When you wake up in the morning, your body is empty and in need of energy replenishment. Having such a big bowl of brown sugar and sesame poached eggs in your stomach is really full of energy.

After eating and drinking, Yang Ruoqing and Luo Fengtang drove the carriage towards the county seat. The horses were fed with fodder last night and were full and strong.

So it took less than half an hour to reach this place of twenty or thirty miles.

At this time, the sun has not yet risen, but it is already bright outside.

Although the noisy vendors in the past were no longer seen on the streets of the county town, there were more and more people.

There were twos and threes, all of them dragging their families out to pay New Year greetings.

The man carried the child on his shoulders, and the woman followed beside him, carrying New Year greetings in her arms, and she had to hold other children with her other hand.

From the clothes these people wear, you can judge the general economic status of their families.

Most of the people who can survive in the county town are those who have just met the food and clothing line. The adults are still wearing old clothes, but the children are wearing new clothes and new tiger head hats.

Those few people in the county town who are struggling to have enough food and clothing will probably be as poor as farmers during the Chinese New Year.

Farmers at least have vegetable gardens at home and can raise chickens in their backyards, but what about county towns? It’s inconvenient.

This situation remains in China in the 21st century, and this phenomenon also exists between urban and rural areas.

There are poor people in cities and rich people in rural areas.

The poor in the city go to the vegetable market to pick up vegetable leaves, go to the supermarket to use the air conditioner in the summer, work part-time jobs, cannot afford to pay the rent, water, electricity and gas bills, are forced to move around, and endure the landlord's demands for rent increases year by year...

In rural areas, those households with relatively good conditions have built two- or three-story small buildings, equipped with all kinds of modern household appliances.

There is a vegetable garden behind the village, so you can grow whatever you want. There is a small agricultural tricycle parked in the yard. In the morning, you can drive it to a nearby market town for breakfast and go back to the supermarket.

Natural water is also installed in every household, but the village women still like to go to the large pond at the entrance of the village in small groups to wash themselves and chat with each other.

We live in commercial housing in the city. We have lived face to face for ten years and we don’t know each other’s name or where he works.

In the countryside, everyone visits, and men and women gather together and make jokes that are half meat and half vegetarian...

Of course, these are only for ordinary people, not the wealthy businessmen and dignitaries in the city.

Because their life circle is different from that of ordinary people, and their methods are also different.

As his thoughts turned around, the carriage drove on the spacious street of Wanghai County. The further forward, the more pedestrians on the street became.

You will encounter other carriages from time to time on the road. In this era, those who can travel in a carriage are those who are from a good family, have status, or both.

Ordinary people travel by foot. Farmers use oxcarts to carry their children to New Year greetings if they can. If they don't have oxcarts, they push wheelbarrows...

So Yang Ruoqing sat on the carriage, looking out at the street scene through the window, enjoying the envious looks from passers-by, and she felt a lot!

The speed of the carriage slowed down.

Yang Ruoqing was surprised and asked Luo Fengtang through the curtain: "What's going on?"

"I saw the mother and daughter from yesterday again." Luo Fengtang said.

Yang Ruoqing then opened the curtain of the carriage and looked outside.

Ahead is a crossroads, which is also the most prosperous area in Wanghai County. The shops open on this street are all the time-honored and big-brand shops in Wanghai County.

Behind this street is a residential area, inhabited by powerful or wealthy people in Wanghai County.

This place is not like those hutongs and alleys where civilians gather. They are all large courtyards with single doors, two entrances, three entrances and four entrances.

Therefore, most of the people going here are rich people. When their carriage slowly turns out from the intersection, a wave of beggars and homeless people will have gathered on the roadside.

They swarmed over and gathered in front of the carriage. Those with broken bowls held out their broken bowls, and those without broken bowls stretched out their dirty hands to beg from the people sitting in the carriage.

"Sir, please do me a favor and reward me with a few coins. You will be rewarded for being a good person. In the new year, you will definitely be promoted and make a fortune..."

These gentlemen and ladies in carriages also go out to visit relatives and friends on the first day of the New Year.

Next to the carriage, there were a bunch of servants and servants shouting and shouting.

When stopped by so many beggars, if they meet those who are good-tempered, in a good mood, and like to hear auspicious words, they will ask the servants to reward each of these beggars with three or five pieces of gold.

If they encounter someone with a bad temper, they will immediately order the servants to drive away the beggars.

The beggars who were dispersed fled in all directions, but they were reluctant to flee. When the grumpy adult left, they had to gather here again to continue begging for money.

If I catch up with the ladies of any house who want to do meritorious deeds, they will escape to a bowl of hot porridge or two white-flour steamed buns to fill their stomachs!

So every year during the first lunar month, almost all the beggars and homeless people in Wanghai County gather at this intersection.

"In the past, I only heard about this phenomenon when my second brother and eighth sister were chatting. I didn't believe it at the time, but I didn't expect to see it with my own eyes this year."

Yang Ruoqing said, looking for that small figure in the crowd.

"Hey, it really is them!" Yang Ruoqing then found the little girl from yesterday in the crowd.

The little girl followed behind her mother, who held her tightly with one hand and stretched out toward the carriage with a broken bowl in her other hand.

The beggars around them pushed the mother and daughter around. Everyone was pushing forward desperately for the three melons and two dates.

All demeanor and magnanimity are nonsense in this situation. The best thing to do is save a few pennies and wait for the shop to open in a few days to buy buns and steamed buns to eat.

In the chaos, Yang Ruoqing witnessed a male beggar push Erya's mother to the side, and another man hit Erya's head with his elbow.

Erya's face changed immediately, she raised her hands to cover her head and started crying in pain.

Her mother was still struggling at first, and the male beggar was struggling with her. When she heard her daughter crying, she quickly turned around and looked at her condition.

At this moment, the male beggar took advantage of the situation and occupied the position of Erya and her daughter, and surrounded the front of the carriage to beg.

"Erya, what's wrong with you? Did you get hit?" The woman leaned down and looked at Erya and asked anxiously.

Erya cried and raised her little finger to point at a beggar in front of her: "That uncle hit my head and it hurt. It hurts so much, mother..."

Erya Niang turned around and looked at the male beggar who hit her daughter, then turned around helplessly. She raised her hand and gently rubbed Erya's head.
Chapter completed!