After the Double Ninth Festival, as that day got closer and closer, Du Shan became more and more uncertain. In a few days, it will be the day he leaves here.

He is now working at the Hubei Silver Mining Company in Zhushan, Hubei Province, but he is not an employee of the company, but a prisoner of the Eighth Labor Reform Brigade in Yunyang, Hubei Province. The No. 8 Labor Reform Team has a labor contract with the Hubei Silver Mining Company, and the prisoners are mining and labor reform for the Silver Mining Company.

After another shift, Du Shan and his teammates on the same team came up from the well, dirty and tired. Okay, let's go take a bath together. After September, the large bathroom has a hot water supply. Take a hot shower and take a dip in the large hot tub to get rid of most of the day's fatigue.

In the bathroom, today is a little different than usual.

Hundreds of teammates are also cellmates, and they all know that Du Shan will leave in a few days, and everyone has prepared a ceremony for him today.

Standing under the bath head to wash away the stains from his body, he walked over to the chair.

The old king stood there with a smile, and when he sat down, he opened his small box, which was a toolbox for shaving his head and trimming his face.

As soon as he cut it down, Du Shan's short hair, which was not long, fell one after another, revealing his cyan scalp. After cutting, Lao Wangtou rinsed him, took out a razor, and skillfully shaved the short inch clean, revealing a shiny bald head.

I don't know when the prisoners here have such a custom, before they go out after completing their sentences, they have to shave their heads.

Discipline has given you more time today and has not interfered with this tradition.

Lao Wangtou is also a labor prisoner, and he used to be edicted. But it's not a big official, it's a haircut. Although ancient Chinese men wore their hair in a long bun, they also needed to repair their hair. It's the same as the guy in the teahouse is called Dr. Tea, and the doctor is called Doctor. The haircut has a very powerful nickname, called the edict.

Lao Wangtou's hairdressing skills are very high, but in the early years he once joined the rebel army of displaced people, and after being captured by the Chu army at that time, he was sent here for labor reform. Because of his age, discipline also took care of him. He was put in charge of boiling water in the bathrooms and giving the prisoners haircuts.

"Be a human again!"

Haircuts, shaving faces, trimming beards, and plucking ears, after a skillful movement, Du Shan has become very energetic.

After the haircut, Du Shan took off his bath towel and walked to the fire that his fellow inmates were burning, and just like that, he stepped over barely, and the inmates took turns to take the branches of the teak tree and gently patted Du on his body.

The ceremony is complete. Discipline also appeared at the right time, and he brought a new set of linen clothes, shoes and socks.

"Say goodbye to everyone!"

Du Shan looked at the inmates who had been with him for three years and smiled, "Everyone is serious about reforming and striving to get out as soon as possible." Brother, I'll go out first and wait for everyone outside. ”

"Grandson Turtle, get out of here." The old man shouted with a laugh.

"Your grandma's, be honest outside. Don't come back. ”

With everyone's blessings, Du Shan changed into a full set of new clothes, shoes and socks. I didn't look back. According to the custom here, when you leave, don't look back.

Although there are still several days left in the sentence, the rule here is that prisoners can leave the cell a week early and spend the last part of the prison in an outside house, during which time they do not need to go to labor reform. Give them a final time to prepare before leaving.

Out of the prison area, the warden took him to the warden's office, and on the way, gave him a cigarette.

In the warden's office, the warden puts down what he is doing. To Du Shandao, "Sit." ”

"Yes."

After three years of labor reform, Du Shan even had a bit of a soldier's purge atmosphere. He sat down, his waist still straight, his hands resting on his laps, motionless.

The prison warden took out Du Shan's file from the side, in fact, he didn't need to look at it, he also knew a lot about the prisoner in his neighborhood.

Du Shan, a native of Yunyang, Hubei, was born as a child of eunuchs and has read. Du Shan's background is very good, his grandfather used to be a prefect, and later was dismissed and returned to his hometown, and the Du family also has a lot of fields in Yunyang's hometown, and his life is still rich. His father was still a showman, but later changed to business, and the business did well. But later the displaced people rebelled, and the Du family suffered a catastrophe, their family's money and food were robbed, the house was burned, parents and brothers were killed, and Du Xun was coerced into the peasant army.

A few years passed in a daze, until he was defeated and captured by the official army. Because he was already a small leader in the peasant army at that time, he was finally sentenced to five years of labor reform.

After spending a difficult time in prison, he went to a mine in Zhushan County, a silver mine in Hubei, and went down to mine, digging for three years. In the past three years, Du Shan's performance has been very good and he has been actively reformed, so he has been praised several times above, and he has also received several extremely rare commutations, and finally, after serving three years in prison, he was released early.

"Du Shan, what are your plans for the future?"

Du Shan was a little dazed, yes, what are the plans? His home has long been broken, and the former Ming Dynasty has also died. Now it is the new dynasty of the Han Dynasty, and when they were in the labor camp, in addition to going down to the mine to mine, the discipline also held study classes for them at night and organized everyone to learn to read and write. They learn to read and write, and most of the time they learn directly from newspapers. Therefore, they have also heard a lot about the earth-shaking changes that are happening outside.

For the outside century, he had both some yearning and some fear.

He was even a little accustomed to life here, except for the initial fear and anxiety, and in the past two years, he had slowly gotten used to everything here.

Life in the labor camp is not so terrible, and here, except for the lack of freedom, the rest is not bad. The discipline arranges them to do things, when to get up and when to go to bed every day, and even when to go to work and when to get off work, when to take a bath and when to eat, there are strict rules.

But speaking of which, the labor intensity here is not very high, and the food is not eaten, and there can be a meal of meat every three or five days, and you can at least eat enough every day. Not to mention the hot showers and nice prison cells.

Even better than his years in the rebels. At that time, they were frightened all day long, and they were even unable to eat and clothe themselves, and they were tired all day long.

The prison director looked at this young man who was only in his twenties, and there were many various kinds of labor prisoners in the labor camp. But there aren't many people who really commit the worst crimes. It is impossible for that kind of person to stay in the Central Plains, and most of them are escorted to the frontier and stay in the place with the highest level of defense alert.

Most of the people in his labor camp are people like Du Shan, or some former peasant soldiers. Under the emperor's strict crackdown decree, at the beginning of the founding of the country, countless people were sent to one after another labor camps for labor reform.

It is said that by the second year of Longhan, there were nearly 5 million people in various labor camps, both men and women. There are Han people and foreigners, Shinong, industry and commerce, and all walks of life. These people are either serving sentences of up to twenty or thirty years, or only one or two years.

In the words of the emperor, in troubled times, it is necessary to use heavy codes, and it is necessary to adopt the means of striking hard to put a brake on the completely out-of-control atmosphere. Nowadays, the public order in various places has indeed improved greatly, but it has also made more than 5 million prisoners in Dahan.

These prisoners were under the arrangement of the imperial court. Labor reform in one mine or farm after another is actually self-sufficient. It even created a lot of benefits for the imperial court.

Now that the situation in the world has greatly improved, according to the emperor's will, these prisoners of labor reform must also be released slowly. After all, the purpose of the imperial court is to punish the former and the latter. From the second year of Longhan, for those prisoners of re-education through labor. As long as the reform is relatively good, the sentences should be commuted, and in the next few years, the vast majority of prisoners in re-education through labor will be given the exception of those who have committed the most heinous crimes. All of them should be given commutations, and efforts should be made to reduce the number of prisoners in re-education through labour by at least one million per year.

The warden took out an envelope and pushed it in front of Du Shan.

"This is your placement fee, a total of thirty yuan, after confirming that it is correct, sign it."

For example, their labor camp signed a mining contract with the Hubei Silver Mine, and they were responsible for the mining of one mine. The silver mines were paid according to the amount of ore they mined, and part of the proceeds from the labor camp were used for the salaries of the labor camp correctional staff, as well as the labor camp's expenses, including food and clothing for the prisoners.

Each RTL prisoner also receives a monthly living allowance, which can be used to buy some items other than the supply, such as tobacco, tea, and sugar.

In fact, each RTL prisoner is paid, and he is paid every month, but he is usually only paid a small amount of living expenses every month, and some of them are deducted from them for their food and clothing expenses. The rest is deposited in various accounts, and when they are released from prison, they will be used as living expenses for them after they get out.

Under this model, the imperial court does not need to subsidize the money of each labor camp, but has a lot of income after the prisoner's salary is opened. The prisoners' salaries were slightly lower than those of the workers outside, but not by much.

For example, Du Shan has been mining underground for the past three years, and the underground is very hard, and the salary has always been relatively high. By this year, his monthly salary had been raised several times to four silver dollars a month, which was twice as much as Inoue's two dollars a month. Five silver dollars can buy 200 catties of rice, even if you put it outside, it is already a relatively high income level.

Two yuan in the first year, three yuan in the second year, and four yuan this year, after deducting the living expenses and food expenses that are usually paid, etc., the envelope now placed in front of Du Shan still contains seventy-two silver dollars.

That's a lot of money already.

Du Shan looked at the envelope with some emotion. This Han Dynasty is indeed different from the former Ming Dynasty everywhere, not only can you eat and dress warmly, but you don't have to be beaten and abused, you can also eat meat occasionally, not to mention that you have money to buy some cigarettes and alcohol. The corrections would neither abuse them nor ask for bribes, and someone had done this and was thrown into a labor camp, and that guy was bullied by them later.

Now that he has been reformed through labor for three years, his whole person has grown very strong, not to mention that there are seventy-two silver dollars, which are more than thirty taels if they are converted into silver. This was unimaginable in the past, if he was in Qianming, he would have been in prison for three years, and if his family had no money to take care of it, he would have died of exhaustion or illness.

"You deserve it, one yard to one yard. If you have sinned, you should be reformed through labor, but your labor will be rewarded. You don't have to be too little, although the same underground mining, the workers outside have at least eight silver dollars per month, but you are different from them, you can rest assured, we are all in accordance with the rules of the imperial court, we deducted what should be deducted, what should not be deducted, we did not deduct a cent, these seventy-two yuan, there is a detailed list, it is in the envelope, you can see it yourself. ”

"I believe in the imperial court." Du Shan put away the envelope.

"Do you have somewhere to go?"

"Before I came in, there was no one in the house."

The warden nodded, "If that's the case, I have a suggestion, the imperial court has recently discovered a large silver mine in Nibuchu on the Shilka River in Xing'an Province outside the Guan, with high silver reserves, and now it is now forming a Nibuchu Silver Mining Company to recruit funds and recruit manpower. You've been mining this silver mine for three years, you're experienced, and you're literate, I think you can go to Nebuchu, and the pay there's good. If you are interested, I would like to write you a letter of introduction. ”

Du Shan asked, "I'm a labor prisoner, are they willing to use me?" ”

"Don't worry about this, labor prisoners are also people, that just represents your past, and now that you have completed labor reform, of course it's different."

"But you also have to understand that Nebuchu is thousands of miles away from Jingshi, where the winters are long and cold, and the conditions will be harsh if you go there, but there is also an advantage, that is, the salary will be higher than in similar mines in the Central Plains. The silver mines in the Central Plains only mined at most eight silver dollars a month, but when they got there, the same underground work started at least ten dollars a month. Moreover, Nebuchu is a new mine, you have a lot of experience, and you are young and can write and calculate, maybe you can apply for a manager. ”

There was no need for the warden to say anything more, Du Shan had already made up his mind.

"Thank you, Prison Director, please help me write a letter of introduction, I have decided to apply for a job at the Nebuchu Company. My lord, I don't know where to apply, Jingshi? ”

"Don't be so troublesome, we have a person from the Nebuchu Company here, and they are now recruiting people in various silver mines across the country, since you are willing to go, I will have someone take you over to meet him in a while."

Hubei silver mine is also an industry belonging to the royal family, and the current Nibuchu is also an industry dominated by the royal family, so this kind of seemingly poaching behavior is a normal move.

On the same day, Du Shan met the people of the Nibuchu Company, and after an interview, he was successfully recruited, and even because of the letter of introduction from the prison warden to help Du Shan speak, Du Shan really got a position as a mining team leader, and the salary started from fifteen yuan a month.

The prison was also very happy to get the news, and his labor camp not only released a prisoner, but also successfully arranged a new job for him, which can add points to his job evaluation. (To be continued.) )