The world must be divided for a long time, and it must be divided for a long time.

Any dynasty will experience glory and decline.

When the ruler of the previous dynasty completely lost the country that his ancestors had brought down in his own hands, the whole world began to officially enter the troubled times.

The troubled times and strife a few decades ago are still vivid, and at that time it was really a great chaos in the world, and the people were not able to make a living.

This chaotic and chaotic era was not suppressed until the Great Zhou was officially established.

Of course, this is only on the surface, and there are still a lot of riots in the secret, but they still failed to make a big deal after all.

After the founding of the Zhou Dynasty, in order to ensure that the world was not chaotic, the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, and the national economy was on the right track.

The founding emperor of the Zhou Dynasty thought about it for a long time, and finally divided the complete tax that had been inherited from the previous one in two, from once a year to twice a year.

Pay according to time, divided into summer and autumn.

Right now, they are approaching the summer harvest, and what they have to hand over is naturally Xia Fu, who has a lighter task.

Unlike the six layers of the autumn fu, the summer fu only needs to pay the four layers of the whole year's tax.

That's right, the amount of tax they have to pay is an exact amount.

This value was calculated by the court officials on the basis of the previous year's taxes.

The reason for this is also that the imperial court is worried that the officials in the following places will cause some unnecessary troubles while concealing the report.

Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to doing this, but as the lowest level of the villager's family, they do not have any qualifications to choose, and they have to pay on time as much as the imperial court stipulates.

Therefore, before sowing seeds after the beginning of spring every year, the entire Great Zhou Dynasty will issue an order to the local government, and the content of the instruction is about the tax value for the whole year.

And the families who need to pay taxes only need to cooperate with the officials they visit, and write down the amount of taxes they need to pay for the whole year according to the number of fields and the number of people in the family.

Of course, the four layers of summer endowment also include the corresponding field endowment, oral endowment, arithmetic endowment, and miscellaneous endowment.

Among them, Tian Fu refers to the grain produced in the field, including corn, rice, wheat, cotton, hemp, silk and other crops.

At present, the Zhao family has a total of 14 acres of paddy fields, 16 acres of dry land, and 11 acres of mountain woodland.

The main grain harvested in the summer harvest is wheat and beans grown on dry land.

The yield of wheat and beans is not high, but it is very hungry, and it is also the favorite food of farmers.

The geology of Shangwa Village is good, so the amount of grain grown in the fields is slightly higher than that of the surrounding villages.

Almost one acre of land has three stones of beans, yields 3.5 stones of wheat, one stone is about 113 catties, and the output of wheat and beans is almost 339 catties and 396 catties.

You must know that the villages around Shangwa Village, counting the high-yield and low-yield species, are all calculated, and the grain per mu is only more than three stones.

In this era, a child can only eat about 3 stone a year.

The grain produced in Shangwa Village, after deducting the summer endowment due, is enough to meet the family's food for a year, and if you save some, you can save surplus grain.

It is also with such congenital conditions that the people of Shangwa Village have lived for decades, and there are no people who have starved to death.

But this is only a few years ago, and at this time, even they are not having a good time in Wow Village.

The specific time of change will also start from the fact that their territory is assigned to the territory of a certain prince.

Originally, the summer endowment was four layers, which were converted into specific grains, which were about three layers of the summer harvest grain output, and the dryness was four to five.

Later, large areas of the Zhou Dynasty were distributed to his sons by the Zhou emperor, and each prince crossed the imperial court and took direct control of their respective fiefs.

Each prince has different thoughts, and the amount of taxes collected will naturally change.

Among them, as early as ten years ago, when the emperor died, they were changed by the prince here.

Not only has the yield per mu risen quantitatively, but even the grain that has been taxed is required to have a dryness of more than seven layers.

Because of this, they have directly changed from three layers of taxes on the surface to five layers of taxes, and they have fallen from a state of being able to eat to half full in an instant.

Now, the other party has to give them another boost in this situation!

For a few people who have been farming all year round and dealing with food and the outside world, this kind of cognition makes them decadent and abnormal, obviously angry, but helpless.

They couldn't breathe from the weight of that heavy powerlessness.

"Squeak ......"

Gritting his teeth without realizing it, Zhao Shanchuan clenched his hands into fists, hung his head slightly, and only revealed the obvious scarlet at the corner of his eyes,

"Dad, this is really not possible."

"What the eldest brother said is right, the taxes collected in the summer of previous years were also high,"

"The imperial court said to take three, but the moisture shrank after the grain was dried, and if you want to meet the dryness required by the imperial court, you basically need more than half,"

"Now add in this year's new taxes, and there is nothing left."

As soon as Zhao Shanchuan spoke, the atmosphere in the room was much colder.

Obviously, what he just said was serious to the hearts of several people.

The above did such a thing at this juncture, but it didn't leave a way for them to live.

Zhao Fuxiang sighed, his tone was low and depressed,

"What is the way, if you don't pay it, the court forcibly recruits Ding, and the three of you brothers will most likely be directly dragged away and don't know where to go,"

"Handed over, we will be hungry for a while, but you are still there, you can continue to farm and live, although the road ahead is slim, but when the autumn food comes down, you can get through the difficulties, it is better than the previous way."

Having said that, Zhao Fuxiang didn't have much confidence in what he said.

Especially after listening to Zhao Fuxiang's words, Zhao Shanlin and the three of them stiffened and their faces were bloodless.

was obviously frightened by the two dead ends that Zhao Fuxiang said.

That's right, it's two dead ends.

For a farmer like them, whether they pay or not, the final result cannot escape the word "death".

If they don't pay, they will disobey the laws of the imperial court, the government will oppress people, and the future life and death will be unpredictable.

After handing it over, they have no food, and when the summer receives the autumn harvest for a whole season, they will be starved to death, and they will only be starved to death.

How can they choose between these two dead ends that can no longer die?

………

Let's do it—

Hearing the movement outside the door, Yuan, who was sitting on the kang, reacted and hurriedly put on his shoes and went to the ground.

Lifting the mat blocking the door, Yuan directly met Zhao Shanchuan's dejected face.

Yuan Shiqi said, "Master, what's wrong?" Dad, what's wrong? ”

Zhao Shanchuan shook his head, didn't speak, just simply bypassed the Yuan family on the side, and entered the house in a daze.

Yuan's ......

"What's going on here?" Yuan shook his head and muttered, a little confused.

Seeing the warm chicken soup in the pottery kettle, Yuan hurriedly lifted the curtain behind him, took out a few thick bowls from the wooden cupboard, turned the wooden spoon, and brought out the chicken soup in the pottery kettle.

"Don't be stunned, go to bed after drinking." Yuan put the chicken soup full of wild vegetables in front of Zhao Shanchuan, aimed at the three children who were hiding in the kang and playing, and raised the tone in vain, "Erya, Wuya, stone, stop playing, come and drink soup." ”

"Hey, here we are."

"Mother, I want to drink the most from that bowl."

"Mother, I want me too, I want ...... too"

Hearing Yuan's words, Zhao Yu and the three of them came over noisily.

"Don't make any noise, it's all there," Yuan steadied himself and maintained order around him.

"No, this is Erya's," stuffed one of the half-full thick bowls into Zhao Yu's hand, and Yuan picked up another bowl that was almost the same as Zhao Xia's hand, which had been leaning forward, "Wuya, hold it steady and don't spill it, just this bowl." ”

Zhao Xia said "hey", followed the bowl and slipped away, ran back to the kang tip, turned her back to Zhao Yu and the others, and drank the thick bowl that was bigger than her face.

"Okay, Erya, hurry up and eat, and go to bed after eating."

Yuan instructed Zhao Yu, then picked up the last bowl of chicken soup, and slowly put it in Zhao Mingteng's hand, with a soft tone, "Stone, this is yours, sit next to your second sister honestly." ”

When Zhao Yu heard this, she looked up and found that the bowl of chicken soup that Yuan gave to Zhao Mingteng, although the soup was about the same, there were a little more wild vegetables in it than she and Zhao Xia's.

Of course, her father is still the one with the most wild vegetables in chicken soup, and the bowl full of wild vegetables that are still sprinkling is not fake.

The stomach sang about the empty city plan, and Zhao Yu didn't have the heart to continue to pay attention to these miscellaneous things, buried his head in the thick bowl at hand, and began to drink the soup with his mouth wide open.

Yuan finished the chicken soup at hand, walked to the side of the kang and bent down and reached out to touch the kang head, and noticed that the temperature on the kang had risen, and lifted the mat spread on the kang to dissipate heat.

Yuan was busy for a long time, and by the way, he covered the bedding.

After the master finished drinking the chicken soup, put the thick bowl into the bucket of the hall and washed it with two handfuls of grass and wood ashes, she lay down on the bed.

Zhao Shanchuan had recovered from the previous fright, although his face was still a little frightened and pale, but the light in the room was dim, and Yuan didn't look at it carefully, so he didn't notice it.

Who let her go up the mountain and catch fish again, she was already tired, and now her head was just stained with a pillow, and she couldn't help but feel sleepy.

"Xinghua, Ming'er, I have to get up early, and my father and the eldest brother and the third brother will go to the city, you Ming'er will catch more fish at home, my mother is not in good health, you take care of it more......"

In a daze, Yuan listened to his man as if he was explaining something to himself.

But she had a heavy head and didn't listen carefully, just mumbled it in two sentences.

Zhao Shanchuan didn't think much about it, and when he saw that his daughter-in-law agreed, he closed his eyes with peace of mind, and fell asleep after a while......

At night, the small courtyard of the Zhao family was quiet, and the lights of the east and west side houses were also extinguished after the men came back.

Only the main house on the south side remains, and the lights are still on.

Zhao Fuxiang and Li have not slept yet.

Since the three brothers of Zhao Shanlin left, Zhao Fuxiang has been leaning against the wall and not moving, living like a lifeless stone sculpture.

The Li family has long been no longer sewing, and what Zhao Fuxiang said just now has made her blackface all the time.

"Boss, what do you want to do, these foods, should we pay them or not?"

"Deliver."

Zhao Fuxiang gritted his teeth and slapped his thigh violently, "If you don't pay it, the boss and his brothers can't keep it, if you hand it over, we still have to live." ”

As for how to live and how to live, Zhao Fuxiang didn't say, but Li could understand.

As the three brothers said before, they will starve to death, which is not so serious.

Over the years, their family has saved some money, and when they run out of food, they can use them to buy some food for emergencies, but this is not a long-term solution.

At present, the sudden increase in the amount of food will inevitably increase the price of grain in various places.

In addition to the expenses of buying land, marrying relatives, and daily life, their family does not have much money, and they have to leave emergency money, and even less money that can really be spent on food.

However, there are other means for the Zhuang family to have no food, look carefully, there are a lot of things to eat, they may live a little harder, but they can survive.

"Forget it, this is put in advance,"

"The fish soup, I tried it again today, it's really delicious, you can try to sell it tomorrow, it's really going to be done, and it's also a way to live for us."

Li squinted his eyes, and from the fish soup, he smelled an unusual taste.