allonlinenovel Chapter 345 I Never Want to Join in the Fun Again
Chapter 345 I Never Want to Join in the Fun Again
In the next few days, the nine tribes spent their time with the men harvesting sweet potatoes, the women making starch, and Shen Youyou and her team looking for various dyes in the mountains.
One after another, animal carts stopped under the newly built houses of the Jiu clan. Sweet potatoes were piled everywhere in the walled yard, and small hills were forming in the distance.
In most places, there are racks with freshly made sweet potato starch drying on them.
After eating sweet potato residue dry food and sweet potato residue paste for many days in a row,
Shen Zhiqiu bought two piglets from Tang Guangshen, a large pig farmer.
It’s not that they are tired of eating sweet potato residue as dry food. For them who have escaped the panic, as long as they can fill their stomachs, it doesn’t matter whether the food tastes good or not, especially now that they are really penniless.
But there are too many leftover sweet potato residues from the daily cooking, and it would be a pity to throw them away.
Grandpa Shen is also thinking about raising two pigs so that he can offer pig heads to his ancestors during the New Year.
Shen Zhiqiu thought about it and realized that they had to castrate the pigs, or perform sterilization surgery on the piglets.
He remembered very clearly that in his previous life in the countryside, there was a knife used specifically for slaughtering pigs. It was a peach-shaped knife made of iron, with a cutting edge and a tip.
This "heart" is cold and sharp, and can easily change a pig's life.
At that time, every time a pig was slaughtered, there would always be a large group of villagers watching.
He had seen many pig slaughterings in his previous life before he got married, so he was not surprised by it.
I am more curious about how the sharp peach-shaped knife can sterilize the piglets so quickly without killing them.
For pig farming, castration is indeed necessary: pigs are sexually aroused and like to mate. If they are not castrated, they will easily become lustful. If they are sexually unsatisfied or indulge in excessive sexual activities, they will easily become thin.
If pigs are thin, they cannot grow meat to make money, which defeats the original purpose of raising pigs. Although domestic pigs are domesticated livestock, some of them still have somewhat wild and stubborn temperaments.
After castration, they will become docile and easier to manage.
Therefore, if you want pigs to grow meat quickly in a short period of time, it is inevitable to perform surgery on them.
In this dynasty, pig slaughtering had not yet become a large-scale farming practice. The reason was that many pedantic scholars thought it was too cruel.
Shen Zhiqiu really wanted to complain, slaughtering pigs is cruel, isn't it cruel for you to kill pigs and eat pork?
Yes, ancient people were not unaware of castrating pigs. As early as the Western Han Dynasty, ancient people knew that castrating pigs could make them obedient and grow meat.
But it has never been popularized. Although Tang Guangshen's family is a large pig farmer, they do not castrate the pigs they raise.
This is also why, even though the ancients knew very early on that pigs raised in this way would not taste so fishy, for a long time, many dynasties believed that pork was "cheap meat".
Shen Zhiqiu had nothing to say. The two piglets that the Nine Clans had brought back were sterilized by Hunter Gao using a knife specially made by Shen Tietou.
It is true that: "Split the road of life and death with both hands, and cut off the root of right and wrong with one knife"!
It was so neat, and it was obvious that this was not the first time.
The peach-shaped knife reflected the spring sunshine. Hunter Gao stepped on the piglet's neck with his right foot, held one of the piglet's hind legs with his left hand, and stepped on it under his left foot.
With the left thumb accurately positioned, the knife in the right hand slashed, cut and picked, and two round little eggs jumped out of the pig's belly.
The group of men watching gasped, as if they felt like they were being tortured as well.
The few little kids who secretly ran over to watch ran away screaming, holding their crotches, and swearing that they never wanted to join in such fun again in their lives.
Shen Youyou, who was refining dyes in the room, heard the voices of Yuanbao Luming and the others. She wanted to laugh so much that she almost spilled the freshly ground color powder because of her shaking hands.
Shen Zhiqiu said to Gao Liehu: "Uncle Gao, have you practiced this before or what? Isn't this technique a little too skillful?"
Hunter Gao said, "When we went hunting in the mountains before, he helped kill the wild boars we hunted. There was a Mr. Sun in the town who specialized in buying wild boars like this... As for what he did it for, we didn't ask."
But after saying this, the smile in Gao Liehu's eyes clearly told everyone that he could guess the use even without asking.
Many of the people from the Nine Clans in the town had heard of Master Sun. When they heard this conversation, a smile flashed across their eyes, and many men even laughed out loud.
This Mr. Sun is also well-known in their hometown. His ancestors were landlords and owned a lot of land, but unfortunately his family did not prosper.
When he was in his forties, he married seven or eight concubines, but none of them gave birth to a son. It would be strange if no one could think of what he could do with this.
However, there are rumors that when the old man was young, he often went to red-light districts all year round, and he might have injured his body without knowing the severity of the injury.
It was unclear what had happened to Mr. Sun, so there was no point in saying more. But Hunter Gao, holding two pigs' things, asked, "Who wants this? Third brother, why don't you take it home?"
Shen Zhiqiu waved his hands. Whoever wanted it could have it. He didn't want it anyway. He had traveled to ancient times and was young again. It felt like he had endless energy every day and didn't need any replenishment.
Tang Guangshen, a large pig farmer who was standing on the east side of the river and looking over here, couldn't help but shudder when he heard the pigs' deafening cry.
As a large pig farmer, he didn't have the heart to do this, but he thought that he should change his mind in the future. After all, he knew that castrated pigs were easier to sell, but they were easier to kill accidentally.
I'll go back and ask the people from the Nine Clans to discuss how to castrate the pigs, but we still have to wait and see whether their two pigs will die.
In fact, although they thought so in their hearts, the general impression given by the people of the Nine Clans was that there were many methods that they had never seen before.
Although Tang Guangshen had not seen the results yet, he inexplicably believed that the pigs slaughtered by Shen Zhiqiu and his team might not die so easily.
Pig slaughtering is just an episode in the life of the Jiu clan. They are still very busy every day. Almost all the money they have is spent on sweet potatoes. If it weren't for the daily jelly, they would be penniless now.
The government really had no money, but every household still had some silver. Shen Youyou had been searching for several days but couldn't find any plant that could be used to extract yellow.
Although yellow clothes could not be worn casually in ancient times, yellow stamens were indispensable for making head flowers, and even a small amount of yellow was not taboo.
There was no other way but to ask her father to pay out of his own pocket and go to the clinic to buy her some gardenia fruits to extract the yellow color.
Although Grandpa Guo also has this thing, after all, it is a Chinese medicinal material with the effects of protecting the liver, promoting bile secretion, lowering blood pressure, calming, stopping bleeding, and reducing swelling.
But Grandpa Guo usually doesn’t buy too many medicinal herbs. When using medicine, he tries to use those he can collect in the mountains and fields.
In fact, gardenias can be found in the mountains and fields, but this season is not the time for them to bear fruit. It will take at least September to October before you can pick the fruits of wild gardenias.
For now, I can only buy it with money.
In fact, gardenia is not only used for dyeing and medicine, it is also a seasoning. For example, braised meat and salt-baked chicken look golden in color, which makes people very appetizing.