There is a Sanhe yard with stones and walls and seaweeds as the roof. There are three main rooms and three rooms on the east and west sides. There are no houses on the south side, but a stone gate tower and a stone wall that is ten feet high. There is also a large wooden plaque hanging on the stone gate tower, with two powerful characters written: Li Mansion.

However, the mottled and peeling paint on the wooden plaque made the two big characters lose their original color. The seaweed roof of the nine rooms in the Li family also grew a lot of weeds floating in the wind. After decades of wind and rain, this Sanheyuan revealed the owner's family's family's fall everywhere.

This is Li Jing's home, a Sanhe yard with rocks as walls and seaweed as the roof. The yard is large and the rooms are not small. There are many traces that indicate the prosperity of the Li family. This kind of seaweed house is a unique building in the coastal area of ​​Shandong. Wangli Village is located on the seashore of Shandong Peninsula. It is rainy and humid in summer and snowy in winter. Under this special geographical location and climatic conditions, the houses mainly consider keeping warm and cold in winter and keeping away from rain and sun in summer. During the early Qin and Han dynasties, people built walls with thick stones based on their unique architectural experience accumulated in their long-term life, and built a seaweed house with thick stones, dried them with seaweed as materials to cover the roof.

Seaweeds flourish in spring and wither in autumn. When they grow to a certain height, when they encounter strong winds and waves, the sea tide will roll them into groups to the shore. If people want to build houses, they will go to the beach to collect seaweed in advance. People salvage these seaweeds, dry them and sort them out, and use them when building houses. Because seaweeds grown in the sea contain a lot of haze and gum, they use them to form thick roofs, which are not only anti-worm-proof, anti-mold, and not easy to burn, but also have the advantages of warm winter and cool summer, comfortable living, and not destroyed for a hundred years. They are the most popular buildings in this area.

The Sanhe Courtyard of Li Jing’s family has a history of fifty years. It is said that when it was built, it took more than 50,000 kilograms of seaweed. Not to mention Wangli Village, even within a radius of more than ten miles, the Sanhe Courtyard of Li’s family is one of the best houses.

Unfortunately, just fifty years later, the Li family had already begun to lose money. The hundreds of acres of land they had purchased in the early years now only had fifty acres of land and ten acres of mulberry fields, which was barely enough for the family to make a living. When the Li family was at its best in the early years, they had 300 acres of fertile land and three oxen oxen.

But now, the Li family can't even get the money for repairing the house.

Li Jing and Wan'er walked into the main house one after another, and the sister-in-law had already prepared all the food.

"My mother, sister-in-law." Li Jing greeted the two elders.

Li Jing's mother, Han, was just fifty years old. Her hair was already gray, but she was combed very neatly. She was tied up with a wooden hairpin on it. She was also wearing a coarse cloth skirt. Although she had not been patched, she was washed and white.

Li Jing learned from his memory that his mother Han family was a relative of the Han family, a large clan of Qingzhou. In the early years, Han's father and Li Jing's grandfather made a baby marriage. At that time, Li Jing's grandfather was a subordinate officer of Li Shidao, the governor of Ziqing Pinglu, who was separating Shandong. He had been kind to Han's father, and the two envoys formed this marriage. However, before Li Jing's father was born, Li Shidao was attacked and wiped out by the court, and Li Jing's grandfather also died in the army. Li Jing's grandmother moved to Wendeng County with his servants. The marriage with the Han family was originally considered a waste. However, more than ten years later, the Han family came to the door to make up the marriage.

It is said that the Han family studied with the lady from the head of the Han family in her early years, and she was familiar with writing, was well-educated, and even knew poetry. She married into the Li family at the age of twenty, and gave birth to three sons and five daughters for the Li family. None of them died and raised them all. Li Jing's father abandoned martial arts since he was a child, and he had been studying and studying after marriage. He almost always took care of the family's affairs. Especially later, he failed the imperial examination and turned into an official. He was away from home for many years, and he threw all his family to Han.

Thirteen years ago, Li Jing's father passed away. The eldest son was only thirteen years old at that time, and the other two sons were only seven or eight years old, and there were several daughters of two or three years old. At that time, Li Jing had several uncles of the same clan who came to persuade Han to remarry and wanted to take over the property of the Li family, but was refused by Han. Han directly hit the wall and wanted to show his ambitions by death. It scared several cousins ​​that no longer had this idea.

Han is kind-hearted and hardworking, and raised a group of children with one hand. It can be said that she is the most traditional and most commendable woman in this era.

"Is it better? My son, if I feel uncomfortable, please come and have a doctor to come and see it early." Han looked at the last son with a kind face, feeling relieved and sighed. This son is different from the eldest and second sons. Although the two sons are filial and diligent, they can't read books by just having all their strength. The younger son is different. Not only is he sensible since childhood, but he is also smart in his studies. After a while, he is aware of his knowledge, she has always believed that his son will definitely be able to pass the imperial examination in the future. If the imperial court had not cancelled the scholarship, his son would be the most powerful scholar.

It’s a pity that the Li family has many disasters. Now the burden of the family is all on this child, but it has delayed his future.

A dim soybean oil lamp was lit in the room. The light was not very good. Li Jing vaguely saw the corners of his mother's eyes moist and couldn't help but say, "My grandma, I'm all right."

"That's good, that's good." Han patted his son's palm.

"Sister-in-law, where is the second sister-in-law?"

The eldest sister-in-law arranged meals for the whole family and said, "Your second sister-in-law is chanting scriptures for your second brother in the house, hey."

Just after his second brother's Qiqi, his second sister-in-law was still in mourning. Li Jing sighed in his heart. The second brother was only one year older than him. He died after only half a year of marriage with his second sister-in-law Wang. He had miserable second sister-in-law. He had met his second sister-in-law several times, and was only sixteen years old, and he was still a thin and unfinished girl. Now, he has become a widow.

Li Jing turned his head to look at his sister-in-law again. His sister-in-law and her second sister-in-law were about the same. She had just passed by the family for half a year. Her sister-in-law had been widowed for four years, and now she was only twenty-one years old. What made him sigh even more was that neither widowed sister-in-law had a son or half daughter. She was young and had to be widowed and had no support for even a child. How miserable is this fate.

"Sister-in-law, if there is a suitable one, you can choose a good family to marry!" Li Jing could not imagine such a young woman, but she would stay widowed for the rest of her life from now on, so she couldn't help but speak out.

As soon as he said something, a needle suddenly fell into the room and could be heard.

The fourth sister and the fifth sister had just come out of the weaving room at home when they heard these shocked remarks. The fourth sister Wanjing hurriedly said, "Brother, what are you saying? Why don't you apologize to your sister-in-law? My uncle married my sister-in-law, and you can say this too. You are still a student."

Sister-in-law Zhang lowered her head and cried, and the whole family was silent for a while.

Li Jing opened his mouth: "Sister-in-law, I have no other intentions. It's just that you are very young and it's not worth it to waste your life. You have no children, and now our family is in decline. If you stay, what can you do besides suffering? Finding a good family will have most of your life."

The sister-in-law wiped her tears and looked up and said, "Sister-in-law knows that my uncle has good intentions, but although I am from a farm daughter, I also know what chastity is. What my sister-in-law admires most in her life is her mother-in-law, and raises all the uncles and sisters alone. Don't say anything about this in the future. My sister-in-law is a member of the Li family and a ghost of the Li family when she dies. She will never marry again in this life."

Han sat there, wanting to speak but stopping, but in the end he didn't say anything.

"Let's have dinner. I cooked ginger tonight and added two eggs. Everyone, eat it quickly. It will be not delicious when it is cold." My sister-in-law said with a forced smile.

Everyone stopped talking. The Li family was strict in tutoring, and it was a rule whether to eat or not. The Li family had a separate meal. Each person had two dishes and a bowl of rice. One was boiled eggs with sausage, the other was pickled vegetables, and the rice was corn porridge. The sausage was actually cabbage from later generations, but the cabbage at this time was still a little different from the later generations. Li Jing ate a few bites, and the cooked sausage had no seasonings, only a little oil and a little salt, which was light and tasteless. The porridge was made of bran pounded with millet and shells. Not only did the porridge contain bran, but it was also thin and like soup, with not many grains of rice in it.

He looked up at his mother, sister-in-law and sister, and found that the two eggs his sister-in-law said were all placed in his dish. Compared with the porridge in his bowl, the woman in the bowl was even thinner and almost soup.

"What's wrong, Sanlang, isn't this porridge full?" Han asked when he saw Li Jing stopping the chopsticks, and turned to his sister-in-law Zhang again, "Old man, there are two woven cloths at home. I'll buy them for some rice and flour tomorrow. Sanlang is seriously ill, so he can recover without food."

"Oh, I know my mother-in-law."

"My grandma, how much does it cost to have a dou of food now?" Li Jing asked.

"The rice cost 200 cents, the millet costs 160 cents, and the wheat costs 180 cents. A few years ago, the rice cost only 20 cents, but now it has increased ten times. How can this continue? I think, if the grain continues, we will take all the rice in our house to Wendeng and replace it with sorghum. We will mix some bran and wild vegetables, and this year should be able to slow down."

Hearing this, Li Jing felt extremely heavy. Seeing the hungry and malnourished look of the family of six or seven, Li Jing still had to give him all the two eggs and even give him more porridge to drink.

My heart was a little confused. How could a man make a woman in a family not even enough to eat? He was born in later generations, so he couldn't let a woman in a family support him. It seems that the most important thing at the moment is to solve the family's meal problem. However, how should we solve this problem of eating?
Chapter completed!