Chapter 320 - 309: Secret
Farming is very much attuned to the agricultural calendar. To compete for a few days’ advantage during the summer harvest, many farmers would work day and night, some even taking up residence in the fields.
In the past two years, when Qili Village had a bountiful harvest, Zhou Dalang, Zhou Erlang, and Zhou Sanlang lived in the fields to seize the farming opportunity, working under the moonlight and firelight even when they were so exhausted they could hardly straighten their backs.
Otherwise, a single rain could wash away a whole year’s worth of effort.
Usually, after the rain, the summer harvest would come to an end. Then, it was time to harvest hemp. The hemp was pulled out, soaked, beaten, combed out, then woven into fabric, and finally taken to the river for cleaning and additional beating...
The process was both cumbersome and labor-intensive. Children of the Zhou Family disliked harvesting hemp the most, and the adults felt the same.
Because most of the hemp fabric produced had to be handed over to the County Governmental Office as a form of tax, along with three extra pounds of hemp fiber per person.
For this reason, Old Zhou planted rows of hemp along the ridges of his family’s fields and around the foothills of his and Zhou Dalang and Zhou Sanlang’s mountains.
Despite the drought-resistant nature of the plant and the arduous crafting process, their family could still save some hemp fabric each year to make clothes. However, families with fewer members might not have any excess hemp for clothing.
Moreover, the hemp fabric made by the Zhou Family was not considered top quality. Manbao particularly disliked it, recalling that she only had one new hemp garment, which started to chafe her skin raw not long after she put it on.
Later, her mother took it back from her and remade it into clothes for herself.
After wearing it for half a year, her mother took the old hemp clothes and remade them into garments for Manbao.