Chapter 199: Entering the Mountain to Find the Entrance

Early the next morning, Wang An was eating breakfast when he heard the assembly bell of the brigade headquarters again.

This was the start of selling off the brigade headquarters' assets!

The main purpose of the brigade headquarters selling assets was actually to divide the assets equally. In this era, everything in the production team was actually collective, including livestock, poultry, horse-drawn carts, farm tools, tools, etc.

And these things were counted; you couldn't just kill all the cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs to divide the meat, right? And those farm tools and tools, you couldn't just smash them all to divide the pieces, right?

So selling everything and dividing the money was the most fair and just way. In fact, saying it was fair was also relatively fair.

Because if a family added a new member in the last second, then in the next second, when dividing money, grain, or vegetables, there must be a share for this newborn child.

So before dividing the land to the households, having many children in the family still had its advantages!

Wang An suddenly thought that spring was coming soon, and the snow all over the ground would soon melt, which meant the sled would soon be useless, but the family didn't have a horse-drawn cart yet!

So, Wang An said to his family, "In a while, when the meeting starts, the horse-drawn carts in the brigade will definitely be sold too. Our family must get one no matter what. If no one else wants the others, we'll get two."

The horse-drawn carts of this era had bodies made of wood, the two wheel hubs and axles were steel, the tires were rubber, and the main means of transportation in this era was horse-drawn carts or mule-drawn carts.

Of course, ox carts and donkey carts also counted, but the speed of an ox was slow, and the donkey's size was small and its stamina was poor. Only horses and mules had sufficient stamina, great strength, and fast speed, so horse-drawn carts or mule-drawn carts were still used most for long distances.

In fact, "horse-drawn cart" was just a name; the cart was a cart, and it depended on what livestock was used to pull it. If a horse pulled the cart, it was called a horse-drawn cart; if a mule pulled it, it was called a mule-drawn cart. Of course, if a donkey or an ox pulled the cart, it was called a donkey cart or an ox cart.

And whether it was the horse-drawn cart itself or the person driving the cart, generally speaking, there were also particularities.

The two straight pieces of wood in front of the horse-drawn cart were called the shafts, and the horse between the shafts was called the shaft horse. The shaft horse was usually the best to use, the most worrying, and also the most overworked horse.

Because the entire horse-drawn cart actually relied on the shaft horse to function. The shaft horse had shafts on its left and right, a "clamp board" in front, a "cushion pad" behind, a "top strap" on top, and a "bottom strap" below. Anyway, the forward movement, backward movement, lightness of the shafts, heaviness of the shafts, and turning of the horse-drawn cart all relied on the shaft horse. Anyway, all the force on the horse-drawn cart had to be borne by the shaft horse!

A horse-drawn cart usually had one horse pulling it. If it was for long distances or heavy loads, it would become two horses, three horses, or even four horses pulling the cart.

Except for the shaft horse, all other horses only served one purpose, which was to pull the cart. Therefore, the shaft horse was also the most important part of the horse-drawn cart.

Of course, if several horses were pulling the cart at the same time, it required the skill of the driver. The driver was also called the "cart boss." The difficulty of commanding multiple livestock to pull the cart at the same time could be imagined, so the job of a cart boss was something an ordinary person truly couldn't do!

Driving a cart didn't distinguish between left and right, only inside and outside. In fact, the phrasing was different, but it was the same meaning. "Inside" was "left," "outside" was "right," "jia" meant "go," "yu" meant "stop," "yun'er" meant turning left, and "wo'er" meant turning right.

Don't underestimate the carrying capacity of a horse-drawn cart. If multiple horses were pulling the cart, more than two thousand jin was not a problem at all.

After Wang An finished speaking, Wang Dazhu and Liu Guilan nodded at the same time. The family had two horses, and many times Wang An himself had to occupy one cart. Mainly, the family wasn't short of money, and two horse-drawn carts would be much more convenient.

Wang An thought about it and said again, "If there are mules or donkeys or something, we'll buy another one; it can be used when farming." "Yes, we don't have any plows or anything in our family either. We should set up whatever we can; it will save us worry in the future." Liu Guilan also added.

The whole family discussed until breakfast ended, and that was considered the end of the discussion.

After breakfast, Wang Dazhu and his wife and Mu Xueqing led the two little girls to the brigade headquarters for the meeting, Wang Yi went to school by himself, and Wang An drove the sled to pick up Wang Li and Seeing Mu Xueli, and then headed into the mountain.

This trip into the mountain was mainly to find the entrance to the Mount Shitou, so Wang Li's four dogs were also tied to the sled, considered to be taking a stroll and getting familiar with Wang An and Seeing Mu Xueli's dogs in advance.

Ten dogs tied to the sled were truly quite spectacular; a circle of dogs was tied to the entire rear beam and both sides of the sled.

On the way, Wang Li and Seeing Mu Xueli were both excitedly discussing the happy expressions of their families after they took the money back yesterday, especially Wang Li, who took 3,000 yuan home, directly stunning Wang Daliang and Yao Ping!

Listening to Wang Li, Wang Daliang and his wife were going to buy a horse or a mule at the brigade headquarters today, and also buy a donkey, and of course, a horse-drawn cart.

After all, the land was divided to the households, and these things could be said to be necessities. If you didn't have them, you would have to borrow them when farming. One must know that in this era, mules and horses were every family's treasure; borrowing them for free was impossible. That required exchanging labor!

Exchanging labor meant using human power to exchange for horse power. For example, if I use your family's horse to farm for a day, then I have to be responsible for the horse's grass and feed for today, and I also have to go to your house to help you work for a day or two!

In fact, this was also a normal situation. Even before the land was divided to the households, labor was exchanged like this. After all, the production team's mules and horses could be used once or twice occasionally, but if the number of times was too many, all the commune members would not agree, because that was public property.

So in situations like going into the mountain to cut firewood or going on a long trip to pull some goods, you had to exchange labor with families who had mules and horses. You wouldn't pay money, because everyone had no money; it was just exchanging, exchanging back and forth.

Although the three were looking for the entrance, it was impossible not to check the traps and clamps; those were all money!

The three acted together, and in over an hour, they all returned with sacks. 103 complete jumping cats, a pile of half-jumping cats, 12 pheasants, 14 silly half-jin (roe deer), and 8 flying dragons were the harvest of this whole morning.

The three drove the sled and continued to walk toward the place where the sable clamps were placed. As expected, except for hitting a few mountain rats, there was still no harvest of chickens.

Although he knew this was a normal situation, after Wang An finished checking the last clamp array, he couldn't help but fall into thought. This damn thing, wasting so much effort to set up a pile of clamps, and playing for nothing every day, isn't this just nonsense!

Fortunately, except for wasting some time setting up the clamps, checking the clamps was a very simple thing. Otherwise, playing for nothing every day, Wang An would rather go hunt wild boars. Although the money came slowly and occasionally hurt the dogs, it was stable.

The three finished checking the sable clamps and headed all the way toward the Mount Shitou.

Arriving at the Mount Shitou, after tying up the horses and feeding them, the three began to lead the dogs and carefully search around the Mount Shitou.

Thanks to "Nuo Yan, Wei Ni Er Xu" for the reward, thank you, thank you.

Please keep reading, please reward with tickets.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 200 =====