Schools and colleges in Wu have two major vacations a year, one in the hot summer and one in the cold winter, and the other in the winter from the twentieth day of the lunar month to the sixteenth day of the first month.
Yang He came to Wu to study has been almost two years, these two years, Yang He once did not go back to Lu to visit his family, one is not easy to go home, on the road to more than ten days, another is Yang He can not afford to two long vacations a good time to work.
"Alas, alas! Fudi, why don't you raise the fire pit?" It was almost dark before returning to the North College dormitory Yang He, from the door to bring in a cold air, he took down the cotton hat, scarf and gloves to a wooden shelf, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands.
"I don't feel cold when I'm wrapped in a quilt." Fu Chou's bed was near the window, and he sat on it wrapped in a quilt with a wooden writing pad on his belly, on which was a stack of manuscripts that Fu Chou had to proofread, for which he was paid a good salary.
Fu Chou is actually still a bit cold sitting under the covers, it's just that the coal burned in the fire pit is more expensive and Fu Chou can't afford to use it.
"Why don't you light the lamp? Beware that your eyes look bad." Yang He hurriedly looked for matches to light the oil lamp and carried it to the writing desk next to Fu Chou's bed.
Yang He has lived with Fu Chou for nearly two years, and knows that Fu Chou's family is not too well off, and is usually quite frugal. North College dormitory students to the temperature below freezing, will burn coal heating, students after vacation, heating stops, did not go home still live in the dormitory students, to get warm can only be their own in the dormitory to rise the fire pit.
The walls of the classrooms and the dormitories of the students are surrounded by a copper pipe, and the warm air is transmitted through that copper pipe. Many people knew that the North College used copper pipes to heat the students, they were surprised, because copper is money in Qin, using copper to transmit heat is like using money to transmit heat, and they only felt that this move was too extravagant. Just as people were talking about it, news came that next year's primary and secondary schools would be heated in the same way.
"I didn't notice it was dark. Oh, your evening meal I helped you beat, covered in your bed quilt, quickly eat while hot." Yang He went out to work and study during the day, and when he came back late, he would miss the meal time in the college cafeteria, the college cafeteria meal is one-third cheaper than outside restaurants, Yang He and Fu Chou, two students whose families are not really well off, can beat the meal in the college cafeteria, and they all try to eat in the college cafeteria. If Yang He can't make it back in time to eat, Fu Chou will return to the cafeteria after eating for Yang He.
"I'll raise the fire pit before we eat." Yang He carried the fire pit out of the dormitory into the yard's utility room, where the coal they had both bought was stored.
These coal from the southeast county, but not the original Tang open-pit coal mines in the good coal, but from the open-pit good coal mines more than thirty miles away from the new coal mines, the new coal mines of the quality of the coal is not as good as the open-pit coal mines, is not suitable for steelmaking and iron, used to do the life of the coal, but it is very good. Wu domestic rivers, Zheng Yuming spent two years, the big river channel excavation connected, Kangcheng City, ten miles east of the place has a big river, from the big river can always take a boat to the East China Sea coast and the South Port, from the East China Sea coast and can take a boat to the Northeast County, the coal of the two coal mines as long as in the land walk more than ten miles, can be loaded on the boat from the waterway to the East China Sea coast, Kangcheng and the South Port.
In the past few years, winters have become particularly cold, and the demand for winter heating fuel was strong. With easy access to waterways, coal was able to travel south in large quantities, and residents of Kangcheng, Dacheng, and Nambu all used coal to heat their homes and cook their meals.
Yang He used shredded waste paper and small pieces of wood to build a fire to ignite the coals, carrying the fire bowl back to the dormitory, and then take a tile jar to the courtyard well filled with water placed on the fire bowl, before using the dormitory hot water bottle of hot water to wash their hands and faces, to drive away the cold air.
The hot water bottle was Yang He's reward item for this semester, only the top three in the grade were qualified to get the reward. Yang He's the first in his class, Fu Chou is the third in his class, and they were rewarded two at once in this dormitory, envying the other students of North Academy.
Hot water bottle is a new product in Nambu, inside is made of glass, coated with a layer of silver things, this thing is said to be called crystal gallon, crystal gallon outside by the cork wrapped, hot water placed inside the crystal gallon, after a night of water temperature is still hot. Because the price of glass is too high, resulting in hot water bottles sold for as much as a hundred gold. Although the price of hot water bottle is ridiculously high, the sales situation is quite good, hot water bottle is not easy to make, basically not yet produced, by the rich nobles and merchants to set away, hot water bottle in the market can not be seen in the shadow, many people have money can not buy. The hot water bottles used by North College to reward outstanding students were donated by Wu Mu, the deputy director of commerce.
After Yang He and Fu Chou each received a hot water bottle, someone offered them 150 gold for one to resell. Yang He and Fu Chou refused, keeping one for themselves and giving the other to their senior Wei Zhong. Wei Zhong, the rich family of the deceased country's big family, warm and righteous, Yang He and Fu Chou two people have always taken care of life, Fu Chou a little dislike of Wei Zhong on the deceased country a little heartless, but often by Wei Zhong care, over time, and Yang He is as grateful. Knowing that the Wei family went to Nambu to buy a hot-water bottle without success, they unanimously decided to give another hot-water bottle. Wei Zhong was very happy to get the hot water bottle and offered it as a New Year's gift to his elders, and Wei Zhong took more and more care of Yang He and Fu Chou.
A fire pit was built in the dormitory and it gradually became warm. Yang He took out a cloth bag from the quilt, opened the cloth bag, inside was the still warm rice jar, uncovered the lid of the rice jar, there was rice inside, the rice was covered with shredded pork with fish and green vegetables.
"It's so delicious, it's really enjoyable to eat like this." Yang He was fond of this dish fried with pork, black fungus, carrots, and asparagus as the main ingredients, and winter greens were also Yang He's favorite, and eating two of his favorite dishes at once, Yang He's exhaustion dissipated.
Sitting on the bed proofreading Fu Chou raised his eyes and looked at the expression of enjoyment on the face of Yang He, could not help but pursed his lips and smiled, these two are far from home wanderer, in the nearly two years of living together in the time, as early as the birth of a brotherly and intimate feelings.
"Fu Di, the proofreading work is almost over, right? After it's over, isn't it time to go to the workshop with my brother?" Yang He finished his meal, saw that Fu Chou was in a good mood, and carefully proposed.
"No, Chou wants to go help the old dean organize the books." Fu Chou was very much appreciated by the Dean of the Northern Academy, Tai Fu, but Tai Fu was probably going to retire next year because he was too old and would no longer be holding the position of Dean.
"Oh." Yang He saw that Fu Chou refused to go with him to work in the workshop, and knew that Fu Chou still had a low opinion of craftsmen, and preferred to stay idle rather than lowering his status as a scholar to go to the workshop to earn a high commission.
Since Fu Chou insisted on his own views, Yang He will no longer persuade, only in the oil lamp began to write, Yang He and Fu Chou to the Wen Wei Po, Yang He's manuscripts are often eight or nine can be Wen Wei Po adopted published, Fu Chou half of the manuscripts will be adopted, the manuscript fee is an important income of the two men, with the development of the Wen Wei Po from a weekly magazine to the bi-daily magazine, Yang He's more and more bulging pockets. The remuneration from the article fee has long been able to solve Yang He's daily expenses, the reason why Yang He still has to go to the workshop to work hard to earn money is to subsidize his family in the far away state of Lu, Lu and Yang He's widowed mother and younger siblings, Lu's severe famine, Yang He's family has relied on Yang He to trust merchants to go back to the money to spend the day, Yang He's eldest brother wrote a year ago, the village of a lot of people starving and freezing to death.
"Fu Di, I want to receive my family to Wu, and if I don't think of a way to get them out, I'm afraid they're in danger." As Yang He wrote, he suddenly threw the pen away.
"How can it be dangerous when you have your elder brother to pick up the slack, and you don't lack clothes or food?" Fu Chou looked up, his face puzzled.
"It's the relief that makes it dangerous." Yang He let out a long sigh. "My brother met familiar merchants recruiting guards in the city."
"Isn't it normal to recruit guards?" Fu Chou was even more puzzled.
Yang He looked at his housemate and only felt that his housemate was too simple. "Recruiting guards is normal, but recruiting two or three times more guards is not normal."
"You mean there's danger on the traveler's road?" Fu Chou then realized. "Which vassal state is in chaos?"
Fu Chou lived in Wu for nearly two years, and knew the situation of Wu very well, the people of Wu were getting richer day by day, even though Zheng Yuming's annual revision of Wu's decree was getting more and more tolerant, the law and order within Wu was getting better and better. Coupled with the fact that Chu Chao Hui often targets mountain bandits and trains his soldiers in combat, the bandits who occupied the mountains and robbed them have no way out, and have sneaked down the mountains to turn from Liang to farmers, and Wu merchants walking on the road are afraid of not only the bandits, but also the wild beasts. Nowadays, there are post stations on the side of the main road, and inns are opened beside the post stations, so merchants no longer need to sleep in the wild, and wild animals are not a threat to them. As there are no robbers and no wild animals in Wu, the merchants increased the number of guards they recruited, so of course, they don't need to travel in Wu.
Yang He stared at Fu Chou and sighed again, Fu Chou is doing well in his studies, but he is not too concerned about current affairs. "In addition to the state of Wu, is in the state of Zhao is relatively safe, the other vassal states are beginning to chaos, especially Lu and Qi, the two countries for a long time to fight, the people have been living unbearable, the past two years and more than one plague, can not survive, they fell into the grass into the invasion, these people are afraid of attracting Huben purge, do not dare to go to the robbery of the feudal lords, only to specialize in robbing the passerby, the merchants in order to be safe, can only be recruited to more guards Strengthen the defense."
Kangcheng has many former Huben returning from Nangbu, these are the same Huben who were punished for building the city wall in Nangbu after they were captured at the Ulsan road junction, these Huben lost the chance to surrender or defect in the king's capital and also lost the eligibility to receive the generous retirement pension just because they followed the Western Sima southward crusade against Zheng Yuming, and they also lost the eligibility to receive the generous retirement pension, after the one year of the labor service1 expired, some of them chose to stay in Nangbu to develop, and some of them still returned to Kangcheng, and most of their homes were in the In and around Kang City, there were as many as 5,000 captive Huben who returned to Kang City, Kang City had 5,000 more laborers all of a sudden, which impacted the labor market, the price of laborers was much cheaper than that of the Ulsan region, so some resourceful Ulsan merchants chose to recruit guards in Kang City.
"Even if you starve to death, you can't do anything wrong!" Fu Chou condemned the people who had fallen to the wrong side of the law.
"Not everyone is like the virtuous brother so well read the holy books, those illiterate civilians how to understand the great reasoning, have appeared to be easy to eat, robbing merchants which is still considered a sin!" Yang He laughed bitterly, he is now writing the manuscript comment content is why many of the people of the vassal states will become unruly people.
Fu Chou was speechless, and only after half a minute did he ask: "What is the relevance of all this to the relatives of Brother Yang's family?"
"The people around us are poor and facing starvation, but my family has food, Chou Di, what danger do you think they are in?" Yang He looked sad. "I am afraid that my family will be robbed like the merchants."
Fu Chou's face immediately paled after hearing this. "Tang can't be that bad, can it?"
"Tang is not any better than Qilu, ridiculous that Tang King is still ready to increase the tax for this year's summer harvest."
"Raise the taxes? Is that true?" Fu Chou exclaimed.
"Why don't you take it seriously, didn't the Tang King add a grant for the fall harvest last year?" Yang He looked at the shrieking Fu Chou and wondered, Fu Chou claimed that he was originally a Tang citizen, and after the Tang King was defeated by Chu Chao Hui, Fu Chou's hometown was divided into Wu, and since the Fu family was already a Wu citizen, the Tang King's tax increase had nothing to do with the Fu family, so why did Fu Chou's expression have to be so agitated?
"That's to pay back the Wu indemnity." Fu Chou bit his lip as he put the blame on Chu Chao Hui.
"To involve the nation for one's own selfishness, the King of Tang is dim!" Yang He had very little goodwill towards the Tang king.
Fu Chou's face turned even paler as he looked at Yang He to say something.
"Fu Di, is it true that you have a relative or friend in Tang?" Yang He suddenly realized that he once saw Fu Chou also looking for a merchant to deliver something for him, and Fu Chou then lightly said that he had a distant relative in Tang, and the merchant was passing through his distant relative's village, so he asked the merchant to take something on the way.
"Not bad, my uncle is in Tang." Fu Chou's uncle was in Tang, and his own home was also in Tang, except that Fu Chou had come to Wu to study with a certain purpose, and was afraid of being detected, so he concealed his identity.
"If you can pick them up, try to pick them up, the Wu Kingdom is the place to live in peace and happiness." Yang He persuaded Fu Chou that in Wu Kingdom, as long as you have the strength to work, life will be carefree.
"The Tang Kingdom can't be that bad, can it?" Fu Chou remained hopeful about his country.
"Hopefully." Yang He saw that Fu Chou was having a hard time, so he stopped talking about these things.
The water on the fire pot boiled, was flushed by Yang He into the hot water bottle to spare until tomorrow morning, and went to the courtyard well to fill a clay pot of water to boil, and Fu Chou washed his face and feet without adding more coal to the fire pot, just waiting for the fire pot to go out by itself. Wen Weiwei said that falling asleep at night and using the fire pot in a sealed room would be dangerous, so the two men did not add coal before resting and let the fire pot go out on its own. As the temperature in the room cooled, Yang He and Fu Chou merged two beds of cotton bunks together and squeezed them into one bed, covered with two quilts. Both men are young and fit, and sharing a bed will protect them from the cold.
This night, the two did not sleep well, one thinking about how to pick up the family from the state of Lu, after picking up how to arrange. One thought about whether to receive his family from the Tang Kingdom to the Wu Kingdom, if he received his family to the Wu Kingdom, then his revenge is subject to constraints, it is likely to look at the safety of his family, have to give up the vengeance, thinking of two years of the purpose of the day and night, he is very reluctant to forget.