Zhang Hao shook his head and said, "Just sell yourself, I want this eldest brother to come directly to my house to work, and be the steward of my family's grange." Well, how about opening you a hundred dollars a month? After speaking, he looked at the man.

Fang Zhu hurriedly grabbed Zhang Hao's hand and signaled him not to be impulsive. Youzhou is poor, mainly relying on the supply of money and grain in Qing and Xuzhou, a hundred yuan is enough to buy a stone of grain, no one will give such a high salary to their workers, and the housekeeper of Fang Zhu's family is only fifty yuan.

"Thank you for your kindness, but I'm afraid I won't be able to." The man shook his head in refusal.

"Why? Am I not prescribing enough monthly routines? Add another fifty to that. Zhang Hao hurriedly said.

"It's not for this reason, because I'm already seriously ill, and I'm afraid I won't survive for a few days."

"Then you go to my house, and I will ask the best doctor to treat you."

"I'm hopeless, otherwise I wouldn't be thirty years old and look like a sixty-year-old man." The man again refused.

"But before I die, I can entrust my daughter to the care of my son, and I don't have to worry about it."

Zhang Hao also knew that this matter could not be changed, so he said, "Then let my subordinates follow you, and when you pay off your debts, you must come to my house as a guest, let me thank you well, and I can also accompany my daughter in the last time." ”

In the end, the man reluctantly agreed, and after glancing at his daughter, he turned and left.

The little girl who was originally quiet and quiet, even if she was at the center of the argument just now, wanted to go with her when she saw her father leave, but she was held in Zhang Hao's arms and couldn't break free.

Seeing that her father didn't look back, and walked farther and farther, the little girl finally cried out.

Zhang Hao hurriedly comforted, "Don't cry, don't cry, your father will be back soon, are you hungry now, big brother will take you to eat delicious food, okay, when you finish eating, your father will come back." ”

"Really?" The little girl made a glutinous sound, and her gray little face became more flowery because of tears.

"It's true."

"That little grass wants to eat hemp cakes." She had picked up a small half of the sesame baked cake that had been thrown on the ground before, it was a snack that came from the Western Regions, and after eating it, the fragrance was still engraved in her mind, and she could not forget it for a long time.

"It turns out that your name is Xiaocao, okay, the big brother will take you to eat hemp cakes immediately."

Zhang Hao asked the remaining entourage to buy cakes, and he and Fang Zhu returned to Fangfu with Xiaocao.

After returning to Fang's Mansion, Fang Zhu asked the maid to take Xiaocao to take a bath and change her clothes. And Zhang Hao went to Zheng and explained to her the whole story. After all, the family is still headed by the mother, and the father Zhang Zhen is drunk and unconscious at the moment.

"I just bought a little girl, although I didn't sign a deed of sale, but it doesn't matter, our family is not short of this stutter, you can make your own decisions about this kind of trivial matter." Zheng obviously didn't take Zhang Hao's spending a thousand dollars to buy a little girl to heart. is happy about the kindness shown by his son, knowing that his mistakes can be changed.

Cheng on the side also said, "Mingde has such a kind heart for the sake of others, he will definitely be a good official for the benefit of one party in the future." Hearing this, Zheng's face became even more happy.

……

In Fang Zhu's study, Zhang Hao and Fang Zhu watched Xiaocao eat there.

At this moment, she has finished washing and changed into a brand new dress, although she looks malnourished, but I have to say that she is like two people from the tattered and unkempt grass before, like a little elf.

She was now holding half a hemp cake in one hand, her bulging little face whining from time to time, and the other two with the other, for fear that others would snatch them away.

Trying to swallow the food in his mouth, Xiaocao looked at the cake in his hand and stopped eating, and wrapped the cake again.

"Why don't you eat it?" Zhang Hao asked.

"This one is reserved for eating with my dad at night, and these two who haven't eaten it are kept for later." Xiaocao said weakly.

Zhang Hao's eyes were sour when he heard this, and he almost burst into tears, and he was even more sympathetic to Xiaocao's experience.

Touching Xiaocao's little head, Zhang Hao said, "It's okay, you don't have to keep that half, the rest of the night is hungry to eat, it's not enough to ask the big brother for it." "Thinking that Xiaocao has been hungry for too long, it is enough to eat one now, and it is not good to eat too much.

"Really, big brother, you're so nice, thank you, big brother."

The big round eyes, the shining light like the stars, the corners of the mouth are curved and raised, and the look of happiness is full of happiness, in Xiaocao's opinion, being able to eat enough is the happiest thing in the world.

"Being able to eat enough and be able to dress warmly is the simplest wish of the people at the bottom." Fang Zhu said slowly on the side.

"But do you know, in the bitter cold land of Youzhou, there are more than one family and one family like Xiaocao, if it weren't for their generation, how could you and I have thousands of acres of fertile land, servants and maids, soldiers and tenants, hundreds."

During the reign of Wang Mang, the landlord Haoqiang began to establish dock forts to resist the invasion of homeless bandits and protect their land and property. Small dock forts have dozens of people, large ones have hundreds, even thousands. They were all private soldiers composed of displaced people recruited by the landlords. After the establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, such dock forts were repeatedly banned and became an unspoken rule.

"Although we have never forced any family to sell land and sell themselves, but the world is like this, we are all the beneficiaries of it, so take away the childish thoughts in your heart, you can save this family today, save ten or hundreds of families tomorrow, but you can't save thousands of families, ten thousand families, and you can't save the people of the world."

Zhang Hao shook his head, "Brother's words are wrong, now I rely on the Zhang family's financial resources to save thousands of people, even if my brother spares no effort to help me, it is only to double the number of people." But I believe that things are man-made, there is nothing in the world that cannot be solved, as long as someone does it, it is only a matter of time before the problem is solved. ”

"But Brother Xian, since the establishment of the Han Dynasty, the rich have no place to stand, and the opposition between the rich and the poor has become more and more obvious. Land is the foundation of life, and everyone wants to have as much land as possible for their family, and to turn others into slaves to their own farming. ”

"Wang Mang of the new dynasty wants to collect the land in the world as state-owned and abolish slaves. But the result was chaos in the world. Therefore, this stubborn disease cannot be corrected by manpower. Fang Zhu retorted.

"In my opinion, the people take food as the sky, food is the focus, and the magnates and nobles wantonly annexed land in order to get more food. Only with food can we exchange for other wealth," Zhang Hao said.

"The world has limited land, but that doesn't mean there's a lot of food to produce. In "Guanzi", there are 'a farmer's business, ploughing 100 acres all year round, 100 acres of harvest, but 20 Zhong' and 'The princes of the river silt, the country of mu Zhong'. The people used the old land to cultivate only two stones per mu, while those who have been irrigated have a yield of ten stones per mu,"

Although the measurement of the Han dynasty is different from that of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it still shows that the grain yield of treated land is not the same as that of untreated land. Therefore, I believe that with the right methods, we can make more food on the limited land, and we can make the landless people have enough to eat. ”

Fang Zhu had never heard such similar remarks, and felt very novel for a while, and had a new understanding of his future brother-in-law. Although there are still many debatable points in Zhang Hao's argument, such as what to do when encountering resistance when popularizing the method of increasing production, and what to do if too much grain causes grain to hurt farmers, these are all secondary problems, as long as the fundamental problem of grain is solved, everything else can be solved. After all, for the people at the bottom, survival is the most important thing.

However, this requires a lot of manpower and material resources, and except for the imperial court, no one in the world has the ability and willingness to do these things. And if today's son is deceived by villains, thinking about how to accumulate wealth, and not thinking about the life and death of the people, he will never do such a thing that benefits the country and the people. Fang Zhu sighed.

"The world is bustling, all for profit, the world is bustling, all for profit, everything as long as you can see the benefits, people will do it. I am now a county leader, so I will start from Fang County, and finally I want no one to starve to death in this world. ”

Fang Zhu looked at Zhang Hao, whose eyes lit up, and was a little speechless for a while, no one had ever done such a thing, but it was quite interesting to think about it carefully. In addition, he himself is also a deviant person, otherwise his father Fang Chong would not say that he does not study poetry and books, and he is idle.

"As a brother, I wish the virtuous brother success as soon as possible, and also benefit the people of the world as soon as possible." Fang Zhu said with a smile. I thought: Well, let Mingde try it first, if it can really be done......

……

In the evening, the two families had another dinner together, and unlike the banquet that welcomed the Zhang family at noon, this time the two families gathered together. Fang Zhu also took out his one-year-old son, the child is called Fang Jing, and the child is called Huzi. The tiger-headed tiger is not afraid of people at all, and he smiled at him in Zhang Hao's arms.

Because in ancient times, the mortality rate of newborn children was very high, so the ancients gave children a very common name in order to hope that the child would grow up safely.

Originally, people at this time did not eat lunch, but today it was mainly to welcome the Zhang family. After the dinner, the Zhang family also went back, and when Zhang Hao left, there was a small tail by his side.

"Xiaocao, did your father give you this name?" Zhang Hao asked.

"Hmm."

"How about I give you a name too?"

"Okay, big brother."

"Then I will call you Xiaoqing in the future, I am an only son, and you will be my sister in the future, you will not starve, you will not be cold, and someone will bully you, do you say okay?"

"Okay, big brother is the best."

When they got home, Xiaoqing's father had already returned, and Zhang Hao arranged a separate room for the father and daughter in the evening, giving them the last time to spend together.

"Dad, I have an older brother, and I have a new name, called Xiaoqing. During the day, the eldest brother said that I would be his sister from now on, and that I would not have to starve and freeze in the future, and that no one would suddenly come out to steal things from us. We don't have to suffer. ”

As he spoke, Xiaoqing fell asleep in his father's arms. When I fell asleep, I was still there and muttered to my sleep, "The hemp cake is so delicious." ”

"yes, you won't have to suffer again." The man looked lovingly at his daughter in his arms, tears running down his cheeks.