Chapter 43: Pounding Grain to Make the Meal

"Second Brother, please take me with you — your little brother is begging you!"

Rising early in the morning, Jing latched onto Heifu like a shadow, trying to persuade him to take him along when he assumed his post at Huyang Station. In Jing's eyes, his elder brother becoming a Station Chief, governing a whole locality, was a most impressive affair — how could he possibly miss out?

"Don't even think about it!" Heifu flatly refused him.

"Do you think that station lodge is my private establishment, that I can bring whoever I please? Let me tell you, even if you did go to the station and ate the rations meant to be supplied to me, if someone reported it to the county, both you and I would be punished!"

Heifu was not trying to frighten him. In other dynasties, the common people were treated harshly while officials were handled leniently. Among those in office, the rats who took perks and pocketed kickbacks were beyond counting, and the court would turn a blind eye — even going so far as to invent things like "Probity-Nurturing Silver" and "Meltage Fees." Moreover, when one person took office, it was often a case of "when a man attains the Dao, even his chickens and dogs ascend to heaven" — his family could also enjoy some benefits.

Only the Qin state had a peculiar turn of mind: not only was it especially harsh on the common people, it was even harsher on officials, guarding against them practically as though they were thieves...

Take rations, for example. The daily ration for an official of each rank and noble tier was stipulated, and every month it would be distributed by quota to each station lodge. If anyone fraudulently claimed rations, they would be punished. Using public funds to host meals carried great risk in Qin.

Then there was "private use of public vehicles." Qin expressly forbade carrying family members in public vehicles: "If one carries a woman in a public vehicle, how is it adjudicated? A fine of two suits of armor." The money for two suits of armor was enough to buy a nag. The cost of taking a girl for a joyride in a public vehicle was so heavy that most Qin petty officials dared not violate the prohibition.

Turning from honest to corrupt is easy; turning from corrupt back to honest is hard. Yet under conditions where "officials could barely scrape by," the common folk were clapping their hands in delight.

And as for Qin's emphasis on clean governance — that line in *The Way of Being an Official*, "Be incorruptible and invite no slander" — the Qin people were indeed earnestly putting it into practice.

So Heifu had no desire to bring Jing to the station and give others grounds for talk. He said, "You just stay home dutifully, look after Mother, and help out Eldest Brother. Besides..."

He pulled Jing over and said, "This matter has only just begun to take shape. Before it's settled, don't go out babbling about it!"

"With Second Brother's ability, being a Station Chief is beneath him."

Though somewhat disheartened, Jing had an inexplicable, boundless confidence in Heifu. Rubbing his hands together, he added, "Second Brother, if you really do take up the post, you'll be the first person in our family for generations to become an official!"

"I suppose so."

It was precisely for this reason that, when Heifu explained the matter yesterday, Mother had agreed. She had even gone on and on about visiting her late husband's grave to pay her respects and thank him for his protection. Their family had been nameless, clanless commoners back in Chu. In the three generations since entering Qin, none had ever held office. It was only their unremarkable father who had broken new ground by becoming a Gongshi, accumulating a little savings and even making sure his sons learned to read. Now that Heifu had a chance to become a petty official, it was truly a case of smoke rising from the ancestral grave...

Heifu told Jing to go about his business, while he himself headed toward the kitchen.

Within the hamlet, every household had a kitchen. Its front door opened onto the front courtyard, and the top was generally left unroofed so the black smoke from the cooking fire could disperse. The stove was inside the kitchen, bearing a cauldron, with several three-legged pottery li-vessels beside it.

The kitchen's back door led to the rear courtyard. Stepping over the threshold, one could see a small vegetable patch. The plant ash produced from cooking was sprinkled onto the patch as fertilizer. Just as the poem says, "Green, green the mallow in the garden, morning dew awaiting the sun's dawn light." Usually, mallow — that is, winter amaranth — would be planted here as the staple vegetable of this era. Pity that now the patch was bare, with only a few hardy scallions that could stubbornly survive the winter, laboriously putting out pale white shoots.

To the left of the vegetable patch was a thatched hut piled high with firewood; to the right was a small granary — a little earthen hut just over a man's height and a dozen-odd paces square, storing the grain the whole family would eat through the winter, along with next year's seed. Between the woodshed and the granary was the well — these were the two spots that most feared catching fire.

The sound of grain-pounding that Heifu heard was coming from beside the granary...

When grains like rice and millet were brought in from the fields, the millet grains were still mixed together with the stalks and ears. First, they had to be threshed using the bamboo sieve Mother had woven the day before, separating the millet grains out and storing them in the granary. Each day's grain was pounded fresh for eating. Pounding and grinding in a stone mortar could crack the husks of the millet and rice. Then, after tossing and sifting several more times to remove the chaff and husks, the grain could be separated out and cooked into fragrant, fluffy rice.

The *Book of Odes* even has a very poetic description: "Some pound, some scoop; some sift, some knead. *Sou sou* goes the washing; *fu fu* rises the steaming." Yet the process itself was not the least bit poetic. The toil of pounding grain was something modern people who simply buy polished rice and throw it into the pot could hardly imagine...

Rounding the back of the granary, Heifu saw his eldest sister-in-law — a peasant woman in coarse, shabby clothes that did not trail on the ground — now wearing an apron-like "knee-cover," laboriously lifting a heavy wooden pestle and pounding grain in a stone mortar sunk into the earth.

The sister-in-law was named Kui, a woman from a neighboring hamlet. She had married Eldest Brother Zhong at eighteen, and now nearly eight years had passed. When she married in, she had been lovely to look at, but alas, polished by the grind of life, she had gradually lost her luster. Fortunately, Eldest Brother had a good temper, and the couple were devoted to each other.

Meanwhile, his little nephew Yang, only six years old, was crouching beside the stone mortar. Yawning as he clutched a stick, he followed the rhythm of his mother's pounding, occasionally poking at the grain inside the mortar.

Children of the poor grow up early. In the countryside, one had to share the family's burdens from a tender age; a good night's sleep was a rare luxury. Although Yang usually seemed to bully his little sister, whenever Mother called them in the early morning, he would quietly get up and let his sister keep sleeping soundly — he was a good elder brother.

Heifu could not help but feel a pang of sympathy for this sensible child.

"Elder Sister-in-law."

He walked up, bowed to his sister-in-law, and said, "Let me do the pounding."

So saying, he took over the wooden pestle. The pestle was made of solid wood, and holding it in his hand, it had considerable heft. No wonder lifting the pestle from dawn to dusk to pound millet was a hard-labor punishment used on women in Qin, mentioned in the same breath as the wall-building sentence for male convicts. Heifu had just done wall-building a few days ago; its grueling toil was plain to see.

The sister-in-law shooed Yang off to catch a full nap, while she herself, kneading her aching arms, took up a wooden stick off to the side to scoop grain for Heifu. As she did, she asked, "Wasn't Second Brother-in-law going to Bian Hamlet to pay a visit to Elder Yán?"

Yesterday, after Heifu had told his family his plans, they had informed him that, as ill luck would have it, the old gentleman Lü Ying of Xiyang Hamlet had gone to the county seat to his son's place and likely would not return until the twelfth month. So if Heifu wanted to study the laws and ordinances, he would have to go to the nearby Bian Hamlet to seek out another retired old official, Yan Zheng.

"I can't go empty-handed," Heifu said as he worked the pestle, pounding grain. With a smile, he added, "I'll have to trouble you, Elder Sister-in-law, to prepare four dried-meat strips for me. I need to present them as a tuition bundle to Elder Yan."

"Of the dried meat your eldest brother brought back for you from the county seat, there are still two strips left."

The sister-in-law looked up and said, puzzled, "I've heard that when ordinary folk go to consult Elder Yan and seek instruction, they only need two dried-meat strips?"

"I'm bringing double because I want to take Jing along and have him study reading and writing with Elder Yan's son, and get to know the laws and ordinances. There's no farm work to do in winter anyway. Rather than let him idle about all day and stir up trouble, I'd sooner bring him to learn something useful." This was a plan dimly taking shape in Heifu's mind, but he could not speak of it openly yet.

The sister-in-law nodded. "Let me go ask at the Wu Elder's house. I'll have them ready for you by tomorrow."

The Wu Elder was the head of their "five-household neighborhood unit." Though not counted as an official, only the wealthiest among the five households could serve in the role.

The Wu Elder's household raised several pigs and slaughtered one every year at the start of winter, drying the meat into strips. In these times, the more dried-meat strips one had put away, the better off the household was considered. Heifu's own family, at best, could manage a fish for the New Year, their mouths watering at the aroma of meat drifting over from next door. Though pigs in this era were uncastrated and the taste fell short of later ages, it was still meat.

After that, the two fell silent. Heifu pounded grain for roughly half a shichen. By the time the sky outside was fully bright, he had at last finished pounding the day's grain ration for seven people — five adults and two children. His arms were aching and he was utterly exhausted.

If it was like this for a strong man like him, no wonder his sister-in-law, who often did the grain-pounding, always had sore, swollen arms.

"Elder Sister-in-law, how long does the pounding usually take?" Heifu asked, wiping away sweat.

"From daybreak to sunrise — a full shichen, I suppose."

The sister-in-law had already begun washing the rice to cook. Even after spending so much time, what was pounded out was still only the coarsest "unpolished grain." The cooked rice would be mixed with plenty of grains still in their husks and bits of bran. One bite and you'd have to pick at it for ages; swallowed too hastily, it could even scrape your throat raw.

Heifu looked at the heavy wooden pestle in his hand and the stone mortar hewn from a great slab of bluestone, lost in thought.

"Productivity in this age is simply too backward. Grain-pounding, especially, is sheer torture for the women of the household. After all, the men have to busy themselves outside with the plowing and have no time for this. Mother says she pounded grain for decades starting from the age of ten, until her arms were nearly ruined. Now that she can no longer lift the pestle, it falls to Sister-in-law. In another ten years, will it fall to my little niece Yue? The finest years of women's youth are ground away into coarseness just like this..."

Heifu sighed. Other people's households were beyond his power to help for now, but his own family — by every bond of affection and duty — he could not let them suffer the torment of this bitter toil any longer.

"What should I make? A millstone? A roller? Worth considering. It seems millstones already exist in the north, they just haven't spread to Nan Commandery. But those things are fashioned from stone, and the cost to make them isn't low — a bit troublesome. I've only seen them in my past life and have a vague impression; I don't know how to make one myself. Even if I commissioned a stonemason, it couldn't be done in less than ten days or half a month, and even once made, it might not work. Is there something simpler and more practical — something I've seen in a documentary before..."

"What was it called again?" Heifu scratched his head, having momentarily forgotten that obscure name.

Just then, his steps had carried him over to the well, where he saw the *jiegao* mounted above it.

The *jiegao* closely resembled a steelyard balance and was the water-drawing tool of this era. A long, slender wooden pole was set upon an upright stand, with a fulcrum in the middle. A stone weight hung from the tail end, while a bucket hung from the front. When a person lowered the bucket into the water and filled it, the weight of the counterpoise at the lever's end allowed one to easily lift the water to wherever it was needed. Up and down — drawing water could save a great deal of effort.

Seeing this device, Heifu suddenly jolted with recollection!

"A treadle trip-hammer — yes, what I need is a treadle trip-hammer!"

He clapped his hands in excitement. "A treadle trip-hammer, like the *jiegao*, works on the lever principle, and its construction is simple. If done quickly, it could be made in just two or three days. I remember this *jiegao* was made with the help of Brother-in-law — he's the craftsman in this hamlet..."

Heifu set to work the moment the idea struck. He walked to the front courtyard, picked up the gifts he had bought in the county seat, and said to Zhong, who had just risen and was stretching lazily:

"Eldest Brother, come — go with me to Elder Sister's house for a visit!"

(End of chapter)