Three Kingdoms: A Million Soldiers Grown from the Fields

Chapter 24: Meat!

Chapter 24: Meat! (Please continue reading)

Card wipe!

Zhao Yun remained silent, continuing to chop firewood.

Zhang Xian glanced at the vat of freshly chopped chili peppers in front of him, then at Zhao Yun, who seemed to be emanating black mist from his body, and was speechless for a moment.

Card wipe!

A log was cleanly and neatly broken into four pieces, Zhao Yun's hand as steady as ever.

"Oh, alright, alright, Yun-di, Yun-di, Xian-ge was wrong. Next time there's work, I'll let you go first. Today, A-lan was the only one with me, so I let him go."

"Next time, next time I'll definitely let you go first, okay?"

Zhang Xian poured the salt water into the vat with a sense of helplessness.

He's making chopped chili peppers, soaking them in clean salt water; they'll be a perfect accompaniment to rice or noodles later.

They put the lid on the jar, weighed it down with a stone, and moved the glazed jar under the eaves.

Finding a glazed earthenware jar is not easy. Most of the utensils in the small mountain village are coarse pottery, which is fine for eating and drinking porridge, but it is really unusable for long-term pickling.

Earthenware will seep through. Although it won't seep through immediately, prolonged exposure to the vat will cause it to continuously seep liquid, which will not only ruin the brine but also accelerate the damage to the earthenware.

He brought this food back from his old village home and paid for it.

Who would have thought that as soon as he returned, he would see Zhao Yun looking pitiful, as if he had been abandoned.

It's perfectly normal for a thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy to feel a sense of loss when he learns that his best friend has been entrusted with an important task while he himself has not.

This doesn't stem from jealousy or any other negative emotions; it's simply a feeling of loss.

After washing his hands in front of another water vat, Zhang Xian walked up to Zhao Yun and tapped his forehead: "This isn't like the Yun-di I know. Where did your confidence go?"

He then took the axe and piled up the chopped firewood.

"Sigh." Zhao Yun sighed, rolling up his sleeves with a somewhat melancholy expression. "Brother Xian, do you think I really don't have Alan's skill?"

“I can never really talk to the uncles and elders who often come to visit my master, but Alan can always chat with them for a few words.”

"Oh, I thought something was wrong with you. Turns out you've been brooding over this for a while." Zhang Xian stacked pieces of firewood under the thatched shed.

“Different people are always good at different things. You and Alan each have your own strengths. Don’t feel down because of your own shortcomings. Otherwise, how will Alan live?”

“He’s not as strong as you, not as fast as you, and not as good at martial arts as you. If he doesn’t have any other advantages, who should Alan cry to?”

"No one can be perfect and have everything, which is why we need to come together. If you can't do something, I'll do it; if I can't do something, you'll do it. That's what we call social interaction."

After stacking the last piece of firewood, Zhang Xian turned around and flicked Zhao Yun on the forehead.

Adolescents naturally experience all sorts of inexplicable thoughts, which are caused by hormones. Everyone experiences this, and with a little guidance, they'll be full of energy again the next day.

Even without guidance, people will gradually heal from this sorrow on their own, though some people heal faster and some slower.

"Oh," Zhao Yun said, scratching the back of his head after being flicked on the forehead. He gave an embarrassed smile and said, "Hehe, now that Brother Xian says it seems to be true."

"I'm still pretty awesome!"

"Of course, who's stronger than you? Even your brother Xian gets hammered into the ground by you several times a day."

Steam rose from the kitchen, and Zhang Xian could already smell the rich aroma of pumpkin and millet porridge: "So, the strongest person in our little mountain village, could you go and call those brothers who are carrying grain back for dinner?"

The Zhao family naturally didn't have enough space to store the more than 20,000 jin of grain. There wasn't enough space inside the house, and there was only a thatched shed in the small courtyard for storing firewood. So the grain that the Guo family sent had already been moved to the empty house by the village lads.

When hiring people to do work, providing a meal is a must. Besides, these young men have all joined the guard team of his future estate, so he didn't even have time to consider it.

"okay."

Zhao Yun ran out happily. Seeing his appearance, Zhang Xian shook his head and smiled. The young man's worries really came and went quickly.

Around four o'clock in the afternoon, the Zhao family courtyard became as lively as it had been in the morning.

Li Zhen chased after several young men who were teasing her, and the others watched with smiles. The courtyard was filled with joy for a while.

However, once several large pots of thick, orange-yellow millet and pumpkin porridge were carried out of the kitchen, everyone's attention was completely drawn to the food.

These days, I've been eating only refined grains without bran with Brother Xian, and my palate has become quite picky.

"Let's eat!"

Tiger Cub shouted loudly, brandishing a large wooden spoon in his hand towards the crowd.

"Hey, this porridge is almost turning into rice!"

"Tiger Cub, hurry up, I got here first, have a spoonful." Holding a ceramic bowl he brought from home, a young man swallowed hard as he looked at the porridge pot.

The sweet taste is simply amazing.

Taking the bowl, Huwa filled it to the brim with thick porridge, and there were even a few pieces of pumpkin visible in it.

On the other side, Li Zhen was also helping her mother make thick porridge. The little girl was quite small, so she found a wooden post to stand on. "You guys were just teasing me! Who's the older one now!"

"Haha, you're so big, hurry up and have a bowl. After you finish eating, I still have to go help Brother Xian carry grain."

"Hmph!" Li Zhen pouted, but still deftly ladled a full bowl of thick porridge for the young man: "Go ahead and eat."

"Haha, this girl."

Clapping, clapping

As the young men were drinking thick porridge in the courtyard, Zhang Xian was squatting in a corner of the poultry shed scattering feed made of bran and hay when a gray horse galloped up.

"Brother Xian! Brother Xian!"

Zhang Xian poked his head out from behind the fence and, seeing the man on horseback, asked with a smile, "What's wrong, Stone? Have Alan and the others returned?"

"Whoa—." Stone reined in his horse and dismounted.

"No, Brother Xian. Alan led us to find quite a few refugee families and they're heading home now. But it definitely won't be fast on the road; there are over a hundred of them."

After entering through the courtyard gate, Shi Tou ran to the water vat, scooped up a ladle of water, and drank it.

"Stupid stone, why are you drinking well water when there's porridge available!"

Li Zhen carried a bowl of thick porridge and ran towards the stone.

"Oh dear, I have to rush back to help Alan and the others. I need to tell Brother Xian that we need to prepare some food, because those refugees are practically skin and bones."

"No rush, drink some porridge first," Zhang Xian said, patting all the feed off his hands before walking over.

He replaced the nine adult chickens in the farm's livestock pen with ducks.

Shi Tou scratched his head, but still took the ceramic bowl from Li Zhen's hand, blew on it, and took a sip: "Mmm...sweet!"

Zhang Xian smiled and glanced around the courtyard: "Brother Yun, after the brothers have finished eating, take some men to meet up with Brother Lan."

"Alright, Brother Xian." Zhao Yun readily agreed.

"Master, here you go."

A bowl of thick porridge was handed to Zhang Xian. He smiled, took it, and patted Li Zhen's bun: "Go and eat it yourself."

He then took a sip and said, "Hmm, pumpkin and millet porridge is still the best for the stomach."
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After finishing their afternoon snack, the young men went back to work.

Zhao Yun selected seven or eight young men to follow Shi Tou out of the village, while the others continued to move the grain.

The amount of grain, more than 20,000 jin, was actually not that much. A dozen or so young men could finish it in eight or nine trips.

Zhang Xian didn't supervise anything; the village was only so big, and these young men couldn't possibly do anything wrong.

Even if he did it, he wasn't angry; on the contrary, he felt it was a good thing to have discovered the person's character in advance.

Squatting beside the poultry shed, a few ducks and a flock of chickens were clearly separated.

The chickens are domestic chickens that hatched and grew up in the last two days. They are not a special breed; they are just brown-feathered chickens commonly found in the village. They originated from Dai County and later spread to many places in the north. The chicken mentioned in the "Discourses on Salt and Iron" that "the border counties raise chickens and pigs to support themselves" refers to this kind of chicken.

Its advantages include firm meat, balanced meat and egg production, strong adaptability, and low susceptibility to disease.

The downside is that it has a long growth period, taking 12 months from hatching to adulthood!

It's almost at the time when some livestock in modern society are ready for market.

But the growth period isn't a big problem for me. What, you want a chicken to mature in 12 months? No problem, I've shortened it to 12 days.

Slaughtering chickens every 12 days? Even modern white-feathered chickens aren't that outrageous!
He placed the nine brown-feathered chickens that had been replaced in the pen separately, knowing that these chickens were most likely destined to be eaten.

However, it must be said that the Chinese people are very selective. The brown-feathered chicken weighs about five pounds. Although it is lighter except for the feathers, it still has more than four pounds of meat.

Although it is indeed much inferior to the broiler chickens of later generations that weigh eight or nine pounds or even ten pounds, the brown-feathered chicken is delicious, with firm and fragrant meat. It is free-range and will find its own food. It rarely gets sick and its main advantage is that it is easy to raise.

Thinking about the chickens he had eaten at the Guo residence, he swallowed hard.

"Zhen'er!" Zhang Xian called out.

"The patriarch has arrived." The little girl ran over quickly.

Zhang Xian took out two brown-feathered chickens from the poultry house and said to her, "Have your mother slaughter them, boil water, and pluck the feathers. Put them in the kitchen and I'll take care of them later."

"Alright, Master." Li Zhen familiarly grabbed the chicken by its claws, hung it upside down, and ran towards Zhou Cui.

Zhang Xian then squatted down and placed the last duck into the pen.

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, five ducks. I wonder how many eggs they'll have tomorrow."

“The villagers say that ducks lay more than twice as many eggs as chickens. I can’t expect these five ducks to lay 20 eggs for me tomorrow.”

He was clearly starting to look forward to it.

Ducks do lay more eggs than chickens and produce more meat, but in small mountain villages, very few people raise ducks, and those few usually only raise one or two.

The main reason is that ducks have a large appetite, much larger than chickens, and raising them in a waterless environment can easily reduce egg production. More importantly, ducks have a more meaty diet!
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(End of this chapter)