"Is my uncle back?"

The two were chatting when a shout came from outside the door.

After a while, a thin and tall young man pushed the door in, and saw that there were other people in the room besides Li Hongji and Han Jin'er, so he frowned and said:

"Why are you here?"

Gai Hu smiled when he heard this, and said:

"Why can't I come, but you kid, you don't do your job all day, and you plan to be like us in the future, and you will be a post boy for the rest of your life."

Somehow, this nephew has always been not good to his good brother Gai Hu, Li Hongji said in a warning tone:

"Li Guo! How can I talk to your Uncle Gaihu? ”

That's right, the person in front of him is Li Guo, who will follow Li Hongji to fight in the east and west, lead the old camp horse team, and is nicknamed "A Tiger".

When Li Guo heard this, he opened his mouth and didn't continue.

The three of them were illiterate, so they picked up the Beijing newspaper and looked left and right, only to see that there were dense small characters on it, but they didn't know what it was talking about.

Their hearts itched, and they couldn't wait to know the specific content of the Beijing newspaper immediately, so they had no choice but to go to Ai Juren.

This Ai Ju person is a person in the forty-seventh year of Wanli, and he also has a relationship with Li Hongji in history.

In this year, those who are promoted do not necessarily have to be officials, such as the person surnamed Ai in front of him, who did not wait to fill the vacancy, and returned to his hometown for more than a year, but he also lived a petty bourgeois life as a landlord.

In the Ming Dynasty, the people had the privilege of tax reduction and exemption and forced labor, and after the Ai people returned to their hometowns, the poor villagers and the gentry and celebrities in the vicinity were all in a hurry, which was regarded as entering the upper class.

Farmers who cannot afford to pay the high land tax often choose to invest their land in the name of the person to reduce the tax.

In the year from the forty-seventh year of Wanli to the forty-eighth year of Wanli, although Ai Juren was in a hurry to fill the vacancy, because of these privileges, he was at ease in his small life.

But since Zhu Youxiao ascended the throne, Ai Juren's days have begun to change.

First of all, the policy of never giving more money has given farmers a breather, and fewer and fewer people have come to voluntarily donate land to become tenant farmers.

This is not over, the imperial court has imposed restrictions on scholars of the rank of lifters and jinshi, and stipulated the number of maids and servants, etc.

What makes Ai Ju people cry the most is that the days of unlimited land tax reduction and exemption in the past are gone.

The most intuitive manifestation is that Ai Juren needs to return the hundreds of acres of land under his name to the government at a very low price, and he can only keep fifty acres.

The imperial court mandated, this is a new policy, don't you follow it?

The land returned to the government was supervised by the factory guards, and naturally it would not be privately swallowed, and all of it was firmly held in the hands of the imperial court, that is, the current emperor.

As for these lands, whether they will be distributed to the people in the future, or whether they will promote sweet potatoes and potatoes, this has nothing to do with the Aiju people.

Just when Ai Juren was desperate to fill the vacancy and go to a place to be an official, the opportunity came.

In the first year of the Apocalypse, the southwest was in turmoil, and the emperor personally won a great victory, and a new policy to deal with Tusi was about to arrive, that is, the imperial court began to vigorously hold lectures in the southwestern provinces.

Not only government learning, but also encourage non-governmental associations to give lectures, in a word, as long as you can bring Han culture in, it is easy to learn.

Among them, there is one that makes Ai Juren particularly excited, that is, a scholar with a meritorious reputation, who has been teaching at the Southwest Government School for two days, and can directly fill the gap after he comes out.

What does this mean, if you go to teach for two years, you will definitely be able to become an official when you come out!

Ai Juren thought for a long time, whether to continue to eat here and wait for death, wait for three or five years, or more than ten years, and wait for an illusory opportunity to fill the gap.

Or grit your teeth, stomp your feet, go to the "mountains" to work for two years, and come back to enter the official career, you should hold money and money, and you should pretend to be forced.

The persistence of ancient scholars to be an official is always something that Zhu Youxiao, a modern person, does not understand.

Like a large number of students who need to fill the vacancies, Ai Juren has just submitted an application to the Yamen of the Ningxia Political Department to go to Sichuan to "support teaching" in the past two days.

If nothing else, this will be the last time he and Lee Hongji will meet...

This Beijing Daily, in fact, he also has a copy, the first issue of the Beijing News restructuring is said to publish new news, don't get a copy to take a look, I always feel that there is something.

"Aiju people... We are illiterate, can you show me what is written on this? ”

Gai Hu's words suddenly woke up the pensive Ai Juren.

"You all already know about the changes made by the imperial court to the post station, so I'll tell you what you don't know." When Ai Juren said this, he deliberately glanced at Li Hongji and reminded:

"You owe me half of the money, pay me back."

Li Hongji never felt that it was a glorious thing to owe money to others and be asked for debts, so he said:

"Didn't you say that there are six coins of food and labor silver, and when this year's food and labor silver comes down, I will pay you back together."

"That's good..."Ai Juren nodded, then relieved, picked up the Beijing newspaper again, and said with a deep frown:

"There are a couple of things that go up there."

"First, my cousin Zhang Gongchen is the younger brother of the queen's mother, and he did evil in Beijing, robbed the people's daughters, forced the old peasants to death, and the matter reached the palace."

"What about the emperor, what to do with that wicked man?" Li Hongji didn't want to listen to the process, he just wanted to know the attitude of the imperial court to this matter.

"Zhang Gongchen was imprisoned, and the emperor paid a lot of money to the people, and asked the national abbot to protect the media, so that the plundered woman could marry a good farmer."

"Good, a good emperor." Li Hongji spat at his feet and said, "What's wrong with the imperial family, the imperial family can bully the people?" ”

"This wicked man deserves to be imprisoned!"

Li Guo also slapped the table and shouted: "Okay, the emperor did a good job!" ”

As he spoke, Ai Juren was also looking at the layout of this Beijing newspaper, trivial matters, excerpts from the holy oracles, the cabinet and the six decrees, as long as he was a little literate, he would be clear at a glance.

After that, Ai Juren took the trouble to talk about all the main contents of this issue of Beijing Daily.

Zhu Youxiao Nanhaizi hunted deer, because the old locust tree bumped the king's body, and ordered people to condemn the tree as a sinful locust, and put the flail on display for three days.

Hearing this, Li Hongji and Li Guo were all amazed, and said that this emperor has a personality, not only benevolent and loving the people, but also protecting the calves!

After listening to Ai Juren talk about the first policy and news, Gai Hu opened the other side and asked, "This is dense, what is written?" ”

Ai Juren frowned and looked at it for a long time, and said with a smile:

"These don't matter, they're just names."

"What have these people done wrong to punish like this?" Li Hongji was only halfway through his speech when he was interrupted by Ai Juren's laughter like a pig's foot:

"They are all imperial generals who performed outstanding in the First Battle of the Southwest People's Expedition, and they did not do anything wrong, this time they are commending their military merits in the Beijing Daily."

Li Hongji opened his mouth wide, hurriedly snatched the Beijing newspaper in his hand, and asked in a loud voice:

"So many, all of them are meritorious generals?"

"Many?" Ai Juren shook his head and said with a wry smile:

"In the chaos in the southwest, the imperial court mobilized troops from several provinces, hundreds of thousands of people, and the last list is only these hundreds of names."

"Do you still think it's too much..."

"Not only military generals, but also small soldiers who have achieved great achievements in wartime, and rebels who have established meritorious services after returning to the imperial court after being lost, are also among them."

Li Hongji asked: "Tell me, what are the top five people called?" ”

"Lu Qin, the governor of the southwest, Qin Liangyu, the Tusi of Shizhu, Zhang Ling, the garrison of Dingyuan, and Zhu Xieyuan, the governor of Sichuan, and Chen Ce, the deputy general of the Yongwei battalion!"

When Ai Juren said this, although Li Hongji gradually calmed down, a blazing fire rose in his eyes, and he looked at the Beijing News in a daze, as if he had sown some seeds.

"Okay, I'll go back!"

Before the words fell, without waiting for Ai Juren to react, Li Hongji had already pinched the Beijing newspaper and left, and the remaining three people looked at each other and parted unhappily.

When she returned home, Han Jin'er saw Li Hongji sticking a page of Beijing newspaper on the wall like a baby, and leaned over and asked:

"What is this, are you literate?"

Li Hongji hugged Han Jin'er, his face was dark, he didn't reply, but his eyes were hot when he looked at the five names in front of him.