Since ancient times, the Chinese people have been the most industrious people, no matter how difficult the conditions are, as long as there is soil, water, and seeds, they can grow crops.

After Zhu Yuanzhang finished speaking, the people looked left and right in the direction of his fingers, looked at the surrounding environment, and the corners of their mouths couldn't help grinning, this mountain is less affected by the drought than outside the mountain, the trees and flowers are all green, there are streams running through the mountains, although the mud layer on the mountain is thinner than the bottom of the mountain, it is not very fertile land, but it is no problem to plant some simple crops.

They also had enough farm tools to use for pleading and farming, because when they followed Zhu Yuanzhang into the mountains, they carried all the things at home, not to mention valuable things such as hoes and plowshares, and even worthless pot lids and embroidery needles.

In fact, this is also a characteristic of China's thousands of years of peasant uprisings, when the peasants participate in the peasant uprisings, they often carry all their belongings, drag their children and daughters, and carry pots and bowls......

Zhu Yuanzhang calculated the time, it is now the depths of winter, and he will use the winter time to quickly open up the wasteland and prepare the land, and he will be able to sow seeds in the spring of next year, and then wait until the grain he brought into the mountains is eaten, and the cottage can just harvest the first batch of grain he grows.

In the peasant uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty in the last generation, Zhu Yuanzhang was a person who liked to build and store grain by himself, and did not like to use robbery to develop. He pursued the strategic method of accumulating grain, building high walls, and immersing himself in development. When Chen Youliang, Zhang Shicheng and others were fighting and making a fuss, he hid in his old nest and worked hard to farm, and then he really succeeded, and of course this successful experience must continue to be used.

At this time, an old farmer spoke a little timidly: "Brother Zhu...... The food we grow in the wasteland...... Do I want to pay you rent? If you have to pay rent, how much? ”

This question is very sharp, and when asked, everyone's bodies trembled, and their hands were pinched, and the nervousness of the mood could be known without asking. They rebelled by exposing the rod, and finally broke free from the exploitation of the government, and if they fell into the same shackles again, it would be better to go home and wait for death.

If this problem is not handled well, Zhu Yuanzhang's hard-won prestige will disappear in an instant.

The whole scene was quiet all of a sudden, the sound of heavy breathing came and went, and a depressing atmosphere began to spread, and everyone pricked up their ears, waiting for Zhu Yuanzhang's answer.

"We are brothers! Folks! Do you collect rent from your brothers? Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and said: "Of course not!" ”

"Coax!" Everyone laughed, their heavy hearts were suddenly relaxed, and everyone's faces showed a look of ecstasy, sure enough, Zhu Bugs is Zhu Bugs, he is not an evil official, he is our big brother, and doing things is authentic.

The hearts of the people were once again captured by Zhu Yuanzhang.

However, no one noticed that Zhu Yuanzhang quietly glanced at Li Chujiu in the crowd at this time. Li Chujiu coughed lightly, stood up, and said loudly: "Brother Zhu, you are really kind, I have obeyed you again, but I will pay you a rent for the land I planted, whether you collect it or not, I have to pay it." ”

Zhu Yuanzhang pretended to say: "Brother Chujiu, what are you talking about?" As I said, we are brothers, and I will never collect rent from my brothers. ”

Li Chujiu said seriously: "Brother Zhu, this great drought, the brothers are dying of hunger, you are cooking porridge in Fenglei Village, you spent an unknown amount of silver, and you managed to get a lot of food to store in Huanglong Mountain, how much does it cost you?" ”

Ma Xiaotian said beside him: "I think, if you say less, you have to say 10,000 taels of silver......

"Ten thousand taels?" The peasants were all shocked, many of whom had never seen ten taels of silver in their lives, and when they heard that the grain had cost ten thousand taels, their mouths were open enough to fit a boiled egg.

Li Chujiu and Ma Xiaotian exchanged glances with each other, and then continued: "Brother Zhu, you have spent so much silver on us, I can't pretend not to know, the so-called grace of dripping water, when the spring reciprocates, I, Li Chujiu, have no money to repay you, so I have to pay you rent, how much food I owe you, I will give you as much rent as I can't pay it in one year, I will pay it for two years, and if it can't be paid in two years, I will pay it for three years, and I will always repay your great kindness before I can stop." ”

"Well, well said!" There was a chorus of echoes in the crowd.

Although the Ming Dynasty is poor, although the people have not opened their wisdom, but in general, this era is still an era that pays attention to benevolence, righteousness, etiquette, wisdom and faith, people's hearts are still very innocent, and they also pay attention to kindness and righteousness, pay attention to credit, pay attention to the gods of the three feet above their heads, and good people have good rewards. The people of this era will not add poison to milk, will not make Sudan red eggs, and will not sell a piece of ragged clothes made of burlap for ten times the price to cheat women out of money. As soon as Li Chu's words came out, he received a large number of villagers.

The old farmer who asked him at the beginning actually said: "Brother Chu Jiu is reasonable, I was beaten by Gu Huaxiu's bastard at the beginning, and I couldn't even walk, it was Brother Zhu who took me to Fenglei Village for treatment, picked up a life, and provided me with food and drink for nothing, and now it has brought us to this mountain to take root, I owe Brother Zhu too much, and I actually asked if I would pay the rent...... I'm so sorry for Bugling Zhu. ”

"Yes! I have to pay the rent, at least I have to pay back everything I owe to Zhu Bugs! Someone else shouted.

"All handed over, all handed over!" The people automatically and consciously shouted.

This problem has finally been fooled, Zhu Yuanzhang breathed a sigh of relief, you must know that the issue of paying rent is a very important issue, it is related to the country, if you take the road of letting the people under your rule not pay rent at the beginning, there will be more trouble in the future. For example, Li Zicheng, in the middle and late stages of the uprising, shouted the slogan "Welcome the king, the king will not pay for food", but the people were happy and stopped paying food, but ...... Can the state do it well? When the team grew stronger, he couldn't change this slogan if he wanted to, so he could only break the jar and break it, and it would rot all the way.

On the issue of rent collection and taxation, Zhu Yuanzhang intends to follow a technique he learned in the years when he was floating in the sky as a bystander, that is, to delineate an income line, people above this line collect taxes, and the income does not reach this line of tax exemption, and the higher the income, the higher the tax, so as to achieve the control of the gap between the rich and the poor, although this control is not very perfect, with the passage of time there will still be a differentiation between the rich and the poor, but it is better than the rich in the Ming Dynasty do not collect taxes, and the poor collect heavy taxes.

Of course, this is something that will only be done in the future when you have the power to do it, and it is too early to say this.

After solving this main problem, the latter problem is simple, Zhu Yuanzhang first divided the young and middle-aged people in the villagers, all of them were accepted into the army, and let the old farmers and women be responsible for farming, the ancient women were not only embroidery, some modern people thought that the ancient was a man who cultivated and weaved, this understanding is wrong, the ancient women were also good at farming, almost everyone would farm, the so-called male farmer and female weaving, is only the characteristics caused by the prevalence of the silk weaving industry in the south of the Yangtze River, but in the place where the silk weaving industry is not developed, women also want to go to the field. Not to mention ancient times, in modern rural areas, women work in the fields like women.

There were more than 600 young people who could accommodate the marching force, and together with Zhu Yuanzhang's original army, it was finally formed into a force of 800 people, and there were only more than 700 old and weak women who were responsible for farming and cultivating the land. It is unrealistic to use more than 700 people to produce and feed 800 troops, and this is only a measure of rights and interests.

Zhu Yuanzhang also arranged for the people to cut down trees, built wooden walls in the cave, separated the cave into a small room for the villagers to live separately, and also built a wall and arrow tower for the cottage, and prepared a large number of rolling logs, stones and other defense materials.

Eight hundred soldiers practice in the queue every day under the leadership of Zhu Yuanzhang, Wang Er, and Desperate Saburo, the materials in the mountains are extremely scarce, and the soldiers are not able to wear armor for the time being, nor can they use spears with iron spear heads, they can still only use spears sharpened from wooden sticks, but Zhu Yuanzhang is not worried about this, whether the spear is wood or iron, does it really have such a big impact on combat effectiveness?

Wrong!

The decisive factor affecting the combat effectiveness of the army has never been the head of the gun and the armor...... It's a strong heart!

The cottage is in ruins, a new beginning can always inspire the fighting spirit of human beings, up to Zhu Yuanzhang, down to the old and weak women in the cottage, everyone is full of energy, building their new home, everyone is happy, with a smile on their faces.

But among all of them, there is also one person who is unhappy, and that is Zhang Yingxian.

She now dared to sleep every night with autumn leaves in her arms, and even then, she slept soundly, always worrying that the straw curtain hanging in the house would be lifted, and then the man forced him to squeeze into bed, crush her under her, and humiliate her. Trapped in the nest of thieves, she was powerless to resist at all, and outside the cottage was the vast Huanglong Mountain, there were many wild beasts in the mountain, she and the maids didn't know the way, and they didn't even dare to escape.

Day after day went by, and she couldn't sleep every night, but ...... I don't know if the man is a true gentleman or a real idiot, he didn't open the curtain once, and after more than a month of tossing and turning, she slowly let go of her heart, and began to fall asleep at night, and occasionally didn't need to sleep with autumn leaves anymore.

During the day, she began to be bold, let the maid help her to walk in the cottage, look at the mountain scenery she likes, feel the fresh air, and everyone who meets her will respectfully call her aunt, she dare not agree, because these are robbers and bandits! She was worried that if she denied that it was Zhu Ba's woman, they would kill her!

But as time went by, she began to feel the real respect from the people in the cottage, that is a kind of love for the house and Wu, because she loves Zhu Bugs, so even her aunt is also loved, everyone talks to her, there is a kind of respect from the heart, which is completely different from the feeling she used to be the second young grandmother in the Ma family.

At that time, others respected her only because of fear, not because of love, which were two very different emotions......

She occasionally can't help but think: This life is not bad now!