The vegetable market street is lively before dawn in the morning, with vegetable farmers who deliver vegetables, vegetable sellers who come to serve vegetables wholesale, and those who get up early to set up stalls. There are also many people who like to come early in the morning to buy the first batch of fresh vegetables, and the winter morning is always very late, and the people in the vegetable market hang lanterns early to open for business.

The vegetable market is noisy, crowded with people buying and selling vegetables, and each vegetable stall owner puts his freshest and best vegetables at the front of the stall, and the fresh vegetables delivered overnight are sprinkled with some water, which makes them look more energetic. The fish and shrimp brought in from the reservoir in the nearby river, some clever stall owners even put ice underneath.

The vegetable market has a lot of dishes, and Liu Jun accompanied Lina to visit the vegetable market early in the morning. After returning to Beijing, he resumed his micro-service every weekend and went out of the palace to Lina's German restaurant official and live in the courtyard of Caishi Street. Liu Jun even set up a banquet with Lina last weekend to get married, and invited a group of neighbors in the alley of Caishi Street, as well as Lina's relatives and friends in Han, and the wedding was simple and lively.

After getting married, Lina lived in Liu Jun's courtyard, but she still runs a German restaurant. Today, the German hotel chain has opened a total of 13 stores, covering Beijing, Tianjin, Baoding, Tongzhou and other cities, and the business is booming and profitable.

"How much is lettuce a pound?"

Lina's Chinese is already very good, and in terms of Mandarin, she is even better than many local Han people. In fact, now that the German restaurant is running so big, she, the owner, doesn't need to come to buy groceries at all, in Liu Jun's words, it is enough to master the whole plate.

But Lina also has her own set of business philosophy, and she always spends a day or two every week running around the various vegetable farms in Beijing early in the morning, so that she has a clearer understanding of the restaurant's raw material procurement.

"Lettuce is five cents a pound." The owner of the stall was a middle-aged woman, who looked more loyal, but she was very clever with her hands and feet, and she could greet several customers at the same time. Women come out to set up stalls and do business. In fact, it was very common after the Ming Dynasty, but now in the Han Dynasty, this situation has gone one step further.

Nowadays, everyone seems to be looking at money, and everyone is competing to make money, not only men are making money outside, but young men and girls are also making money in the workshop, and even those women have also begun to make money outside.

"Where's the cucumber?"

"Cucumbers are also five cents a pound." The aunt spoke in Mandarin far inferior to Lina, and her Mandarin seemed to have a slight Shandong accent. But after all, it is a northern accent, and it does not hinder communication.

"Five cents a pound, it's a little expensive, right?"

"Wuwen a pound is expensive, it's not expensive at all, you have to see what season it is, eating cucumbers in this season used to be only available to the emperor and dignitaries. And this lettuce too, which used to be only available on Tessie's side, and earlier it was only available in aristocratic houses and restaurants. ”

The cucumber and lettuce are really fresh. Especially cucumbers in season, which are out-of-season vegetables. A long time ago, there were greenhouses to grow vegetables in winter, and the first ones were planted by the royal family for the court. Later, large families will also build a greenhouse. Nowadays, savvy vegetable farmers have also begun to engage in out-of-season planting.

The most important thing about the popularity of this out-of-season vegetable is that there are more people willing to buy it now. At the end of the day, everyone has more money in their hands.

"What about the cabbage, this season is in season. It's not expensive, is it? Liu Jun said with a smile.

"There are many kinds of cabbage, I have several kinds of cabbage, yellow sprouts, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, etc., the cheapest is Chinese cabbage, two pennies a pound. Yellow sprouts, white three and cabbage three pounds. ”

Liu Jun took a pencil and counted the prices of these items in a small notebook, which had already written down several sets of numbers, and asked the prices in other stalls.

Although it is just the price of some ordinary dishes, the price of vegetables is related to people's livelihood, and the price of vegetables can actually reflect many situations.

The price rise that began in the second year of Longhan seems to have stabilized now.

This morning, I accompanied Lina around a lot, walked five vegetable markets in Beijing, and two wholesale markets outside the city. The prices of various dishes have basically been mastered, from beef, mutton and pork, chicken, duck and goose, to river fish and seafood, as well as various vegetables and several kinds of grain prices.

At present, the price of grain is still relatively stable, and from the first year of the Longhan Dynasty to the present, it has basically maintained a relatively fixed price. Among them, the price of rice is basically maintained at around two silver dollars per quintal.

Medium, lower and japonica rice are cheaper, but there are also many higher-priced rice in the market, mostly Northeast rice shipped from outside the customs area, and Nanyang rice shipped from Siam, Myanmar and Viet Lo, which are all excellent rice with better taste but higher prices. The most expensive Siamese fragrant rice is about five pieces per quintal.

The price of wheat is about as high as the price of rice, about two pieces a quintal, but the price of flour is much higher.

On the whole, the price of rice now is equivalent to one or two or five silver and one stone in the past.

In the past, one stone was about one hundred and fifty-three and a half catties, but now grain is mainly measured in a quintal, and one quintal is one hundred catties. Originally, silver was calculated according to two, but now silver dollars are calculated according to yuan, and one tael of silver is equivalent to about two silver dollars.

Therefore, the current price of two silver dollars and one load of rice is actually equivalent to the original one tael and five silver and one stone of rice. Calculated in comparison, compared with the Chongzhen period, the price of grain is actually much lower, but it is still much higher than the Wanli period, when one tael of silver could buy two stones of grain in a good year.

However, today's grain prices are mainly dominated by the policies of the imperial court. In order to increase the income of the peasant class and change the face of poverty, Liu Jun has always set the purchase price of grain at a higher position than in the Ming Dynasty.

The high purchase price of grain has naturally led to an increase in the price of grain in the market.

Twenty wen a pound of rice, this price is indeed higher than in the past, but think about it, now the income of the people of Dahan has generally increased a lot, even if an ordinary textile female worker, there are at least four silver dollars a month, in addition to the factory food and shelter every month, the salary they earn can also buy two hundred catties of rice, compared with the past, their purchasing power is still much stronger.

And now there are two pieces and one load on the market, just the price of rice, medium rice and rice, japonica rice is much cheaper, especially now there are many high-yield crops introduced in the Americas, so that there are also a large number of corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes and other coarse grains in the grain market, these grains are cheaper, if ordinary families are coarse and fine grains, then the cost of rations is not large.

The price of soybeans is comparable to that of millet, but lower than that of rice and wheat, and the price of black beans and sorghum is even lower, which is comparable to that of potatoes and sweet potatoes.

After walking around the vegetable market, Liu Jun found that the supply of the vegetable market in Beijing was very sufficient, and there were many dishes. Even though it is now the wax moon, there are still all kinds of green fresh vegetables everywhere in the vegetable field, such as cucumbers, cabbage, radish, celery, etc.

At the same time, chicken, duck and fish meat are also very rich, and Jingshi now has a special slaughterhouse, which has a special person to quarantine and then slaughter every day, and finally wholesale to various vegetable markets.

Fish from rivers, reservoirs, and the sea are also brought into Beijing every day.

Fresh carp is only 20 wen per catty, 30 wen per catty of pork, and 25 wen for beef. This price surprised Liu Jun, beef is actually cheaper than pork, and fresh fish is only equivalent to a pound of rice.

At first, he thought it was strange, and he had the impression that beef and mutton should always be more expensive than pork. Later, he carefully questioned the people in the vegetable market and finally knew the reason. Pork is more expensive than beef, firstly, because everyone used to eat less beef and was not used to eating beef. After all, before the Han Dynasty incorporated Mongolia into the empire and Mongolian cattle and sheep were continuously imported into the Central Plains, it was still illegal to slaughter cultivated cattle without permission, and ordinary people did not have the opportunity to eat beef.

The second and most important reason for this is that many people think that beef is all lean and has no oil. When ordinary people buy pork, they like to buy meat with fat, and they like to eat fatty meat, which has oil.

At this time, southerners mainly eat vegetable oil, northerners eat more soybean oil, as well as some tea oil, sesame oil, etc., the price of vegetable oil and soybean oil has always been comparable to the price of pork. Therefore, oil is actually more expensive.

Many people buy fatty pork and can also fry lard, which is quite cost-effective.

As Liu Jun saw at the meat stall in the vegetable market today, the best pork sold is pork belly, and the plate oil is also the most sought-after. On the contrary, pig's trotters and pork ribs are not very popular, you have to rely on the head, buy a few catties of meat and some ribs or something, basically the same price as the pig's head, which is extremely cheap, not the price of meat.

Beef and mutton and pork ribs, lean meat, like to eat those big families, the general Han people, or more inclined to fatty meat, the fatter the meat, the more popular, talk about two fingers and three fingers. If you want to buy plate oil and pork belly, you have to buy it early, otherwise, you will have to buy lean meat when you come late.

Pig's feet and pig's head are only half the price of meat, and sometimes it is even less. Most of the pig's heads are bought by those cooked meat shops and taken back to make braised pork cooked food.

However, onions and garlic are more expensive, garlic moss is 15 wen per catty, and green onions are 10 wen per catty.

A dime of silver is a hundred yuan, which can buy forty-five duck eggs, or fifty-four eggs, which is equivalent to four catties of duck eggs, or four and a half catties of eggs, and one catty is twenty-five to twenty-two wen, which is slightly higher than one catty of rice.

Compared with the price of food, the price of these vegetables, meat and eggs is obviously low.

The price of salt is relatively high, this is a franchise, with the meaning of poll tax. The price of salt in various places is basically the same, and the price of salt per catty is 30 Wen.

The prices of oil, soy sauce and vinegar are also roughly the same as the prices of salt.

In such a comparison, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar tea, these five things, the most expensive is actually tea. (To be continued.) )