Traveling through 1942 with space

When Hou Xiaoge heard his sister-in-law say that people in Qin Province eat big white steamed buns for every meal, he smiled awkwardly. He didn't know which idiot spread the rumor that Qin Province was a "paradise".

In Hou Xiaoge's opinion, which ordinary people in that era dared to eat white steamed buns for every meal? That was a welfare for the rich landlords. Some stingy small landlords also ate double-mixed noodles!

If ordinary people can eat white flour once a week and meat once a month, they would be considered a well-off family.

Qin Province is now the rear base of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. There are two political parties to support, and the pressure is very high. It is just a little more stable than the war-torn areas. People are not starving, but they probably can't even get enough food, let alone flour.

However, the conditions in Qin Province are already a great blessing for the common people fleeing from the Central Plains.

After all, for ordinary people of that era, the greatest happiness was to be free from war and have something to eat.

"Heiwa, do you still have something to say? I'm choking." Hou Cuiping covered her chest and said with a flushed face.

Sweet potatoes are choking to begin with, and the young aunt Hou Cuiping ate them so quickly that she choked to the point of being unable to breathe.

"Yes, yes!" Hou Xiaoge quickly took out his bamboo bucket from his seat.

Because they left in a hurry last night, everyone else had finished their water long ago, and Hou Xiaoge's bamboo tube of water was drunk up by several people in turn.

The water in the bamboo tube was finished, and Hou Xiaoge couldn't get water from the space, so he could only ask the conductor for more water. Fortunately, there was such a service in the second-class carriage. If it was in the third-class carriage, he would have to wait!

"Conductor, please help me pour some hot water." Hou Xiaoge shouted loudly to the conductor who was pouring water for other customers.

In fact, this is only the second-class carriage. If it is a first-class carriage, it will be filled with dignitaries and the service will be very good.

Hou Xiaoge saw it on the platform last night when she got on the train. The passengers in the first-class carriage were sitting on sofas covered with goose down blankets. There was also a bar in the carriage! There was also music playing.

There is no need to ask for water, as a waiter will ask every once in a while. It is better than the first-class service on modern airplanes.

When the conductor heard someone shouting for water, his face darkened and he turned around to scold him, but when he saw it was Hou Xiaoge, he quickly changed his face into a smile. It was the God of Plague shouting!

"Please wait a moment. I'll be right there."

After pouring water for the passengers at hand, the conductor ignored the other customers in front of him and hurriedly pushed the cart to Hou Xiaoge's seat.

"Ladies and gentlemen, where are your water cups? I'll pour them for you." The conductor came up to Hou Xiaoge and asked with a smile as beautiful as a flower.

"We didn't bring water cups, so let's pour the water into these three bamboo tubes!" Hou Xiaoge took out his and his sister-in-law's bamboo tubes and handed them to the conductor.

The conductor looked at the bamboo tube, which had a larger capacity than his own kettle, and his face became a little stiff, but he still took out the thermos from the cart and started pouring water.

There were only four kettles on the cart, and the conductor had to empty all the kettles before he could fill the three bamboo tubes.

"Thanks, this is for you." Hou Xiaoge took out five French francs from his pocket and handed them to the conductor.

The conductor was a little depressed at first, but when he saw the five dollars in French currency, his face immediately became much happier.

"Thank you for the reward, young master. If you need water later, just call me." After saying this, the conductor pushed the cart away happily.

"Heiwa, does this water cost money?" Hou Cuiping put the bamboo tube on the luggage and said with a distressed look on her face.

"Auntie, you usually have to pay a small fee for the second-class carriage service. Of course, you can choose not to pay, and they will still serve you, but their attitude will be much worse.

But usually they only give one French franc or a few copper coins. The reason I gave five is that we poured too much water, so I should give more. "Hou Xiaoge explained with a smile.

"That's it!"

Although Hou Cuiping felt sorry for losing a few dollars of French francs, she said nothing more after she understood what Hou Xiaoge meant.

Hou Xiaoge also saw through his aunt's psychology. Poor people are always tough and like to emulate rich people. When his aunt heard that others were giving, she felt relieved.

In fact, the reason why Hou Xiaoge gave legal tender instead of copper coins in these cases was because copper coins are metals, which have value in themselves, and their depreciation rate is much slower than that of legal tender.

Hou Xiaoge got tens of thousands of French francs from the bandits. This stuff was too valuable and he had to spend it quickly. The copper dollar remained strong even after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

(I'll mention it again here so that you don't forget. The copper coin is not a hemp coin. It is a copper coin without a hole.

It says ten or twenty on it, and generally ten is the most common, which people affectionately call a da zi.

We often see customers asking waiters in movies and TV shows:

"How much is a bowl of plain noodles?"

The guy replied: "Two big ones."

The "da zi" here means copper coin, not silver coin or hemp money.

At the beginning of the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, one dollar could be exchanged for one hundred taels of silver. However, in the middle of the Republic of China, various places issued their own coins, which were crudely made and caused the copper coins to depreciate sharply.

The most outrageous rate was 1:500-600. However, copper coins issued by countries with good quality remained strong. Even in the later period of the founding of the Red Republic, copper coins were still valuable because they were made of copper.

By the end of the Republic of China, a copper coin could be exchanged for tens or even millions of dollars, not to mention a sack of legal tender. Therefore, metal currency naturally has stable financial characteristics.

……

The train started slowly. Hou Xiaoge, who had been waiting in his seat for a long time, became impatient. He greeted Erhuan who was sitting next to him and rushed to the toilet in a hurry.

Fortunately, the service in the second-class carriage was still pretty good those days, and there were no strange incidents of customers occupying the toilet, so Hou Xiaoge got into the toilet easily.

After arriving at the toilet, Hou Xiaoge's mental power directly probed into the suitcase.

There was a pile of stones in the suitcase. The one with the largest energy fluctuation was an olive green stone that looked a bit like glass, and the smaller ones were a pile of stones with blue-green bands.

Although Hou Xiaoge had never eaten pork in his previous life, he had seen pigs run. He recognized at a glance that the stone with the greatest energy was a meteorite, and the others should be raw jade stones.

Hou Xiaoge could understand that meteorites might have energy, but he had a lot of jade in his space, and the quality was much better than the colors of these raw stones, so how could they also have energy?

"Forget it, don't think about it. Let me absorb it first." Hou Xiaoge put other problems behind him for the time being.

"absorb!"

As Hou Xiaoge issued commands through his mental power, a powerful energy visible through his mental power surged out from the meteorite.

"boom!"

Hou Xiaoge only felt a buzzing in his head, and then he knew nothing else. He fainted beside the toilet and almost fell in.

I don’t know how long it took, but Hou Xiaoge just felt that his mind was much clearer and his body was refreshed. However, the foul smell around him made him very uncomfortable and he woke up directly because of the smell.

"Depend on!"

"Did I faint just now? The energy shock was too great.

Also, am I doing the so-called cleansing of the meridians and marrow?" Hou Xiaoge looked at himself leaning against the toilet with an arm full of black mud, and jumped up.

Holding back the stench emanating from his body, Hou Xiaoge communicated with the planting space in his mind and entered the space directly.

"Damn, I've become rich. It's grown so much in an instant." Hou Xiaoge looked at the empty planting space in front of him and burst into laughter and jumped up.

"Owner!"