8The river flows quietly, and the oars shake effortlessly, neither fast nor slow.

The third child sat on the bow of the boat and thought about Yao Laoqi's words, with a smile on his face. I heard that there are several water mills in Zhuxi Town upstream, and the owner's surname is Zhou, who is called Zhou Gongzi, and is said to be a foreigner with some background. His newly opened mill yields only three to four litres of grain per quintal of rice, half of the local market price. And the first three days of the opening are called soup kitchen, open to eat! I heard from the people who came back that on the first day, the surrounding towns and villages came to see the excitement and eat white food, and there were no less than five or six hundred people to help the old and the young, and they stood densely.

This Zhou Gongzi, the third child subconsciously shook his head, this is not the duty of doing business, it is not a long law. No, the proprietor also felt that it was not reliable, and while the rice was still milled at this price, they asked them to bring two more boats and twenty loads of millet to grind it quickly.

The boat traveled for more than an hour to the Zhoujia mill in Zhuxi, which was a small bend that barely counted as a wharf, and at this time the boat was densely parked in the bend, most of them were empty, and they had just arrived not long ago, and they were still waiting for the position to dock to move grain.

It can be seen that there are indeed a lot of people, and the men, women, and children on the shore are piling up and setting up dragon gate formations, and those who are wandering around are more lively than rushing to the market. The grain was moved outside the mill, and when I watched it, I had to go out to line up again, and someone on the shore came and handed them a foot of bamboo sticks dyed with red heads, two for each boat. said hello to the fourth child, and the third child squeezed into the mill.

The mill is very wide, the mill wheel is also large, and the mill is diagonally long. The key is still fast, the mill wheel is obviously faster than that pulled by livestock, and it is also faster than other water mills he has seen, perhaps because the water here is large and urgent, the third child thought secretly, it seems that there is something different in the feeling?

People around the mill smiled and pointed out, after a while when the millet in the dregs was ripe, the miller loosened the cable and lowered the gate to disconnect the water flow, so that the stone mill slowly stopped, quickly took out the milled millet and put it into the burden, swept it with a broom again, shoveled it into the burden and put it aside, and knew that it was a skilled hand to see the action. Skilled hands then drag two loads of grain, pour them into the grains in turn, and use their hands to smooth out, and then release the sluice gate to repeat the process of milling rice again.

Someone on the side picked up the two loads of millet that had just been milled one by one. The third child also followed the bearer out of the door, and entered another room about ten paces away, with a wooden blower at each end of the room. The third child has seen that this kind of fan is available in some large mills, and the chaff is very fast. Each fan is operated by two people, the one who is responsible for adding the milled rice to the outlet, and the other person holding the handle to blow away the chaff and bran leaving white flowers of rice at the outlet. Their work is divided into fine, one person only does one or two things, unlike the usual miller who has done everything from rice milling to blowing chaff, which seems to be inconspicuous, but after a careful aftertaste, it is a little interesting.

It was almost noon, and seven or eight cauldrons were set up on a slightly flat ground in the bamboo forest, and the multigrain porridge was boiling in the pot, but it looked a little thin, and there were four cauldrons next to it that were boiling dry rice. There were already a lot of people around, holding their own various dishes and chopsticks, and some men and women seemed to be arguing fiercely about something.

The third child got closer, and saw a white-haired old man pointing at the mother-in-law who was cooking rice with a bowl and asked, "They are also villagers in the village, why do some people eat dry and some drink thin?" Furthermore, why is today's meal thinner than yesterday's? The people around him, including a few elderly people, all nodded their heads when they heard this, and they were very angry. Dry rice is eaten by people who work hard, and it is very good to drink porridge, and it is disgusting to eat white food! Seeing that they were talking non-stop, the woman replied with a spoon stirring porridge. Mrs. Wang, why don't you say anything, see if I don't ask your second child to go back, I'll clean you up. Stinky bitch! An old man pointed at the princess and shouted, and everyone laughed and shouted.

"Which one are you going to pack, huh?" Xu Wa'er squeezed to the front, since last year's digging ditches and dams, and building new mills, he has been doing the main work under Zhou Dao, and he has gradually developed some prestige. "I said, Wa'er, this bowl of water still needs to be leveled! There are rare dry, and they are getting thinner! Is this the truth, how can it be said in the past? A gray-haired old man said, quite seriously. The others pinched the empty bowl and couldn't stop nodding, their faces solemn.

"The fart is flat, and you still feel like you eat white food?" Xu Wa'er pointed at the white-headed old man and said, "Master Chen, I said that you are getting more and more faint as you live, and you will also say incense when others fart?" These millers worked hard here to earn money to eat, and the wages were not only enough but also high, and the owner took care of two extra dry meals. Even me, there is no one who is not grateful to the Zhou Dong family. Alas, I would like to ask, why are you dissatisfied? Just because you grow old? Then I should go to your son? Does Zhou Gongzi owe you money or something, and wants you to eat and drink for nothing? Are you too reasonable? ”

"You, what are you talking about!" War'er's string of question marks choked the old people's momentum, and the young ones didn't coax anymore, but someone helped Warer, "That is, the older you get, the more faint you become, and you don't understand the reason." "I'll say it again," Xu Wa'er paused, "Everyone, I saw someone holding a red skewer in his hand, right?" It was for the people who carried grain and milled rice, and there were two sticks in each boat, and with a stick, they could go to dry rice and eat it openly. It's just that there are too many people coming, the rice is insufficient, and we can't afford it, and the people who don't have a red sign and nothing else will disperse. ＂

⋯ Everyone was a little confused for a while, "What, scattered?" Isn't there porridge? "I said Lao Xu, don't worry about them, just do the same as yesterday. Someone persuaded.

"Alas, Zhou Gongzi is here, Zhou Gongzi is here, be quiet. The voice was rough and loud, and a black and strong man shouted, someone knew that it was the miller Chen Biaozi, an old grinder, and Xu Wa'er was a skilled hand from another mill. Everyone looked back and got out of the way, only to see a young junior wearing a Confucian robe walking forward, a little tall, with a thin face and beautiful eyebrows, and a slight smile on the corner of his mouth.

When he arrived in the middle of the crowd, Zhou Daoluo arched his hand, "Everyone, I think everyone has misunderstood Wa'er, he said angry words." I'm running a mill, and the big guys can come to cheer, I'm too late to be happy, isn't it? Those who come are all guests, so just open up and eat. "But what if the rice is really not enough?" The mother-in-law who cooked the rice looked embarrassed, and said something out of place. "Rice is not enough to add water, you are familiar with cooking porridge, and you still need me to teach you?" Zhou Dao said with a smile, and the woman was stunned when she heard it, "Add more rice grain, I'll let them carry a few more bags over and cook it thicker, in short, the porridge is enough!" Zhou Dao added with a grin.

"Humph!" The white-haired old man snorted heavily, "Hypocrisy." "He was about to leave, but when he saw that no one left him, he froze there for a while." is still Zhou Gongzi's benevolence and righteousness, and I don't thank Zhou Gongzi much. Xu Wa'er said on the side, and he bowed his hand. Thank you, thank you Gongzi Zhou. Everyone followed Shi Li, and for a while, by the pot stove in the bamboo forest, everyone no longer complained, and lined up to eat again. The old white head "snorted" when he saw this, and really brushed his sleeves away.

In this busy mill, the third child met a person he knew, Xu Fu from the same village. After inquiring, there were still people recruited here and the salary was not low, so after a little calculation, I asked him to help introduce him to Xu Waer.

Xu Wa'er looked at Wu Laosan and felt that he was not strong enough, "Third Brother Wu is the most sincere and hard-working person." Xu Fu warmly recommended. Well, how about you come and listen to the news in five days? Xu Wa'er asked, because the salary is high, there are many people who want to come here, and he wants to see again, and more importantly, how many people are willing to come to their mill to grind rice. Thank you so much for taking care of things. The third child hurriedly replied with a smile.