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

"Better to go three days without oil than one day without water."

To solve the drinking water problem, most areas of Qingzhou Prefecture adopted the method of digging ponds to store water for daily use. In places like Niujiazhuang, where households lived relatively far apart, each household usually dug a water cellar to store water.

The water cellars mainly collect clean rainwater and snowmelt. In some places near mountains, mountain spring water is also collected in the water cellars.

However, the Loess Plateau doesn't receive much rainfall, and the water in the cisterns is only enough for ordinary living. If there's a thunderstorm, the water in the cisterns becomes extremely murky, and for those few days everyone can only anxiously wait for the rain to stop and for the water to clear up a little before carrying it home to settle slowly, and so on.

To conserve water in the water cellars and prevent water shortages during droughts, people here fetch water from the ditches below during the spring and summer when the river is full. Families with extra able-bodied men will store more river water in their water cellars.

Because it involved climbing up and down slopes, fetching water from the ravine was an extremely strenuous and arduous task, usually done by the adult men of the family. Families without able-bodied men had to make multiple trips to carry water.

Ji Yongling and his daughter walked down the narrow, winding path, encountering two other villagers carrying water along the way.

The Loess Plateau is also covered in green this season. Although it is not the dense lush green of the Jiangnan region, the sparse light green along the gullies and various wildflowers, along with the blue sky and white clouds, can be described as a scene of gentle breezes, clear skies, and bright spring.

Upon reaching the bottom of the ravine, one could see a winding stream flowing with slightly yellow water, occasionally splashing white droplets at the drops.

Ji Manchuan used a gourd ladle to scoop water into the bucket, one spoonful at a time, and then switched to another bucket when it was full.

Ji Yongling washed clothes by the ditch next to Ji Manchuan's house. He basically just rinsed them in the water, sprinkled them with wood ash, and beat them with a stick. In those days, oil and food were scarce, and the clothes were mostly covered in dirt and sweat, so they were easy to wash.

When the clothes were almost finished being washed, a girl of about eighteen or nineteen years old came down from the hillside. When she saw Ji Manchuan and Ji Yongling, she called out, "Third Uncle Ji, Sister Ling'er," and then silently squatted down to wash the clothes.

Ji Yongling turned to look at the woman, who seemed to be a girl who had gotten married a couple of years ago, named Maihua. She asked, "Sister Maihua, have you come back to your parents' home?"

Maihua nodded and continued washing clothes.

Ji Yongling glanced at her a few more times, and through the hair falling beside Maihua's face, she could vaguely see the red mark on her face.

After Ji Manchuan and Ji Yongling finished washing the clothes, they carried the buckets of water home.

As they climbed the slope, Ji Yongling felt her father's every step as solid as a mountain, as if afraid of spilling a single drop of water. She wished they could dig a well near their home, but with such thick soil, determining the location and the depth to dig were all problems.

Just as Ji Yongling was lost in thought, the grass slipped under her feet, and she stumbled, almost dropping the wooden basin in her hand.

Ji Yongling steadied herself and looked down. She saw that she was standing on a lush clump of grass with small, feathery oval leaves and clusters of pale yellow flowers. She crouched down to examine it closely. Wasn't this astragalus?

She quickly looked at her father: "Dad, Dad, do you think this is astragalus?"

Ji Manchuan carefully put down the carrying pole, came over to take a look, and said, "It looks a bit like it, but there's not much Astragalus membranaceus in our area. I've only ever dug it up two or three times in my entire life."

Ji Yongling began to dig towards the roots. Fortunately, the loess soil on this hillside was not particularly compact. Otherwise, without a hoe, digging with just his hands would have made his fingers bleed and he might not have been able to dig up the roots of the astragalus.

Seeing this, Ji Manchuan grabbed a tree branch from the side and, together with Ji Yongling, started digging and shoveling.

Ji Yongling dug downwards, and soon a main root as thick as a baby's arm was exposed. The two of them were very careful, afraid of breaking a single root. Fortunately, this thick root was growing diagonally along the roadside; if it had grown straight, their hands would probably have been broken.

After Ji Manchuan and his daughter had exhausted all their strength to completely dig up the entire plant, a light brown astragalus root that was about two meters long was fully exposed.

Ji Yongling sighed inwardly, truly deserving of the reputation of the Great Northwest as a "thousand-year-old medicinal herb town" and a "natural medicine storehouse." In her previous life, she and her grandfather had dug up astragalus and even cultivated it, but she had never seen such a large wild astragalus before.

Although she was certain that it was Astragalus membranaceus, Ji Yongling still decided to pretend and tentatively ask Ji Manchuan.

But before she could even speak, Ji Manchuan exclaimed with immense joy, "This is astragalus, it's definitely astragalus!"

Ji Manchuan tied the huge astragalus plant, leaves and roots intact, to his carrying pole with some dry grass from the roadside, then happily carried the water home with brisk steps. Upon arriving home, he called for his parents, Grandpa Ji and Grandma Ji, without even having time to pour the water.

Grandpa Ji had just returned from weeding in the fields when he saw a small tree root-like thing tied to Ji Manchuan's carrying pole, so he came over.

Ji Manchuan gently untied the astragalus root and hurriedly asked, "Father, this is astragalus root, it can't be wrong, can it?"

Grandpa Ji carefully stroked the uniformly thick astragalus root with his rough, large hands. Looking at the uneven texture and obvious lenticels, he affirmed, "It's astragalus root, and it should be a rare nine-pound astragalus."

Grandma Ji also came over, and when she heard about the nine-pound ginseng, she exclaimed, "What? Nine-pound ginseng? Isn't that more expensive than regular ginseng?"

"More expensive than ginseng, my goodness!" Fourth Aunt Hu Xirong exclaimed in surprise upon hearing Old Madam Ji's words after just finishing feeding the chickens.

Grandpa Ji carefully stroked the roots of the astragalus plant, placed it on the ground, and said to his family, "Astragalus is rare in our area, but it's not unheard of. However, an astragalus plant this thick and large would be extremely rare even in the western regions where astragalus is abundant."

The family was even happier to hear this. Even Jia Ronghua, who was in her postpartum confinement period in the cave dwelling, was delighted to hear the voices coming from the courtyard.

Hu Xirong glanced at Ji Manchuan with a hint of envy and said, "His third uncle is really lucky."

Upon hearing this, Ji Manchuan scratched his head sheepishly, "I've never dug up astragalus more than a few times in my life. I go there to fetch water every day, but I never found this thing. It was Ling'er who discovered it this time."

"Ling'er is really lucky. When she was only three or four years old, I took her to a mountain valley and we found one. It was a very small one. Now we've found one this big. She's really lucky." Grandpa Ji said to Ji Yongling with admiration in his eyes.

Madam Yang immediately made the decision, instructing Ji Manchuan to take it to the market to sell the next day.

In those days, rural families typically ate two meals a day. They would get up in the morning to work until around 10 a.m. (the time in modern times), when they would eat breakfast. Then they would continue working, except for a short break at noon during the hottest days of summer. Otherwise, they would work until around 4 p.m. (the time in modern times), when they would eat dinner. Even after dinner, they would continue working without stopping until dark.

Therefore, for rural families, work is never-ending; every day they open their eyes to find work waiting for them. They work from sunrise to sunset, without any poetic or picturesque scenes, only a chance to catch their breath and prepare for even better work the next day.

Ji Yongling had been busy since the rooster crowed, and was already starving.

Yang instructed Ji Manchuan to put away the astragalus and then invited everyone to eat. Although it was just a bowl of plain water porridge and two cornbread buns per person, everyone ate with great relish.

At the dinner table, Ji Manchuan remembered his wife Jia Ronghua's instructions, so he asked his father, "Dad, let's give the little girl a name. She's growing up so fast, if we just call her whatever we want, she won't even know who she's supposed to be called."

Grandpa Ji chewed the vegetable dumpling in his mouth, thought for a moment, and said, "Let's call it Yong'an."

Ji Manchuan quickly wrote it down.

In fact, Grandpa Ji was literate. Although Niujiazhuang was poor, everyone admired reading and writing. Families with a little extra money would send their children to private tutors to learn a few characters.

Grandpa Ji had sent his eldest, third, and fourth sons to a private school for a while, which is why the eldest son was able to find work in the county. However, the second son did not go to the private school back then for various reasons.

After finishing their meal, Ji Yongling helped Yang and the others clean up. Then, he went into Jia Ronghua's cave dwelling and shared his joy at finding astragalus with his mother. Afterward, he secretly took some women's milk powder from the storage warehouse.

The sweet, milky aroma surprised Jia Ronghua, who exclaimed, "This must be something for gods to drink! It's so delicious!"

During their casual conversation, Ji Yongling mentioned her encounter with Maihua.

Jia Ronghua sighed and said, "This girl has a hard life. She lost her mother when she was five or six years old. Her father didn't love her, and her grandmother didn't care for her. She had to do everything from cooking and cleaning to tending the fire. Later, her stepmother came into the family and treated her like a maid. She finally managed to get married last year, and the wedding was held in the twelfth lunar month. But at the beginning of this month, the man sent her back, saying that he disliked Maihua because she was eighteen years old and hadn't started menstruating yet, and was afraid she wouldn't be able to have children, so he divorced her."

Ji Yongling was speechless for a moment. In this era where people could barely survive but were far from having enough to eat, it was perfectly normal for malnutrition to cause late menarche. To suspect a woman of infertility because of this was utterly ignorant and foolish.

Just as Ji Yongling was wondering whether he was full from drinking or from being angry, a shout came from outside the courtyard.