coobybook Chapter 286 Leaving Huairen County
Chapter 286 Leaving Huairen County
In early June, Gu Wenxuan led people to the Mu family shop in Haizhou - Taixiang Silver Shop, located on the most prosperous street in the east city of Haizhou, and informed the shop owner that they were planning to return home in mid-to-late July.
The shop owner helped them contact the two Mu family caravans that specialized in running this route. After inquiring about their itinerary, he sent a letter to Gu Wenxuan and the others in early July, asking them to choose whether to follow Mu Jinyang's caravan in mid-July or follow the other caravan in late July.
Gu Wenxuan and Bai Jingzhou chose to leave in mid-July without a second thought. On the one hand, they had already become familiar with Mu Jinyang and his group, and on the other hand, the sooner they went back, the sooner they could help their families with the autumn harvest.
After receiving the message from the clerk, the owner of the silver shop immediately greeted Mu Jinyang and his caravan. Mu Jinyang estimated the itinerary and asked the owner to tell Gu Wenxuan and his party that the caravan led by Mu Jinyang would pass through Huairen County between July 16 and 19, and he would send someone to Linjia Village to pick up Gu Wenxuan and his party at that time.
After getting the confirmation, Gu Wenxuan and the others began to prepare for departure.
On the eighth day of July, Bai Jingzhou and his companions were taken by Lin's mother to her parents' home to copy books, while Gu Wenxuan and others began to purchase various supplies.
She bought some silkworm eggs from the aunts of the Lin family and learned from them how to preserve them.
According to them, the silkworms' egg-laying period is from late June to early October, and the peak egg-laying period is from July to late August. Their method of preserving silkworm eggs is also very simple:
Select healthy, disease-free and insect-free silkworm eggs, and place them in a silkworm egg box (you can use a paper box or a small bamboo box) that is dry, ventilated, and at a suitable temperature.
In autumn, when storing silkworm eggs, you should pay attention to avoid temperatures that are too high or too low, so as not to affect the preservation of the eggs.
If you need to preserve the silkworm eggs until they hatch the following year, you can wrap them in black cloth in the winter to prevent light from getting in, and then store them in a place where the temperature is lower but the water will not freeze, so that the silkworm eggs will enter a dormant state in the winter.
Gu Wenxuan had watched these aunts and sisters raising silkworms before. Although there were many things she had not learned, she had Bai Jingzhou. Now with the last step of "silkworm egg preservation matters", their silkworm breeding technology would be completely complete.
On July 14, Bai Jingzhou and his companions returned from Lin's mother's home after copying the books.
On the evening of July 6, Mu Jinyang sent a servant to Linjia Village to inform Gu Wenxuan and others that the caravan would be waiting for them outside the north gate of Huairen County at 45: a.m. on the th.
The servant didn't have time to get back to the county town before the city gate was closed, so he simply stayed at the Lin family's old house that night and waited until the next morning to set out from Linjia Village with Gu Wenxuan and the others.
The Lin family prepared a sumptuous meal that night to see off Gu Wenxuan and the others. During the meal, the Lin father and son reminded Bai Jingzhou and the others of many things related to the imperial examination, and asked them to write to them if they had any questions in the future.
Bai Jingzhou and others were very grateful and toasted the Lin father and son with tea instead of wine.
On July 18, before dawn, Gu Wenxuan and her friends had already gotten up, washed, had breakfast, and packed up to leave.
The Lin family also got up very early. Together with a small number of Lin clan members, they prepared many local rituals for Gu Wenxuan and others.
Of course, the bulk of the Tuyi belongs to Bai Jingzhou and the Gu family, and only a small part belongs to Jia Yuelan, Bai Jingshan, the Fang brothers and others.
Bai Jingzhou took more because the Lin family was grateful to him for his great efforts in regulating the health of the four members of the Lin family, and he only took a small amount of money for the medicine when he really couldn't refuse. Bai Jingzhou did all the work for free, including pulse diagnosis, acupuncture, and later medicinal baths, moxibustion and other treatments.
Gu Wenxuan's siblings got more, firstly because she gave more, and secondly because her cousin was the grandson of the Lin family, and among the things given to him, there was a large portion that belonged to his mother, Lin Shuzhen.
These local instruments and the various things that Gu Wenxuan and the others personally selected, including the dry food, water bags, bedding, raincoats and other items that were necessary for the journey, directly filled up the eight horse-drawn carriages they brought.
Two carts of silk with the latest patterns and the best quality, and one cart of medicinal herbs with larger profit margins that Bai Jingzhou had taken the time to personally select. They were going to take these back and sell them to make a profit.
In addition, they also had a truckload of dried seafood they bought in the small fishing village, as well as wine, tea, rice, salt, silk, cloth, porcelain, embroidery, bamboo weaving, beautiful shells, etc. bought in the county and state capitals. They were planning to take these back for their own use and as gifts.
The car was also filled with local necessities such as tea, silk, cloth, porcelain, embroidery, bamboo weaving, dried seafood, etc. prepared for them by the Lin family and Lin clansmen.
The various seeds, strawberry seedlings, various saplings, and two carefully preserved paper boxes of silkworms that Gu Wenxuan and her friends had exchanged with others were loaded into the same car along with the bedding, raincoats, and bamboo hats that they brought with them.
The most precious books and booklets to them filled twelve large boxes. Because they were so precious, Bai Jingzhou asked the Fang brothers to put them in the secret compartment under the seat of the carriage.
Among them are their rich collections of books bought from bookstores and copied from the Lin family and Lin's mother's home, as well as their records of local customs and practices, and notes on their experiences in farming, breeding, cocoon making, silk reeling, and silk weaving.
The books they copied back from Lin's mother's home included, in addition to some prefecture and county chronicles, geographical maps of mountains and rivers, travel notes, poetry collections, chess scores, and music scores, as well as "Fan Sheng Shu", "Water Classic", "Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luoyang", "Huangdi Neijing", and "Huangdi Neijing Suwen".
The experience notes on farming, breeding, cocoon making, silk reeling, silk weaving, etc. have not been systematically sorted out, so the content is messy and disorganized. I need to wait until I have time in the future to reorganize it, remove the dross and retain the essence, and correct the errors.
They had packed most of the things in advance and put them on the carriage, but there were also a few things that they temporarily carried to the carriage after they finished their meal. These included dry food, eggs, bacon, snacks, fruits, rice, flour, oil, salt, etc. prepared for them by the Lin family.
Gu Wenche knew that after this farewell, he would never see the Lin family again. He held the letter written to his mother by the Lin family in his arms, and with tears in his eyes, he held on to Lin's father and mother and refused to let go.
Gu Wenxuan ignored him. Ever since she knew the approximate date of their departure, she had been very reluctant to leave the Lin family. Gu Wenche had to digest this feeling of separation by himself.
What Gu Wenxuan and the others did not expect was that they thought that only the Lin family and a small number of Lin clan members would see them off, but after their team left the Lin family's old house, it gradually turned into most of the Lin clan members, gathering at the village entrance from all over the village.