The Story of a Young Man Who Traveled Through Time and Space to Farm

Chapter 16

Finally, while alternating between killing pigs and grinding tofu, Zhang Wuliang welcomed his first Laba Festival in another world. There are two activities in the Laba Festival in Taohe Village: cooking Laba porridge and worshiping ancestors.

Worshiping ancestors and gods on Laba Day is a sacrificial ritual that has existed since ancient times. Legend has it that it is to pray for a good harvest and good luck.

Eating Laba porridge is to commemorate a loyal minister and general of the Jin Dynasty: Li Rong. The previous Jin Dynasty was a dynasty with a highly prosperous commodity economy, cultural education, and scientific innovation in history. It’s a pity that the emperors valued culture over military.

In the last years of the Jin Dynasty, the northern barbarians marched south, and the border troops were vulnerable. In less than three months, the northern barbarians had reached the capital of the previous dynasty, Ganzhou. The royal family of the Jin Dynasty fled south in a hurry and moved the capital to Jiangnan.

At that time, Li Rong, the general of Huaihua, insisted on fighting against the barbarians and conquered Yingcang. The next year, he was appointed as the governor of Cangzhou and vowed to go north to conquer the Central Plains. That year, Li Rong led his troops to fight against the barbarians in Zhuxian Town. It was the coldest time of the year. Li's army was poorly fed and froze. The people sent porridge one after another. Li's army had a full meal of "Thousands of Porridge" sent by the people, and finally returned with a great victory.

This day was the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. After Li Rong's death, in order to commemorate him, people cooked porridge with grains, beans and fruits every eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, which eventually became a custom.

It's a pity that the famous general died young before his ambitions were fulfilled. After Li Rong's death, the Jin Dynasty had run out of luck and fell apart in less than two years, with various princes separatist.

For twenty years, wars broke out everywhere and people were living in misery. It was not until Han Yejin, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, emerged, conquered the princes in the south and the barbarians in the north, recovered the lost territory and unified the world, that the people left their homes and lived in fear.

Standing in the Zhang's ancestral hall, Zhang Wuliang listened to the clan leader Zhang Zhengyang reading the obscure and profound prayers, and couldn't help but sigh that fortunately he didn't travel to the time of great turmoil.

Otherwise, with his small body, he wouldn't know how he died.

However, the protagonists of those time-travel novels either travel to troubled times to become kings or emperors, or travel to noble families to be appointed generals and given titles, so why did he travel to a rural boy?

Could it be to make tofu? Zhang Wuliang followed the instructions of the clan leader and knelt down, while he began to think about life. He probably doubted his life because he had been making tofu all day these days.

Until the sacrifice was over, Zhang Wuliang hadn't figured out the reason. Looking at Zhang Zhenyong beside him, who was thinking about Laba porridge but had to suppress his excitement because the sacrifice had just ended, Zhang Wuliang breathed a sigh of relief. Life is one day at a time, and the boat will naturally straighten out when the time comes. Why think so much?

Zhang Wuliang and his companion returned to the Zhang family compound. The Laba porridge that Aunt Zhao and Chen Xiaonian had prepared early was also cooked. The fragrance was overflowing, which made people's appetites grow. Aunt Zhao served each of them a bowl.

Zhang Wuliang took a spoon to stir the Laba porridge in the bowl. The ingredients were extremely rich, but it was not exactly the same as what Zhang Wuliang ate when he was a child. In modern times, most of the Laba porridge cooked in the village when Zhang Wuliang was a child would be added with water chestnuts, water chestnuts, walnut kernels, pine nuts, Euryale, red dates, chestnuts, fungus, green vegetables, enoki mushrooms, etc., and green vegetables and oil could be added to make salty porridge.