"One, two, three, push! One, two, three, push! ”

In late autumn, there are bursts of coolness in the air, but in the land of Qilu under the autumn sun, hundreds of Shandong men are shirtless, pushing carts full of stones.

The imperial court wanted to open a tributary of the canal, and planned a one on the boundary of Shandong, and the Shandong political envoy began to recruit workers to start work at the beginning of the year, digging canals and rivers, and recruited tens of thousands of people before and after.

In the river, dozens of men are wielding pickaxes to widen the river, from time to time digging out pieces of stones embedded in the soil, then stumbling and rolling to the bottom of the river, a few seconds later there is a 'bang' sound of landing, not long after, the stones are loaded onto the car, when more than one car is full, there will be a few workers to push the cart away.

The whole construction site is busy in an orderly manner.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

An overseer looked up at the sky, it was dark early in the late autumn, there was no light, and the construction period that was about to be completed had to be delayed for another day. The day set by the imperial court is around the end of September, and if you finish one day early, you can save a day's wages, and when you have meat to eat, you can also drink hot soup behind your buttocks.

"Hurry the!"

The overseer urged urgently, and the golden gong in his hand hurried several times, "When we finish this work, you can go back to your hometown." ”

The gong struck loudly, and those busy men scolded in a whisper, and the daily five hours and forty dollars were set before the recruitment, but after they came, it became six hours and thirty dollars, in order to rush the work, they didn't even give the effort to drink saliva, and on a dog day, there were more than a dozen souls in this river.

"Son of a bitch, phew!"

When a man who was digging the river heard the sound of the gong, he looked up at the overseer and spat hatefully, but he did not dare to stop with the pickaxe in his hand, for fear of being found to have deducted the food he ate after work at night.

The workers next to the man hurriedly stopped him.

"Old Tang, be quiet, be careful of being bitten by a dog."

The man named Lao Tang muttered unconvinced, but finally shut up, wiped the sweat from his forehead, looked around the river, and grinned, "It's not easy, it's finally almost finished." ”

I came to join the work in March, and the situation of half a year finally came out.

"I don't know what happened to my mother-in-law at home."

Tie Han was tender, thinking of his daughter-in-law at home, and a smile bloomed on Lao Tang's resolute face.

When he laughed, even the co-workers around him who accosted him were infected and laughed.

"After half a year's work, it's two hundred days younger, and when the time comes, I can get five or six taels of silver, and I have to go back and give my daughter-in-law and son a few new clothes to wear."

Old Tang laughed, "Lao Lin, shouldn't you hand over the money to my sister-in-law first?" ”

"Nonsense!"

Lao Lin glared, "Our family, of course, I, the old man, are in charge, your sister-in-law dares to say half a word, do you see the big slap of my brother's fan, just slap it down." ”

Old Tang pouted disdainfully,

"I don't know you yet, the slap is always to slap yourself, and you also beat your daughter-in-law, borrowing your two guts."

The two chatted happily, and the gong in their ears did beat more and more rapidly.

"!"

Old Tang hated a wave of his pickaxe, "This group of dog officials, full men don't know that hungry men are hungry, and if they have the ability, they will work by themselves, just their mother's urging is urgent, the old grandson and the old grandson are fucking dead here, and the old grandson is left in the family to be a widow, how can he live in this life!" ”

"People are officials, we are people, what can be done? Death is dead, and we who are alive must live even better. When we return to our hometown, we will take care of one or two more on weekdays. ”

Lao Lin's tone was full of helplessness.

"Old Tang, if you were a child, if you could be admitted to a show or something, maybe you would be an official now, where did you fall into the way you are now, and live by hard work."

Lao Lin's words made Lao Tang silent for a while, as if he recalled the years of reading at night seven or eight years ago, and only smiled after a long time.

"I can't study for the rest of my life, so I'm looking forward to getting an official position.

My father left early a few years ago, and the old lady in the family is not in good health, if I continue to study with my head bored, a dignified seven-foot man, why not rely on my mother to farm the land to support? Such a bastard, what kind of sage book do you read, now that I have a daughter-in-law and children, I have to support them.

If you really want to blame, blame that King of Qi, since he arrived in our Shandong, when did we have a good day. ”

The local administration of the Ming Dynasty was still a lot of constraints in the early days, because the vassal kings in the early Ming Dynasty had very heavy rights and honorable identities, because after all, these vassal kings were the sons of Taizu, and the son was the son of Taizu, and the prestige of Taizu was placed there, and the vassal king was a vassal king.

There was an occasional drought in Shandong, and the proximity to Nanjing, as soon as the disaster victims poured into the south of Zhili, the face of the imperial court was not good-looking. Therefore, the cabinet planned to open the tributaries of the canal in Shandong first, and the political envoy of Shandong received the order, but it was not the province itself that had the final say when it was implemented.

The King of Qi, Zhu Rong and the Kong family, have to reach out to grab a piece of meat to eat, which one does Sheng Ren, the political envoy of Shandong Zuobu, dare to offend?

Old Tang's words startled Lao Lin, and he hurriedly scolded in a low voice.

"You don't want to die! Dare to say such things! ”

Criticizing the Prince? This is the sin of killing the head.

"What can they do, we can't tell?"

Old Tang is a warm-hearted person, and his eyes are red when he thinks of the death of the old grandfather and grandfather.

"It is said that Lao Tzu is a hero, I think the one in Qingzhou is not a thing, when the saint was the emperor two years ago, he was more restrained, but now it is good, he changed his nephew, where do you dare to care about these uncles, just say that now this recruitment matter, we were deceived to suffer, and we don't know what moths will come out in the future, alas, which year is a head."

Seeing that the more Lao Tang said, the more outrageous it became, Lao Lin was so frightened that he put down his pickaxe and covered Lao Tang's mouth.

"Brother beg, don't say it, you're planning to kill me together."

Old Tang glared at him angrily, but finally sighed.

"Alas, that's it, it's me Meng Lang, I'm just a mustard life, where can I say it."

"That's right."

Lao Lin let out a sigh of relief.

"Work with peace of mind to earn a living money, raising daughters-in-law and children is the main business of our masters, as for the virtues of those officials, I don't have to worry about it, and we can't control it.

I hope that in the future, the kid of my family can fight for breath, I have earned some money in the past two years, and I will go back to find an old talent for him in the county as a teacher, hoping that in the future, when he is older, he will be able to take an official exam, and he will no longer have to suffer from Lao Tzu's suffering. ”

Seeing Lao Lin's look of looking forward to the future, Old Tang sighed.

"You're okay, it's a pity, my family gave birth to a girl, how good it would be if I was a boy, there is still hope for this day in the future"

"That's not a problem!"

Lao Lin raised an eyebrow and smiled evilly, "Good girl, marry the boy of my family, and when that kid from my family becomes the champion in the future, your girl is also a champion lady." ”

"Phew!"

Old Tang pretended to spit disdainfully, "The so-called father must have his son, you have an uneducated father, and you still expect your boy to become a talent?" Look at the name, the third watch was born and called Lin San, your father wants to live, and he can be angry with you. ”

"You still have the face to talk about me?"

Lao Lin glared and argued.

"Look at you giving your girl a name, Selle? Why, you're still planning to raise the girl as a brat. ”

As the two brothers chatted and dried, time flew by imperceptibly, and the sky soon became dark, and the workers in the river began to gradually stop their work, and saw a supervisor running over.

"There's still half an hour, who told you to stop!"

"Master Overseer, I can't do it when it's dark this day, this river is deep, if it's dark and you can't see it, you will fall to your death."

Some workers pleaded with the overseer for reasons, but the latter only sneered.

"Heh, isn't this dark yet? I can tell you, if you don't work for enough hours, you don't want to remember the night's food, which is the wages of this year. ”

As soon as I heard this, I dared to talk too much, so I had to keep my head down and continue to do it, but I was obviously much more careful when I walked around.

The overseer didn't plan to leave, for fear that he wouldn't be able to see it if he was far away, so he kept a condescending watch on both sides of the river, so that Old Tang didn't dare to scold him, so he had to continue to work with his head bored.

"Lao Lin, you..."

Lao Tang was going to continue to talk to his buddies about a few words of homely things, but he didn't know if it was because he was hungry or tired from working for a long time, but he felt that his brain suddenly exploded, and the sky spun in front of him.

"Don!"

Lao Lin was so frightened that he rushed over with a roar, stretched out his hand to grab it, and where could he have time, so he had to watch Lao Tang plant himself at the bottom of the river, and a pool of blood formed under his body in a few breaths.

"Old Don! Old Don! ”

Lao Lin roared a few times with red eyes, only to feel that his eyes were about to split, and he turned his head to look at the overseer not far from his head, and roared angrily.

"Fuck you bastard!"

After getting up and turning over in a few steps, he went ashore, grabbed the overseer's neck, picked up his arm and was about to fan it, but was hugged by other workers.

"Lao Lin, calm down."

Beat the overseer, but if you want to be assigned to the frontier, then this life is over.

The overseer looked indifferent, only frowned, he had seen more dead people in this time, and this was not enough to frighten him.

He frowned, purely because he had to pay an extra sum of money.

"Humph!"

Seeing that the group of people around him were glaring at him, the overseer was also afraid of public anger, and seeing that there was still a quarter of an hour left in the construction period of the day, he snorted coldly, "Forget it, it's here today, who knows who fell, go down and get the car to tow it up, Ming'er will come to me to receive his salary and pension money, and send it to his family." ”

After speaking, he straightened the folds of his neckline, and turned around and left the river.

The rest of the people shook their heads and sighed one by one, but no one dared to stop him, the night was getting darker, and soon only Lao Lin was left alone to push the cart to the bottom of the river, dragging Lao Tang's bloody body onto the cart, under the moonlight, Lao Lin's back was rickety and desolate.