Traveling through 70's wine

Wen Qing plans to brew wine in the backyard. In addition, since koji accounts for 10% to 20% of the grain used for brewing, which is not a low proportion, the cost would be too high if she relied entirely on buying koji, so she also planned to make her own koji.

The book on winemaking technology contained the method of making koji. She tried it once in her spare time in her space and used it to brew wine. The result was no worse than the koji she bought in Nankun.

The raw materials for making Daqu are hot polygonum, barley, wheat and peas. Summer is the best time for hot polygonum to grow, so she carries a basket on her back and goes to wet places such as rivers and streams to pick it.

Behind Erxia Village is Xiaoya Mountain. The mountain is not high, only about 600 meters high. After crossing the mountain, there is a lake not far to the east. It is said to be a large reservoir dug in the past. The area is quite large, and there should be something by the lake.

Wen Qing walked up the mountain. Xiaoya Mountain is a remnant of Yanshan Mountain. More than 200 kilometers northwest of Xiaoya Mountain is the vast Yanshan Mountain Range.

The trees on Xiaoya Mountain are not tall and their growth is average, mainly because of excessive logging in the past decade and a lack of conscious vegetation cultivation. The trees grow sparsely, with only lush weeds on the ground.

The mountains were shaded by trees in the summer, so it wasn't too hot, just a little stuffy. She walked very fast, and in just forty minutes she had climbed over the hillside and reached the lake.

This lake is called Jingping Lake. The water is clear. Standing by the lake and looking at the rippling water, the wind blowing from the lake is very cool.

She found a lot of Polygonum multiflorum in the wetlands by the lake. In a short while, she cut a basket full of it. Without delay, she climbed over the mountain and returned to the yard.

She washed the hot polygonum officinale and placed it in a bamboo dustpan to dry. She then went to the town to buy barley and peas. After the hot polygonum officinale was dried and crushed, she ground the barley, wheat and peas slightly, mixed the ingredients with hot water, and then rubbed them repeatedly until they were formed into lumps the size of ping-pong balls.

First put rice husks on the winnowing basket, then put the koji on it, and finally put the winnowing basket on the rack in the backyard, cover it with dry straw taken out from the space, keep the temperature around 40 degrees, and wait for it to ferment.

The fermentation time of koji is generally up to 30 days. Wen Qing will turn the koji blocks every day to achieve the purpose of temperature control and uniform fermentation.

This was her first time making koji outside the space, and she only made 50 kilograms, just enough to make a jar of wine.

After the work outside is completed, it is time to harvest the crops in the space.

She has planted 350 acres of land, which is already mature. She is not in a hurry to harvest all of it in one day. Now the harvester has low power and can only harvest to acres a day. It takes about a week to harvest all the crops, and then she needs to plow the land and apply fertilizer.

A total of more than 2 kilograms of grain were harvested this season, including about 7000 kilograms of rice, more than 6000 kilograms of wheat, and more than 8000 kilograms of corn. Her winery is about to open, so she doesn't need to sell grain.

The chickens and rabbits in the space have not been sold in recent months. There are now more than 1500 chickens and more rabbits, more than 3000. Fortunately, there is no epidemic in the space, but there are still too many, and Wen Qing is a little worried.

She collected some fat chickens and rabbits, about 1200 in total, and raised them in one place, preparing to sell them at the market in the nearby towns.

Wen Qing ended her busy schedule only after she cleaned up the straw and poultry manure.

Having nothing to do during the summer vacation, she took out the harvester she had made before and prepared to improve it again to increase the efficiency of harvesting.

In Ping'an County, Factory Director Huang gave her some spare parts and raw materials, which she used to improve the harvester's engine and increase power output. She also remade the harvesting drum, valley inlet, fan, and screen, and made an adjustable-height harvesting table and reel to meet the different needs of harvesting wheat and rice.

In addition, the thresher has been improved, which can not only thresh the grain, but also crush the straw for direct composting and fermentation.

After the two types of equipment were made, it was time for Wen Qing to raise seedlings and sow seeds.

She first raised rice seedlings, then drove a tractor to the wheat and corn fields to sow seeds. She completed all the work in three days. The rest was daily management. Except for transplanting the rice seedlings, which she had to do manually, everything else could be done with her mental power.

Wen Qing looked at the old bicycle parts in the space and started to transform it into a tricycle so that it would be more convenient to pull things in the future.

The tricycle has one wheel in the front and two in the back, with a small cargo box. The rear part has undergone the most significant changes. It uses the front fork and pipes of a bicycle in the front, welds the frame with steel pipes in the back, makes the cargo box with iron sheets, drives the rear wheel with a transmission chain and bearings, and uses line brakes, one for the front wheel and one for the rear right wheel.

In order to carry more things, the truck bed is made larger. The truck will be heavier when loaded with goods, so Wen Qing chose a gear set to save effort.

After getting on the tricycle, Wen Qing planned to go out to the market.

50 kilometers west of Erxia Village is Wuji County in the neighboring province. On this day, Wen Qing got up early and set off on his tricycle before dawn.

Arriving at Wuji County, Wen Qing found the market, which she had inquired about in advance.

It was a market day, and it was still early, so not many people were around. Wen Qing rented a stall to sell poultry. She took out 50 chickens and 50 rabbits and placed them on the open space at the back. All the poultry to be sold had been tied up in advance.

People who came to the market put out their goods one after another. Wen Qing heard the conversations of the vendors around her. Some complained about the hot weather, some complained about the poor harvest, and so on. It seemed that few people were satisfied with their lives.

As time went by, more and more people came to Wen Qing's stall, mainly because the chickens and rabbits she sold were particularly fat and energetic. The price was the same as that of other stalls, and they sold out very quickly one by one. Some people came to buy in the morning and came again in the afternoon.

By three o'clock in the afternoon, Wen Qing had sold all 100 poultry. She packed up and prepared to leave. She thought for a moment and asked Aunt Liu, who was selling ducks next to her, "Aunt Liu, do you know when the market is held in the nearby town?"

"My dear, the markets in Wuji County are on the first, fourth and seventh days, in Minyuan Town on the second, fifth and eighth days, and in Qingxi Town on the third, sixth and ninth days."

In other words, she could go to one place a day. Wen Qing nodded, picked up the bamboo basket and left the market, then rode the tricycle out of the county.

She didn't want to go home for the time being, nor did she want to stay in a hotel. There were many mountains here and there were forests on the mountains. She went to the forest, entered the space to rest for a night, and prepared the goods to be sold tomorrow.

According to this retail method, she could only sell more than 100 poultry a day. After staying in this area for more than ten days, Wen Qing finally sold all 1200 poultry and made 8600 yuan, finally clearing some of the inventory.

Of course, Wen Qing didn’t just sell poultry during the past half month, she also bought some things.

For example, in Wuji Town, she found a brick and tile factory that was processing its inventory. The price was 30% cheaper than what she bought in Wulipu, so she bought bricks and tiles. A construction company in the county was processing cement and lime that were about to expire. Others were afraid that they would become ineffective if they bought them back, but she had the space to store them for a long time, so she also bought bags as backup.

In Qingxi Town, she found someone selling peach trees. Summer was not the season to plant trees, and she didn't know why they were selling them. So she bought all 20 three-year-old peach trees at a very cheap price and planted them in her space.

In the woods, she also picked a lot of mushrooms. There are not as many types of mushrooms in the north as in Yunnan and Yunnan, but common black fungus, shiitake mushrooms, pine mushrooms, and yellow mushrooms can all be picked.

She dried the mushrooms in the space, then sold them at the market, earning more than 1000 yuan, which was enough to pay back the money she spent on shopping.

In addition, she also entered the space at night to transplant rice seedlings into the fields and planted 100 acres of rice. She could plant 20 acres every night with a rice transplanter, and it took her 5 days to complete the planting.

The seedlings of wheat and corn have grown to more than one foot high. The crops in the space, calculated by the time outside, basically mature once every two months.