The road to wealth of a peasant widow

Lying in bed at night, Chen Cui began to think about how to mass-produce charcoal in the future.

The first was the problem of raw materials. Although the trees on the mountain were free and could be cut down at will, with only a few workers in their family, at best they could cut enough to burn five or six charcoal piles in a day.

The backyard is big enough to build more than 10 or 20 charcoal piles, but it will be useless if the raw materials are not available.

Besides, trees cannot be burned directly after being cut down. They need to be dried slightly to remove moisture, which takes time.

Another point is that with this traditional method of making charcoal, the outside of the firewood pile is covered with mud. If it rains, the mud on the outside will get wet and fall off, which would be terrible.

Fortunately, it has been sunny recently, so the two experiments went so smoothly.

If you want to make a profit from this in the future and burn it on a large scale, you must build a shed that can at least withstand rain and snow.

Chen Cui thought about it and realized that it would be difficult for her and her mother to accomplish this alone, so she had to ask for help.

However, the method of charcoal burning must be kept secret and cannot be leaked at will, otherwise the opportunity to make money will be lost. Therefore, the candidate must be reliable enough.

But in Liujiaping, apart from the family living in the old house, there are no other close relatives, and there are no suitable people at all.

She thought of Chen's family.

Chen has two older brothers and a younger brother, and she is the only daughter in the family.

Although she was a girl, thanks to the Chen family's parents' love for their daughters, she did not suffer any hardship in this era of patriarchal society.

Her brothers have loved her and given in to her since she was a child, and even her younger brother respects her. Although her three brothers later got married, their wives were reasonable and treated her, their sister-in-law, well for the sake of their parents-in-law and husbands.

Even after she got married, her parents and brothers still took good care of her. She even relied on the ginseng sent by her parents to save her life when she had a difficult childbirth.

If you want to find help, you can only look for it from your mother's family.

Chen Cui believed that even if they knew how to make charcoal, they would not try to steal her job, but would instead help her with all their might.

But she has three brothers. Which one should she find? She can’t invite all three!

It just so happened that just when Chen Cui was struggling to decide which brother to ask for help, her younger brother showed up.

It turned out that her mother, Zhang, had been thinking about her daughter ever since she returned to Chenjiagou the day after her son-in-law's funeral. She was worried that she would not have a good life raising several children, but she was also busy with a lot of things at home and could not come to visit.

It happened that Chen Meihua's elder brother Chen Dahu was preparing to come to Liujiaping to visit his sister that day, and asked their family if they had anything to bring to Chen Cui.

The old couple of the Chen family missed their daughter, so they simply let their youngest son go with them in a ox cart and visit his sister and nephew on the way. There was no strong labor force in her family now, so if there was any work, he could help.

Chen Cui's father was named Chen Shangen, but he named his three sons with the word "water" in their names. The eldest was named Dahai, the second was named Dajiang, and the youngest was named Dahe.

Chen Dahe is 29 years old this year and is the father of two children. He is still very affectionate to his sister and is even closer to his nephews, touching one's head and patting another's shoulder.

The boys grew up early and knew how much help their maternal family had given them. They remembered the kindness shown to them by their grandparents and uncles, and were happy about the arrival of their little uncle.

It is true that Chen Dahe likes several nephews, but his favorite is his little niece.

The previous generation of the Chen family had three sons and one daughter, and only one daughter, Chen Cui. This generation also has more sons than daughters.

The three brothers of the Chen family have a total of eight children. Only the eldest brother, Chen Dahai, has a little girl, while the other two families only have sons.

Chen Dahe, who had no daughter, held his niece in his arms and was reluctant to let go. It was not until Sui Sui became impatient with teasing, wrinkled her nose and almost cried that he reluctantly handed her over to her sister.

When Chen Cui found out the purpose of the younger brother's visit, she couldn't help but cheer in her heart: God is helping me, this is a helper who comes to my doorstep!

So, before Chen Dahe could open the pocket on his back to show her the things his parents asked him to bring, Chen Cui pulled him to the backyard.

"Dahe, look, this is the charcoal we just burned yesterday. It was a great success. I've asked around, and the county's grocery stores sell this kind of charcoal for four cents per pound. This pile of charcoal burns at least thirty pounds, so this pile costs one hundred and twenty cents. Just imagine, if we build a few more charcoal piles like this in the backyard and burn them every day, we'll make more this winter than we would from farming for several years!"

Chen Dahe was confused by his sister's explanation and needed some time to digest it.

He looked around the simple charcoal pile, and even picked up the charcoal and knocked it back and forth, making sure that this was not just his sister's bragging, but all true.

"Sister, where did you get this method of burning charcoal?" he asked a very crucial question.

According to his sister, this method of burning charcoal is very simple, but he has never heard of it before, and he has never heard of any village doing this in the surrounding area. How did his sister know about it?

"Don't worry about it. It wasn't stolen or robbed, so don't worry." Of course Chen Cui couldn't say that this was something she learned in her previous life. As for Liu Eryong's rhetoric in the dream, it could only fool a few children. It was not easy to tell Chen Dahe now, so she could only fool him vaguely.

Fortunately, Chen Dahe was not the kind of person who liked to get to the bottom of things. Although he was curious, he did not continue to ask when he saw that his sister did not say anything.

"The problem now is that we can't do so much work by ourselves. I want to hire people and build a shed, but I'm afraid that outsiders will leak the method. So after thinking about it, I think my family is more reliable. You see..."

Before Chen Cui could finish her words, she was interrupted by her brother, "Sister, I understand. I'll take care of it!"

Chen Dahe is a straightforward person. Since his sister asked him to do it, he would definitely do it without hesitation. Besides, this is a profitable business. "It just so happens that I have nothing to do recently. Why don't I stay here and help you chop wood and build a shed!"

When Chen Cui heard this, she was overjoyed, because she knew that her brother would definitely agree.

"Then I'll trouble you with this matter. But you can take your time chopping wood. The most urgent thing is to build the shed first. We have to hurry and burn more charcoal before it gets cold!"

After the brother and sister had discussed it, they immediately took action.

Chen Dahe went to Muramasa's house first and asked Chen Dahu to help take a message back to Chenjiagou, saying that he would be helping with work at his sister's house for a while, and would be staying there for the time being and would not go back.

After returning, Chen Dahe began to do his best to help his sister's family with ideas and solutions.

He thought that if he wanted to build a shed quickly, it would be best to use bamboo poles, which was simple and convenient. He asked if there was a bamboo forest nearby and whether he could cut bamboo.

Chen Cui thought about it. In her memory, there seemed to be a bamboo forest on the mountain. Whenever the villagers needed bamboo poles, they would go there to cut them. However, she had rarely been to the mountain and was not sure of the exact location.

However, Changping said that he knew that although there was no one to manage the bamboo forest, it was growing naturally and luxuriantly year by year, and the area it occupied was getting larger and larger, and it had already formed a large piece.

After knowing the news, they didn't delay much. After lunch, Chen Cui, Changping and Chen Dahe went up the mountain.