Another autumn harvest is approaching, and unlike last year, the eight southeastern provinces of Daming finally ushered in a bumper year, but in the countryside of Liangjiang, there is a melancholy atmosphere everywhere.

Outside Hefei County, Luzhou Prefecture, a group of farmers had just finished cutting rice and gathered together to chat. I was smoking a hookah, complaining about the bad way of the world.

"I really don't understand, how can my family's few acres of dry land become paddy fields, and I have to pay grain according to the upper field?"

"Yes, it's the same in my family, it was originally Zhongtian, but now as soon as the government checks the acres of land, it says that it is Shangtian, and the field has immediately doubled! How do you spend this day! ”

"Isn't it the new policy of Emperor Zhu? The old method is very good, what kind of tax does he want to change, how can those officials be willing to pay grain like us? It's not like I'm trying to remember the fields in my hands as Shimoda......"

"What does that have to do with us? Why do we turn our Nakata and Shimoda into Ueda? ”

"Of course, in order to complete the tax rated above, the fields in the master's hands are all under the field, of course the tax is paid less, and the tax amount above is not reduced, so naturally we can only let us bitter men come to the top of the cylinder!"

"Well, what can I do like that! Do you want to go to the customs to make a living like the tenants of the Li family in Dongxiang? ”

This topic is really heavy, and there is a heavy resentment on all the simple and dark faces.

"This world has changed and changed, and it is always their wealthy families who have benefited, and our small families have suffered! The thousands of acres of paddy fields of the Li family in Dongxiang have been found to be dry fields, and they are all under the fields, but we ......."

"How can we compare with the Li family? One family has two males. I heard that Emperor Zhu was originally going to give Li Erfeng the king. As a result, Li Er modestly resigned and was crowned a duke. Such a big meritorious county official, Master Zhang, still doesn't stammer? ”

"Hmph, what a hero! Isn't it just a seller seeking glory? If it weren't for their Li family, this Anhui would still be the emperor of the Qing Dynasty! ”

"Ouch, you can't talk nonsense, if you let the official know it, it's terrible, you can't escape from a board! If you don't get it, you have to go to court! ”

"I don't have a way to live, what are you afraid of, what lawsuits are you afraid of? Even if you eat a lawsuit, you will also be exiled to Borneo outside the border......"

"Alas, it's actually nothing to find out Ueda. I heard that when the grain is finished this year, there will be no long-term and short-term prices, and they will all be completed according to the parity price, so it is still cost-effective. ”

"Of course you are a good deal, your family is originally twelve acres of farmland! Now that there is no long price, I will pay half of the field endowment, and I will save six or seven stone of millet every year, and it will be sent soon! ”

"It's only six or seven stone grains, what's the matter? The few families in the village who joined the army are really famous! Each family has been allocated 20 acres of paddy fields in Wuchang Mansion, and 10 years later, they can get another 20 acres of fields outside the Guan! ”

Speaking of the military pay field, everyone sighed, now is not the beginning. Emperor Daming doesn't recruit much anymore, and it is rare to recruit a few people to have a way to be there. Where is the turn to get ordinary people? At this moment, several people came over, heard everyone's discussion, and said loudly: "Now you can still join the collective farm and go to Guanwai." The imperial court issued a clear decree that every family and a woman can have 50 acres of land, although there is no land deed, but it is a permanent tenant rent-free, which is equivalent to their own, and they are also exempt from land for three years, and the official family will also pay for the road, seeds, rations, and building expenses! ”

The person who spoke was dressed as a scholar, wearing a Confucian style, and an abacus hanging around his neck, looking like he was either a landlord or a housekeeper, and he had a talent and fame.

"There are people who can't survive outside the border, and we still have a few acres of land, but we haven't reached that point. I heard that the Tartars outside the gate are fierce, and those of us who catch us in the south will cut off their heads......"

"Alas, it's hard to say if you are forced down by the government again, I really don't know if this bone will be lost outside the customs or buried in Nanyang!"

"Lao Li, you are also from Li Hefei's family, can you help our fellow villagers talk? It's still the original way, we're willing to pay a long price. ”

As a matter of fact, according to the original method of paying "long prices," the burden on most peasants is even heavier than that of the current method. But in this era, farmers in the inland areas of Chinese mainland always like good rules and old methods, and are unwilling to try new things. The attitude towards the rectification of the field is the same, not to mention being thousands of miles away from home? If it weren't for being cornered, there would really not be many people willing to go to the South Seas, the Kanto East, and the Americas.

The man from the Li family in Hefei said with a smile: "I don't have the time to help you speak, because I'm going to leave soon, go to Nanyang to open a rubber plantation with Master Li Si, do any of you want to go with me?" I pay 100 silver dollars a year, which is several times higher than your income from farming in your hometown! ”

Speaking of going to Nanyang to open a rubber plantation, the man of the Li family was full of brilliance on his face, this business was told to him by Li Yunzhang, the fourth master of the Li Hefei family, that it was said that the emperor Lao Tzu had set up a big rubber garden in Borneo, and now he can earn tens of millions of silver dollars a year! Li Wen'an and Li Hongzhang were all greedy, and sold all the fields given by Ying Tianfu for money, and asked Li Yunzhang to take them to invest in the rubber garden, saying that they would make sure that they would not lose money! This cousin brother of the old Li family will do business, and immediately decided to sell all the fields in the family and go to Nanyang with Li Yunzhang to make a fortune. He has already calculated that while partnering with Li Yunzhang to set up a rubber garden, he is trying to find a way to get an errand in the government of the Grand Duchy of Lanfang, how can it be better than being a rich man in the countryside of Anhui......

The man named Li Qingzhang saw that no one was willing to go with him, so he shook his head and left with a few family members. The peasants looked at his back silently, and it took a long time before he became humane: "This old Li family already has so many silver fields, why is it not peaceful, and they have traveled thousands of miles to Borneo?" ”

Another humanitarian: "It is said that Nanyang is good at making a fortune, and now it seems to be a little reasonable, that Li Qingzhang is a person who picks the door a lot, and he actually gives 100 yuan a year's salary as soon as he opens his mouth, and he is an official of eight or nine grades!" ”

Someone else echoed: "I heard that there are already many people in southern Anhui who have gone to Nanyang to make a fortune, and they are more shrewd than us Huainan people, which is probably really good." ”

At this time, Hefei was still a small county town in Luzhou Prefecture, and the degree of prosperity was far less than that of Anqing Mansion on the Yangtze River in the south, which was the capital of Anhui Province. Therefore, Su Shun and his entourage, who went up the river to investigate the suffering of the people of the Ming Dynasty, did not come to Hefei, but walked around Anqing Mansion, and returned to Huaining County, where the Yamen of the governor of Anhui Province was located.

"Sure enough, the people are bored! Look at it, the piglets who sold themselves to Nanyang at the door of Shunfeng Xing have all lined up in a long line! Enming, we didn't have such a thing in the Qing Dynasty, right?"

Su Shun sat in a steamed bun shop named Mai Longxiang, eating delicious and juicy meat buns, while pointing to a popular business opposite and said to Bai Enming beside him.

Su Shun has asked his subordinates to inquire, Shunfeng Xing is a Hui business name initiated in the past two years, the owner's surname is Hu, is the family that sells piglets on the Nanyang route, and now he has also opened a "money village" called Bukang Bank in Nanyang, and the main business is the small exchange of small amounts in Nanyang and Daming, which is also very prosperous. However, the piglet trade did not let go, but took advantage of the opportunity of the poor livelihood of the people in the Ming Dynasty to become bigger, and opened branches in all counties in Anhui to lure the poor people to go to Nanyang. A route south to Australia has also recently been launched – and now there is another gold mine (New Gold Mountain) near Sydney, Australia!

Bai Enming shook his head and smiled bitterly, and said in his heart: "Why didn't anyone go to the South Seas at that time in the Qing Dynasty?" No one went to Nanyang, where did so many Chinese come from? ”

But he could only echo Su Shun and said: "What the sixth master said is extremely true, Zhu Jishi's territory is indeed a ...... of people living in poverty."

Su Shun sighed again: "Why aren't there any gentry making trouble?" How come these people who read the books of the sages don't have a little backbone? I think that Yongzheng Ye made a lot of waves when he was engaged in stalling into the mu! ”

Bai Enming said in his heart: "The silver collected by the apportionment into the mu belongs to the imperial court, and of course the gentry below will make a fuss." Zhu Jishi here, the silver collected by the local government in Anhui is basically to meet the expenses of the province, and the officials have taken the lion's share, and the overcharged silver is all from the local officials in Anhui, and now the locals are the local officials, and the gentry are still haunted! (To be continued......)