A year later, the Qinhuai River, which was originally only a few tens of meters wide, has been widened to 200 meters, and at this time, a deeper ditch has been dug next to the original channel, and the water has flowed there. Several steamers and boats were parked in the river, and workers wore masks and dug the relatively high side of the river. The excavated mud is sent to a large ship and transported away.

Downstream, steam wagons and ships laden with earth come up to shore on the shore, where workers carry the dried earth to the river, where it is rammed by hand and then crushed by huge iron. It is not cattle or people who pull these half-human high-speed trains. but something that spews black smoke and white smoke. Even if he had seen it before, Jia Ding Yi almost stopped to watch this kind of excitement again. It's hard not to pay attention to it. Including the family members, they have tried to drag this round iron mill with the strength of one person, but there is no way to shake it at all. It took the two of them barely to move a short distance. The machines were able to move such huge objects, and no one who knew the weight of the iron pillar was not impressed.

After crossing the bridge, walk through a street and arrive at Lu Yuanwai's house. After waiting outside the door for a short time, Jia Ding Yi was called in. Greeting him first, and then delivering the newspaper, Lu Yuanwai frowned after reading the headline. The family waited quietly beside him. After a long while, Lu Yuanwai said: "In addition to this news, what else does Duan Yuan have to explain?" ”

"Our head of the family invites Lu Yuanwai to come to his home for a banquet at noon tomorrow."

"Got it. Go back and tell the section staff that I will definitely go. ”

When the family returned home, they saw that the elders had already arrived. Taking advantage of this time, he hurriedly replied to the news. After hearing this, Duan Tiande asked, "Where are Gorou and Rokuro going?" ”

"They went to see the land at the behest of the house." Jia Ding hurriedly replied.

"When will they be back?"

"Both of them are riding donkeys and should be back today."

"When they get back, tell me right away." After Duan Tiande finished speaking, he entered the inner room with the elders.

At this time, it was the day when the dragon raised its head on February 2, and the children of the Duan family, who were called Wulang Liulang by Duan Tiande, the head of the Duan family, were riding a donkey along the road outside the city to the west. These two names are Duan Renfeng and Duan Fengxiang, and Duan Fengming are brothers. The road is raised with soil, and the road surface is higher than the adjacent farmland. Street trees were planted on both sides of the road, but now the saplings are still small and bare, and they have no leaves at all.

"This road is really a waste of money and labor!" Duan Renfeng said to his clan brothers.

Duan Fengming felt that this kind of dirt road felt good to walk, and it would take a lot of money to be able to do it to such an extent. He immediately nodded yes, "That Wenzhang has been the prefect for so long, and now he has only started to build roads, but I don't know how much he has been greedy for in order to deceive the people, so he released a little." ”

What the two Duan family members said came from the bottom of their hearts: Last year's land tax was made public, and it was basically collected at the price of 30% of the grain sold, and at least one mu of land had to be paid consistently. This was a painful move for the landlords, and the court increasingly did not accept tax payment models other than paying money. If the imperial court dared to accept grain, the landlords had a way to deal with the cadres who collected taxes.

There were quite a few pedestrians on the road, and the two brothers quickly shut up. It was not that they were afraid of being criticized by others, but that they had to be careful to harness the donkey, which was sometimes docile and sometimes unusually stubborn in its path.

After walking for a while, we arrived at the Qinhuai River, where the newest pontoon bridge is located, and the roadside is full of people crossing the bridge here. The two got off the donkey and walked down the road. There were also drainage ditches on both sides of the road, and they tied their donkeys to the trees on the side of the road, jumped over the drainage ditches, and then entered the land next to them. You can see the neatly finger-thick trunks of the trees here. Unlike other tree trunks, which are cut at a height of thirty or forty centimeters above the ground, the smooth cutting surface of the knife proves how sharp the tools used at the time were, and how decisive the person who did it.

"But I didn't expect that the shoots really grew and they lived." Duan Renfeng looked at the tender green spit out from the branches and couldn't help but sigh. In November last winter, the government began to pick up official land. At that time, people who were busy working in this area outside the embankment were planting rows of thin pole trees. The slender strips of paper looked like they couldn't survive, and some people carried large sharp scissors and cut the trunk with a click. This kind of operation is already extremely puzzling, and what is even more surprising is that many of the people who participated in the operation were women.

Three months have passed, and the Duan brothers have always felt that the branches here should be all finished. Looking at it now, every trunk of the tree is spitting out thin shoots, and it is actually alive. As soon as the two brothers were amazed, someone came on horseback and shouted in the local dialect from afar, "What are you doing?" ”

It is easier to destroy trees than to plant them, and in the situation of private land, it is a very serious matter to intrude on other people's land. Once you do this, it is very common to be scolded, beaten, and blocked. The more intense ones can even kill people. Seeing that someone came to inquire, the Duan brothers were stunned, but they didn't dare to contradict others. Hurriedly shouted: "We watched you cut the trees last year, and we were curious, and this year we will see if these trees have come back to life." ”

When the people over there heard this answer, they shouted a little unhappily: "Have you finished reading?" ”

"I've seen it, I've finished it." The Duan brothers hurriedly responded. His horse had a saddle and a sheathed knife stuck in front of the stirrup on the left. These two brothers are not here to pick quarrels and provoke trouble, this is an official land, and the knight should be from the official government. They didn't dare to make a mistake, and after saying that, they hurriedly crossed the ditch on the side of the road, led the donkey and hurried away.

Although they dared to mock the local government, the Duan brothers did not dare to mock those with weapons. They led the donkeys and followed the crowd to the bridge. Each of them paid a penny for the bridge and a penny for each animal, and the two brothers and two donkeys crossed the pontoon bridge to the other side. On the shore, Duan Fengxiang sighed: "Look at that horse, it is much stronger than our horse." ”

"The government, if you don't even have a good horse, can you still call it the government?" Duan Renfeng looked very confident in the government.

There is also a large mulberry forest under the river embankment on the opposite side, and when you leave the mulberry forest, you can see the vast flat land. Now the land is green, like a green carpet with no edge in sight. These lands are all checkerboards, as if drawn with ink fountain lines. As I rode forward on the donkey, I saw a straight dirt road passing through the fields at intervals. The narrow dirt roads are also elevated, so you don't have to walk to know that they are very passable.

After walking for a mile, you can see the piles of the disgusting datum measuring point. After the government put a lot of effort into building these piles, there was no way to hide everyone's land. As long as you pull it with a rope, you will know which areas are how big. Moreover, the local governor and pavilion chief have to make frequent inspections, and when they see such a reference point being destroyed, they need to be fined. After a few times, the landlords no longer dared to act rashly.

Walking out three miles along the road, Duan Renfeng couldn't help but ask, "How much wheat do you say they planted?" ”

Duan Fengming shook his head, this action was not against it, but to express helplessness. With his eyesight, he couldn't see the edge of these wheat fields. All you can see is a lone knight patrolling on horseback at certain distances. In the end, Duan Fengming casually estimated the number and said, "There must be at least five thousand acres." ”

Duan Fengming didn't know that his estimate was wrong, the government had more than 150,000 mu of contiguous land along the Qinhuai River, and the 50,000 mu of land that had been leveled had been planted with winter wheat. One hectare and fifteen acres, and more than 150,000 acres of land is more than 100 square kilometers of land. It is difficult for people with poor eyesight to see three or four miles of flat land, and such a vast land is not at all the size that the Duan brothers can see clearly.

After walking along the dirt road for several miles, I saw that both sides of the road were still the same smooth, and they were all green wheat seedlings. Duan Renfeng couldn't go on anymore, and he said to his brother: "Either way, let's just see a cow and look at the hooves of the cow and leave." ”

"Okay." Duan Fengming replied briskly. In fact, he was also a little uneasy in his heart, the Duan family was a big landowner, and there were tens of thousands of acres of land, and it was not that he had never seen a big scene. But this neat chessboard-like land appeared in front of them as if there was no end, a scene they had never seen before. Except for the occasional lone knight, there was no one in the field. There were pedestrians on the road, which still made Duan Fengming feel a chill behind him from time to time.

After walking another five miles, the two brothers finally gave up their plan to watch the ploughing cattle. There was no sign of ploughing cattle on the flat and quiet land, and if the two brothers could not return quickly, they would probably have to camp in the field. Jumping off the donkey, leading the donkey to turn around, and spending a lot of effort to get used to the direction of return to the donkey, the two brothers were able to ride on the donkey and continue to move forward.

By the time they got back to the city, it was getting late. After a day of blowing in the early spring wind, the two of them were red from the cold. As soon as he entered the door, he was stopped by Ding Yi, "The two of you are back, and the head of the house asked you to go to the backyard to meet him." ”

"Is there any food in the kitchen?" Duan Renfeng asked.

"This ...... But I don't know. Jia Ding Yi replied.

"You go to Tongyu first, and then say that we will go out for a day, and our stomachs are really hungry. Let's go to the kitchen and get something to eat first. After Duan Renfeng finished speaking, he and Duan Fengming hurriedly ran to the kitchen to look for food.

Not long after, Duan Tiande looked at Jia Ding Yi with unhappy eyes, but he didn't get angry, just said, "Let the two of them come over quickly after eating." ”

Ten minutes later, the Duan brothers returned here and told Duan Tiande what they had seen. Finally, he said: "Looking at it now, it seems that the official land of the government has not been abandoned. ”

Seeing that there was no way to find an excuse to sue Wen Zhang for the time being, Duan Tiande said stupidly: "Hmph! This year, our land has also been given away. In any case, the government will not be allowed to find any more excuses. ”