The scene in Lujiang County is no different from last year. It's still the same cities and land, but it seems to have gradually changed.
The fires in Tieguan City were all set ablaze more than half a year ago. Over the entire Tucheng, heavy smoke and black ash drifted around day and night, and even the nearby treetops were covered with a layer of ash.
Yellow smoke is emitting from the cracks on the top of some earthen kilns, which are kilns for pre-smelting iron ore. More oval furnaces are Han Dynasty blast furnaces. There is black smoke rising from the top of each blast furnace, and four air vents are opened below.
, "Dang Dang Dang" driven by the water wheel is shaking, and the "murmur" sound of the wooden wheels is sour. People who just come here will not be used to it.
Some water drains were broken and needed to be replaced with new ones. Twenty or thirty villagers stayed nearby and took turns pulling the paddles until the water drains resumed operation.
The whole scene is like a factory workshop. But everything here existed in the Han Dynasty a hundred years ago, and there is almost nothing new now. It's just that the officials found experienced people and built new workshops here.
There is also a stove in the corner of the city. The charcoal fire below has been burned to the outside when the wind is blown. There is a large gray pottery vat placed high on it. After the cast iron is half-melted, it flows into the iron pool below. Several people
There they kept stirring with long iron rods, and some people sprinkled mixed mud powder into it.
Some of these stir-fried iron materials will be used to forge armor pieces. The county governor announced that the armor in the arsenal was not well preserved and needed to make a new batch of armor. However, most of the iron materials were sent directly to the blacksmiths in various cities and were immediately forged into pieces.
plowshare.
The Qubingtun of the county guard on the north bank of Shushui River was the first to use the Quyu plow.
Qi Da, a private soldier who had just returned from General Buqu's military camp, was the first to use the new plow at the beginning of this year.
At this time, he was walking along the path between the fields, looking at a piece of bamboo in his hand, and murmuring something.
The bamboo slip was given by the assistant teacher who taught, and there were several characters on it. Qi Da had to copy and memorize the strokes of these characters on the ground within fifteen days. He also had to remember how to pronounce them, and he would check them every month.
This was just Shuo Wang's errand. In addition, he had to walk one mile to the village the next day. If it rained, he would postpone it. There, he would train in lining up, using swords, spears, crossbows and other skills. He didn't care about food. It was almost noon and the village chief
I will ask everyone to go back.
But Qi Da had no complaints. In the deep winter, his face was glowing.
He really had nothing to be dissatisfied with the situation at this time. Thinking back to the winter before last, when his family was still a villager in Mintun. He remembered that it snowed and the family shivered from the cold at night. They had to work during the day.
By noon, I was already so hungry that my eyes were blurred.
At that time, the Qi family allotted more than 40 acres of land in Mintun (one step wide and 240 steps long. People calculate the area in units of one square step, and 240 units are one mu). There was Qi Da and his wife in the family.
, the unmarried second brother, plus the elderly and children, there are a total of six people, and the food left is not enough to last for a year.
The best fields are used to grow rice and wheat. When the weather is good and there are no natural disasters, one acre can be harvested every year, pounding more than two stones of rice (one stone is about thirty kilograms). The dry land on the slopes is mainly planted with beans, millet,
Hemp, mulberry, etc. He paid 60% to 70% of the land tax, and the remaining grain was not enough to eat.
Especially men like Qi Da, who have to work hard in the fields and work hard to serve more than 40 acres of land. They eat a lot, so they can only cook more vegetables and edible leaves and roots to fill their stomachs.
The women had no choice but to endure hunger and let the men eat more so that they could have the strength to work in the fields.
This is still a good year, but if there is a natural disaster, it will be even worse, and a lot of people will definitely die. Qi Da's younger brother Qi San suffered from waterlogging one year and starved to death in the winter.
As long as it is after the disaster year, some acquaintances will disappear quietly the next year, without even a funeral, just wrapping them up with a straw mat.
Qi Da's family didn't think about anything at that time. They only thought about eating. They tried their best to find something to eat. Sometimes when they saw a tree trunk, they wanted to go up and take a bite of the bark.
Until the county guard named Qin Liang took office, Qi Da felt like he was in a dream, and his life suddenly began to change. Qi Da was elected to the military camp of the county guard's department, and the Qi family's situation suddenly improved!
Qi Da still remembers what the tall, white-faced official said, with a northern accent, pointing at Qi Da and saying: "You go and register, you have good bones."
So the Qi family moved to the north bank of Shushui and were first divided into seventy acres of land.
At first, Qi Da's heart thumped, thinking that it was over, and he couldn't pay the land tax! There is no shortage of land in this world now, the main reason is the lack of people. There is too much land to cultivate, but the land tax is still the same.
Harvested by the number of acres!
But things were not at all what they thought. First of all, a steady stream of white rice was transported from Lu'an City and distributed directly to the soldiers. They were not borrowing, they were giving, and they did not say that they would return it.
It was winter at that time, and Qi Da, who had not much food left at home, immediately ate to his fill.
The next step is to build the walled city, restore the cultivated land, build canals, and collect manure for composting. Anyway, there is endless work, but there is also endless food.
No one told Qi Da why he had to do those jobs. Anyway, he just did what the village chief told him to do, and he did it every decimeter. While Qi Da was working, he also wondered whether the new county guard was stupid.
At the beginning of this year, the Qi family first got a strange plow. The village chief said that the thing belonged to the government. But the village chief did not ask for money or food. It was given to their family anyway (it is said that in the civilian villages, new plows and official oxen can only be used.
Rent together, and tax will be added). Qi Da used this plow to plow the land and found that it was very labor-saving and much easier to use than the original big plow. It turned out that seventy acres of land was not much.
In summer and autumn, Qi Da was surprised to find that one acre of land yielded three or four kilograms of rice and wheat!
What's even more amazing is that the field tax is still based on the number of stones collected per mu, and the field tax for soldiers' villages is lower than that for civilian villages. As time goes by, compared with before, part of the increased grain income per mu of land is not paid in field taxes.
No one in the government said anything, and no one said they wanted to raise taxes. As a result, Qi Da had enough to eat and drink every day, and there was still some food left over at home.
Sure enough, just outside the courtyard where the bamboos were made of mud, Qi Da met his wife who was returning from washing clothes. The wife just mentioned this matter: "I have seen the prefect. Is the prefect more confused than the previous officials? The villagers harvested more grain. He
Why didn’t we increase taxes?”
Qi suddenly laughed and said: "You don't know a single Chinese character, and you still say that the prefect is confused, haha!"
Although my wife is illiterate, she knows exactly how much food she eats from abroad, right down to how many liters of rice there are.
The wife looked puzzled.
Qi Da then said: "How many prefects have there been in Lujiang, and they have a group of eloquent military advisors under them, how can you compare with them? The prefect of Qin just wants us to be full, otherwise why did he transport so much grain last year?"
The wife asked: "Why does Qin Taishou do this?"
Qi Da blurted out: "You want us to sacrifice our lives! If we sacrifice our lives, then we must sacrifice our lives. Our lives are not worth anything anyway."
The wife said: "My husband suddenly understands the truth."
She suddenly said: "By the way, the stone under the threshold has writing on it. Isn't my husband literate?"
Qi Da didn't learn many words, but seeing that his wife thought of him so highly, he could only bite the bullet and read. There were several vague words on the stone, and Qi Da really knew three of them, so he read:
"The filial son (skip)..." He guessed, "Tomb!"
He immediately said: "This is a monument. It would be unlucky to place it here. It will be taken away soon."
The wife’s eyes widened: “My husband really knows how to read!”
Qi Da said disapprovingly: "I can't read, what should I write on the ground in my free time?"
At this time, the wife suddenly remembered something: "My sister-in-law is here." She immediately whispered, "She's here to borrow food. She just ate three bowls of rice, but she wasn't full yet. There was no more rice in the pot. She also drank the rice soup.
Most of it."
After hearing this, Qi Da said without hesitation: "There is a surplus of food this year, so we must help their family."
My wife looked a little reluctant, but she didn't say much.
As soon as Qi Da walked into the yard, he saw an unkempt young woman in shabby clothes, who was his sister. After eating three bowls of rice, the sister seemed to be in good spirits. When she saw Qi Da, she immediately showed a happy smile.
He shouted crisply: "Brother!"
The old father and younger brother were still working outside. When my mother heard the shouting, she also came out. All the young and old women gathered around Qi Da. Although he would be delayed from time to time and did not farm every day, everyone in the family knew that if he could
He had plenty to eat because Qi Da was working as a private soldier under the governor.
Qi Da first walked to the main room and sat down on the mat above. The posture he had learned in the military camp was very upright. He said seriously: "My sister went back and told my brother-in-law that the village asked you to pile dung, so go and learn to do it. Really?"
You can harvest more grain. You also rent that new plow, and then ask the village chief to allocate more land. There is no shortage of land everywhere. As long as you dare to ask for more, the village chief will dare to collect more land taxes. In the end, you will get more.
valley."
The younger sister nodded vigorously: "We listen to brother."
The wife said, "I'm going to cook some rice again. My husband will go to the ground after eating it."
When my wife went to the kitchen, my mother immediately stretched out her skinny hand and whispered: "How many meters can your sister carry on her back? You can carry more for her."
Qi Da simply said: "Call my brother-in-law next time. How much can this woman carry?"
When my sister heard this, she burst out crying "Wow".
My mother stretched out her hand and grabbed her, "When you get married, you are part of the family, and they will all be thinking about you."
Qi Da packed his sister's rice in a sack and put it in her bamboo-backed basket. Because she still had to walk a long way, Qi Da refused to keep her and sent her away from the village early.
Qi Da worked at home for more than a day. At dawn on the third day, he walked to the village again and practiced with the village chief as usual.
Not long after the sun rose, Qi Da saw a group of people riding horses. The handsome white-faced official wearing black official robes was the governor of Qin County!
The village chief hurriedly bent forward and bowed.
The county guard came here with a sword in his hand, clapped his horse, and said loudly and loudly: "You have never been in a battle formation, but remember my words. On a battle formation, a single person is just a pig and a sheep to be slaughtered! Only
Only by relying on the brothers around you, uniting, advancing and retreating together, and living and dying together can you win and save your life!"
The troops followed the garrison commander and shouted in response: "Here!"
The village chief cupped his hands and said, "Your servants must remember the Lord's instructions."
Qi Da had a good impression of the county governor and felt that he was a real person. Everyone knew it, even if they were not smart, they would always know whether they were hungry or not.
However, the county guard was in a hurry, said a few words, stood in the distance to watch for a while, and then left.