Two months before the 40th birthday of the Dashun Emperor Li Gan, the wind finally changed, and the sea ice in the north was once again in melting season.

Two converted expedition ships, two human carriers transporting "long-term workers" and "contract long-term workers", and a cargo ship loaded with cloth and iron, a total of five ships formed a fleet and left Weihai Port.

This route, many of the people on the ship have already walked more than once. Skillfully bypassing the Busan Strait, taking advantage of the right wind, we arrived at the first stop of the expedition, Vladivostok.

A few years ago, it was a village of less than 2,000 people, with about half of the North Koreans who fled and about half of the Han Chinese who garrisoned it.

Today, the village has expanded into a small town with a population of nearly 10,000. drought-tolerant rice in North Korea; Russian rye buckwheat and Dashun potato sorghum happily take root here.

As soon as the ship docked in port, dozens of hawkers flocked to the beach.

North Koreans with jars on their heads shouting and selling their goods in Chinese; Han Chinese hawkers carried some goods with flat poles and shouted loudly.

There is very little money here, and the purchasing stations keep the price of food very low, but there are many places to use it. The cargo ships that came here from Weihai were just military ships flying blue and white flags, and they were all rich sailors who were willing to spend money.

As one of the first immigrants here, Zhang Dabiao was familiar with the scene, with the honey he had dug up from the honeycomb last year, some privately brewed rye beer that he had learned from the Rakshasas, and even a few large turnips that had been kept in the cellar until this season, which were the sailors' favorite things.

The immigrants here call this kind of thing "catching the sea", although as Jiaodong people know very well that catching the sea is not what it means, but the fish and shrimp here are not worth anything at all, but these crew members are the source of their wealth to catch the sea.

Zhang Dabiao, who has been forcibly immigrated here since the catastrophe, does not have to worry about filling his stomach for the first time.

At the mouth of the Suifen River, salmon that spawn every year are almost in groups. The salmon, which is more than one person tall, has tired this young man from Jiaodong who almost starved to death at the beginning.

Specially trained rye and potato cultivation and storage techniques have prevented them from starving to death in a winter like the Mayflower, and the best of the best farmers have established themselves here.

The daughter-in-law who was "allocated" at the beginning was already pregnant with her second child. Now that three or five families have started to form a mutual aid group together? Hungry? But there's no money. The price of grain at the purchasing station is so low that people want to cry, but cotton cloth and the like are so expensive? Is he in a bright light? I have been eyeing the business of "catching the sea" early, and I am looking forward to the arrival of the ship here every spring? The sailors were willing to spend money when they had money, so he sold everything.

"Look at it! A large radish without a chaff heart! The best thing this season? Radish sai pear! ”

A North Korean next to him with a big basket? It contained some sorghum fruits picked from the nearby mountains, namely wild strawberries, and some red raspberry fruits, which were also shouted in Jiaoliao official dialect.

The sailors got off the ship? Asked the price of radish and sorghum fruit? Turned around and went to the tavern next to it. The officers and students wearing woolen military uniforms got off the expedition ship, casually asked the price, and threw out copper coins to buy all the things of the old Gaoli next to Zhang Dabiao.

Rubbing the money in his hand, Zhang Dabiao said in his heart that it was strange today, there was only one ship in previous years? Why are there so many ships this year? Or are those military masters in tweed uniforms who are rich and sailors who wear sailors' shirts? I'd rather go buy alcohol and drink.

He asked the people who were with him to catch the sea.

"What's going on this year? Why are so many ships coming? ”

He shook his head and said, "Where do you know?" Who knows what to do? If I had known that there were so many ships coming today, I should have prepared more. Those who wear tweed uniforms? But the most willing to spend money. ”

Zhang Dabiao also regretted it, and said in his heart that he would be on the dock tomorrow? Make sure there are people who are here to sell things. Is the purchasing station pushing the price of food too low? Thinking about the food hoarded in your family's food hoard? If this is still in Renzhao, he can be regarded as a landlord, but this place can't be sold for a few dollars.

Pinching the money he had just sold, he bypassed the dock, thinking that his daughter-in-law was about to give birth to a second doll, so he happened to sell the money and went to buy some cotton cloth.

But you can't go to the supply and marketing cooperatives to buy it, because it's expensive there. The sailors who came with the ship would carry some private goods, which were cheaper than those sold by the supply and marketing cooperatives, and maybe there was a little left to buy two packs of cigarettes.

People who often rush to the sea know where the black market is, and they also know that there will be a black market only in the next few days when cargo ships arrive, and there are not many goods, and whoever buys it first will be whom.

Whether it is a purchasing station or a supply and marketing cooperative, they are all new things here, and there is no place where previous generations have lived.

It's just that this change doesn't make people feel uncomfortable, but they quickly accept it.

For example, the post office, which can receive remittances and letters from relatives who are soldiers, only needs to hand over the money in Weihai and withdraw the money here with the bills. Zhang Dabiao has already received a remittance from his younger brother once, and there are a few letters to report safety.

For example, it has just been built, but there is no school for Mr. It is said that in the future, when children born here reach the age of six or seven, they will be forced to attend school. There is a certain amount of education money to be paid every year, which is not much. When the child grows up, he can go to be an officer or go to sea, or he can go to the Jinghai Palace University Hall in Weihai.

For example, there are no taxes here, at least nominally. the annual payment of grain, which is the money for the redemption of the land; For example, buying cotton cloth is so expensive, it is a kind of freedom, you can not wear pants.

All kinds of changes of one kind or another seem to be new at first, but now, after a few years, this freshness has become a very ordinary life.

The only conscription to be served is to fight tigers. All the registered males will organize a round-up in the summer to round up and kill the man-eating tigers. Now that there is no such conscription, some hunter-gatherers have settled around the town, exchanging tiger skins for food and household items, and the tiger has become a legend in recent years.

Squeezing through the crowded crowd on the dock, a few government soldiers who drove cattle and horses from the side of the Mudanjiang River were selecting the population on the ship.

They don't need money to buy either, they just exchange cattle and horses. There are a lot of singles on the side of the government soldiers, and most of them use cattle and horses to exchange for daughters-in-law. The rest are selected as long-term contract laborers, the price is very cheap, human life is worthless, and it is similar to cattle and horses.

Looking at these victims who were bought and sold here, Zhang Dabiao swallowed his saliva.

Everyone here has such a dream: save money for a few years, and when the money is enough, they will pay money from the villages and towns, buy people to open up the wasteland, and become the landlord themselves.

The landlord is still the dream of most people.

It's just that the purchasing station keeps the price of grain extremely low, and apart from the purchasing station, almost no one else will buy grain here.

But most people do such an arithmetic.

Save money, buy a person, and the land and grain harvested within ten years will definitely be more expensive than this person. Then buy the second, the third, the fourth...... Even if the purchasing station keeps the price of grain so low, it can still be owned by the owner.

It has always been said that men and women weave are the best days.

But not here.

There is nothing wrong with men plowing, but women have nothing to weave. Cotton is not produced here, cotton is just bought to make cotton pants, and if it is spun, it will die.

Women are either busy giving birth to children, and when they are not working, they follow them to do some farm work in the fields. There is a dream that is infinitely reverie for many people who almost starved to death back then, thirty acres of land, a cow, and a hot kang head for wives and children.

For now, this dream has basically been achieved.

The cattle and horses here are very cheap, and the land is so much that as far as the eye can see, the river valley is full of dry grassland, if such dry grassland has not been cultivated in Jiaodong, it will be regarded as a village is lazy. And here, along the river valley, there are countless dry meadows.

Dry meadows are different from wet swamps, where the roots are more than a man high, and the wet meadows are fertile, but they cannot be cultivated, and they will exhaust the cattle and horses to death, unless they are planed with a hoe; And these dry meadows, there are no tree roots, no mosquitoes and small biting insects that make people collapse, only gadflies bigger than green-headed flies, which will make cattle collapse, but it is difficult to bite people.

After several years of collective reclamation, the policy here has changed. At the beginning, everyone was trying to stutter and cultivate collectively, because the power of one person relative to nature was too small.

Now, the first immigrants have redivided the land.

Zhang Dabiao has to pay 2,000 catties of grain every year, and after five years of continuous payment, these lands will always be his. The land here is very fertile, especially the newly opened land after the burning, the first year may be a little cold, and the yield is not high, but from the second year, the land that has never been cultivated releases the fertility of the decaying vegetation accumulated for thousands of years, and it seems that every year is a good harvest year.

There is a lot of wasteland, and what is lacking is people.

Thinking of such a dream, Zhang Dabiao pinched a few coppers in his hand, scolded the grain price of the purchasing station, and left the mule and horse market where people and cattle and horses were bought and sold.

After a few circles, I came to the black market. The sailors of the merchant ships put out the private goods they were carrying and quoted them in the Jiaoliao dialect, which Zhang Dabiao was very familiar with.

"Cotton, look at this cotton."

"Cigarettes, matches! It's definitely cheaper than the supply and marketing cooperatives, that's all, you can earn it when you buy it. ”

"Cane sugar!"

Zhang Dabiao looked at the small packet of cane sugar, listened to the familiar accent of Pingdu, knew that it was a fellow countryman, and said with a smile: "Brother, don't bring sugar here in the future." Beet gnocchi is starting to grow here, don't you know? There's a beet sugar mill over there. ”

Without thinking about saying a word more, he kindly persuaded him, squeezed into the group of sailors who sold cotton cloth, drained the money, pulled a few feet of cloth, bought two red head ropes, and exchanged the rest of the money for a few packs of the cheapest cigarettes.

Carrying the cloth, I ran to the post office, where a group of people gather at this time of year, and the day when the ship comes every year is about the same.

The post office will not deliver you to your home, but will ask if you have a letter of your own.

There was already a long queue at the door of the post office,

There are not many surviving relatives here, and those who survived the catastrophe like them are either serving as soldiers on land or on ships, and these soldiers' mail does not cost money.

A group of sawmill men lined up in front of the queue, these people were very arrogant, all of them had big shoulders and round waists, and ordinary people did not dare to fight with them.

These people squatted in the woods all winter, cutting down the best oak trees and putting them down the river. In the summer, these large oak trees, which are more than one person thick, are dried and used as raw materials for shipbuilding.

When I had saved enough money, I saved it and exchanged it for a ferry ticket for my wife and children to go here.

The grain here is very cheap, and those of them who don't farm have a very good life. If you want to eat rice, you can eat rice, you can eat noodles if you want to eat noodles, fish can be eaten and vomited in season, and pork is not expensive, which is much better than the life in Weihai.

Zhang Dabiao waited for a long time, and it was finally his turn. He took out a wooden plaque with his nationality number on it, and after giving his name, he asked, "Is there any letter from me?" ”

The people inside, just like the people in the supply and marketing cooperatives and the purchasing station, all had a dead horse face, muttered twice, and asked, "Do you have faith?" ”

Zhang Dabiao nodded and handed over a copper coin, he understood the rules.

"Brother, I made meritorious service in the Western Regions and killed Xiao Celing Dundobu, who was a Mongolian general. Your Majesty gave me some silver, and I sent you fifteen taels. The second biao and the fourth sister are very good. Brother, you take the money to buy a long-term job and farm well. ”

Finished reading the letter without expression, even if it is said that the merit of the award, it has nothing to do with the people in the post office, in recent years, I have read more faith in the award, and there is no fear of the emperor, the sky is high and the emperor is far away, it is far less useful than reading the letter to earn a few pennies.

Handing out a piece of paper, Zhang Dabiao still learned to recognize numbers, and when he saw a 15 written under a red seal on it, he dipped his wooden card in some ink and stuck it on it. This side stretched out his hand and took fifteen taels of silver, and when the heavy silver arrived, he came to his senses.

"Hurry up and leave when you're done, don't you see that there is still a queue behind you? Next! ”

There was another shout inside, Zhang Dabiao didn't know what this little Ce Ling Dun Dobu was, and he knew that his younger brother was actually rich!

The excitement screamed a few times, and he rushed home and took out all the money he had saved by selling food. The pregnant wife was cooking there, and she didn't know what he was turning over there, so she just scolded: "What are you going out to do when you're eating?" ”

Zhang Dabiao didn't shout back: "Buy people!" ”

He had never run so fast in his life, not only because of excitement, but also because he went late, and the good people must have been picked up by others.

Ran to Luoma City, fortunately, there were a lot of people who came over this time, and some of them were to be officially reclaimed, all of them were young and strong, and the price was clearly marked.

I picked one that looked stronger, and asked someone who knew it was Lacey.

The person who bought and sold people took out a contract and read the rules again.

"The Great Shun Law abolished the lowly status, and the hired workers must not be like slaves. Seven years, after which the term expires. After the expiration of the period, four acres of cooked land, 400 catties of potatoes, plus 200 catties of grain, go here to receive a set of farm tools. ”

"Escaped halfway, with an additional two years."

"If he dies, the master's family will report it and conduct an autopsy."

"These people are not slaves, just laborers who have to pay off their debts for seven years."

"If there is no objection on both sides, press the handprint and the ID card."

The contract was waved in front of the two of them, and when the handprints were pressed, the seller received the money, and asked, "The family has made meritorious contributions as soldiers in Weihai, right?" ”

Zhang Dabiao said curiously: "How do you know? ”

"......Shh How can a local person save enough money so quickly? Either the shit luck picked up the dog's head gold, or someone in the family made meritorious service as a soldier. Most of the people were bought by that group of government soldiers, and they could exchange cattle and horses, and you have only been here for a few years? ”

The person who spoke said in his heart: The price of grain at the purchasing station, if you save up the money to buy long-term workers so quickly, it will be strange. There is nowhere else to sell your grain except at the purchasing station.