Saratov Province, the northernmost province of the Truchen Empire.

Khalensk, the northernmost county in Saratov Prefecture.

The Volga River flows here, still wide and deep, and large warships can also reach here.

In the autumn of 1775, the busy farming season came, and middle school students took a week of busy farming holidays to let them go home to help harvest crops.

Here, wheat and rye can be grown. After Truchen got it here, he even arranged corn. Of course, as an ordinary farmer, it is common to grow some tobacco in this vegetable field.

Near Khwalensk, there are hills and mountains, and most of the farmers in the county live on the plains on the right bank of the Volga River.

Chikov, a forty-year-old Russian serf, completed the harvest in five days with the help of his two children. Seeing that there were two days of vacation and the weather was clear and cool, he took his son into the nearby forest to hunt.

Compared with Kazakhstan and Mongolian grasslands, the southern forest grassland area, which is deeply affected by the warm and humid air currents of the Atlantic Ocean, is much more comfortable.

Large tracts of grasslands, fertile black soil, layered birch forests, pine forests, mountain oak forests, various fish that seem to never be caught in the river, and all kinds of wild deer, boar, and black bears in the forest.

Hunting is the favorite of the Russians, whether it is a noble, a landlord, or a serf.

Of course, if it were under the rule of Tsarist Russia in the past, Chikov would rarely have this leisure.

According to the Tsar's regulations, serfs had no land and could only farm for the landlords and obtain food that could barely fill the family's stomach.

That's not all. They need more than half a year to serve various corvee labor for the country every year, so naturally they don't have much time to do hunting, which is both nervous and excited, and can also subsidize family activities.

Nowadays, in Europe, the entire Eastern Europe, including Poland, the Baltic Eastern Coast countries, Austria, and most of the German countries except Prussia are similar. They have a large number of serfs, but they are just trying to squeeze them out.

In comparison, Poland's serfs are the worst, Russia is second, and Austria is again (mainly targeting the Slavs in the territory).

Other countries are better. The agricultural taxes in Britain and France are similar to those in Truchen, both of which are 20%. However, they still have a lot of corvee labor. For example, in the UK, which is the most industrially developed in Europe, their farmers need to serve three to four days of labor every week.

In addition, almost all countries also have a wide range of head taxes, car and horse taxes, house taxes, and a large number of indirect taxes unique to the UK.

Of course, due to the developed industry in the UK, as an industry driven to factories, the living standards are indeed better than those of ordinary Europeans. In addition to supporting a family, their wages can still be left with ten pounds a year, which is equivalent to thirty taels of silver.

However, since a large number of taxes are reflected in the price, the actual purchasing power of thirty taels of silver is questionable.

As for Spain, Portugal and other countries, they are between serfdom and Western European countries. Due to the strong religious atmosphere in these countries, a large number of fields are occupied by the church, and a large number of farmers would rather beg near the church than farm.

This has led to beggars everywhere in these countries.

Truqin is different. Each household has at least 30 acres of land, and each household is charged 20% of the taxes every year. There is no corvee service at all, only half of the military service, that is, militia. During the service, militias need to go to the city to train for three months.

When they were in the military, they did not spend more than carrying their own clothes.

Of course, during the busy farming season, they can also go home in batches for a week.

In the farm where Chikov is located, serfs, Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans each account for one quarter, with a total of one hundred households. This arrangement is highly unified in the empire, and even places dominated by pastoral areas are no exception.

Although a little nervous, after five years, Chikov was obviously not nervous.

Otherwise he wouldn't have the time to go out to hunt.

The serfs who remained were obviously extremely poor. For them, instead of following the Russians to the north of Simbirsk Province (later Ulyanovsk Prefecture), it is better to stay here and have a gamble.

Chikov bet right.

In five years, he had exchanged surplus grain for two old horses. He bought it in the animal husbandry market outside Kwarensk. Although these two horses were marked as "old horses", he raised horses for landlords while farming. As a veteran of grooms, it would not be a problem to use them for another five years.

Raising horses is extremely food-intensive, and raising a good horse is even more difficult. Chikov bought two horses in one go, and you can imagine the living standards of Truchen farmers today.

Not only that, these two horses are male and female. They came to give birth to a foal for him. Now they are two years old and usually become the mount of his daughter Yulia.

It was the morning of one day when I walked out of the village on horseback.

Outside the village, a crop is being harvested. In recent years, Chikov has also roughly understood some of the characteristics of other families.

Without looking around, he knows what others are doing.

Sure enough, when passing by a field that had not yet been harvested, Yeon Se-chung and his wife from North Korea brought the only one, Yoon Se-ta, who also returned from the school, was still harvesting rye.

In his impression, the Koreans were very hardworking and timid, and were unwilling to take the initiative to buy large animals to farm, nor were unwilling to accept help from others.

"It's just to save a few meals"

When passing by them, Chikov curled his lips and thought to himself.

I passed by a field that had been harvested long ago. The wheat piles in the fields were neatly tidy, and two people were practicing martial arts.

"Two sluts!"

Chikov is a little disdainful.

The man who was about forty years old who was playing with a knife in the field was Seiichiemon from Kyushu Island, Japan. He was a ruined samurai, but he was only about 1.5 meters tall. His son Seitaro, his son Xie Miao, and his daughter Yulia were classmates, both of whom were around fourteen or fifteen years old.

When Chikov thought of the ugly hairstyle that Seiichiemon had just arrived here, he felt disgusted.

After the Japanese came here, most of the samurai family would pass the kendo to their son. Although Seiichiemon is only 1.5 meters tall, there is a long sword that is almost the same height as his. Nowadays, in Japan, there are not many such long swords. It is probably a single generation. Seiichiemon obviously does not want his "secret skill" to be interrupted by him.

So, once the son returns home, it must be urged to practice strictly.

Hsinichiemon was the first Japanese samurai to arrive here. When he arrived, his son Hsintaro was only ten years old. If he were still in Japan, Hsintaro would not be too tall, but now at the age of fifteen, he is almost the same as his father and his figure is almost the same.

This is naturally due to their ability to eat a full meal and have a good meal.

Seiichiemon and Chikov were all militiamen. When Chikov came over on horseback, the father and son stopped and bowed to him.

Chikov waved his hand immediately and left.

This made Seiichiemon a little angry, but he still held it back.

When approaching the outermost birch forest, there was a stream. There was a flat stone near the stream. People in the village mostly used it to dry food, but at this time there was a sound of reading.

Chikov can tell who it is without looking at it.

The autumn temperature in Kwarensk is only more than ten degrees Celsius, which is very comfortable for the Russians. It is still acceptable for the Japanese and Koreans, but it is a bit chilly for immigrants from Guangdong.

There are few trees by the stream and the sun is abundant. Zheng Ping'an, the son of Zheng Ashui, an immigrant from Huizhou Prefecture, Guangdong, read here in the morning.

Zheng Ping'an is also Xie Miao's classmate. When he first came, he was black and thin, but now he is a little fuller. He is a top student in the Hvarensk School. He studied in a private school when he was in Huizhou. He did some small business at home and was good at calculating. When he got here, he felt like he was in water.

Truqin's school is a new school. Although there are many, it is not all. What Zheng Ping'an is reading is neither ancient Chinese nor physical chemistry, but Russian.

For the Russians, Japanese, and Korean children here, learning Chinese is something they must do, and for the Chinese, they need to choose one from Russian, Turkic, German, French, and Spanish as their foreign language from middle school.

Zheng Ping'an chose Russian, and now he obviously regrets it a little. The difficult-to-read tongue sound in Russian makes him feel a little worse than death.

However, as Chinese, the only thing that cannot be troubled is their diligence. Studying in the morning with the warm sunshine by the stream has become a scene in the village.

Chikov did not show any sarcastic expression at this time.

He knew that Chinese are the most noble in the village, because the Mandarin that is popular all over the country is Chinese!

And scholars are still very popular in this empire. No matter what you do, if you have not read, you will have no future.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but point at Zheng Ping'an and said to Xie Miao: "See, if you have half of his efforts, you won't be in the class."

Xie Miao had golden curly hair. At this time, he was riding on the shorter mare, carrying a Chasic saber around his waist and a flintlock rifle on his back. He was a little dissatisfied after hearing his father's words.

"Zheng Ping'an is indeed amazing. Even our principal said that he is very likely to study at Truqin University, but so what? My sports and military achievements are much better than him!"

A ray of sunshine just shone on Xie Miao's freckled face, and even the thin fluff on his face was visible. Chikov picked up the horse whip and whipped him.

"Shut up, you little boy!"

The movements between father and son naturally affected Zheng Ping'an. If they were still in Guangdong, Zheng Ping'an would uphold the instigation of "real to the outside world and only read the books of sages throughout their lives and ignore them, but Truqin's education was obviously different from the Qing Dynasty.

He stood up, clasped his fists and gave a slight salute, and then greeted the father and son in broken Russian.

After being whipped by Chikov, Xie Miao became honest, "Zheng Ping'an, stop reading, go hunting with us in the forest. If you are lucky, you can still meet honey"

Zheng Ping'an was about to refuse, but then he thought, "We are surrounded by strong enemies. Although scholars have a high status, they still build the country with martial arts. Moreover, my mother always said that I am weak, so why not ride a horse to go to the forest to experience it"
Chapter completed!