Great Tang Idyll

Shout out again to Dan for commissioning this chapter!

Chapter 69: Hoarding Soybeans And Selling Liang'pi  

“Xiao'bao, I checked, our old sales have not changed at all recently, so I think it's our new products that impacted others.
Right now, there are only three new products.
The curved-plough: it's new but it's not under our operation— eliminated.
Wood fungus: we didn't start selling it yet— eliminated. 

 

Eggs: the chickens have just laid eggs and the numbers aren't high.
The eggs were new and were all sold to the savory crepes sellers that we helped and supported.
Also, the savory crepe sellers were helping us acquire soybeans.
I think our egg industry has conflicted with other people's poultry industry. 

 

They might have used the number of small eggs to estimate the number of hens we have and felt that we were a threat to them, so they bought soybeans to knock out one of our productions.
This could be a warning.
And, it's in line with the current drought profit plan.
“

 

Wang Juan no longer appeared like a child at this moment.
She stood there with her chest puffed up, her expression serious, her eyes piercing, and even her tone of voice was different.

 

Zhang Xiao'bao looked at Wang Juan appreciatively and nodded, “This is what I love about departments that deal with serious crimes.
The qualities that China's Leader of Flowers1 should possess is charisma, precision and expertise.”

 

“I'm telling you something serious, you should be more serious.” Wang Juan's eyes widened into a stare.
When she saw Zhang Xiao'bao's tiny body of a child, she suddenly smiled.
She walked up to Zhang Xiao'bao and she stretched out her hand to pinch Zhang Xiao'bao's face and tugged his cheek up and down. 

 

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“Why do you look so adorable? Now it's your turn.
I'm done analyzing.
Hurry up, they have bullied us already2.
Let me see how international level conmen play this game.”

 

While listening to Wang Juan speak, Zhang Xiaobao raised his arm and wiped the corner of his mouth to remove the saliva that Wang Juan pinched out of his mouth.
He shook his head to escape from her grasp and then he smiled contemptuously.

 

“Buying soybeans, that's fine, I suppose it’s now useless if I send people to other counties to buy them.
This group of people are shooting two condors with one arrow3.
With a drought occuring, the price of soybeans will rise, and they can also strike a blow to one of our productions.
So they have a lot of money? I will let them buy it then.
Shi'liu, come in , I'll arrange a job for you to do.”

 

“Young Master, you're  looking for me?” Shi'iu heard Zhang Xiao'bao call so she came in from outside and waited for instructions.

 

“Yeah, I will teach you how to make a delicious thing.
Some people call it mian'pi, we call it liang'pi4.
Calling it mian'pi makes it too easy to guess that the noodles are made from flour.
Flour is such good stuff, not only can it be used to make Liang'pi, but if we don't further process the batter used to make liang'pi, we would get starch.
Who stipulates that only corn and sweet potatoes can be made into starch?”

 

Zhang Xiaobao put a finger on his face and spoke with a smile.
Everyone who knew Zhang Xiao'bao knew that he was terrifying when he did this.
Someone will have bad luck.
And it was not a simple kind of misfortune; the person might lose their life if they don't counteract appropriately..

 

Although Shi'liu didn't know that Zhang Xiaobao had this habit.
She just thought that the Young Master looked better now.
If he dresses up a little, he can pass off as a young girl. 

 

“Young Master, please tell me, what should I do? I don't have to personally tend the wood fungus all time; checking on it just a few times a day is enough.
How is Liang'pi made?”

 

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“Okay, let me tell you how to make it.
Get five catties (∼2.5 kg) of white flour and a few large empty basins.
Get some buckets of water too.
Er'niu is back already, right? Call him over for me too.”

 

Zhang Xiao'bao kept tapping his finger on his face when he was speaking.

 

Shi'liu resisted the urge to give the Young Master a peck on the cheeks and turned around and left.
After not too long, she was done making the preparations and Er'niu came in at this moment.

 

“Young Master, you called me?”

 

“Yeah, are there any more mountain pepper sprouts?” Zhang Xiao'bao asked.

 

“Young Master, last year's ones are gone while this year's sprouts have grown already but everyone is busy with the spring tillage so only a few children helped me pick some.
Young Master, do you want the pepper sprouts?” Er'niu quickly responded.

 

“Yes, when you return, fry the pepper sprouts in vegetable oil.
If the fried pepper sprouts oil doesn't have much taste, then throw more pepper sprouts into it.
Keep frying it until the oil is so spicy you have to drink water.
Fry 20 catties (∼10kg) of oil for me first.”

 

Zhang Xiaobao instructed Er'niu.
Er'niu nodded his head and turned around to leave.
He still had to pick more mountain pepper sprouts, otherwise it will definitely not be enough.

 

Zhang Xiao'bao glanced again at Shi'liu who was waiting there.
“Knead the dough into a ball— this is the first step.”

 

Shi'liu didn't question too much.
She poured some water and started to mix the flour.
After a while, a ball of dough was formed.

 

Zhang Xiao'bao nodded and said, “Let's go and see the fungus together.
Last time I picked 30 catties, and we wanted to give 20 catties to the administrative office, but they wanted 10 catties.
How many are there now?”

 

“It's still the same amount.
New fungus hasn't grown yet; it will take a few more days.
There will be more this time.
It is estimated that there will be more than 300 catties produced in this batch.

 

Shi'liu was happy whenever the wood fungus was mentioned.
She didn't expect that she was able to plant such precious fungus with her own hands.
Unfortunately, she couldn't tell anyone how it was planted.
As of now, only three people knew of this secret.

 

“That's quite a lot, ok, stir-fry a little bit in the evening, add carrots and stir-fried pork slices.
Too bad there aren't any fresh cucumbers.
Soak some dried cucumbers and add them in.”

 

Zhang Xiao'bao licked his lips and was craving to eat.
Even until now, he still hasn't tried the wood fungus yet.
Wang Juan also nodded sharply.
The three of them went to the place where the wood fungus was planted and looked at it.
It was not bad.
More were growing again on the pieces of wood again.
Some of them were still too small, but they will be ready in two days since they grow fast.

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After spending time outside for a bit, the three of them returned to the house.
The dough at this time was much better than before.

 

“Pour water that has been boiled before into the basin with the dough inside, then knead the dough inside the water.
Stop only when the water turns white.” Zhang Xiao'bao directed Shi'liu to the next step.
Shi'liu didn't understand why the kneaded dough had to be placed in the water.
She couldn't reason it out so he chose to stop thinking about it.
She brought water and followed Zhang Xiao’bao’s instruction.

 

After he finished kneading this one time, he changed the water and continued to knead.
After kneading a few times, the water stopped changing color and he stopped too.

 

Zhang Xiao’bao continued to instruct Shi’liu to pour that water into another basin and to place it somewhere where no one can touch it.
Then, they started to work with the remnants of dough that didn’t dissolve in the water.
The dough remnants were placed into a wok and steamed.  Once it was taken after steaming, Wang Juan spoke first, “This is gluten, I see.
How about the mian’pi? You washed it all away when kneading the dough.”

 

“It's all in that water, now it can be dried to make starch, which can be used to make vermicelli.
I don’t know the specific steps to that though, so let’s stick with making mian’pi.
We will talk about it tomorrow morning.”

 

One night passed, and the next morning, Shi’liu came over.
She poured out the top portion of the basin which was just water and kept the bottom layer.
Then she took out a thin iron basin with a flat bottom, and poured a thin layer of sticky substance into it.
The basin was heated in the wok for a short while and then it was briefly plunged into cold water.
A sheet of liang’pi was obtained by carefully peeling the layer off of the basin.
.

 

Shi’liu continued to work and her speed was extremely quick.
After a stack of liang’pi was made, Er’niu has already brought over the chili oil— 20 catties worth. 

 

“Er’niue, don’t leave yet, let's eat together.
You have never eaten this thing before.” Zhang Xiao’bao invited Er’niu, who wanted to leave.
Zhang Xiao’bao taught Shi’liu how to toss the liang’pi together with black vinegar, salt, garlic, chili oil and this was about it.
Actually, zhang Xiao’pi enjoyed eating the type with cold soup the most. 

 

“Add some sugar to minne, I don't like to eat too sour.
I also have some coriander, cucumber– never mind, there are none now.” Wang Juan customized the taste of her bowl.

 

In less than 15 minutes, four portions of liang’pi were ready.
Er’niu’s portion was the largest while Zhang Xiao’bao and Wang Juan had the least.
Zhang Xiao’bao also added some sesame sauce to Shi’liu’s bowl since she always liked eating it.
.

 

Four people with four different tastes.
They started to eat, and after just a few bites, Er’niu  was the first to say, “It's delicious, the things that Young Mastermakes are truly different.
It's really spicy.”

 

“Who told you to put so much chili oil, you deserve it.” Shi’liu was still fixated on how Er’niu had used so much chili oil just now.

 

“If there were cucumber shreds, and cold soup made from cooking fruit and if it was then chilled, then it won’t matter if it was very spicy.
If it was too spicy, then the soup can be drunk.
Well, the soup is spicy too, but it’s chilled so it’s hard to feel the burn.
The more spicy is it, the more you would want to eat, and the more you eat, the more it burns from spiciness.”

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Zhang Xiao’bao had a deep understanding of this.
Wang Juan was chewing half of a strand of mian’pi in her while she nodded her head in agreement.

 

“Young Master, these mian’pi doesn’t need that much chili oil.” Shi’liu helped remind him.

 

“Who said this? At night, call both Xiao’hong and Ying’tao over.
The three of will make 300 catties of mian’pi.
When you’re done, send it over to the savory crepe sellers.
One portion will be sold for three coins and the sellers can keep half a coin for themselves while the remaining money will go to us.
Also, get them to allow people to exchange white flour for mian’pi.”

 

Zhang Xiao’bao stopped eating and stuck out his tongue because he felt the burn from the spiciness.
Then he spoke to Shi’liu. 

 

On the third morning, all of the mian’pi were prepared, and Zhang Xiao’bao also cooked some cold noodle soup.
In order to improve the flavor, he poured a small bowl of rice wine into each large basin of cold noodle soup and sent it to San’shui County by carriage.

 

“What is your purpose for doing this?” Wang Juan still couldn’t figure out what Zhang Xiao’bao was planning to do.

 

“It's of course a new way of making money.
Weren’t they really capable of buying? Will they also buy all of the white flour? If they do, then I’ll make blanched seafood with rice.
Will they also buy all the rice?” Zhang Xiao’bao explained to Wang Juan.

 

He didn’t have to say more as Wang Juan understood already.
Those people dared to buy all the soybeans at a time like this, but they wouldn’t dare to buy out all of the white flour and rice.
People don’t have to eat soybeans, but rice and white flour and also millet and sorghum are all staple foods.
If those people bought all of those during the time of a drought, then the consequences….

 

“Let’s do it like this first.
If they don’t buy it out, then I have another plan to reduce the price of all the soybeans in their hands.
Unless they’re willing to hold onto the money and try to endure through it, the money they hold onto won’t be the same as the currency in circulation.
We will watch the results.”

 

Zhang Xiao’bao touched his face with his finger again.

 

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In the afternoon in Sanshui County, a new kind of food appeared on the stalls that once sold savory crepes— liangpi.
It could be bought with money or can be exchanged for charcoal or white flour.

 

This time there were still people willing to try it.
For three coins, they received a serving of liang’pi.
At the first bite, the feeling of it was cool and refreshing, next it was hot and spicy.
While they blew out air from their mouths, they ate voraciously.
Liang’pi has set off a new buying frenzy.

 

Translator's Notes

1.
China's Leader of Flowers 中国霸王花

 

This is a reference to the Chinese movie called “Chinese Armed Policewomen” or “Zhong Guo Ba Wang Hua” and was released in 1990.
The movie follows a young female that underwent strict training to join the armed police force and later, she went on to solve a major robbery crime.

This was rather hard to translate and I decided to go with the literal translation of the phrase instead of going for the movie name since it made more sense given the context.
“Flower” is a common metaphor for woman.
Basically, Zhang Xiao'bao is complimenting Wang Juan for being a good role model policewoman.

 

2.
Bullied us already 欺负到我们头上了

The literal translation of what Wang Juan said was “they have bullied to the top of our heads”.
Although the imagery of the original phrase is a bit more imaginative and funny, it doesn't make much sense in English.

 

3.
“Shoot two condors with one arrow” 一箭双雕

This idiom is equivalent to “hit two birds with one stone”.

 

4.
mian' pi, liang pi 面皮，凉皮

As mentioned by Zhang Xiao'bao, these two names refer to the same type of noodles.
The literal translation of mian'pi is “flour/dough skin”, hence, Zhang Xiao'bao's comment on saying that calling it mian'pi will be easy for people to guess that it's made from flour.
The literal translation of liang'pi is “cool skin”, probably because this noodle dish is eaten cold and usually enjoyed on hot summer days.

 

(For those that are curious, Zhang Xiao'bao's instructions on making the dish is rather accurate, and it's one of my favorite dish to make and eat! It's really delicious, so for those who haven't tried it before, please do~)