"Is this Tanggou Town?"

Li Chaosheng looked at the mud and thatched house in front of him, which was almost 90% made of yellow mud. The corner of his mouth twitched. This must be too poor.

"Yes, sir, this is Tanggou Town."

The owner of the car said, after hearing this, Li Chaosheng took down the box, took out a silver cake and handed it to the owner of the car. The owner of the car quickly thanked him profusely and ran away in the car.

He made a lot of money on this trip. Normally, for a trip to Tanggou Town, he would only charge 20 cash at most, and one penny of silver would be 100 cash, which is a five-fold difference.

This is equivalent to a taxi trip that originally cost 20 yuan, but the customer paid 100 yuan. I am not happy.

Five times the profit was enough for him to risk a trip to Tanggou Town.

With this money, if you buy rice and noodles, you won’t have to worry about going hungry for at least a week, and you can even have some money left over to buy some meat to satisfy your cravings.

"It's really a remote place, but it's okay, I'm mentally prepared."

Li Chaosheng carried the box and walked towards the town below. The children on the road looked timid when they saw Li Chaosheng hiding behind trees or beside stacks of firewood.

The Ming Dynasty implemented the household registration system and strictly controlled the population, so the population rarely moved around. Therefore, a stranger coming to a village would attract a crowd of people to watch.

Although the household registration system was no longer so strict in the late Ming Dynasty, it was still rare for a stranger to come to Xiangtanggou Town, especially a person like Xiang Li Chaosheng, who was gorgeously dressed and had a noble temperament.

Don't be confused, Li Chaosheng's seemingly simple Confucian shirt can really only be described as luxurious, because this place is really too poor, and the further you go, the poorer it gets.

An old man with a sallow face and skinny muscles, a child who has no clothes and can only run around naked on the street, a man with a disheveled face, wearing patched clothes everywhere, a man as thin as a stick.

Along the way, everyone looked at Li Chaosheng with the expression of looking at a novel creature, their eyes full of curiosity and fear.

Li Chaosheng looked at these people as if he were seeing African refugees on the news network. They looked like malnourished people who had not had enough to eat for a long time.

In fact, it is not surprising. We are now in the Little Ice Age at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Food is getting worse year by year and the harvest is poor. Greedy landlords and the court have not reduced taxes. As a result, farmers who could barely make a living in the past have become what they are now.

The look of not having enough to eat.

And this situation is getting worse. This is Shaanxi, and the situation here will be more serious next year. This time Li Chaosheng went back to investigate. The era he traveled through was 1627. Emperor Tianqi should be dying soon, and the eighteen-year-old Emperor Chongzhen is about to ascend the throne.

.

Next year, in 1628, a major disaster will occur in Shaanxi, and the earliest wave of peasant uprisings will begin. This era will also be completely turbulent. In fact, if the people can have enough to eat, who will rebel?

Li Chaosheng was thinking, and then a tall and thin middle-aged man came towards him, holding a hoe for shoveling the ground, looking at Li Chaosheng.

"Who are you looking for?"

The middle-aged man wore a piece of burlap clothing with six or seven patches patched on it, especially the knees and elbows, which were often worn. He also wore a pair of broken straw sandals.

Li Chaosheng looked at the middle-aged man in front of him and followed the ancient gesture of bowing with his left hand and clasping his right fist and said: "Hello, big brother, my name is Li Chaosheng. I am the son of Li Jindao. I came back today to recognize my ancestor."

"Li Jindao?"

The middle-aged man was stunned after hearing this, looked at Li Chaosheng and said, "Are you the second uncle's son?"

"Second uncle, who are you?"

Li Chaosheng looked at the tall and lanky young man in front of him and asked. After hearing this, the lanky young man said: "If what you said is true, I should be considered your cousin. My name is Li Chaolong."

Li Chaolong, when Li Chaosheng heard this name, he immediately thought of the information in the genealogy. He was quite chivalrous. In the ten years of Chongzhen, he organized the villagers to kill the soldiers who brought harm to the people, and then disappeared.

"You wait a moment, I'll call the clan leader."

Li Chaolong glanced at Li Chaosheng, then ran to call the clan leader. According to the genealogy records, the clan leader of this generation should be Li Chaolong's father, Li Jindao's eldest brother Li Jinli.

Not long after Li Chaolong walked, he heard a rush of footsteps in the distance, and at the same time he heard someone talking there.

"Brother Jin Dao's son is back. Alas, it has been decades since Brother Jin Dao went to sea to seek immortality, and there is no news at all. I thought I would never hear anything about him in this life."

"Yes, yes, how many years has it been? I was only eighteen years old at that time."

A group of people rushed over to this place, and soon Li Chaosheng saw a group of people surrounding them. The leader was an old man with a goatee, a stooped waist, and leaning on a stick.

This old man's identity is unusual at first glance, because he is the only one among so many people who only has one patch on his body, and it is very small. It is on his left knee. What can I say about the others? In modern times, beggars wear better clothes than they do.

much better.

There are small patches sewn on top of big patches, and small patches on top of small patches. Sometimes there is really no room to sew, so a knot is tied with a rope on the clothes.

A group of people gathered around. The old man at the head looked at Li Chaosheng standing there. He was startled for a moment, mainly because he didn't expect that Li Chaosheng could wear a Confucian shirt. This is only worn by gentlemen. Then he believed it in his heart.

A few points.

This kid is probably Li Jindao's son. Otherwise, who's son would go to a remote place like his to entertain paupers like himself and come here to recognize the ancestors of a bunch of paupers?

Moreover, the matter of recognizing one's ancestors and returning to the clan is a big deal in this era, and no one makes fun of it.

"You, are you a child of Jindao?"

The old man's voice was trembling. Li Chaosheng nodded and said, "Well, who are you, old man?"

"I, I am your uncle."

The old man shouted with tears in his eyes, and Li Chaosheng's face straightened and he said, "Are you Li Jinli?"

"That's right, that's right. I am Li Jinli. I am your uncle! My child."

The old man rushed towards Li Chaosheng with a stick, and Li Chaosheng quickly supported him: "Slow down."

The old man held Li Chaosheng's hand and refused to let go. At this time, Li Chaolong on the side said: "Dad, a token."

The old man wiped his tears and said: "Yes, my child, your father asked you to come back to recognize your ancestors and return to the clan. Didn't you come back with any tokens?"

After hearing this, Li Chaosheng was stunned for a moment, then he remembered the copper lock, and Li Chaosheng took it out directly.

The old man took it tremblingly, and then carefully took out a copper lock wrapped in blackened red cloth from his arms. There were two copper locks in a pair, and they fit tightly.

The old man burst into tears instantly: "Jin Dao, it's Jin Dao."
Chapter completed!