Although Lin Jin knew that towering trees grew slowly from young seeds, it was right for her to take a steady path of slow accumulation. But looking at the rows of books on the shelves in the library, she was sometimes really anxious, you know, she hadn't taken out other subjects such as physics, chemistry, biology and other subjects, even mathematics, depth had just reached high school.

When I got home, I saw that inside the gate, there were many slaves sent by salt merchants waiting outside the ceremonial door of the outer courtyard, and Li He, the chief housekeeper of the house, received the gift list on the one hand, and carried and carried the male servant on the other, summarized things, and was very busy.

Lin Jin glanced at the boxes and jars that were almost all over the yard, and said with a smile: "It's only the end of September, and it hasn't even arrived yet, and it's still far from the New Year, why did someone start giving New Year's gifts so early?" ”

Li He replied with a smile: "Uncle, in two days it will be the Winter Clothes Festival, and then in half a month it will be the Xia Yuan Festival." These two festivals are to be offered to the ancestors, although they are not as grand as the official grandeur of the ancestors during the New Year, but since they want to sacrifice to the ancestors, they dare not be a little lazy. These salt merchants are giving these two festivals. ”

After coming to ancient times, Lin Jin knew that not only did there be a festival every month, but they were also quite particular. These festivals, except for traditional festivals such as the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, and Chongyang Festival, are celebrated all over the country, and the rest of the festivals are decided according to the habits of each family.

But as long as you are an official, no matter if you have a holiday at home, or not, outside businesses will give gifts in the name of the festival. An official like Lin Ruhai who served as a salt patrol and was stuck in the neck of a salt merchant, in order to curry favor with him, even if he had no name, he did everything possible to find a name to give gifts, how could he let go of these festivals?

After listening to the housekeeper's words, Lin Jin understood what was going on, looked at the various gifts in front of him, and then looked at the servants of the salt merchants who were waiting outside, holding the gift list, and said to Li He, "You are busy" and walked away.

Walking into the east courtyard, she lifted the curtain and entered the house.

In the house, Aunt Lin was sitting with Yang Lin guessing chess pieces, and Yang Wan, who was diagonally opposite, was sitting at the kang table with a bitter and hateful face and was writing and calculating against a stack of account books.

Seeing her, Yang Wan's eyes lit up, put down the pen in her hand, pushed the account book to the opposite side, and beckoned to Lin Jin: "Brother Jin, you came back just in time, hurry up and help me sort out these accounts." This morning, fiddling with this Rausch made my head dizzy. ”

In fact, Yang Wan, who was raised as a clan wife in the boudoir, has a good account, but she is not very impatient to do this. Since Lin Jin showed her "extraordinary talent" in counting, she did not hesitate to push this stall to Lin Jin, and only when Lin Jin was not there, she would reach out and sort it out.

Aunt Lin heard her words and complained: "What's dizzy, I think you're obviously lazy." Brother Sumire, ignore your mother and let her do the math herself. ”

Lin Jin had long been accustomed to such a similar verbal battle between her grandmother and mother, pursed her lips and smiled, and sat down opposite Yang Wan, opened the account book, picked up the pen, and began to calculate the account.

Although she handed over the account book to Lin Jin, Yang Wan was not idle, took the gift list of each family, spread out the paper and pen, and prepared a list of gifts for some people who gave gifts and needed to return gifts.

"Hey, this salt merchant surnamed Yan has been generous this year, and he actually sent four jars of canned food, one of which turned out to be lychee ......."

Hearing Yang Wan's surprise and joy, Lin Jin crooked her hand, but fortunately she reacted quickly enough, and quickly moved the pen to the inkstone, otherwise the ink drops would drip on the paper.

Before the crossing, Lin Jin was not very interested in canned food, and almost did not eat much, especially canned fruits, when there were many fresh fruits to choose from all year round, she would not touch them.

But in this life, even if she was born in the Lin family, her family is rich and powerful, but if she eats this piece, if she doesn't get tired of eating and is not tired of being fine, she naturally can't compare with modern times; But when it comes to the choice of kinds, especially winter, it is far from being comparable to later generations. After all, the speed of transportation and storage methods of this era lagged far behind later generations.

Don't look at the Jia family to eat an eggplant, they need more than a dozen chickens to match it, it looks very extravagant, in fact, the Lin family, after Lin Ruhai made a salt patrol imperial history, the luxury of life is not much compared to the Jia family.

You must know that out of the need to communicate with the government and business entertainment, coupled with the idea of timely fun, some salt merchants "clothes and houses, poor and gorgeous; Eating utensils, prepared for ingenuity; Haiyu is musical, dancing and singing; Banquets and plays, there is no day...... Extravagant and obscene summer dishes, accustomed to each other. The same is true for salt merchants everywhere, especially Huai and Yang. ”

For example, the salt merchant asked the people to raise hens with ginseng, shu, qi, and jujube, but when the chickens grew up, they ate not the chickens, but the eggs laid by the chickens. It is said that this kind of egg is worth one tael of silver each, which is definitely a luxury, but if it is not broken, it seems to be a "super level" enjoyment.

While enjoying the salt merchants, they naturally will not forget to honor Lin Ruhai, the key person who holds their life.

They knew that Lin Ruhai's style of acting was different from them, as an official, and he was born as a scholar, and he was low-key, so the food he gave to Lin Ruhai was of course a delicacies such as humps, bear paws, abalone, etc., but it was more like the kind of eggs laid by hens fed with ginseng and other precious medicinal herbs as mentioned before.

However, even if life is luxurious to this extent, foods such as fruits, which are highly seasonal and have a short shelf life, once the season is over, due to practical factors, salt merchants can only wait for the next year if they want to eat again.

This canned fruit, like the salt-drying method, was also taken out by Lin Jin. She came up with this not for her appetite, nor for the sake of making money, but to supplement the seafarers who had been at sea for a long time with vitamins and to prevent them from suffering from diseases such as scurvy.

The technology of making canned food is actually not high, and the difficulty is how to achieve sealing.

In Lin Jin's impression, this function was done by rubber, but according to the records she found in the library, it was not until the beginning of the 19th century that rubber trees were introduced in China. Luckily, she found out from the library that eucommia gum is one of the natural rubbers, otherwise the cans would have failed due to sealing problems.

In the choice of canned containers, Lin Jin abandoned the glass of later generations and adopted the local way, using pottery or porcelain. The reason why this is done is because the current method of making glass cannot be maintained at all with the current strength of the Chamber of Commerce.

In the first two years, because of inexperience, the output of canned food was not large, except for supplying seafarers, the rest of the points were taken by the Chamber of Commerce to open the door, even Lin Ruhai, the "big man" who pressed on the head of the salt merchant, did not have a share, but Lin Jin saw it when Lin Ruhai's boss Lianghuai Salt Transport Envoy was a guest in the mansion.

At that time, the two Huai salt transport envoys invited them to eat New Year's wine, and when Lin Jin went to the banquet, he saw a plate of canned grapes on each table, according to the head, two per person. Although it is few, not even enough for guests to taste, it still receives a lot of envious eyes, because it is unique, and no one else has it.

At that time, Lin Jin saw the eyes of everyone at the table and heard everyone's discussions, and she felt a lot of emotion. At this time, when she saw that she didn't care at all in the afterlife, the canned fruit that could be seen everywhere was actually sent home as a very rare gift; Judging from Yang Wan's performance, it seems that she also recognizes its precious value. She really didn't know what to say.

……

Seeing the gift list sent by the Jia family, Yang Wan couldn't help but shake her head and said, "Tut, I really don't know what to say." Although the eldest girl was sent to Jia's house, according to the time and itinerary, there should be no place at this time, right? But the 'Lidong' gift sent by the Jia family this year is also ......"

She really couldn't find a suitable word to describe the Jia family's behavior. It's not just a matter of shrinking several times at once, it's also very perfunctory, if it weren't for the things that were given to Lin Ruhai to support it, this gift list would look really shabby.

Throwing the gift slip on the table, Yang Wan sighed: "Even if it's 'crossing the river and demolishing the bridge', it's not so fast, can it be said that in the eyes of the Jia family, only Daiyu and the old man are worthy of associating with them, and we are not worthy?" ”

Because of too much strength, the gift list did not fall on the table, but floated to Aunt Lin, who coaxed Yang Lin to play. Before Yang Lin reached for it, she picked it up, glanced at it, revealed an indescribable expression, and said, "This should be that Daiyu went to his house anyway, so there is no need to be false with us?" ”

"Who knows?" Yang Wanyu said disdainfully: "Hmph, just the Jia family's style, this virtue, the wife still wanted to marry Daiyu back to her parents' family." Fortunately, the old man didn't agree, otherwise, he would have cheated Daiyu for the rest of his life. ”

Immediately remembered something and asked: "Mom, you said that the master promised to send Daiyu to the Jia family, will it mean to marry her back to his wife's mother's family?" ”

Aunt Lin squinted her eyes and thought for a moment, and vetoed in a firm tone: "Impossible." When Jia Min passed away, she didn't mention this topic again, which shows that she knows that even if she says it, it's useless, and Hai Ge'er will not agree.

Jia Min's maiden family and Daiyu are of the right age, only the brother named Baoyu in the second room, but although he is also an official over there, he is just an inconspicuous outsider in the Ministry of Industry in Beijing. Raise your head to marry a woman, bow your head to marry a woman, the difference between the two families is too big, and they are not a good match.

If that Baoyu is talented, like Hai Ge'er back then, he can stand out in the imperial examination at a young age, but there is still a glimmer of possibility. But that was a few years later, and now Hai Ge'er didn't have that mind, just sent Daiyu to be raised by her grandmother. ”