Riding in a government-hired steamship, they traveled to the Americas in three months, then by train to the middle of the Americas, where they were assigned to settle on the south bank of the Arkansas River.

At this time, China had just incorporated the south bank of Arkansas, which had previously been Spanish territory and was inhabited mainly by Indians.

With the migration of the Great Plains during the Crown Prince's time, there was not much land that the government could allocate, so the new immigrants were resettled in large numbers in the newly occupied territory.

Unlike Westerners, Chinese immigrants are government-led. Where the Zhang family settled, there were already more than a dozen families, and there was a security chief management, the security chief was a veteran, in addition to being allocated the land like other families, he also received a retirement allowance, and the family conditions were relatively wealthy, why were he willing to come to the Americas, I heard that he made a mistake and hurt people in his hometown.

More than a dozen families have land in one piece, but they all live in an earthen bunker in the middle of the land because it is not safe here. The chief of the security guard is silent, and usually organizes the training of the men in the fort. Everyone is afraid of the security chief, because he beats people at every turn, and says that it is for the good of others.

But everyone envies the chief of the body, because the chief has three wives, in addition to the eldest wife, the two concubines are very smart, I heard that before the chief of the security committed, the concubines in their hometowns, the concubines were accepted, and the men who were not envious.

The power of the chief also lies in the management of the ploughing cattle in the entire Tunpu, and when the farming is busy, each family takes turns to use the ploughing cattle, and they have to pay a sum of cattle fodder.

Bao Chang is a good hand at raising cattle, and farming is so-so, but there is an old hand in Tunzi, and he is a good hand at plowing the fields, and he is a tenant farmer from Shandong, and he is nicknamed Lao Shandong.

Lao Shandong was very picky, and he was very unwilling to teach the Fa to others, and he relied on the chief to force him.

The fields here are all good fields, suitable for planting rice and cotton, and the chief of the Baochang has asked everyone to plant cotton in addition to rations, because the price of cotton has been very good in recent years.

But Zhang Youfu's family is unlucky, their husband and wife are different from others, they are from the city, they have never planted land, Zhang Youfu is willing to work hard, opened a lot of fields, but maybe the method is not right, the rice harvest is not good, the cotton yield is not high, after the chief of the insurance company saw it, he asked Lao Shandong to help watch, and also let Zhang Youfu usually help Lao Shandong's family carry water for free.

Maybe it's really unlucky, the next year the Zhang family's cotton grew better, but the price of cotton plummeted, and even the seed money may not be recovered.

Cai's child can already run away, Zhang Youfu named Laicai, Cai felt that Zhang Youfu was poor and ran away from the name, and resolutely disagreed, so he named the child Zhang Jing, the warp of warp and weft. But unfortunately, this son was not blessed and died after living for half a year. made the two of them deeply shocked, and they became even inferior.

The life of the family has always been tight, but this is only relative, the Americas are generally rich, and the life of a full meal every day is the dream of the poor all over the world in this era, but here it is just the norm, the Zhang family has a full meal, wears warm clothes, and can still have five or six thousand dollars left every year, in fact, it is already very rich. But people are afraid of comparison, when other people's families can save 10,000 yuan every year, they feel poor when they only have 5 or 6,000 yuan.

And everything is expensive here, except for the cheap food, the salt is also expensive, the cloth is also expensive, and the medicine is even more expensive.

Especially the cloth, Cai's always felt that those merchants who came to the door were black-hearted, how could he dare to sell a foot of cloth for two hundred yuan, even the Nanjing cloth in Songjiang could not be sold at this price!

Cai, who was born as a textile worker, felt that she was at a loss, and after many quarrels with the merchant, she decided to weave her own cloth, which was produced locally, and the price of cotton was several times lower than that of Songjiang, but the cloth was too expensive. Cai's ingenuity, she is proficient in every process of weaving, she has used earthening machines, and she has also used machines, so she drew patterns and asked carpenters to help build hand-cranked machines, spinning and weaving by herself.

The homespun cloth woven by Cai's is not necessarily better than the woven cloth trafficked by the merchant, and the homespun cloth machine that rotates unevenly will never be as symmetrical as the woven cloth, but Cai's cloth is woven by himself, and the locals feel that Cai's cloth is thick because of the sufficient materials.

At first, Cai's did not collect money, the cotton was in his own field, and the handiwork was his own effort, and he felt that there was no cost, they were all neighbors, so he should help, but the people in the fort were sincere, and they consciously sent cotton to ask Cai's to help weave cloth.

Only the chief of the security department was unhappy, and the scolding was a group of villains who loved to take advantage, and the chief decided that the Cai family's cloth would have to pay for eighty percent of the market price, and whoever didn't give it would block the door and scold.

As a result, after weaving cloth for a year, Cai found that she earned more money than farming, and she earned more money than her husband.

Cai was very grateful for the kindness of the chief of the bao, and soon the son of the chief of the chief family got married, and married the daughter of the chief of another castle thirty miles upstream of the river, and the chief said that he would do a big job.

Americans are rich, please send the best Nanjing cloth, Nanjing cloth is the world's best-selling, dignitaries and nobles are used, rich people like to chase the trend.

The chief of the guard's family held a happy event, and the women in the fort went to help, and the chief of the baby's wife asked Cai's to help cut the groom's clothes, and Cai's only then found out that the Nanjing cloth bought by the chief's family was fake.

"How can this be fake? What a colorful cloth it is! ”

The honest lady didn't believe it, she paid a lot of money to buy it.

Cai said, "Madam. The cloth is not as bright as possible, the Nanjing cloth is woven with flower cotton, the color is not bright, it is elegant. Do you look at the senior officials above the third grade, which one is brightly dressed? ”

The people in the fort knew that Cai's was a weaver in the city, and they knew a lot, so Mrs. believed it.

scolded: "lame, I asked my mother for 5,000 dollars, and I dare to give my mother a fake!" ”

The chief of the bodyguard, who had a gloomy face every day, suddenly walked in with his hands behind his back.

When he saw a room full of women, he shouted, "What are you mourning! ”

On the day of great joy, the chief can have a gloomy face, but others cannot.

Madame did not relent: "Master, you have to clean up that lame man, deceive people to our family." My son is so happy, he gave us a fake! ”

As he spoke, he shook the bright red Nanjing cloth and scolded.

The chief asked the reason, and his face was still the same, as if everyone owed him money.

He only said coldly: "Burn the fake." ”

Madame said, "Burned? Don't settle accounts with a cripple? ”

The chief said: "The money and goods are cleared, and I admit that I have suffered a loss." In the future, the lame will not be allowed to enter our fort. ”

Mrs. said worriedly: "It's burned, what should I do with the clothes?" ”

The chief said: "Go to the city to buy it, buy the best materials." ”

The chief of the guard is the emperor of the soil in the fort, and he said that if he doesn't let the cripple enter the fort, the lame man will not be able to enter the fort. He has the final say in this fort, and even the name of the fort is called Wangjia Fort. Now he said that if he went to the city to buy cloth and buy the best cloth, then he had to go to the city to buy cloth and buy the best cloth.

But the chief of the baby's wife is a little foot, and the two concubines are also small feet, and the men in the castle are very envious, thinking that the chief is married to a first-class daughter-in-law, but the ladies can't go out.

And it's not safe to go to the city, what should I do if I buy a fake again?

Mrs. asked her son to set up a car, asked Cai's to help run a trip, and also sent two good sought-after people in the fort to follow, but the road was not safe.

In fact, the road has been much safer, and the officers and soldiers have swept away the life here, and the obedient ones have been placed in farming, and the disobedient ones have been driven away.

There is a small town eighteen miles away along the river, called Forty Miles, because it is exactly forty miles away from the county seat, and after the chief son sent the Cai family here, he drove back.

Forty miles is also close to the river, but the population is larger, more than 300 people, and there are more than 100 people in the town, a few shops, and a wharf. The cotton in the surrounding area will be collected by the merchants and sent here, and then sent to the county seat by boat, and then exchanged for a large ship to go to sea and send to China.

Cai's also took a boat here, and it was much safer to take a boat and didn't need to be accompanied. But the tickets were not cheap, and the steamboats were opened on the Arkansas River, and it cost two hundred dollars to get forty miles from here to the county seat, and the same price to return to the city, so the peasants rarely went into the city.

Some cargo ships also carry passengers, so it will be very cheap if you pick up people along the way. Cai wanted to save money for the chief of the family, so he bought a ticket for piggybacking people on the dock, which only cost 100 yuan. She soon regretted it a little, because the ship turned out to be an American ship, and the captain was a Yiren, shouting on the dock for the guests to board the ship, and the Yiren accent was strange, but she could understand it, and it was even easier to hear than the accent of Lao Shandong.

The county seat is called Little Rock, not far from the Mississippi River, and the Cai family did not see Stone Town, but a typical Chinese brick city. Because the name is not given by the Chinese, but by the local people. Before the Chinese came, this area was all Shengfan, the place of Little Rock, Little Rock was originally a Spanish military fortress, Shengfan was called Little Rock, and it was slowly called.

There were no dangers along the way, the Americans were honest, and there were some other guests on board, all very well-behaved. Stepping on the docks of Little Rock, Cai suddenly felt a familiar feeling, following the crowd into the city, this feeling became stronger and stronger, this is her familiar feeling of the city.

A lot of things from the past suddenly appeared in Cai's mind, life in Shanghai County, the life of a group of little girls in the factory, and the quarrels between neighbors, which seemed to be far away from her, but today they suddenly became very close.

The familiar feeling made Cai's entry into the city very natural quickly, and she raised her head, no one knew her here, no one knew that she was a disabled person. She also doesn't have to worry about selling cloth to her neighbors and then being pointed at from behind.

The foul air is also so familiar, the only thing that is unfamiliar is that the streets and alleys can be seen everywhere with strange characters, compared to these people, the Yi people are not strange at all, at least the Cai family, who has lived in Shanghai, has seen the Yi people who come to do business before, but they have never seen these strange people in strange clothes and colorful faces.

"These are the births, right?"

Cai thought to himself.

Then when walking, consciously avoid these people.

There were originally some Indian tribes near Little Rock, and some even naturalized the Catholicism of the Spaniards, and Little Rock was a place where Indian tribes exchanged goods before, and the geographical location was very good, so it was later chosen as the county seat.

The war with the Indians was not fierce, and it was easy to tame them. There were thousands of Indians who settled nearby, so there were many Indians in the city, some of whom simply lived in the city, and some of whom went into the city to buy things.