"Ho." After sending out a byte of unknown meaning, Liu Fugui suddenly turned over and sat up, the room was pitch black, obviously he had a nightmare just now. The Hun family beside him was suddenly awakened by his movements, and he was about to get up in a daze.

Liu Fugui hurriedly stretched out his hand and whispered to his mother-in-law: "The fifth watch hasn't arrived yet, you squint for a while." ”

The Hun family was obviously sleepy, and as soon as her husband stopped her, she lay back down, and after a while, she fell asleep again. However, Liu Fugui was obviously frightened by the nightmare, and now he didn't feel sleepy at all, he sat against the wall for a while, remembering the "Liu Lao Snake" shouted to him by Steward Sun, who had his head cut off in the dream, almost made him think that he was back to the days when he didn't even dare to breathe.

As soon as he thought of this, Liu Lao, who changed his name to Liu Fugui, wanted to smoke a bag of dry tobacco to suppress his shock. He carefully put on a new cotton jacket filled with cotton, then got off the ground from the still warm kang, took the smoking pot and tobacco pouch from the table on the side, and then went outside in the dark, and got the fire sickle from the stove.

Liu Fugui squatted on the stove, first filled in the tobacco quickly, and then ignited a small piece of media paper with a fire sickle, and then quickly lit the tobacco, and the whole action was extremely familiar.

After swallowing a puff of cigarette, Liu Fugui, who was still a little flustered, suddenly settled down. Thinking of Sun Da, who had his head cut off, he faintly felt that the court was doing a good job at the moment. This dog's day, relying on the support of Master Wu of Wujiabao behind him, every time he comes to Luojiazhuang, he is full of prestige, and from time to time he rents a long-term rent, who dares to express dissatisfaction, he will be regarded as a thorn in his side, and he must drive the whole family out of Zhuangzi.

In those years, leaving Zhuangzi was basically a corpse on the side of the road, so the big guy hated and feared him. If it weren't for Master Wu's conspiracy against the imperial court and being broken by the county order, the blood debts on Steward Sun finally couldn't be suppressed, and his head was cut off by the government, and the people of Luojiazhuang really couldn't believe that the imperial court could make decisions for themselves.

The Wu family fell, most of the Wu family's land was confiscated by the government, and the land near Zhuangzi was returned to Luojiazhuang to form a commune.

Thinking of his two boys, Liu Fugui squinted his eyes and wanted to laugh. They're in a good time, and if they were left behind, how dare they want them to study. It was precisely because the imperial court built the commune primary school that Liu Fugui, who had always been lazy about the forced labor arranged by the government, began to seriously obey the labor assigned by the commune, whether it was building roads or digging reservoirs, he was not ambiguous.

Unlike in the past, when the government oppressed them as poor people, the labor assigned by the commune was not only close to home, but also a project that benefited their own family or the village, so that the big guys were not so disgusted with these labors, but felt that they should work hard, and did they still expect others to work hard and let their own family enjoy the results, how could there be such a good thing in the world?

Although the eldest son, who had been studying for a few years, took the newspaper and told the people in the village that the fee charged for the land handed over by the government to the commune was nearly 30% higher than that stipulated by the imperial court, someone must have been up and down and asked everyone to go to the official together, and as a result, he dragged him home and beat him up.

After Liu Fugui beat his son, he told his son that since ancient times, there was no cat who did not steal, and those officials who could give the land to the commune were already quite honest officials. In the past, only the land of the wealthy and the big families annexed the land of the small families, and the imperial court would redistribute the land of the wealthy and large families to the ordinary people. Although it is now not directly distributed to everyone, but to the Commune, this is already an unprecedented virtue policy.

After all, there was no vicious dog like Steward Sun in the commune, and the commune came forward to receive the tax collectors of the government and arrange labor, and there was more room for bargaining than for them ordinary people to face the wolf-like officials alone. Compared to the old days, everyone is now in heaven. The big guy is afraid that the government will come to find trouble for himself, where can he take the initiative to find trouble with the government, don't you know that the officials protect each other.

Now everyone is looking forward to one thing, I hope that this emperor who treats the big guy as a human being can live a long life, and it will be good if everyone can live a few more days now.

It's a pity that the eldest son, who has been reading for two years, does not agree with his ideas, but thinks that his father is too pessimistic, and always wants to endure things when encountered, which makes these officials inch by inch, and regards the good governance of the court as a means to make profits for their own families. As long as there is a policy of the imperial court, we should continue to fight against these officials, so that they can be restrained, and Luojiazhuang will not return to the old days.

Liu Fugui can say that he can't say that he has sharp teeth, and he thinks that he recognizes a few words and doesn't know that the sky is high, and he should give him a daughter-in-law while the family has some savings in the past two years, so that he can settle down.

Who would have thought that as soon as he revealed his tone, the 17-year-old boy simply signed up for the army. Although Liu Fugui still remembers that the elders said that good iron does not hit nails, and good men do not serve soldiers. But looking at the official who came to the door, and the eldest son who was smug about Zhuangzi with a big red flower, he didn't dare to say anything against it, so he could only watch his son leave Zhuangzi.

But fortunately, there is a post office now, although the eldest son can often write back after joining the army, from the letter read by the younger son, it seems that the eldest son has a good life in the army, at least three times a week can eat meat, which is better than the wealthy households in the Zhuangzi.

Moreover, in addition to the distribution of clothing and daily necessities, there is also pocket money in the army. The eldest son saved most of his pocket money and sent it home, and he must provide for his younger brother to go to middle school, saying that only by studying can there be a way out.

Liu Fugui doesn't know what a way out is, but the eldest son has broadened his horizons outside, and he took the money home, he can't be regarded as a child anymore, and this family can be half the master. After asking his youngest son what he thought, he finally decided to let his youngest son go to middle school in the county, and today is the day to send his youngest son to the county, which made him not sleep well all night.

This world is becoming more and more incomprehensible, and many children can't wait to go out and see the world, or go to the city to be apprentices, or sign up for the army, and few people are willing to stay at home and work honestly.

And those who have girls in the family are becoming more and more reluctant to let the girls out early, and those who have girls in the family are regarded as losing money, and they wish they would marry early. But with the rise of the cotton textile industry, whether it is cleaning up the cotton fields or working in the factory, the girl is no longer an idle meal.

So in the past, it was common for girls to marry at the age of fourteen or fifteen, but now they are eighteen or nineteen years old and have not yet married. When the matchmaker in the four towns and villages introduces the girl, she often takes how much money the other party can earn a month as a condition. Thanks to the cotton textile industry, coupled with the strict orders of the imperial court, the drowning of female babies in the countryside has become more and more rare, and even Liu Fugui feels that this is a good thing.

Unconsciously, a pot of smoke was about to run out, Liu Fugui knocked the smoke pot in the ash trough, then got up and put on a cotton jacket, walked to the door and opened a gap, looked at the Chenguang outside, and finally turned around and called the mother-in-law to take breakfast and prepare for going out.

In villages across Hebei, there are countless peasant households like Liu Laoshe, whose lives have been changed by reform. These people are changing the lower social structure of the Ming Dynasty little by little, and have become the most solid and reliable foundation of the imperial court.

Since the eleventh year of Chongzhen, the school system composed of primary school, senior primary school and middle school has been gradually improved in Hebei. Since the beginning of this year, nearly 50,000 junior high school students, more than 27,000 senior primary school students, and more than 5,000 middle school students have graduated in Hebei alone.

These primary and secondary school graduates not only supplemented the needs of various trading companies and workshops in the north, but also provided sufficient resources for the army and navy officer schools and the army. And they are not only the beneficiaries of the reform, but also the staunchest defenders of the reform. When they began to gradually enter the various industries of Daming, they were slowly changing the entire Daming society.

It was also from this moment that Chongzhen's governance of the country began to slowly shift to these school graduates who were more vibrant, more idealistic, and more loyal to themselves. The old gentry also lost its most powerful weapon, the monopoly of knowledge.

But at this moment, few people can see so far. After all, the first place these primary and secondary school graduates entered was the army and trading companies, which were originally areas that the old gentry class did not pay attention to.

Of course, this is also because in the past, the army was in the hands of the military ministers, and the trading company has never been so large as it is today. It was completely incomprehensible to the old gentry how they had absorbed so many talents.

The trading company alone has 32,000 regular employees, 12,000 mercenaries, 15 warships, 115 merchant ships, 77 ocean-going fishing vessels, and 35 foreign caravans. The total capital of the company exceeds 70 million yuan, and the average annual income exceeds 40%.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the merchants of the Ming Dynasty created one of the greatest miracles in the past ten years, although the process of making a fortune in the Sihai Trading Company was suspected of digging into the corners of the imperial court, such as the most profitable salt industry in the Ming Dynasty was swallowed by the Sihai Trading Company. The overseas actions of the Four Seas Trading Company were supported by the armed forces of the state, which stained the company's overseas interests with a lot of blood.

But for the Ming court, the Sihai Trading Company concentrated the power of the Ming merchants for the first time, enabling the state to use the wealth of the merchants to serve the state policy. Before the establishment of the Four Seas Trading Company, the wealth owned by the merchants of the Ming Dynasty was not inferior to that of the company, but the wealth in their hands could not be converted into industrial capital except for gardening, raising theater troupes, and prostituting famous prostitutes, so as to gather a large number of social resources.

The establishment of the Four Seas Trading Company was the first manifestation of the wealth owned by these merchants in the form of capital. In just ten years, the power of capital has multiplied itself to a frightening point. The eunuchs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had no other intentions, but were bent on competing with other merchants for control of the company.

However, Sihai Trading Company is not the only large-scale trading group in Daming, there are four banks behind it that hold the power of currency issuance, Jiangnan Business Group with Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau as the core, North Iron and Steel Company with Hebei and Shandong Iron and Steel Manufacturing Base as the core, Shanxi Iron and Steel Company with Shanxi Coal and Iron Industry as the core, and so on.

The social resources and wealth controlled by the merchant groups in the north of the Ming Dynasty completely suppressed the gentry class in the south of the Yangtze River for the first time.