Light snow fell in the sky, and the snowflakes melted when they fell on the ground, and the ground was wet. Melting snow sucks heat from the air, making it feel even colder, and the humidity in the air makes it impossible for people to wear cold clothes. Business is booming in the business district of Shanghai North Railway Station, which has become the center of the south, and has the busiest time of the year.

The Spring Festival is approaching, and people are embarking on the road back to their hometowns.

I don't know when the word Spring Festival appeared in people's dictionaries. Liu Muchen, who works in the Shanghai Glass Factory, followed the crowd of people returning to his hometown and came to the Shanghai Railway Station. Liu Muchen, whose hometown is in Yuezhou, has been in Shanghai for four years. Because the old family has a lot of land and little land, since the government launched the unified charter farm system, Liu Muchen, who had been farming for generations, was eliminated because of poor farming skills, was dismissed from the tenant, and became a landless homeless person.

Liu Muchen went to sign up for the army, but he was screened out at the recruitment office on the grounds that he failed the physical examination and was not suitable for enlistment.

The conscription failed, Liu Muchen had to go to Wuchang to do odd jobs, but the shops in Wuchang City were full, Liu Muchen lived on the streets of Wuchang for five days, he couldn't find a job at all, and the family lost their source of livelihood.

"It's better to go forward, although you can't eat enough, but you won't starve to death! The proprietor did not dare to quit casually. But today, a group of court heroes became the owners, and they actually quit us! Liu Muchen scolded indignantly, he still missed the Manchu Qing Dynasty, although he couldn't eat enough at that time, but the rich land of Huguang would not starve to death. And Liu Muchen didn't like the Ming Dynasty at all, because when he was very young, Zuo Liangyu, the general of the Ming Dynasty, once came to Huguang to loot, and the ruthlessness of the robbery was more ruthless than the thieves and the thieves!

Later, the Qing army came to Huguang, especially Hong Chengchou, so that Huguang was stabilized and the people would not starve to death. In particular, the large-scale cultivation of sweet potatoes later led to a sharp increase in the rural population.

However, during the Kangxi period, most of the common people were black households that had not been included in the household registration, and the reason was that the gentry reduced taxes, and many ordinary people hung in the fields of the gentry. In real history, it was the officials and gentry of Yongzheng who paid the grain in one way, which eliminated the black households, and in just seven years, the population on the household registration increased sixfold! It is obviously impossible for the population to increase sixfold in seven years, because the black households are registered in the household register.

And Liu Muchen actually belongs to a black household. After Wang Yu conquered Huguang, he began the census, and also adopted the method of paying taxes as a whole for the officials and gentry to clean up all the black households. However, when Liu Muchen's family's status as a black household was canceled, it also meant that the family lost their income and starved and frozen.

Just when the family was facing the fate of starvation, there was no end to the road, and I heard that the factories in Jiangnan and Shanghai recruited workers, as long as they entered the factories to work, they would have at least one or two silver wages every month.

So Liu Muchen sold the house and sent his young children to his father-in-law's and mother-in-law's house, while he took his wife and followed the team of displaced people all the way to Shanghai. He found a job in a Shanghai glass factory, and his wife found a job in a Shanghai spinning factory.

Liu Muchen was in the Shanghai Glass Factory, and at the beginning he had a salary of one or two silver per month. Later, after the paper money was issued, his salary gradually rose to three yuan, five yuan, and now ten yuan a month.

The money saved every year can be sent back to your hometown through bank remittance to provide for your children's life, and also subsidize the parents-in-law's family life. Bank remittance is a good method, whether it is Nanyang Bank or Jiangnan Bank, both accept remittance business. As long as you go to the bank counter to make a remittance and deposit the money in the bank, the bank will be responsible for delivering the remittance slip to your hometown by mail boat, and there will be a special postman who will be responsible for delivering the remittance slip to each village. When people in their hometowns receive the remittance slip, they can go to the bank and withdraw cash.

At first, Liu Muchen didn't dare to imagine that the bank could send money to his home. Later, he saw that everyone else also went to the bank to transfer money, so he also had the courage to go to the bank for the first time to remit a dollar. As a result, a month later, the family wrote back that they had received the remittance. Later, Liu Muchen trusted the bank, saved money every few months, and remitted it back. Every time I send money back, my family will reply to me.

Several times for the Chinese New Year, Liu Muchen, who had money, wanted to go home, but the distance was far away and the cost of the journey was expensive, so Liu Muchen had to give up the idea of going home for the New Year.

Since the advent of railways and steam locomotives, the road home has become much easier. Originally, from Shanghai to Yuezhou, take a freight merchant ship sailing on the Yangtze River, it takes half a month to get home, and you have to pay the owner more than ten yuan for the boat, go home, just go back and forth for a month, plus live at home for a period of time, it takes at least two months to go back and forth, the two take their little daughter born in Shanghai home, the travel fee is at least 60 yuan, and they have to take two months off, the two of them together will lose more than 100 yuan, this money is enough for ordinary peasant families to live for several years, Liu Muchen was really reluctant to go back.

Now that he has trains and ships, Liu Muchen has heard that when he returns home from Shanghai, he will take a train to Nanjing first, which will only take one night. When you arrive in Nanjing, you can take a ship to Wuhan for only three days and two nights, and after arriving in Wuhan, you can take a night train to Yuezhou, and you can arrive in Yuezhou in the early morning.

In this way, it only takes three days and four nights to go home, and the train has cheap third-class cars, and the ship has cheap cabins, and the prices are very cheap, Shanghai to Nanjing only costs five cents of silver, Nanjing to Wuhan two silver dollars, Wuhan to Yuezhou only needs three cents of silver, all the travel expenses add up to less than three yuan, and the young daughter can also get free tickets.

What's more, Liu Muchen, who has become a skilled worker, also has annual leave, he hasn't been home for four years, and he got a month off during the Spring Festival.

Ordinary workers do not have annual leave, they work very hard, their wages are very low, and they are brutally exploited by the capitalists. But after becoming a skilled worker like Liu Muchen, the boss was afraid that they would change jobs, so he tried to improve their welfare as much as possible, not only with high wages, but also with easy work, building one day a week, holidays during the holidays, and annual leave during the Spring Festival.

"The round-trip fare, two people are only twelve yuan, and after a week on the way back and forth, there are more than 20 days to spend the Spring Festival at home, why not go home?" So Liu Muchen decided to take his wife and his youngest daughter born in Shanghai this year to embark on a journey home together.

Speaking of her youngest daughter, she hasn't been back to her hometown yet.