Chapter 11

After Xue Duizhu returned to the tent, he took off his outer coat to rest. A voice outside the tent said: "Captain, is it convenient now? Can I come in?"

Xue Duizhu heard the voice and smiled: "Come in."

The dark-skinned man walked into the tent with a grin, and Xue Duizhu teased: "Aren't you serving Young Master Wang, you old rascal? Do you still remember me?"

The dark-skinned man pretended to be terrified and said: "How would this lowly one dare to forget the Captain! Isn't serving Young Master Wang also sharing the burden for my lord?"

"Enough, stop spouting nonsense! Don't I know your little schemes? Isn't it just that you want to get out of the military register?" Xue Duizhu lay on the bed, and the dark-skinned man skillfully began to massage him.

Xue Duizhu closed his eyes, his voice lazy:

"Look at how much grain prices have risen this year! How many people are so hungry they are eating sesame and swallowing lotus roots? No matter how bad the treatment of soldier households is, there is always flatbread to eat. Every two days, you can drink a bowl of wheat-scrap porridge; at least you won't starve to death. Besides, this year is special; in previous years, three to five liters of grain were never short for you every day. What else are you dissatisfied with?"

The dark-skinned man massaged earnestly, a helpless smile on his face: "If it were just me, of course, anything would be fine. But isn't there a little girl at home? Sigh, never mind. Captain, aren't you going to Jiangling tomorrow? Can you let me follow as a guard? I can just happen to go home and take this month's leave."

"Didn't you just send grain home? Is there still grain to send?"

"There's no grain to send; I just want to go home and see the little girl."

Xue Duizhu was massaged comfortably and said in a drawn-out voice: "Is it that you want to go home to see the little girl, or that you want to curry favor with that little playboy?"

The dark-skinned man chuckled: "Both, both."

"You people, you all think that by getting involved with the aristocratic families, you can get some benefits. That Ding Jiu also wants to go, and for this, he even gave me five liters of rations. I tell you, don't think too beautifully; maybe the moment they step into their relatives' threshold, they will forget us. We'll have done all that work for nothing."

The dark-skinned man rubbed the Captain's shoulders with force, his dark face slightly flushed from fatigue, but his eyes were full of hope.

Wang Yang slept very poorly that night. He drifted off to sleep while thinking of countermeasures. For a moment, he dreamed that Xue Duizhu was dragging him into the tent with a fierce look, and for a moment, he dreamed that Editor Xu was lying on the grass covered in blood; he even dreamed that the handsome boy and the strong man had traveled back to the modern era and were accusing him of murder in front of the media. He actually woke up in a fright three or four times in the middle of the night!

This tightly wound mental state and the psychological pressure he had never experienced before also caused him to have a physiological reaction of nausea. It was fortunate that the lower-class people at that time followed a two-meal system, eating once around eight in the morning, which was the "morning meal," and eating again around four in the afternoon, which was the "evening meal." Therefore, Wang Yang "successfully" missed the meal time when he arrived at the camp.

Coupled with the impoverished life in the military camp, Xue Duizhu really could not produce a decent meal to "add" to Wang Yang's diet; otherwise, Wang Yang might have vomited directly from this nausea.

Early in the morning, the dark-skinned man brought clear water to serve Wang Yang as he got up.

After Wang Yang washed his face, the dark-skinned man offered a small pinch of salt. Wang Yang thought for a moment and asked: "Is this... used for brushing teeth?"

The dark-skinned man nodded. This was what the Captain had specifically ordered; in ordinary households, who would be willing to use salt to brush their teeth?

Wang Yang thought that there was no tooth brushing at that time, and remembering the term "chewing tooth-wood in the morning," he asked: "Are there willow branches?"

The dark-skinned man was puzzled: "What does the young master want willow branches for?"

"Don't you use willow branches to brush your teeth?"

The dark-skinned man was confused: "Can willow branches brush teeth?" He thought to himself: So the aristocratic families all use willow branches to brush their teeth; I'll tell my daughter when I get home.

Wang Yang asked curiously: "Then what do you usually use to brush your teeth?"

The dark-skinned man said: "Use my fingers."

Wang Yang suddenly realized; he then remembered that in the Tang Dynasty murals in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, a monk was squatting on the ground, brushing his teeth with his index finger. So this was the normal state of life for the ancients!

In fact, aristocratic families at that time had already begun to use toothbrushes, but the dark-skinned man and Wang Yang did not know it. Brushing teeth with willow branches originated in India and later spread to the Central Plains with Buddhism; at this time, it was only used by a few monks and would not gradually spread until after the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

At this time, the most common way for ordinary people to brush their teeth was to use their fingers, also known as "wiping the teeth."

As a modern person, Wang Yang was naturally not used to using his fingers as a toothbrush, and at this tense juncture, he had no heart to deal with brushing his teeth, so he just asked for a cup of water, sprinkled some salt in it, and rinsed his mouth to finish it.

Ding Jiu brought breakfast for Wang Yang; this was the first meal Wang Yang ate after traveling to ancient times: a bowl of barley porridge, a few small dried fish, a dish of salted vegetables, and a boiled egg.

This meal looked simple, but it was pieced together by Xue Duizhu and Wang Wenshu. The dried fish was Xue Duizhu's "stock," also called "withered fish" or "dried fish" at the time; he had managed to get a jar and only ate one or two occasionally. The egg was brought back by Wang Wenshu last night. The most difficult thing was actually this bowl of wheat porridge.

Ordinary soldiers could only drink a bowl of wheat porridge every two days, but it was not the thick, whole-grain barley porridge that Wang Yang was eating, but a thin porridge made by grinding wheat, which people at the time called "wheat-scrap porridge." Making this bowl of barley porridge for Wang Yang cost the rations of several people.

How could Wang Yang know that this meal of his was so hard-won? All his thoughts were on the matter of visiting the Wang "main family," and when he smelled the plate of dried fish, he only felt it was fishy and disgusting, so he didn't touch it with his chopsticks. He only swallowed the porridge with the strangely flavored salted vegetables (it seemed to be mallow?), just to borrow a salty taste.

After gulping down a few mouthfuls of porridge, he looked up and happened to catch the salivating expressions of the dark-skinned man and Ding Jiu. Wang Yang remembered the dark-skinned man testifying about the "Palace Attendant" last night, so he said: "Dark-skinned man, you take this plate of fish and eat it."

The dark-skinned man was startled and hurriedly bowed: "This lowly one dares not!"

"I am giving it to you; what is there to dare not?"

The dark-skinned man just shook his head.

Wang Yang had no choice but to put on the airs of a young master: "This is a reward from this young master; you cannot refuse."

The dark-skinned man knelt down and kowtowed, receiving it respectfully with both hands, but he had no intention of eating it.

"Why don't you eat it?" Wang Yang asked.

"This lowly one... this lowly one wants to take it home for my daughter to eat."

Wang Yang nodded, and seeing Ding Jiu staring straight at the dried fish, he said: "Ding Jiu, you have also done well. This young master has nothing else to reward you with for the time being; this egg is for you."

"Egg?" Ding Jiu was stunned for a moment.

Wang Yang realized that the term "egg" originated quite late; it seems he called it too early, so he said: "Oh, you call it 'chicken child,' right."

Ding Jiu nodded and said: "It's also called chicken egg." He thought "egg" was a novel term among the aristocrats, so he didn't care much. He said thank you and took the egg. Although he hadn't eaten an egg for a long time and wanted to eat it very much, there was no happy expression on his face.

Do not worry about scarcity, but worry about inequality!

Wang Yang realized that what he had just done was not very elegant, but he had no energy to think about this matter now, because a bigger crisis was coming soon...

The great city was towering, the walls like long clouds.

Wang Yang, Xue Duizhu, Wang Wenshu, the dark-skinned man, and Ding Jiu set off in the morning and arrived at the Jingzhou city gate at noon.

Jingzhou was the largest province in the Southern Dynasties besides the capital region of Yangzhou, spanning Southern Chu and governing ten commanderies. At that time, there was a saying: "The great towns of the Yangtze, none exceed Jing and Yang."

The first commandery under Jingzhou was Nanjun, and the first city under Nanjun was Jiangling.

As the central capital of the entire Jingzhou and Nanjun, Jiangling was also called "Jingzhou City" and "Nanjun City" at the time.

Guan Yu lost it through carelessness, and Li Bai returned from a thousand miles away; both were this city!

If it weren't for the matter of impersonating the Langya Wang clan, Wang Yang would actually be very willing to visit this famous historical city with thoughts of visiting the past. But thinking that he would have to face the real Langya Wang clan in a while, he had no interest at all.

Throughout the journey, he had been making up stories, thinking of rhetoric, and looking for logical loopholes. He even constructed a family genealogy in his mind and forced himself to remember the names of all his relatives within five generations. But when the time came, he sadly discovered that if things really reached the point where he had to repeat a five-generation genealogy, then a failed ending was basically destined.

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Note: ① In medieval historical materials, sesame is sesame. Jingzhou is a sesame-producing area, so it could be used as a substitute for food during a famine. For example, during the war between Yin Zhongkan and Huan Xuan in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, "Jiangling was terrified, the city lacked food, and sesame was used to feed the soldiers." (*Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government · Jin Annals*) The matter of using lotus roots to satisfy hunger when there is no grain can be seen in the story of Yang Dun in the *Book of Wei · Biography of Good Officials*.

② Toothbrushes have been unearthed in Han tombs, but they have not yet been seen in the cultural relics of the Six Dynasties. My writing that the aristocrats at that time used toothbrushes is purely based on the situation in the Han Dynasty, thinking that there seems to be no reason for such daily necessities to be abolished... But it's hard to say; once chaos breaks out, some things will be lost. For example, the *pitch-pot* game, which was very popular in medieval times, was played wildly by Tang people, but by the time of the Song people, they no longer understood the rules of the game. Therefore, Lu You said in *Notes from the Old Learning Hut*: "I only regret that its art is not passed down."

Therefore, this book's writing that aristocrats used toothbrushes belongs to speculation and has no empirical evidence; it may be wrong. Including the so-called toothbrushes unearthed in the Han Dynasty, there is no consensus in the academic community yet. However, personally, I am still inclined to accept it.

③ During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the concept of "province" was roughly similar to a province; let's imagine it as a large province. Below the province, there were commanderies, below commanderies were counties, and below some counties were townships. Yangzhou is not today's city, but a concept of a large province. The Yangzhou of the Southern Qi Dynasty was a large province in the capital region, and its geographical scope was roughly equivalent to southern Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and some areas south of the Yangtze River. Interested students can check the fourth volume of Tan Qixiang's *Historical Atlas of China*.