OBS Chapter 325: Life and Hope
Chapter 325: Life and Hope
For example, the Daqing silver note was issued by the government. It was the size of an adult man's palm, with dragon patterns painted on the borders and the words "Daqing official note" written in large letters inside the borders.
On the left is the year and number of the silver note, on the right is the number of the money exchange bank, and in the middle is the face value of the silver note.
Although I don't know why, even though Daqing has been in chaos for so long, there is still a unified bank that accepts money from all over the country. I don't know how the princes reached a consensus on this.
But Shen Youyou had actually seen silver bills, and the silver bills used in the underworld in this shop were very similar to the ones Shen Youyou had seen.
However, the silver notes for ghost money are not surrounded by dragon patterns, but auspicious clouds, with lotus patterns at the bottom, and the "Daqing official note" was changed to "Tian Di Money House".
The year and number on both sides are gone, and instead it says: "Universal to heaven and earth, fire burns into gold, good gods bless, evil gods wall it up."
As for the blank space in the middle, there are pictures of cranes printed on the upper sides, a divine deer at the bottom, piles of gold, silver and jewelry in the middle, and the words "Ten Million Taels of Silver" written in the middle.
Of course, sometimes it is nine thousand taels of silver, or nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine taels of silver. Each one is different, with various specifications from large to small. It may be due to inflation in the underworld, but the smallest one is one hundred taels.
Whether in ancient times or modern times, many people believe that after death, the soul will enter another world, which is the so-called underworld.
Burning incense and paper money during sacrifices are in themselves ways for people to express their grief, not to mention that many people truly believe that the paper money they burn will be received by their deceased relatives and can be used by them in the underworld.
Even those whose family conditions are not good are willing to burn more paper money for their deceased relatives so that their relatives can go to the underworld and become wealthy people with no worries about food and drink.
Of course, Shen Youyou also believed this. Whether it was his grandparents in his previous life, or his grandparents, or his grandparents in ancient times, they could all live well in another world.
Seeing Shen Youyou staring at the silver note for underworld money, Madam Jiang said, "This is a new silver note from the underworld. We asked the abbot of Huguo Temple to carve it."
Shen Youyou exclaimed inwardly: "Wow, you have taken the paper money business to a new level. No wonder it is a century-old store."
“What are the prices for these?”
Seeing that Shen Youyou and the others were here for the first time, Madam Jiang introduced them in more detail: "Usually, yellow paper is the kind that looks like a big copper coin.
It was five coins per stack, that is, one hundred pieces. There was also a large piece of paper with many copper coins engraved on it. There were two kinds, white paper and ordinary jute paper.
White paper costs 16 wen per piece, jute paper costs 20 wen, and silver note-style paper costs about 20 wen per 100 pieces.
Why is it that one knife is also worth 100 sheets, but the price of the one printed in the style of silver notes is the same as that of ordinary yellow paper? This is because a normal knife of paper,
One of the sheets can be divided into many pieces of paper in the shape of silver notes. I guess this kind of paper money was developed to save paper.
Shen Youyou had no intention of saving money in this regard. She wanted everything, including paper money, mountains of gold and silver, and lotus pedestals.
She spent nearly twenty taels of silver on all kinds of paper clothes, houses, carriages, boys and girls.
However, she did not take these things back, but paid a part of the deposit and agreed that they would come to pick them up early in the morning four days later.
Shen Zhiqiu had told her that these expenses should not be paid with public funds, and they would pay for them themselves, so she had no need to save anything. After all, she really believed that these things could be burned for her grandfather.
However, she did not buy paper animals because she also believed that their fifty horses would be able to reunite with her grandfather.
In the next few days, Shen Youyou set up the stall as usual to earn food expenses.
Shen Zhiqiu and his colleagues were busy because they had already started building the house. After the foundation was baked, they began building the house and the wall.
Whether it is the wall or the fence of the house, it starts from the corner and makes a wall screen. It is about two steps long, half a step high, and half a step wide, and its shape is similar to the wooden mold for making bricks.
The openings are located relatively close to each other, and the inner side of the corner is intentionally made to be dynamic, so that a part of it can be removed, just to form a corner.
This place was specially improved by Shen Zhiqiu in order to create an integrated corner.
Short dry straw is also added to the rammed earth, which acts as a skeleton and makes the house stronger.
There were more than 30 sets of tools, and the men and boys were divided into more than 30 groups, some were digging, some were transporting, and of course more were tamping.
Each group here is divided into two groups of people who take turns to do the work of rammed earth walls. The main purpose is to ensure that one person can rest, but the tools cannot rest.
"Boom boom boom, boom boom boom!"
In addition to this rhythmic sound, there is the sound of men shouting slogans. Shen Zhiqiu suddenly felt as if he had returned to his childhood, when some families were building houses in almost the same situation as now.
In fact, tamping earth is really a very strenuous job. Those assigned to the tamping earth group, no matter how thin they look, have arms with muscles that are hard to pinch.
As they raised the pestle again and again, their muscles could be seen bulging through their clothes, and then they slammed it down suddenly, followed by a dull "bang" sound.
The muscles on his arms bulged again, and the pestle in his hand rose up, and a bowl-sized mark appeared on the red clay.
Of course, if several people tamped the soil on a wall with a pestle, the marks would be densely packed, but it is not difficult to see that the marks left by each pounding are always much deeper than other places.
Their sweat also slid down their foreheads, necks, and arms, fell to the ground, and broke into eight pieces.
But with repeated hammering, the clay and thatch inside the wall screen became more compact, as if they were firmly embedded together.
After that, someone filled the wall sieve that had been lowered due to compaction with the soil in the dung bucket, and the men in the tamping team continued to tamp it down, repeating this process.
Until the clay in the wall sieve is compacted and no more soil can be added,
The men lifted up the wall sieve again, and this step was similar to demolding.
Lift the wall sieve and walk a few steps forward. Use the opening to directly connect with the previously compacted earth wall without any gaps. Then you can continue to add soil to the next section of the wall and tamp the earth.
Continue to add soil and then compact it.
Whether it is digging, transporting, adding, compacting, or women weaving straw mats day after day, all the work is quite boring and difficult.
But everyone who was sweating on the west side of the river had a bright smile on his face, and from time to time you could hear them encouraging or joking with each other.
Bursts of hearty laughter, accompanied by the sounds of "dong dong dong, shua shua shua," interweave into the most real and beautiful painting.
The name of this painting is Life, or Hope.
Nothing in this world can be accomplished casually. Most achievements require great efforts.
I don’t know how much sweat and effort it takes to make the flowers nurtured with blood and sweat bloom.