Bifeng Mountain Phi Snow Cave is a famous spot near Tongcheng, not far from the city, but the scenery is very good, it has always been a place where the literati and scholars of Tongcheng like to go. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info Zheng Sen and Gu Jiang followed Fang Yizhi out of the city in a carriage, and didn't go far to a village. I saw a group of people already waiting on the side of the road with several sedan chairs. It turned out that most of the people in this village were tenants of Fang Yizhi's family, and the Fang family also had a small courtyard in this village.

An old man in his fifties trembled (the nutritional status of people in this era is generally not good, so people in their fifties are already gray and look very old.) Ushered in.

Fang Yizhi hurriedly got out of the car, and the old man said: "I heard that the prince is coming, the little old man has already ordered someone to clean the courtyard overnight, and the son and the prince can go to the courtyard first to have a cup of tea, and then go up the mountain." ”

"Uncle Zhong, you've worked hard." Fang Yizhi also replied.

Fang Yizhi also mentioned this annex to Zheng Sen. In fact, in this village, what is really the property of the Fang family, that is, this courtyard, as for the other tenant farmers and their land, in fact, they are just here to belong to his family.

In my Ming Dynasty, the gentry were a privileged class. When Taizu of the Ming Dynasty was established, he gave some privileges to scholars, for example, if they were admitted to fame, how much land could be exempted from various taxes in the family. If you just take the exam, then the income is limited. But if you can win a person or even a jinshi, then you can get a lot of discounts. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, when Taizu became the ancestor, the tax burden was generally light, but later all kinds of taxes and fees other than the regular tax increased rapidly, according to Huang Zongxi's later research, every time in order to reduce the pressure of the people's tax reform, the result of the reform is that the tax level fell in a short period of time, and then quickly rose to a higher position than the original level. This is what was later called Huang Zongxi's law. Zheng Sen sometimes even feels that this is almost like a deformation of the derivation of the second law of thermodynamics based on the second law of thermodynamics in the social realm, "any attempt to increase the negative entropy within a certain range will lead to an increase in the overall entropy value on a larger scale".

With the increase in taxes, it became more and more difficult for ordinary people to bear such pressures, so a strange way of avoiding taxes arose, that is, yeoman farmers took their own land and their own families, and threw themselves into the names of those who were promoted and jinshi, and gave their land and even their whole families to these scholars in the legal sense. In order to avoid the tax burden. (In fact, it is to change the payment of taxes to the court to the payment of rent to the gentry, as long as the rent is lower than the tax.) And of course the gentry had to be merciful enough to take them in, to count them as their slaves, and to give them tax exemptions. In the novel "The Outer History of Confucianism" that Zheng Sen saw in his previous life, after Fan Jin was promoted, someone immediately took his own land and property, and he ran to beg Fan Jin to accept them and let them be his slaves, which is the reason. So in such a change, the gentry and these yeoman farmers completed a "win-win", the yeoman farmers "willingly" lost their land, the gentry got a large amount of land and wealth without much effort, and the imperial court also lost the source of taxes, but the original expenses could not be reduced, so they had to collect higher taxes on the land that could still collect taxes, and then there were more yeoman farmers...... Today's long-term tenants in this village are actually such people.

"Uncle Zhong, are you ready on the mountain?" Fang Yizhi got into the sedan chair, but opened the sedan curtain and asked the "Zhongbo" who was following on the side.

"Back to the young master, the mountains are ready." "Uncle Zhong" hurriedly bowed his head and replied.

The group got on the sedan chair and entered the village, until they reached the east end of the village, they saw the Fang family's courtyard from a distance, although it was not too big, and it was not gorgeous, but the pink wall and tiles were at the foot of the mountain, hidden in the green willow peach blossoms, but it was also extremely elegant.

The palanquin bearers carried the palanquin into the front yard and hurriedly retreated. Although there were no women in this group, (Li Xiangjun was dressed as a scholar, and Huan'er was dressed as a scholar), but this was still not a place where inferior people like them could stay for a long time.

A few people got off the sedan chair, and Fang Yizhi said: "It will take a while for other friends to come, let's drink some tea here, and when they arrive, we will go up the mountain together." In fact, it was originally early in the morning, but it was a different taste to watch the sunrise on the mountain. It's just that the mountain road is dew in the early morning, and it is extremely slippery, and many places are afraid that they can't sit on their shoulders, so they have to go down and walk by themselves, which is quite inconvenient. So it's better to wait here and take a break. ”

Zheng Sen knew what he meant by the inconvenience, in fact, whether it was Zheng Sen, Gu Jiang or Fang Yizhi himself, climbing this mountain that was not too high was actually nothing, only Li Xiangjun had his little feet wrapped, and it was okay to walk on the flat bottom, but he couldn't climb the mountain.

"Thank you Fang Gongzi for your kindness." Li Xiangjun also thanked him in a low voice.

After waiting in the courtyard for a while, someone came to report that the prince of Guide Hou and several other sons had come. Several people hurriedly greeted them. But I saw that a few small sedan chairs had come from afar, and they arrived at the door after a while. The sedan chair fell, and several young men dressed in Confucian robes got down from the sedan chair. At first, one person held a folding fan of Xiangfei bamboo, with handsome eyes and eyebrows, looking forward to Shenfei, but he really had the taste of a beautiful son in the turbid world.

"Brother Chaozong." Fang Yizhi greeted him and said.

"Brother Secret." The man also bowed to Fang with wisdom.

"Chaozong, I have a few friends here, I really want to introduce you to them." Fang Yizhi took Hou Fangyu's hand and introduced Zheng Sen and the others to him.

"This is Jinjiang Zheng Damu, Damu is Mr. Yushan's protégé, the most enthusiastic, is the person in my generation. This ......" Fang Yizhi looked at Li Xiangjun, who was dressed in Confucian clothes, but he didn't know what to say for a while, but Li Xiangjun took the initiative to say: "Li Xiang of Jiangning Mansion, I have seen Hou Gongzi." ”

Hou Fangyu's eyes flashed suddenly when he heard this name. He is used to rolling among the flowers, how can he not see that Li Xiangjun is a woman dressed as a man. Now that I have heard the name "Li Xiang", I naturally know that this is the Li Xiangjun who gave himself a closed door in "Meixianglou" some time ago. However, he didn't make any special moves, but just replied: "Brother Zheng, Brother Li, when Xiao Ke was in Nanjing, he admired the names of the two for a long time!" It's a pity that neither of them was there at the time, so I couldn't see each other. When I saw the two today, it was really the dragon and phoenix among the people, and they were a perfect match, and I was fortunate to be lucky! ”

"My brother also often hears the name of Mr., and when I see it today, what a blessing." Zheng Sen also said. He naturally heard the meaning of "Perfect Match", while Li Xiangjun lowered his head slightly and gently moved half a step sideways towards Zheng Sen.

Zheng Sen also knew that Hou Fangyu had eaten Li Xiangjun's closed-door soup, considering that he had stirred up the legend in "Peach Blossom Fan", coupled with the influence of those jealous low-IQ TV series he watched in his previous life, he really wanted to see if Hou Fangyu had any essence after meeting Li Xiangjun. Manifestations of the insect's brain. But now it seems that this person doesn't seem to have any problem with this, so that he is faintly surprised

This is actually not surprising, in fact, in this kind of person who is used to rolling in the flowers, he has seen many beautiful women, how can it be so easy to fall in love at first sight? In his opinion, Li Xiangjun is probably just a very pleasing thing. In contrast, Zheng Sen is a disciple of Qian Qianyi, the leader of Donglin, and his family is rich and soldiered. It's really not worth it to befriend him for such a woman. Even, for him, the previous argument with Gu Jiang, and even the tension in the relationship, may not be a way to gain prestige. Because although he and Fang Yizhi are both one of the "Four Sons of the Restoration Society", now Fang Yizhi has gained greater fame because of his father's grievances in the blood book and his academic achievements, while he is still only famous for his writing and so-called "discipline". But Hou Fangyu also knew that this kind of reputation was nothing compared to Fang Yizhi's name of filial piety and learning, and it was really nothing. Even Zheng Sen, who is much younger than him, is regarded as a future generation of scholars by virtue of the so-called "practical learning". This expectation alone is not something that he Hou Fangyu can achieve.

Originally, Hou Fangyu and Gu Jiang sang against each other, just to raise the name of "learning". He knew that with his own talent and knowledge, it was almost impossible for him to be unique, to become a family of his own, and to become a generation of scholars, and besides, his ambition was not here. It is also known that one of the methods of criticizing his doctrine is to debate with a man of recognized learning. Moreover, it is easier to destroy than to build, not to mention that their doctrine has not yet been fully constructed.

No, Gu Jiang is a very old-fashioned person, and he is extremely serious in his studies, but he is not a guy who really doesn't understand anything. Of course, Gu Jiang could also detect Hou Fangyu's attitude towards learning, this deliberate distortion of knowledge, and this awareness naturally made him angry, so the two of them were on the bar. However, Hou Fangyu understood much better than Gu Jiang. To be honest, he didn't really hate Zheng Sen, Fang Yizhi, and Gu Jiang's knowledge, so naturally he wouldn't provoke them because Zheng Sen and Fang Yizhi would naturally stand on Gu Jiang's side academically. After all, unlike Gu Jiang, these two people have more background and more power, and it is completely unnecessary to offend them for no reason.

"Da Mu, Li Gongzi, this is the prince of Kunshan, this is the prince of Tongling Zhao, this is the ......" Fang Yizhi introduced the other sons to Zheng Sen one by one.

After the meeting, Fang Yizhi said to Hou Fangyu: "Chaozong, do you think we are coming in first to have a cup of tea, or are we going up the mountain directly?" ”

Hou Fangyu looked up at the mountain and said with a smile: "Naturally, it is up the mountain, and the spring water on the mountain is not better than the water you have here?" Who wants to drink what tea here? ”

So Fang Yizhi called Uncle Zhong again, gave an order, and after a while, a group of farmers came over with more than a dozen pairs of shoulders. Fang Yizhi and the others went on the shoulder, and when he went back, he saw that Zheng Sen and Gu Jiang did not sit on it, he knew that Gu Jiang was more or less afraid of heights, when climbing the mountain, there were already many roads on the edge of the cliff, and sitting on the swaying shoulder was becoming more and more dizzy, so Gu Jiang was always used to walking on his own when he went up the mountain, so he said to Zheng Sen: "Da Mu, why don't you go up?" ”

"When I go out and climb up, I still like to climb up on my own. And Brother Ning Ren didn't go up to the shoulder, I happened to be with him, talking while walking. Zheng Sen said with a smile.

"It's up to you. But if you are left behind, we will not wait for you. Fang Yizhi said.