Daily life of farming and supporting a family on the ancient Loess Plateau

Mentioning bandits, no one who grew up in the Northwest doesn't hate them, and Old Master Ji especially so. His elder brother's only son was killed while fighting bandits.

In ancient society, natural disasters and man-made calamities occurred from time to time, especially in the Qingzhou area, which is bordered by the Tatars to the north and the Western Regions to the west. It has many ethnic groups and is also full of mountains and valleys.

Some of them were refugees, or their families had suffered disasters, or they were fleeing exorbitant taxes and usurious loans. There were even soldiers who had fled from other places. They had no land and no food, so in order to survive, they gathered together and resorted to violent robbery or extortion.

These people were ruthless, murdering and robbing, treating human life as worthless, and committing all sorts of evil deeds, bringing great suffering to the people of Northwest China. In the past, Ningping County suffered countless deaths and injuries due to the large number of bandits, with almost every household having someone dead.

In recent years, since the imperial court established the Wudu General to guard the northwest, the bandits have been almost completely wiped out, and the remaining small groups of bandits have hidden in remote mountain valleys.

However, it seems that these hidden bandits are starting to resurface.

"Sir, don't be angry. The government did send people to suppress the bandits, but these bandits are very cunning, and they haven't been caught even after several attempts," Ji Yongsong comforted him.

"Hmm." Old Master Ji exhaled deeply, and the tense muscles in his body suddenly relaxed.

The family fell silent.

A moment later, Grandpa Ji waved his hand, telling everyone to go and rest, and the family dispersed.

Before going to bed, Ji Yongling went to check on her little sister. By the dim light of the oil lamp, she looked at the little baby with rosy cheeks and slightly wrinkled skin, fast asleep, and a feeling of affection welled up in her heart.

Jia Ronghua looked at the baby with affection, then at Ji Yongling, and said with a smile, "Thanks to this milk powder, it's really a wonderful thing, the little girl can't get enough of it."

Ji Yongling looked at the loving Jia Ronghua, who appeared especially warm in the dim light.

That night, Ji Yongling slept in the cave dwelling next to Jia Ronghua's and surprisingly had no dreams all night.

Early in the morning, Ji Yongsong left behind the things that Ji Laoda had given to the two elders and hurriedly went to the county again.

The Ji family has a tradition of practicing the Ji family stick technique every morning.

Grandpa Ji had already finished sweeping the yard early and was leading the men in his family in drills.

Grandpa Ji moved with lightning speed, his long staff whistling through the air. His eyes gleamed with a fierce light, his valiant spirit overflowing, just like a valiant warrior charging into battle.

Although the Ji family's stick fighting style did not have a tradition of passing it down only to men, women, due to their greater involvement in household chores, were far less proficient in the art than the men. However, Ji Yongling, having been raised as a boy by Ji Manchuan, was required to practice daily, rain or shine, as a male.

The Ji family's staff techniques actually include many spear and whip techniques. Depending on the distance of the opponent in actual combat, a single-headed staff is used at a distance, while a double-headed staff is used at close range. The four-foot short staff can be used as a staff or as a whip handle.

Because of their young age, Ji Yongling, Ji Yongning, and Ji Yongzhou are currently practicing with short sticks. They mainly practice stick techniques such as lifting, hooking, stabbing, pressing, swinging, wrapping, chopping, scattering, pointing, sweeping, and twisting, or they practice stick techniques in pairs.

Meanwhile, adult men like Ji Manchuan practiced with heavy sticks. The two men freely wielded the sticks, each strike needing to be accurate, ruthless, fast, and agile. They changed the grip position with both hands, using footwork to drive body movement, body movement to drive hand movement, and hand movement to drive stick movement. In a flexible situation, they could instantly generate explosive force to the tip of the stick.

Ji Yongling looked at the seemingly ordinary wooden sticks held by Ji Manchuan and Ji Manqing. There were no fancy moves, and the two kept changing the way they used the sticks. For a while, it was impossible to tell who had the upper hand. It seemed that the Ji family stick technique was a simple and practical fighting stick technique.

Legend has it that the Ji family's staff technique originated from an ancestor who saved a master of staff fighting who was being chased. In gratitude, the master passed on his family's staff technique to his descendants.

Later, through generations of practice and combat against bandits, the Ji family absorbed the advantages of various stick fighting styles and summarized their experience to pass down the current comprehensive stick fighting style, which is rich in content, refined in methods, and highly practical in combat.

After practicing their staff techniques, Ji Manqing took Ji Yongning and Ji Yongzhou to cut pig feed. In the kitchen, Yang Shi and Hu Xirong were busy boiling water, preparing vegetables, and getting ready to eat.

Ji Manchuan had already taken a carrying pole to fetch water from the ditch, while Grandpa Ji used a cart to haul the manure from the pigsty to the fields, and then hauled soil from the fields back to fill the pigsty. Ji Yongling followed behind the cart, helping to push it.

The handcart at this time was similar to the handcarts used in rural areas in the 80s, except that the wheels used to be made of rubber and iron, while the current cart body and wheels were made of wood, making it much heavier and more laborious.

The cart belonging to the Ji family was made of locust wood and was longer than the carts commonly seen in the previous life. When fully loaded, it could carry about 500 jin (250 kg) of goods.

Without the help of donkeys, oxen, or other animals to pull the cart, it was too strenuous to rely solely on manpower, especially since it involved going uphill and downhill. Grandpa Ji didn't dare to load the cart too full, so he could only pull it halfway.

As Ji Yongling watched Grandpa Ji shovel the manure from the cart into the field, he said, "Grandpa, let's build another latrine."

Grandpa Ji stopped what he was doing, stood up the wooden shovel, placed his hands on the handle, took a breath, and said, "Why are you bothering to separate the ash pens and pigsties? You kids don't know how important manure is. People always say, 'A crop is like a flower, it all depends on manure.'"

“Master, look at the worms in Chun’er’s stomach. It’s because the gray pen and the pigsty were not separated, and she ate raw pork.”

“This girl, it’s fine as long as she doesn’t eat raw pork, there’s no need to separate the ash pens from the pigsties. If we separate the ash pens from the pigsties, it will be inconvenient to clean up the manure, and not only will there be less manure, but it will also be inconvenient to clean up the manure.” Old Master Ji waved his hand disapprovingly and continued to work with his head down.

Ji Yongling wanted to say a few more words, but seeing that Old Master Ji was not moved at all, she had no choice but to give up.

In ancient times, toilets and pigsties were built together. In addition to making it convenient to deal with human excrement, the more important reason was to mix and ferment human and pig excrement together to use as fertilizer for the land, which could increase agricultural output. This is a custom of composting manure into farmyard manure that has been passed down for thousands of years.

Ji Yongling recalled the famous sayings of Mencius that he had once memorized: "If the farming seasons are not missed, there will be more grain than can be eaten. If nets with small meshes are not used in ponds and pools, there will be more fish and turtles than can be eaten. If axes and hatchets are used in the mountains and forests at the right time, there will be more timber than can be used."

Following the experience and techniques passed down from our ancestors is a deeply ingrained concept for every farmer. When it comes to farming, from the family to the country, no one dares to make the slightest mistake, for fear of delaying the farming work.

Because the agricultural technology and experience accumulated during the agrarian era were painstakingly developed step by step by our ancestors. From slash-and-burn agriculture to intensive farming, our ancestors endured countless hardships and made countless efforts over many long years.

These agricultural experiences, knowledge, and skills were accumulated through generations of practical agricultural labor. They have been passed down and refined over thousands of years, constantly validated, before being passed on to future generations. The cost of rashly changing them would be too high; in ancient times, with no ability to withstand risks, no farmer could afford it.

Ji Yongling thought that in her previous life, it took the country decades to completely eradicate tapeworm disease, and when she was little, she would often hear about "bean pork" and "rice pork." In this era of backward production technology, eradicating tapeworm disease would only be more difficult.

However, no matter how great the difficulty, it can be overcome; no matter how far the road, it needs people to walk it.

After all, a single spark can start a prairie fire, can't it?

After helping Grandpa Ji haul away the manure, Ji Manchuan, carrying two large wooden buckets full of water on a shoulder pole, walked steadily into the courtyard. He poured the two buckets of water into the large water vat in the kitchen, wiped his sweat, and turned to carry the next load.

Ji Yongling hurriedly grabbed her mother's and younger sister's clothes and followed them, preparing to go to the ditch to wash them.

"Farming for food and digging wells for water" is a true reflection of many traditional rural lives.

However, the Loess Plateau region has a thick soil layer, and due to natural limitations, even in modern society, it is difficult to "dig wells for drinking water" in some places, let alone in ancient times when digging technology was primitive. Therefore, Niujiazhuang did not have its own wells; only those living in low-lying mountain gullies would dig wells for drinking water.

This is why many elderly people say that when encountering beggars, they would rather give them a steamed bun than a bowl of water.