The Han Tribe's New Year's Day fell on the first day of the Fourteenth Month. It was now early in the Thirteenth Month, with three weeks still to go before the festival. A month after New Year's Day, spring farming would begin.
It was now the slack farming season, the time for everyone to hibernate through winter. With nothing to do at home, the common people had begun preparing their New Year's goods. The markets in every commandery and county had also grown lively. The pigs and sheep raised over the past year had all been slaughtered and brought to market, while the official grain stations were packed with people coming and going to buy food.
Of course, most of what they bought was not staple grain. Some specifically purchased things their households lacked, such as scarce millet, foxtail millet, and sesame. Others brought their own grain for processing, carrying wheat or corn to be milled into flour, or bringing soybeans and sesame to be pressed for oil.
Cloth was another hot-selling item during the New Year. Making new clothes every New Year was not only a way to seek an auspicious omen; it also showed that a household was living well. Without a surplus, where would they get the money to buy cloth?
Speaking of cloth, the bestsellers on the market now were colored cloth and patterned cloth, followed by wide cloth. As for ordinary plain cloth—fabric that had not been dyed—many households with spinning and weaving machines could make it themselves. But the dyeing process was still basically in the hands of the tribe.
Of course, ordinary people also dyed cloth themselves, but they lacked the funds to establish professional dyeing plants and equipment, so the colors they produced were not attractive. There were basically only three colors