Although He Biantan is a native of Nancheng, he has no belongings in Nancheng and lives in boarding all day long.

In the early years, when He Biantan was just an adult, there was still a courtyard room at home. Later, after an epidemic, He Bian lost his parents. Not only that, but due to the debts and medical expenses owed before, the house was also collected by the creditor, and He Bian Dan became a wanderer.

Fortunately, this kid is seventeen years old and an adult, and he is born tall and big, and he has an unforgettable long horse face, and he can't starve to death when he works for people. So he put together a pair of lychee wood flatteners and lived a life of strength in Nancheng. After a long time, this horse-faced boy who didn't eat enough and laughed a little silly was called He Biandan.

A few years have passed in a hurry, but He Biandan's size has not been crushed by the burden, but has grown a little longer. But in this way, his skeleton looks even more shaky...... People who don't have enough to eat all the time don't have extra muscle.

Today's task for He Bian is to pick "mechanism carbon" to go to the old customer Hu Lao's house.

Although this new "mechanism carbon" on the market is a strange name, it has become a new type of fuel loved by people above the middle class since the day it appeared.

Black, hexagonal, the same shape and specifications of the carbon rod, the fire is stable, the burning time is three times that of ordinary charcoal, and there is no smoke and no ash, it is very suitable for cooking, burning tea, warm wine, grilling fish and other occasions that need to master the heat and time.

In addition, in terms of price, although the machine-made carbon made of ordinary sawdust rice husks is a little more expensive, it is cheaper than traditional charcoal in terms of comprehensive performance, so there are many people who buy it.

After receiving the order yesterday, He Biantan went to the wharf outside Nancheng this morning, received a more expensive "high-grade fruit wood mechanism carbon" from the Hu family's old relationship grocery store, and picked it all the way to the Hu family for the Hu family's friends to use for tea.

When he passed by the county government with the second carbon rod, the young man found that a big drama was suddenly staged at the gate, so he happily went to join in the fun. After watching the heroic posture of the six gentlemen standing in the cage, He Bian Dan turned around and picked up the burden and sent it to Master Hu's mansion before noon.

Unloaded the burden in the Hu family's firewood room, and helped to take out the garbage again, and then the flat dan took a handful of copper coins from the hands of the housekeeper and happily returned to the nest.

He Biandan's nest is behind the entrance of the vegetable market, in a broken alley called "Guzao Street".

This dilapidated alley belongs to the slums of the Ming Dynasty, and it is inhabited by low-level citizens. Among them, there is a courtyard room, and the left and right wings are rented by the landlord to a nearby laborer, and He Biantan has a bed in it.

After hurriedly returning to Guzao Street, He Bian Dan first took a look at the gate of the courtyard, and then he was relieved: a large cauldron in the courtyard was steaming from the crack in the lid, and it seemed that it was not yet time to eat.

After entering the house, he put down the pick in the old position by the wall, He Bian Dan didn't say a word, picked up the scoop and scooped water in the corner of the water tank, and then he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and took a breath, and then he said hello to his "roommate" in the same room.

The roommates are all rough men who sleep in a big bunk, come back early, some lie on the bunk to smoke pots, some lie on the bunk and pretend to sleep, in short, these people are seizing every opportunity to recover their strength.

The only thing that could get the coolies up from the bunks was the shouts of the meal. With the sound of the iron spoon banging on the pot, needless to say, everyone went out of the house quickly.

At this moment, in the courtyard, there was a black and fat old woman with an evil face and an arm thicker than the thighs of the people next to her.

This woman's name is Sister-in-law Gui, and she knows that she is a chartered wife when she looks at the posture. Gui's family is a good mix in the slums, her man works as a housekeeper on the dock outside the city, and she herself is responsible for renting out chores such as cooking.

Most of the laborers in the courtyard like He Bian are hired by Gui's sister-in-law. The reason is not that Gui's cooking is delicious, but that Gui's cooking is cheap.

If it's cheap, naturally there's no good product. So when Sister-in-law Gui lifted the lid of the pot, it was not surprising that today was another pot of hodgepodge.

This pot of rice porridge is not like rice porridge, and rice is not like rice, it is made from a mixture of 40% brown rice, 30% vegetables and vegetables, and 30% sweet potatoes.

The sweet aroma of the porridge with a lovely color spreads everywhere. But the laborers all know that this food is actually not easy to swallow.

Despite this, a group of hungry people still frantically took a large porcelain bowl from the table, crowded around the pot, and watched as Sister-in-law Gui used a large iron spoon to divide the rice.

"There's no rules, I'll kill your balloon!" At this time, the black and fat, and the sister-in-law Gui, who was in charge of scooping the rice, began to scold. However, scolding and scolding, Sister-in-law Gui finally scooped a big bowl of potato porridge and rice for everyone. In addition, in the small jar on the side, each person will also receive a salted radish or pickle head...... I don't know if it's Fuling brand.

The next moment, He Bian was beaten again.

He Biandan, this person, usually seems to be quite smart, but when it was time to eat, his IQ dropped to a negative number. From childhood to adulthood, I don't know how many beatings I have received for this.

Today is the same old routine: After He Bian received his share, he reached out to the jar and grabbed more radishes, and then was knocked twice on the head by Gui's sister-in-law with a stick to stir rice.

The laborers who squatted in the courtyard to eat on the spot watched this repertoire with a smile. Everyone knows that He Biandan can't eat enough all year round, and they all know that Sister-in-law Gui is a black-faced and soft-hearted woman, so after being beaten twice, He Biandan finally took the trophy, squeezed into the crowd with a smile, and drank vegetable porridge.

........................

Then came the happiest moment of the day for the coolies: sitting on the well platform and snoring to fill their stomachs, while exchanging information about the coolie world.

In recent times, everyone's main focus is on the improvement of food levels.

In the years before this, the porridge cooked by Gui's sister-in-law had very little salt in it, and in some periods, there was even no salt in it. The coolies replenished their daily salt supply by relying on pickles in the jars.

However, pickles are not so easy to supplement, and whenever the price of salt fluctuates in the city, Gui's pickles become less salty.

Salt is an essential substance for the body's cells to regulate the osmotic pressure of fluids. For manual workers, salt is a key part of ensuring that the fresh water they drink is converted into sweat.

The greasy men and women of later generations saw salt like snakes and scorpions, but if these people were to be allowed to carry the burden for a few days like He Biandan, then they would have to drink salt soda desperately, otherwise people would go into shock until they died.

Therefore, the salt content of the meal has always been a link that the coolies are very concerned about.

As a result, the situation has changed since two or three months ago.

The people in the city of Guangzhou suddenly discovered that there was a big hole to exploit on the construction site of the new city in the south: anyone who went to fight for Cao Zongbing's life could buy cheap salt on the construction site.

This chief military officer from Yizhou, everyone knows that the story of moving out of the silver dragon to pay Qiu Bamen in Baietan, is still circulating in the city.

And his old man's subordinates undoubtedly inherited the tradition of the boss's lavish hands: for the same price and the same weight, people could buy the best snow-white salt grains from the construction site of the new city, instead of the black official salt with bitter sand.

In this way, the word spread from ten to hundred, and soon some people saw the benefits, and organized a large number of bitter haha to go to work on the construction site - only the foreman could buy salt, and the more workers under him, the more salt he bought.

Note that this quota is additional, and the worker's wages are still paid.

At first, this rule of covering my ears and stealing the bell was mainly to reduce the material opinion a little: only the people who work for me can buy salt, and there is nothing wrong with it.

After this continued for a while, when the telegram of Cao Zongbing's victory in the north reached Guangdong, the rules were changed: if a person paid silver, he could wholesale salt, and the quantity was unlimited, and it could be sold for a thousand taels.

So on the wharf of Xincheng, the salt lords of Liangguang flocked to it. These men brought silver, Guangxi rice, and prodigians from the mountains. After switching to salt, the salt barons hired people to load ships day and night, and then disappeared into the endless waterways of the Pearl River Delta.

At the same time, Xincheng is also wholesale salt products to the local salt merchant system, from salt grains to snow-white refined salt, at low prices.

Encountering such a domineering president with a battleship, the local salt merchant system in Guangdong cannot be opposed, and can only choose to cooperate, which can also be understood as strong X. As a result, the endless salt goods began to penetrate into all corners of the two Guangzhous with the new city as the center.

The most direct impact of this incident is that the price of salt in Liangguang dropped sharply like Fujian next door, and the vegetable porridge in He Biandan's bowl became a much more delicious salty porridge. The salted radish in his hand can really be called a pickle.

So in recent times, every time we have dinner, everyone has to happily discuss the endless salt goods on the new city docks. The laborers in the yard, several of whom were working at the docks, knew very well how much they had to unload each day.

And the excitement of today's dinner party is that the person who has been to Yizhou to do short-term labor has come back to hammer: there is a salt mountain in Yizhou, which is said to be spit out by the salt dragon in the lake, which is dozens of zhang high, and it can't be dug up no matter how you dig it.

At this time, Sister-in-law Gui will also pat her chest with her fat hand full of calluses, and say two blessing words such as "Bodhisattva blesses General Cao with no illness and no disaster" - in the eyes of Sister-in-law Gui, a vulgar low-level woman, the person who can bring her cheap salt should live a long life.

.................

In today's bowl of porridge, there is not only a topic about saltiness, but also another eye-catching thing: yellow potato sticks.

Potatoes are not easy to preserve in the relatively warm south, and they will sprout after a long time. Although it is possible to make potatoes into rice flour and starch by secondary processing, the best way to deal with potatoes is to eat them as soon as possible.

So starting from the second half of this year, every time the farms in Tainan harvest in large quantities, there will be ships loaded with fresh potatoes to Guangzhou and Fujian.

The potatoes are used to feed migrant workers on various construction sites. In this way, the traversal can store locally purchased rice for a rainy day.