The castle master of the Xu family can be simply divided into three factions: the long room, the second room, and the third room.

The Changfang faction has the head of the family Xu Mujiang (1 tun), the eldest son of the Changfang grandson Xu Shisong (4 tun), the concubine Xu Shibai (11 tun), Wang Yong (13 tun), Zhang Jian (5 tun), Zhang Qiang (7 tun) and Liang Jun (12 tun).

The three-room faction is Xu Muhai (3 tun), Zhang Ye (6 tun), and Huineng (10 tun).

The second room is Xu Muhe (2 tun), Luan Tingyu (8 tun), Sun Li (9 tun), Dong Chao (14 tun), and his eldest son Xu Shiyang himself (15 tun).

Sounds simple, right? In fact, your relationship is more than that.

As the eldest son of the eldest son, Xu Shisong thinks that he is the future head of the Xu family, and his identity combined with his irascible personality makes him look down on the concubines of the world.

Therefore, Xu Shisong, his enlightened mentor Liang Jun, plus Xu Shiyang and Zhang Ye, are considered to be the sons of the three masters.

Xu Shiyang didn't want to be divided into such a tasteless camp, but everyone else didn't see it that way, they forcibly buckled the hat of the concubine faction according to his identity, and Xu Shiyang couldn't take it off - anyway, the people in the concubine faction were a little hostile to him.

There are sister-in-law factions, naturally there are also concubine factions, at present, the Xu family is an adult, and there is only Xu Shibai who has his own dock fort, but those concubine little brothers are not completely without their own power.

This brings us to the so-called "brother-in-law party".

Except for Xu Muhai, who has never been an official, the wives of the two masters of the Xu family are from local wealthy families, and they don't have to eat in the Xu family, which results in most of the brothers-in-law in the Xu family are actually concubines or relatives brought by remarriage.

Theoretically speaking, they have no blood relationship with sisters-in-law such as Xu Shisong and Xu Shiyang, so most of the brothers-in-law party is actually on the side of the concubine party.

Then, there are also the "fox friends and dog friends" faction who dare not get involved in the dispute with their concubines, and so on ......and so forth.

All 15 dock forts of the Xu family, men, women and children add up to a total population of less than 20,000, this party struggle is actually so impressive, to see the big from the small, the officials can probably understand why the dignified Zhou always can't beat the Tartars outside the gate, and finally has to be called the minister Nagong, biased to the south of the Yangtze River.

'I'm so tired. Xu Shiyang looked at these shameless guys in the lobby, and he really had nothing to say.

"This year's harvest has come to an end."

No one knows what Xu Shiyang is thinking, and everyone is concerned about the next topic.

Xu Mujiang, the head of the family, sat on a chair and said loudly:

"According to the previous rules, I don't care how much you each collect, you must hand over a bucket of grain to the public treasury for each acre of land, and you must not forget it!"

As soon as these words came out, the castle owners of the long room hurriedly agreed, but the castle owners of the second and third rooms all had depressed expressions on their faces.

The grain handed over was said to be returned to the public treasury of the family for emergency purposes, but the public treasury was under the jurisdiction of the people of the Changfang, and it almost became a small treasury of the Changfang faction.

They couldn't check the accounts, and over the years, almost no one in the second and third rooms had taken subsidies from the public treasury, and no one knew how much grain was in them, and the castle owners naturally complained about it.

Fortunately, one bucket of grain per acre of land is not too much, and everyone can still afford it.

Xu Shiyang didn't say a word about this, and he didn't want to hand over the grain, but he still needed to wait for an opportunity to bring it up.

The time was not long in coming.

Xu Mujiang continued:

"The Tartars have retired, according to the practice of previous years, each of our villages will give 5 stone of grain and 10 coats to the Luo Dao people in Fulai Mountain, and each family will go and prepare them."

This is indeed a common practice, the bandit leader on the floating mountain was originally a Taoist priest, after the Great Zhou court crossed to the south, he gathered a group of green skins who like to play with guns and sticks, and set up a cottage on the floating mountain, and fell into the grass.

Later, he took advantage of his geographical advantages to absorb several small bandits, and it is said that he even had a group of former officers and soldiers, which quickly developed into a well-known bandit leader.

Dahuwu Fort near Juzhou is disgusted with the Luo Dao people, but they have to tolerate the existence of the other party - the bandits in Fulai Mountain are not capable of defeating a big family like the Xu family, but the Xu family is also not capable of capturing the bandit village on Fulai Mountain.

Moreover, for the Xu family, bandits come down the mountain from time to time to plunder, and there are always some households who have no time to escape being plundered or killed, not to mention the loss of population, and also delay farm work.

So, the eldest lord of the Xu family made a "gentleman's agreement" with the Luo Dao people, and the Xu family gave the Luo Dao people 5 stone grain and 10 new clothes every year for each dock fort, and the Luo Dao people restrained their subordinates from plundering the Xu family's village at will.

To tell the truth, this is simply collusion with bandits, but in today's Jiangbei, the dock fort that can collude with a large bandit group, or the bandits who can collude with a large dock fort group, is a proof of strength in itself.

"The things for the Luo Dao people, come with the grain handed over to the public treasury, I will send someone to contact the Luo Dao people, you are not familiar with him, it is easy to misunderstand......

"I don't give." Xu Shiyang said loudly.

"What?" Xu Mujiang thought he had misheard.

"I have no problem with the grain for the public treasury." Xu Shiyang repeated loudly: "But the bandits...... I won't give them a grain or a piece of cloth!" ”

The castle lords all looked at him in amazement.

Xu Shiyang took a leisurely sip of tea in front of everyone's eyes - this is a good tea bought from the south by the head of the family's boat, and it can't be drunk in his own village.

"Shi Yang, don't make a child lose his temper!" Xu Muhe said: "If you don't give it now, you will lose even more in the future!" ”

Different from Xu Shiyang's point of view, the other castle owners of the Xu family wanted to bargain over the issue of public treasury grain, and they could delay it for a day.

But they didn't think much about the agreement with the bandits.

Even many people still think that when there is a small group of displaced people again, they will cooperate with the Luodao people to carve up some of the population.

"I'll say it again."

Xu Shiyang didn't look at the cheap dad in his life, but said word by word:

"I'm definitely not going to give anything to the bandits!"

"Well, that's not right, I can give them something else."

Xu Shiyang said:

"I cut off 40 Tartar heads, and I'm worried that I won't have a place to throw them, so Uncle will help me give these heads to the Luo Dao people."

"It's worth 200 pieces of silk."

Threat, the threat of the red fruit.

"Third brother, there are more than 2,000 bandits under the Luo Dao people, and more than 200 of them are old bandits."

Xu Shibai, the concubine of the long house, sneered and said:

"You are alone in a village, with 500 dingkou in the sky, who can you scare?"

"Second brother." Xu Shiyang looked at the bridge of his nose (which can make others mistakenly think that you are looking directly into his eyes, which brings him huge psychological pressure, which is very useful), smiled and asked, "I only have a lonely village?" Second brother, where are you standing? I? Or bandits? ”