At the beginning of February, it was already the time when all things were in turmoil, but Xiangyang had a heavy snowfall that was rare in a century. It was snowing heavily and covered with silver. But in July and August, the heat was unbearable, extremely hot, and the heat was so confusing.
.
It's September now, and the summer heat has not completely dissipated, but I don't know if this year will be a mild winter - there is probably no hope.
As soon as the sun sets, a market somewhere on the outskirts of Xiangyang County becomes busy.
Officials who had not appeared for a long time were dispatched one after another to purchase supplies.
They needed so much that they almost wiped out all the fruits, vegetables, poultry, eggs, wine, and water in the market.
The people who came to buy were dissatisfied, but they did not dare to make mistakes.
The market only opens once every half month, and people come from all over the country just to buy something? You bought all the food and drinks, what do you want everyone to do?
"I don't want to be so cruel. The holy cavalry has arrived in Xiangyang. There are tens of thousands of people, and they eat and drink a lot of money every day. I'm offended." A certain recorder who personally led the team said loudly.
When everyone heard this, they all lamented, seeing that it was still early, and planned to go a long way to another market to try their luck.
In the vegetable patch across the river, Yang Laoshi was pouring manure water on the vegetables while silently listening to the discussion.
He knew the people who went to the market. They were from Hebei, mainly craftsmen, working for a carriage workshop run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Xiangyang. Those who did not farm usually had to buy food. The market was held once every half month.
, if they were not short of money, they would come to buy some dried meat, eggs, dried fruits, rice wine, etc. Unexpectedly, they were overtaken by people from the government this time, so they were naturally very dissatisfied.
"Hebei barbarian!" Yang Laoshi spat.
He is from Huazhou, Kansai, and should be considered the first batch of immigrants in Xiangyang.
I think back then, when Zhe Linggong defeated the Zhao family and his son, and extended his power to Shannan East Road, Xiang, Ying, and Fuzhou were the first batch of immigrants to receive immigrants. And the source of immigrants was naturally Guanxi.
Yang Laoshi came here with his father. As for how many years he has been here, he can't remember clearly. Twenty years? Or thirty years?
After shaking his head, he gave up worrying about this problem. He couldn't even figure out his own age, so it was better not to think about these troublesome problems.
"Crash!" With a slight exertion on his wrist, the feces dispersed and disappeared into the vegetable patch, leaving only a disgusting smell, but Yang Laoshi had long been used to it and could no longer smell it.
After working for half an hour, he held a manure spoon and looked at the green vegetable patch with a sense of accomplishment.
This should be the last harvest of this year. After a few autumn rains, we can pick them up and sell them in the market.
"Yang Laoshi, you are pouring goods into the garden!" A burly man on the other side of the river scolded: "How can I collect your vegetables after pouring dung water?"
"Zhang Lushi." Yang Laoshi bowed and said with a silly smile, "This dish will take a while."
Zhang Lushi glanced at the vegetable patch and sighed: "In fact, you can pick it. But if you pour dung water on it, I don't dare to feed it to the warriors."
"The saint has arrived in Xiangyang?" Yang Laoshi asked.
Shengjia's inspection tour of Xiangyang is probably the most sensational news in the past month. The news spread all over the country, and even farm laborers like Yang Laoshi heard about it.
"Here we come." Zhang Lushi said, "It's a pity that I'm not qualified to come close. There are two people from your hometown who can meet the saint and maybe get some rewards."
"There is green smoke coming out of the ancestral graves." Yang Laoshi said with envy.
"Our ancestral graves are all in Huazhou. I'm afraid they have long been gone." Zhang Lushi said a "cold joke."
Yang Laoshi grinned stupidly.
No matter what other people think, he doesn't care much about these things. After his father died, he was buried on the land behind the village. From now on, this will be the ancestral grave of the Yang family in Xiangyang. As for his hometown in Huazhou, his memory has been blurred. The only thing he remembers is
It is the big elm tree at the end of the village where I played with my friends when I was a child.
It's a pity that among the seven or eight children who played together under the big elm tree, one went to the army and no news was heard. Even if he is still alive, he will probably never see him again; one was heard to have gone to Huaizhou, but no news was heard; two came to Huaizhou.
In Xiangyang, one of them was Yang Laoshi, and the other partner had contracted an illness and died during the land reclamation process.
The remaining playmates probably still stay in their hometown in Huazhou. From now on, we are far apart. When I think about it occasionally, a faint melancholy will surge up in my heart.
But no matter what, his current life is pretty good. The farm work is also very heavy. He works under the stars and the moon, and he is so tired that he falls asleep without thinking about anything else.
My hometown is a memory that is so far away that it cannot be traced back.
His four children, who grew up in Xiangyang, have no ancestral graves or big elm trees in their memories, only the plants and trees of their new home. Xiangyang is their hometown.
"Come and collect the vegetables next month, they will be gone this month." Yang Laoshi put away the manure scoop and said.
"The saint will leave next month." Zhang Lushi sighed.
He and Yang Laoshi were both from Zheng County, and were from the same township. His father had served as a Tutuan countryman and had made contributions in the war against the Xuanwu Army. He himself also had a wide network of friends, sophisticated people, and was even more literate in writing.
Got a job as an official in the county.
In just two generations, a small class difference has emerged, and they had the same starting point when they first immigrated. Perhaps, this is life.
Of course, as former compatriots, there is a sense of intimacy, and the relationship is always much closer than that between people from other places or even other counties - the same Kansai immigrants, those from the same state and those from Huazhou, of course have different degrees of closeness.
"What a pity." Yang Laoshi also sighed and said: "I vaguely remember that when I was a child, my family only had a few acres of land, and every time there was no harvest, I would eat leaves, wild vegetables, and mulberries. Now I can still eat enough to raise four children.
It’s all the work of saints.”
Zhang Lushi nodded.
This goes without saying. The family moved from Huazhou, a small and densely populated area, to Xiangyang, which is vast and sparsely populated. Of course, they can get more land. In fact, the newly moved people can still get a lot of land.
, but you need to open up wasteland yourself. Unlike the first batch of 20 or 30 years ago, due to the destruction of war, there is a large amount of ready-made land that can be distributed.
Opening up wasteland is really not a good thing.
Some people died inexplicably while driving, and no one knew what disease they had, so they could only be attributed to acclimatization.
But it won’t work if we don’t open up wasteland. People can’t live in the wilderness. Only by transforming swamps and woods into farmland can we gain the basis for survival.
Overall it's actually still a good thing.
There is no future for staying in Huazhou. All the local land that can be divided has been divided, and even the officials who have taken office do not have many positions to allocate land, which shows the tension of land.
Xiangyang is better. As long as the wasteland is transformed and rooted, there will be a foundation that can be passed down to future generations.
Zhang Lushi remembered the book "Zhizhi" that his younger son was reading. The population and land mentioned in the book were so on point that he couldn't help but pick it up and read it.
After reading it, I was bragging and chatting with my colleagues in the yamen. When I mentioned this matter, everyone thought it was true.
Most of my colleagues are also descendants of immigrants from Kansai. Now they have occupied a high position in Xiangyang and even the entire Xiang, Ying, Fu, Tang, Deng, and Sui six states. They have even gradually surpassed them due to various advantages including population.
Aboriginal people become local leaders.
The vast majority of people have a very high opinion of today, no less than their parents' generation. And this feeling of gratitude may last for one or two generations before it slowly disappears.
The saint is truly the first person in history and the present.
After sighing silently, Zhang Lushi waved his hand towards Yang Laoshi and said: "Since I have nothing to eat, I won't chat with you anymore."
After saying that, he left the river bank with his entourage and hurried to another place.
Yang Laoshi threw the dung scoop into the wooden bucket, then walked to the field edge, picked up a pole, picked up the two empty dung buckets, and walked back home.
The sun gradually rose, shining on the river like a jade belt.
Next to the quiet village, birds are flying and smoke is curling up.
A corner of the house was exposed among the green trees.
The children spoke with Kansai accents, playing and chasing each other.
Unknowingly, the southern states of Zhili Province, headed by Xiangyang, have become a pleasant place due to decades of hard work by immigrants.
****
Shao Shude has just finished meeting with dozens of township representatives from Xiangyang County.
Because of his special care, half of the people selected were very old first-generation immigrants, and half were second-generation immigrants born in Xiangyang.
When Shao Shude talked to them in his local accent, many people burst into tears. Although the young people did not have such deep feelings, they were also very sentimental.
The attachment to my hometown seems to be engraved in my bones.
When you are young, you are tired and working hard to make a living. This kind of emotion will be deeply suppressed. But when you get older, once you are free, you start to look for those memories that have long been blurred, and regard them as treasures, and from time to time
Take it out from the bottom of my heart and remember it.
Shao Shude knew that his immigration policy was unpopular and disgusted at least some people.
But after talking with these people and understanding their living conditions, he was very pleased.
As long as those who moved out did not die halfway or during the process of clearing wasteland, they would eventually reap a lot of fruits, and their resentment towards the court would disappear. As for the second generation born locally, after learning about the situation in their hometown from their parents, they were even more disappointed.
Be grateful - cultivating a few acres of land and cultivating dozens of acres are obviously two different lives.
The rising political power in Kansai generally only accepts Chang'an as its capital. If it had to choose another one, it would be Luoyang. It was once regarded as an extension of Kansai's power and was the easternmost capital acceptable to Kansai people.
After Daxia established its capital in Luoyang, it formulated a strict "colonial" plan in the Kanto region, which was to use the huge damage caused by Huang Chao and Qin Zongquan to preemptively immigrate to Meng, Huai, Luo, Ru, Zheng and Xiangyang.
Fill it up and make it an extension of Kansai's power to protect Luoyang, the divine capital.
I have immigrated for thirty years and achieved remarkable results.
Shao Shude was also very satisfied with this result.
As the hinterland south of Beijing, Xiangyang needs such a group of "own people" to deter the forces in Hedong, Hebei and even the south.
Don't say he is narrow-minded, that's just the way it is in this day and age.
People in Youzhou also feel that the Khitans are more reliable than the Jin people. The phenomenon of geographical fragmentation is far more serious than in later generations. After all, more than 90% of the people are illiterate, and many people still do not know the name of the country, the name of the reign, and who the emperor is.
Xiangyang was like this, which made him feel relieved.
On September 9th, the Double Ninth Festival, the whole army went into battle.
On the third day after the festival, Shengjia left Xiangyang and headed for Dengzhou. Xiangcheng Caoqu was his next stop.
