Hometown sugar mill
Fengyū-hsiang
My hometown is in Baihe Town, Dongxing District, Neijiang City. White Crane is a name that sounds beautiful.
Whenever it rains, people in my hometown like to say a very rhyming witticism: the more it falls, the heavier it falls, it falls to the eighth day of the new year; The lower it is, the smaller it gets, and the lower it goes, the lower it gets.
Now, of course, I know that this is nothing more than a joke from humorous folks to God. But when I was a child, what I liked the most was the real "sugar mill", that is, the season when the sugar mill in the town began to squeeze sugar cane and boil syrup. It's a sweet time, a warm time, a time full of joy.
Because at this time, we have sweet sugar cane to eat. When I was a teenager, there weren't many families in town who could afford to buy fruit to eat. As a result, sugarcane is considered an important fruit. In the early winter of sugarcane production, the family gnaws on sugarcane around a basket of bagasse, which is full of joy like a "tooth sacrifice". With the clattering rhythm, the sweet and cold juice flowed down the throat, the squeezed bagasse spit out from the white tooth red mouth into the basket, and the wonderful dopamine rose from the bottom of the heart, adding infinite sweetness and happiness to the bitter life at that time.
When the sugar mill started, the production teams around the town began to harvest the sugarcane, which was then transported to the sugar mill for sale. At that time, white sugar and brown sugar were planned to be supplied and had to be purchased with a ticket. Growing sugarcane for farmers is also a mandate of the government. Each production team had to set aside one or two plots of land for planting. The entrance of Baihe Town is the only way for several brigades and dozens of production teams to transport sugarcane to the sugar mill. I have a group of teenage friends in the town, and we often wait at the entrance of the town to get sugar cane to eat.
We call sugarcane "sugarcane", that is, from the bundles of sugarcane transported by farmers, blatantly draw one or half a root to eat. To put it bluntly, it is "cutting the path" and "robbing". But the children don't think it's a "robbery" behavior, it's more like a more thrilling naughtiness. Because we don't want much, at most one cane, half of it. Our little gang is full of boys, no girls. Because although the little girl is willing to share the sweetness of sugar cane, she disdains to "commit crimes" with us.
Generally speaking, there are only several forms of sugarcane transportation for farmers: people pick, "chicken carts" push, "horse racks" to carry, and carts to pull.
The sugarcane that people carry is not very easy to "smoke". Because it is usually tied up tightly, it is difficult to twitch. And the sugarcane picked vertically is basically impossible to start. In addition, it is easy for people who pick sugarcane to put their burdens down, and look at each other angrily, so that ordinary children will not dare to do it.
My friends and I prefer to use a chicken cart to push sugarcane, especially the one that is "single". A strong man in a chicken cart can push three to four bundles of sugarcane, weighing one or two hundred pounds. There is a lot of sugar cane, and it is inconspicuous to smoke one or two. The man with the cart is busy on the road, and he doesn't care so much when you pump him one and a half. We sometimes cunningly devise to "smoke sugar cane" by turning the tiger away from the mountain. Let a child with fast legs start and run away with one of them. If the cart man drops the cart and runs away, the kid next to us, pretending to be honest, rushes up and takes more sugar cane. The child who was the first to smoke the sugar cane saw that he was about to be overtaken, so he threw the sugar cane and fled empty-handed. He knew he could share the sugar cane that other kids smoked. Naturally, the chaser would not chase again, so he took the lost sugar cane and returned to the car. When I saw the sugarcane bundle that was pumped loosely, I realized that I had been fooled. So, the annoyed man would curse a few words with hatred, quickly bundle the sugar cane, and push the cart to squeak and squeak.
And the clever cart man resolutely did not chase, and it was a big deal to lose a sugar cane. There are also people with a particularly high emotional intelligence, who know that they will meet naughty children, and prepare a few pieces of sugar cane in advance. Don't wait for us to do it, take the initiative to "bribe". Partners often feel victorious without a fight, whistling happily and smunching on sugar cane in a smug manner.
Most of the people in the town have relatives and friends in the nearby villages. We love and hate the sugar cane we meet with acquaintances. What I love is that most acquaintances will take the initiative to send one; Hate it, I'm embarrassed to start pumping two more. Ahem, no matter what, there's always something to gain. As a result, there is always more joy than chagrin.
When the farmer's sugar cane is almost sold and there is nothing to do with the "cutting path", we children will gather at the sugar mill. There you can pick up a lot of sugarcane skins and bagasse, which are good firewood when dried.
The sugar mill in Baihe Town is about a kilometer from the town, and the tall and tireless smoke chimney can be seen in the distance, making people imagine a giant lying on the ground, swallowing an inexhaustible cigar in his mouth. The sweet smell of boiling syrup wafted through the air, pulling us over like an invisible giant hand. Before he could get closer, he heard the cheerful roar of the machine pressing sugar cane and saw the white steam rising from the syrup factory. In the eyes of our group of children, this huge monster-like sugar mill is full of movement, music is played everywhere, full of vitality everywhere, and full of vitality everywhere.
This sugar mill is semi-mechanized, so to speak, half earth, half ocean. Sugarcane extraction is basically mechanized. However, the sugarcane is loaded onto the conveyor belt by hand. On the hill-like pile of sugarcane, two people lifted the bundles of sugarcane, threw them onto the conveyor belt, cut the strips of the sugarcane with a knife, and the sugarcane obediently followed the conveyor belt and drilled into the first press. Most of the sugar cane juice flows down the cane juice tank under the machine to the huge pot in the boiling room. After the first juicing, it is necessary to re-squeeze. The remains of the sugarcane that had been pressed once were flattened, but still largely formed. But the suffering of sugar cane is not over, and they are pushed into the second press with no choice but to make it. The gap in this roller is obviously smaller, and the remaining sugarcane juice continues to be extracted. Then there is a third press and powder and broken bones, and the last one that comes out is already completely squeezed, crushed, snow-white bagasse.
The bagasse is continuously poured onto the hill of bagasse through an upward conveyor belt. There are two bagasse balers, operated by hand, that compress and pack bagasse into huge "sugar cubes" that are at least one meter square. And these heavy "sugar cubes" were transported by Jiefang trucks to Gaoqiao Paper Mill, 30 kilometers away. It was there that the bagasses were reborn, reborn, and turned into white exercise book paper. I often have a wonderful feeling at the thought that sugar cane will come back to me in a different way.
I like to watch the whole production process of the sugar mill, and I think that human beings are amazing, turning humble sugar cane into a sweeter fatal temptation.
The syrup factory is a place I love more. This sugar room is very special, it is not fully enclosed, but only three parties are enclosed. I can see the whole process from the outside. There are 5 huge cement pools in the factory with a heat wave. The white vapor, full of affection and honey, is thick on the pool, drifting into the air, flying far, far away. At the bottom of each pool is a pot, and below that is a huge burning hearth, and one can hear the dull roar of coals burning closely. From my point of view, from right to left, it's the process of concentrating sugar cane juice into syrup. In the pool on the far right, it can only be said to be sugar water. Each pool to the left will be thicker than the other. On the far left is the syrup that is close to the finished product.
Neijiang Sugar Factory Sugar Workshop (Source: Invest in Sichuan)
There is a worker on the edge of each pool. Because the temperature around the pool was very high, they were still wearing short coats in the cold weather, showing their shiny and shiny muscles and bulging arms. The "weapon" they use is a large spoon with a handle several meters long. This spoon is both a utensil for stirring the syrup and a tool for scooping the syrup. From time to time, workers would scoop a small half spoonful of syrup and slowly pour it back into the pool to observe the consistency of the caramel-colored syrup. When the syrup in the leftmost pool is of the required quality, a giant bunker-like iron-gray metal cooling tank is piped in. Then, the syrup in the second pool on the left is fed into the first pool; The syrup in the third pool on the left enters the second one, and so on. The syrup is boiled out day by day. The finished syrup will lie in a suffocating tanker and be transported to another factory to be reincarnated in a gorgeous way, turning into white sugar, brown sugar or edible alcohol.
My friends and I like to watch the workers scoop up the syrup. Smell the sweet smell, swallow your saliva, look at the pool full of syrup, and imagine that sweet taste. I've tasted the finished syrup, and it's a little greasy. In the summer, it is a must-have to be poured over a cold cake made of rice.
Having seen enough of squeezing sugar cane and boiling syrup, we leaned our backs against the gray brick walls on either side of the huge stove door and warmed ourselves on the hot bricks. While watching the work of the bagasse packers from afar, he was in a longmen formation such as "Li Pulling" in the open sky. It wasn't until dusk that we picked up the basket full of sugar cane skins and hopped towards the town.
Today, the sugar mill in his hometown of Baihe Town has long since disappeared. But the fireworks, the sweetness of childhood, the creaking of the chicken cart pushing the sugar cane to the sugar mill, still lingers in my heart from time to time.
END
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Please indicate: "Source: Fang Zhi Sichuan"
Source: Sichuan Provincial Office of Local Chronicles
Author: Feng Youxiang (a native of Neijiang, Sichuan, graduated from the Department of Economics, Sichuan University. Senior editor, member of Sichuan Writers Association. He used to be the chief editor of Sichuan Daily, the executive deputy editor-in-chief of West China Metropolis Daily, the editor-in-chief of Sichuan Rural Daily, and the master's tutor of Wenxin College of Sichuan University. His works include "Stay Away from the Crisis", "Opportunity is Planted", "Jiaozi", "Queen of Shu", "The Complete Biography of the King of Shu", "Su Muji", and the essay collection "Feihong Snow Mud" will be published soon)
Contributed by: Neijiang Municipal Party History and Local History Research Office
Pictured: Fang Zhi Sichuan