Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 229 Human Heart
After the Lantern Festival, the once bustling Shixing City became a little quieter.

The crowded scene in the department store is gone, and the female clerks who used to be busy all the time can finally sit by the fire and take time to sew a shoe sole or mend their children's clothes.

The once bustling restaurants and taverns returned to their former quiet state, with the chefs and waiters lying on the tables, chatting idly.

The factories and workshops in the city began to become increasingly busy. Chimneys continuously spewed out black smoke, and the sounds of clanging and hammering could be heard from the workshops.

The pedestrians on the street also hurried their steps, running around for their own happy lives.

A few years ago, the small town had only a few hundred people, but now it is gradually showing signs of vitality.

By the end of last year, the population of Shixing City had grown to 2,800, accounting for almost 20% of Xinhua’s total population.

The size of the entire town has expanded four times compared to three years ago, and a large number of wooden houses have gradually been replaced by brick and stone buildings.

The cement or gravel streets are spacious and clean, with a row of pine trees planted on both sides, making the neighborhood look lively.

The market trading area on the west side of the town is bustling with activity. Some temporary vendors are hawking the goods they brought, from fresh sea fish, to game from the forest, furs from the mountains, exquisite items from the Ming Dynasty, and handicrafts woven or processed by the residents of the town themselves.

In fact, from an outsider's perspective, the business atmosphere in Shixing City is not very strong, and there are no serious businessmen, because most of the commercial facilities are under the Xinhua government.

As for the small vendors in the market, they are basically temporary residents of the small town. They use the winter idle season to make some small things, or hunt and catch some fish, and take them to the market in the hope of exchanging some money.

Among them, a considerable number of temporary vendors were family members of the sailors, who sold the rare items their husbands brought back from the Ming Dynasty in the market to supplement their family income.

The variety of goods sold in the market can be said to be rather mediocre, and the prices are relatively high. Some handicrafts are even two or three times more expensive than those in the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, there are also high-quality and low-priced goods in Shixing City, such as iron farm tools, hardware, leather, oil, salt, candles, soap, paper, pottery jars and grain.

In other words, anything that Xinhua can produce by itself is generally relatively cheap.

And those goods that Xinhua cannot produce for the time being can only be shipped from the distant Ming Dynasty. The journey is thousands of miles long and the sea route is long. Even tofu can be ground into the price of meat, so the price is ridiculously high.

Xu Xinghuai saw his wife staring at the bundle of green cotton cloth made in Songjiang on the counter in a daze, with hope in her eyes. She didn't say anything for a long time. He couldn't help but sigh in his heart, and his right hand subconsciously touched the few coins in his purse.

The half-grown children in the family are growing rapidly every day, just like crops that have been fertilized.

The thirteen-year-old eldest son and eleven-year-old eldest daughter bought a set of clothes just last year, but by the end of the year, half of their arms were exposed from the sleeves and their trouser legs could no longer cover their feet.

His wife, Sun, bought some cloth and patched up the short sleeves and trouser legs so that the two children would not be too restricted in their clothes.

But when the Chinese New Year came, the children saw that their friends all had new clothes and new pants. Although they didn't say anything, they were very envious in their hearts. They looked at others eagerly and naturally wanted to wear new clothes too.

Today, I sold a few skins I hunted this winter to the supply and marketing cooperative and earned two or thirty yuan. I then went out to buy some daily necessities to take back.

The hoe and shovel in the house have holes in them. Although they can still be used after being polished, it is always better to buy a few and keep them at home just in case.

After school, the children would each help their parents work in the fields.

The quilt on the bed is a bit thin and needs more cotton.

If the fire accidentally goes out in the middle of the night, you will be frozen to death.

Oh, by the way, the tea leaves are gone. I need to buy some to drink occasionally to get rid of the greasy smell in my stomach.

There is also soap, which costs a few dollars and can be used for bathing, washing hair, and washing clothes.

If you catch two piglets at the market and raise them for a year, you can sell the meat for a lot of money.

You also need to buy some lamp oil, because sometimes the children are delayed in their homework and have to light a lamp to do their homework.

In addition, my wife can also use the light to make a few more pairs of cloth shoes and mend a few clothes.

Add to that a pot, a few bowls, daily nails and hardware tools, and all the other things you need, and the money from selling the leather is not enough to last you forever.

I may have to take some more coins out of my purse.

Now, my wife has her eye on the blue cotton cloth on the counter and wants to make new clothes for the two older children. They are about to go to school, and I guess she is worried that the children will be laughed at by their peers if they wear last year's old clothes.

To be honest, Xu Xinghuai was a little reluctant.

The clothes the two children were wearing were a bit old, and the sleeves and trouser legs were patched, but there were no holes in them. After being washed, they looked quite neat and tidy. Why did they need to change into new clothes?

I remember when I was a child, my family of several people only had two sets of clothes to wear outside. In the summer, we all ran around naked.

The dead mother and a sister had to huddle in a dark, shabby house all day because there were no extra clothes at home. They could only watch the naked little boys running around through the window.

Look at now. Not to mention that every child in the family has clothes to wear, there are also seasonal clothes, winter clothes and summer clothes, and there are several large quilts in the house. Seven or eight years ago, such a life was unimaginable.

So, do we really need to buy new clothes for our children?
Since the autumn harvest two years ago, the service period agreed upon by these first Ming Dynasty immigrants to Xinzhou has expired, and they have officially divided up the land and houses, and now they have their own family business.

However, although the land is distributed to you for free, the house must be paid for at a discount.

They also had to buy the necessary production and living tools themselves, pay rental fees for large animals used to plow the fields, buy seeds for sowing, pay wages for hiring workers during the busy farming season, and pay a certain amount of money for the compost applied to the fields. All these things added up, not only did the family spend all their savings accumulated over the years, but they also owed the Xinhua Rural Agricultural Bank a considerable sum of money, a full 28 yuan.

Although the bank's money does not need to be repaid immediately, but can be paid as a "mortgage" year by year with low interest, owing money to the "public" always makes people feel uneasy.

Last year, the harvest from the fields was decent. After leaving enough food for the family, we sold the rest to the supply and marketing cooperative and earned thirteen yuan and seventy cents.

After paying back three dollars to the bank, only ten dollars and seventy cents were left.

This money is used to support the family's expenses for a year, so it can't all be spent.

Although the meals, vegetables, poultry and eggs at home are free, the firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, as well as hired workers during busy farming seasons, seeds for the fields, livestock and agricultural machinery rentals, etc., all require money out of pocket.

Moreover, the blue cotton cloth produced in Songjiang is extremely expensive, costing eighty cents per piece, which is more than twice as expensive as that in the Ming Dynasty.

This figure is even equivalent to the price of silk in the Ming Dynasty (the most common silk during the Chongzhen period was worth about six cents of silver per piece).

Even this is the price offered by the supply and marketing cooperative.

A few years ago, when immigrant fleets brought these high-quality blue cotton cloths to Spanish Mexico and Peru, the price was even higher than this.

But who can blame us in Xinhua for not producing cloth and silk?
Therefore, it really costs a lot to buy a new set of clothes in Xinhua.

Of course, after making new clothes for the two older children, their old clothes can be passed on to their younger brothers and sisters to continue wearing, and not much money will be wasted.

But Xu Xinghuai was thinking about saving more money in the next few years. In addition to repaying the bank debt as soon as possible, he also wanted to buy a large livestock so that the family could manage more fields.

Every year during the spring sowing and autumn harvest, if you want to rent a cow or a horse from the cooperative, you have to queue up with other people, which always wastes a lot of farming time.

If you can raise a working ox, you can not only save a lot of effort in plowing the fields, but also plant more farmland and produce more food.

After finishing work on the fields at home, you can rent out the livestock to earn some money for feed.

By the way, buying a big animal does cost a lot of money.

He also wants to build a bigger house to replace the small two-bedroom apartment he currently lives in.

There are five people in the family, no, it should be six soon. My wife is pregnant with another child, and it has been more than three months.

It's a bit cramped for so many people to live in two small wooden houses. We need to build a big house.

After all, the children are growing up, and there are taboos about gender, so they can no longer squeeze into one room.

Alas, our family is still too poor. Although we are no longer hungry, the money we have is not enough to last us.

If you want to wear new clothes every year, you’ll have to wait.

(End of this chapter)