 Even though the theory is already very complete and detailed, Yun Ce still plans to personally experience it, retracing the daily work and life of Hekou Village people.
1 The tree bark Yun Ce carried back from the forest first needs to be soaked in water for two days and two nights, then the waterlogged and swollen tree bark is fished out and placed between a sturdy piece of wood sharpened to edges on both sides, then pulled hard. After pulling, the residual tissue of the tree bark is caught and falls into a wooden basin by the blade edges, while what is pulled through is the main product of the tree bark—plant fiber.
1 The tree bark byproduct that falls into the wooden basin is smashed hard in large stone mortars by those legless men, and after being pounded into powder, it is filtered by the women, discarding the residue. The filtered solution is left to settle for half a day, and the precipitate at the bottom of the wooden bucket is the greenish lump Yun Ce ate.
1 The production process of tree bark fiber naturally does not end there; it needs to continue being pulled on the wooden blade edges until the tree bark fiber is teased into fine strands before soaking again in water to maintain a certain toughness.
1 Yun Ce is clearly a strong laborer. In a whole day, after eating just the two green lumps given by E Ji, he produced for E Ji over a dozen buckets of tree bark byproducts and half a platform’s worth of plant fiber semi-products.
1 Over a dozen buckets of tree bark byproducts—according to the old man with gray-white beard, enough for E Ji to eat for seven or eight days alone. As for that plant fiber, it’s enough for E Ji to exchange for three green money.
1 Yun Ce asked the old man with gray-white beard for one money to look at. The metal used to make the money is very strange; weighing it in hand, the density is about the same as aluminum, very light, just greenish in color. The money is standard Great Han five-zhu coin style, with a square hole in the center for stringing together. Such money the old man with gray-white beard has only half a string, about two hundred pieces.
1 Seeing Yun Ce ignore his over two hundred money, the old man with gray-white beard Zhao Jin jili guala said a long string of words to E Ji.
1 “He is a scion of a noble family, absolutely! 91%” Yun Ce heard Doggy’s simultaneous translation in his ear.
1 Yun Ce nodded, thinking Zhao Jin was quite right. Given the development level of this branch of Han People, anyone from Earth is a scion of a noble family; even if not, they will be later.
2 E Ji got three green money from Zhao Jin and was in an extremely good mood; the way she looked at Yun Ce also became much gentler. This was the gaze of a family head looking at a big livestock; Yun Ce was very familiar with it.
2 Yun Linchuan often looked at him that way.
2 “So, one day of my labor can earn seven or eight days of food, and one piece of clothing?”
2 Yun Ce wrote this sentence down and gave it to Zhao Jin.
2 After reading it, Zhao Jin shook his head and wrote on the wooden slip: “Three months from now, you must pay head tax of twelve money, military tax of eighty jin of grain for fodder, and participate in requisitioning grain from conquered territories for twenty-seven days…”
2 Yun Ce could understand head tax; military tax was just military rations, eighty jin, which he also understood. The problem was requisitioning grain from conquered territories—though he knew what it was, it was very strange coming from Han People. Usually, foreign tribes impose it on Han People; he had never heard of Han People going to others’ territory to requisition grain from conquered territories.
2 Yun Ce did not continue asking Zhao Jin, nodded to indicate he understood, and continued laboring, planning to process all of E Ji’s stockpiled tree bark before nightfall.
2 To see if diligence can lead to wealth here.
2 Diligence leads to wealth is a precept passed down for thousands of years, and a common phrase elders use to motivate juniors. On Earth, it seems no longer entirely correct. Now, with a rare opportunity to understand a branch of Han People whose development path has seriously deviated, he wants to test it here, to see if this phrase holds true.
2 To see if this phrase has lost its accuracy due to historical development.
3 The next day, just as dawn broke, Yun Ce went to the Yi Tree Grove where E Ji often goes to peel tree bark. There is a large area of plants called Yi Trees. Other trees die after being peeled, but this kind does not; after the first layer of bark is peeled, a second layer quickly grows.
3 Basically, the most suitable bark for making clothes is the third layer of Yi Tree Bark. The fiber from this layer is the finest, softest, and toughest. Fiber peeled from this layer is generally transported to Chuyun City, where there are many weavers who process this whitish fiber through six or seven more steps, turning it into silvery, shiny, very beautiful material.
3 The only drawback is that the third layer of tree bark yields little starch…
3 This tree bark is of course also very suitable for making paper.
3 This branch of Han People may not have experienced Cai Lun’s era and knows nothing about papermaking. If Yun Ce can produce paper, Hekou Village getting rich overnight would not be difficult.
3 The problem is, Yun Ce needs to personally test the various relationships of this era—the good and the bad—all must be experienced before he can write a qualified social investigation report.
3 Now, before he fully integrates into this world, Yun Ce wants to first prove the value of the four words “diligence leads to wealth.”
3 This has nothing to do with cleverness, only with fairness. If diligence cannot lead to wealth, the root cause must be found and then exploited—this is a quality a natural revolutionary must possess.
3 After beating the drum, E Ji came to the forest to find Yun Ce again. Though Yun Ce was busy peeling tree bark from the trees, E Ji hinted several times that he did not need to process so much tree bark, that he could go to the grass to find a pig or something.
3 E Ji had been struggling alone for survival for many years, yet her mind remained as simple as a spring stream, clear and transparent.
4 E Ji was the first person Yun Ce met on this planet; she showed him great goodwill, which made him feel his luck was not bad.
4 The Dragon Pearl held many little wild boars. Originally, he wanted to catch the remaining thirty-seven as well, but war broke out, forcing him to end the hunting early.
4 The ditch was the one dug yesterday; dry branches and fallen leaves were plentiful here. When E Ji saw Yun Ce roast another little wild boar over the fire, her soul again flew to the ninth heaven.
4 Because they had eaten their fill, when E Ji and Yun Ce returned, they carried even more tree bark. Yun Ce fished out the tree bark soaked for two days from the pond and continued scraping fiber, while E Ji began pounding the scraped residues in the stone mortar, busy collecting grain for fodder.
4 Yun Ce’s body is very good, with considerable strength; he can work from sunrise to sunset. Seeing E Ji get plenty of green money from Zhao Jin every day, Yun Ce was in a very good mood.
4 Today, it rained. Because last night was a crescent moon, the weather was cold. Yun Ce felt he should still go out to labor in such weather, otherwise he would fail the word “diligence.”
4 The people of Hekou Village watched Yun Ce carry rope on his back and shoulder a load as he went with E Ji to the Yi Tree Grove, their eyes full of envy.
4 “This is a scion of a noble family; he is too diligent, 88%”
4 “The richer people are, the more diligent they are, 75%”
4 “How can one become rich without diligence, 71%”
5 Doggy’s voice kept coming into Yun Ce’s ears. Over these days, Doggy had taken in too much information, and translation accuracy had improved a lot.
5 The rain was not heavy to begin with, just a drizzle. After entering the Yi Tree Grove, the rain seemed even lighter. Today, no need for E Ji to beat the drum; she came with Yun Ce to the Yi Tree Grove to peel tree bark.
5 Yun Ce did not know the meaning of beating the drum, only that it was the right of young women in the village.
5 Peeling tree bark is actually a very stress-relieving activity. Yun Ce circled the tree trunk once with his Swiss Army Knife, then cut to the bottom, circled again at the base, pried up a corner of the bark, wedged in a wooden wedge, then tore hard outward with his fingers. In just a few pulls, a complete section of tree bark was peeled off.
5 Finally, he took the bark tube and smacked it hard against the tree trunk a few times, making the bark soft and floppy, very convenient to bundle into a sheaf.
5 Originally, while peeling tree bark, he listened to the drum sound; Yun Ce had already gotten used to it. Now, after peeling for a good while, the drum sound from the hill still had not come.
5 Seeing E Ji still full of thoughts of roast wild boar, Yun Ce coughed and pointed toward the drumming place.
5 E Ji instantly understood and immediately picked up the shoulder pole from the ground, running like flying toward the drumming place.
5 Yun Ce thought for a moment, then unhurriedly followed behind E Ji to the drumming place as well.
5 Today, the one responsible for drumming was another woman in the village in her twenties. Though even now Yun Ce did not understand what they drummed for all day.
6 Though he did not understand, Yun Ce still greatly respected their tradition.
6 When E Ji and Yun Ce arrived at the drum placement, they saw a nude woman on the drum face, her body sprawled across it, long hair covering her face, looking a bit shy.
6 Right beside the big drum, a man bare from the waist up was impatiently stripping off his clothes and pants.
6 Yun Ce was furious and was about to rush forward when E Ji covered his mouth and dragged him back to the Yi Tree Grove.
