Early the next morning, Luo Yue received an order to pay attention to the protection investigation team to carry out investigation activities in the rural areas outside Tianjin. Because the Tianjin area is now basically under the control of the crossing group, there is not much need for the army to protect the investigation team.

After the previous stage of fighting, Luo Yue's platoon sacrificed three soldiers, exactly one squad sacrificed one person, and now there are only twenty-five people left in the whole platoon.

Early the next morning, Luo Yue led the whole platoon of soldiers, fully armed, to the front of Gordon Hall and joined the investigation team. After the two sides met, Li Songchen, Wang Sheng, and Zeng Dong, the three leaders of the investigation team, shook hands with Luo Yue and greeted Luo Yue, and also said a few words of thanks to the PLA.

Luo Yue also said a few polite words, and then asked about the situation of each investigation team. Li Songchen's investigation team consisted of five people, Wang Sheng's group consisted of three, and Zeng Dong's group consisted of only two. It happened that each class was assigned to protect a group, and Luo Yue followed Li Songchen's group, because this group not only had the largest number of people, but also men and women, as well as naturalized people.

It turned out that the composition of each group was selected by each group leader, and there was no limit to the number of personnel, and Li Songchen thought very carefully, since he wanted to conduct a rural survey, it was best to find a few locals as guides, and it was best to have local women to accompany him, because the affinity of women was stronger.

So Li Songchen went to the Zizhulin military camp where the naturalized people lived, and happened to meet a reserve army captain named Xie Tao who he knew, who was responsible for the guard work of the Zizhulin military camp. At the same time, he also wanted to go to the examination with Li Songchen, but in fact, Xie Tao felt a little bored staying in the concession, and wanted to go out and see what the countryside looked like in this era.

After listening to Li Songchen's request, Gao Jun immediately thought of Geng Jinyan, because she was a local and was also from a farmer's household. During this time, Geng Jinyan's performance was very accumulative, and she received a lot of praise, but Geng Jinyan only obeyed Gao Jun's discipline, and others couldn't control her to some extent, so Gao Jun didn't worry about letting Geng Jinyan follow Li Songchen alone, so Gao Jun also decided to accompany him. As a result, Li Songchen's investigation team reached five people.

After assigning personnel, the three teams set out from the concession and carried out separate investigations. Because Li Songchen and his party have two locals, they have a very clear goal, which is naturally the village of these two people, first of all, to go to Geng Yuyan's village that is closer.

After leaving the concession, the group marched south along Hai Avenue, walked for about 20 minutes, and then turned onto a small road and entered the suburbs.

There were large areas of farmland on both sides of the road, but there were not many farmers working in the fields, but Luo Yue noticed that there seemed to be a little more than when he first occupied Tianjin a few days ago, at least most of the fields were working. Along the way, we passed through several villages, but all we saw was a dilapidated scene, each village with a large number of ruined houses, a large number of new graves can be seen outside the village, and one of them is almost completely deserted. And when they saw them, the people in the village avoided and closed their doors, as if they were hiding from the plague god. It seems to be frightened.

Although they all knew that the imperialist invasion of China had brought great harm to China, they had only seen it in books before, but now they saw the real scene, and the impact on people was still very huge.

After walking for about an hour, I only heard Geng Jinyan say: "It's here, it's in front." ”

Everyone looked in the direction of her finger, and saw that on the opposite side of a stream in front of the left was a large field, and on a high hill at the edge of the field, it was indeed a village, and the scale was much larger than the villages passed by before.

On the way here, Geng Jinyan made some brief introductions to the people about the village where she used to live. This village is the largest of the more than ten villages in the vicinity, with a total of about 500 households and more than 8,000 acres of land, because the creek I just saw can irrigate the fields nearby.

Li Songchen also asked Geng Jinyan in detail about the situation in the village, and it turned out that Geng Jinyan had four large households in the village where he used to live, occupying about 6,000 mu of land, the largest one occupying more than 2,000 mu of land, and more than 150 households in the village rented their land and became tenants; the least had more than 1,000 mu of land. In addition, there are more than 10 small landlords, with cultivated land between 50 and 100 mu, and each household will have a few hired households, while there are only more than 100 self-cultivated households, but most of the families have about five or six acres of cultivated land, so in addition to cultivating their own fields, they have to rent a few more acres of land to plant.

Geng Jinyan used to have 12 acres of land at home, and the terrain is better, if it is in a normal year, it can basically ensure the life of the whole family, if it is a bumper year, there will be some surplus, and every year when the farm is slack, Geng Jinyan's husband will go to Tianjin to do odd jobs, and can also make a little money, so in the homesteaders, Geng Jinyan's family is still doing well.

Geng Jinyan replied that in a normal year, ordinary yeoman farmers have to pay about 50 percent of the annual harvest tax, while tenants have to pay about 70 percent of the harvest, and sometimes even more.

After listening to this, Li Songchen was also a little surprised, he didn't expect that the tax competition in this era would be so heavy, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is exploitation. Geng Jinyan further explained that in fact, the government does not really collect much tax, generally only two to three percent, and the rest is the county's apportionment, as well as the private income of tax collectors, and tenants have to add the burden of annual land rent. However, Geng Jinyan has never left Tianjin in his life, so he does not know the tax situation in other regions.

However, the business in Tianjin is relatively developed, and most of the people in the village will go to Tianjin City and the concession to work part-time to make money and subsidize their families, so as long as they are willing to work hard, they can still get by. Moreover, Geng Jinyan also told Li Songchen that in recent years, the number of people working in the city has gradually increased, some people have more labor at home, and some people specialize in working in the city, and a few households simply rent their fields to others to plant, and they themselves help in the city, and their income is no worse than farming.

After listening to Geng Jinyan's speech, Li Songchen had some general understanding of the situation in Tianjin, which was a relatively developed region in China in this era, and the agricultural economy was not dominant, so although it was seriously exploited, it was generally still able to get by, and under normal circumstances, it could still live well.

There is a wooden bridge over the stream, when crossing the bridge, everyone found that the stream is not wide, only 20 meters at most, but it is enough to make the land close to the stream a good land in this area, the land of Geng Jinyan's family is because it is close to the stream, so the annual harvest is good, otherwise these more than ten acres of land will not be favored by the big households in the village.

After crossing the stream and through the fields, the group came to the village. After entering the village, everyone found that this village is also the same as other villagers, most of the houses have been destroyed, because it is at the entrance of the village, there is a large house covering a wide area, but it has obviously been robbed, the courtyard is a mess, according to Geng Jinyan, the family surname Huang, is the largest landlord in the village, Ju said and Tianjin officials still have some relationship, in the Boxer Rebellion, but also donated 100 stone rice, 200 taels of silver, so to keep the home, but did not expect to escape in the end.

Everyone was embarrassed to see it, but when they went to the village, the villagers all avoided it when they saw this line, and everyone was a little embarrassed.

Li Lixin, the squad leader, said: "We don't look like devils have entered the village." As he spoke, he held a gun, posed as the most classic ghost entering the village in the old movie, and hummed a few words of background music, saying, "This doesn't look like this." ”

When the others saw it, they couldn't help laughing, only Geng Jinyan and Zhang Pan were a little inexplicable, and they didn't know what they were laughing at.

Luo Yue said: "It is estimated that the villagers were frightened by the Eight-Nation Alliance, so when they saw us like this, they were all scared and hidden." ”

Li Songchen also nodded, looked at Geng Jinyan, and said, "Is there anyone you know?" ”

Geng Jinyan nodded, and led everyone through a few streets to an abandoned house, which had been completely damaged, not only had several walls collapsed, but also some roofs had collapsed, even the gate had been demolished, and the house was covered with dust and cobwebs, apparently no one had lived in it for at least a few months. And Geng Jinyan stood in front of this house for a long time.

Everyone was a little puzzled, only Gao Jun guessed a few points, came to Geng Jinyan's side, and said, "This is ......"

Geng Jinyan said: "This used to be my home. ”

Everyone knew what happened to Geng Jinyan, seeing that Geng Jinyan's family had become dilapidated, and the family was gone, not only everyone sighed a little, but Gao Jun patted her shoulder and comforted: "Things have passed, even if you are sad, it's useless, let's look at some." ”

Geng Jinyan was about to speak, but when she heard a "squeak", the door of a house next to her opened, and a person poked his head out of the house and said, "Yan Xiao, are you back?"

Geng Jinyan turned her head to look, and couldn't help but be surprised and happy, rushed over in a few steps, and said, "Sixth uncle, you're okay." ”

The man said: "It's really Yanzi, I looked at it in the crack of the door just now, I looked a little like you, but I couldn't get it right, so I didn't dare to come out, until you stood in front ......of your house and didn't believe it was you, great, I didn't expect you to come back, we thought you died outside?" ”

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