Hebei is the province near the capital, and it is also the closest place to the capital. Because the palace maids have to serve the masters, they can't say things that the masters can't understand, and the living habits must be suitable for the palace inside, so the river, north and mountain, east have become the main source of palace maids. This time to supplement the palace people, the imperial court was worried that the impact would not be good, so it was only handled in a small area in Hebei. This led to the bad luck of the girls in Hebei Province, and almost half of the girls entered the palace. There were thousands of people when I went, and I wonder how many girls could come back? For this reason, people who have access to find ways to hide their true situation in an attempt to get away with it. But I heard that this time there were not only money-greedy eunuchs presiding over the selection, but also some Dongchang and Jinyi Wei overseers. The eunuchs are greedy for money, as long as they give a certain amount of "filial piety", they can pass the test, but no one dares to bribe Dongchang and Jinyiwei. So everyone had to find a way to marry off their daughter, or recruit a son-in-law to enter the door.

Although the little rich man did not say it explicitly, his intentions were already obvious. There must be a daughter or granddaughter in his family who has reached marriageable age, and in order to keep this daughter or granddaughter, the other party hopes that Qin Tai will agree to leave Qiu Xiaoqiu behind. Anyway, Qiu Xiaoqiu is a buddy, and his family background will not be too good, so he may agree to be the other party's son-in-law. This is the little Jiujiu of the little rich man, and it is also the main reason why the little rich man is in a hurry to see Qin Tai.

The matter is related to Qiu Xiaoqiu himself, although Qin Tai is his cousin, he can't call the shots for Qiu Xiaoqiu. If the enemy or the enemy lady is present, there may be a result. So Qin Tai asked this person to sit for a while, and he went to his cousin Qiu Xiaoqiu and asked Qiu Xiaoqiu what he meant.

Qiu Xiaoqiu's opinion is very resolute, first, he is still young and does not want to get married so early. Second, he doesn't want to be someone else's son-in-law. Third, he wants to follow his cousin Qin Tai to investigate the case, and he is more interested in solving the case and forcing him to start a family. Qiu Xiaoqiu is also relatively tall, but he is really young. Qiu Xiaoqiu was really judging the two of them compared to the beginning, when he first met Qin Tai, Qiu Xiaoqiu was thin and small because he couldn't eat enough, but now he eats well, at least he is full, so he starts to grow. Now Qiu Xiaoqiu's figure has surpassed Qin Tai's follower Xiao Lingzi, almost as tall and short as his cousin Qin Tai. But the body has grown up, it doesn't mean that the age in my heart has also gone up, Qiu Xiaoqiu is still a child's temper. In addition, he rarely touches girls, so Qiu Xiaoqiu is a little afraid of touching girls. With girls, he feels uncomfortable, and he doesn't want to be with a girl all day.

Qiu Xiaoqiu's opinion was very resolute, and Qin Tai had no choice but to agree with Qiu Xiaoqiu's decision. Qin Tai went back and told the little rich man Qiu Xiaoqiu's opinion, and told the other party that Qiu Xiaoqiu had only one child in the family, and his parents would not let the child be a son-in-law. The little rich man had to leave regretfully, and wanted to say something when he left, but in the end he held back.

Although Qin Tai sympathized with the local people, he could not and did not have the power to change the decision of the imperial court. If Gao Gong is now the second assistant in the cabinet, Qin Tai may go to the capital to persuade Zhang Juzheng and Tan Lun, and through them to do the ideological work of Gao Gong, it may be possible to change the status quo. But now that Gao Gong is not in the court, Tan Lun was driven out of the capital, and Zhang Juzheng was too busy to take care of himself. The first assistant of the cabinet, Xu Jie, and Qin Tai have two generations of grievances. The eunuch Meng Chong, who was in charge of the seal, was even more hostile to Qin Tai. Although Emperor Longqing is easier to speak, he will not change his orders without authorization for the sake of Qin Tai's remarks alone. The only person who can help everyone is Li Guifei in the harem. But Li Guifei also has her own difficulties, and she can't intervene directly, and besides, Qin Tai can't see Li Guifei at all. Foreign ministers are not allowed to enter the palace at will, let alone meet with the concubines of the palace alone. If this kind of thing was known to outsiders, not only would Qin Tai's entire family die, but even Concubine Li would be speechless. At that time, Li Guifei will not only not be able to be the mother of the country, but will also be secretly executed for the crime of "causing trouble in the palace". Even if she didn't consider these issues, Li Guifei would not completely turn over with Emperor Longqing for the sake of Qin Tai's remarks. There is also a key question, can Qin Tai reveal his identity? Once everyone knows that Qin Tai left his hometown without authorization and came to the capital, how many people will fall to the ground because of this? Qin Tai's family will definitely not survive, from Qin Tai's parents to Qin Tai's son Xiao Ping'an, who has just given birth, will definitely die. Officials at all levels of local counties, prefectures, prefectures, and provinces, local officials at all levels along the roads, and heads of various departments in the capital will all be affected. If there are political opponents who are falsely accused of being dismissed, there will be a few people who will lose their heads. Qin Tai couldn't do this, at least not to hurt so many people.

The further they went, the more Qin Tai and his party felt that the lives of the common people were sad. Some rich people took the opportunity to force some tenants to repay their debts, lest they marry their daughters or send them to the palace, and the rich people would get nothing. In order to repay their debts, some tenants had to sell their daughters to the maid of the rich man's family, or sell them to some traffickers at a low price. Everywhere there were scenes of poor people hugging their heads and crying, and some people even had to sell two or three children in their families to pay off their debts. Mothers are reluctant to let go of their children, pulling their daughters and unwilling to let go. Girls who are a little sensible are also reluctant to let go of their parents, for fear that they will lose their families forever as soon as they let go. In order not to drag down their children, some elderly people choose to commit suicide and know their own lives.

The old drunkard said to Qiu Xiaoqiu in a heavy tone: "Child, this is a tragedy in the world. This is worse than a natural disaster, and even more cruel. Floods, droughts, earth movements, locust plagues, these are things that cannot be resisted by manpower. However, 'man-made disasters' are man-made, and some people are unable to live a normal life for the benefit of a small number of people who live for themselves. This kind of person is simply more terrifying than a flood beast, and he can't be regarded as a person. You see, something even more tragic will happen. We can hardly watch things happen, and it's useless. This is what the Taoists say: 'Heaven and earth are unkind, and all things are dogs.' 'Remember the passage I taught you?' Let's take a good look at it. ”

The old drunkard master is Qiu Xiaoqiu's tutor, and he is usually responsible for imparting the knowledge he knows to Qiu Xiaoqiu. Qiu Xiaoqiu is not ignorant, he is also very attentive, and he is never lazy, but due to age and experience, there are some knowledge that Qiu Xiaoqiu cannot understand for the time being. But these days, Qiu Xiaoqiu seems to have understood a lot of things, and even understood some big truths of life that he didn't understand before. This is what the ancients said: "It is better to read ten thousand books than to travel ten thousand miles." The true meaning of ". It seems that this time it is an absolutely correct decision to take Qiu Xiaoqiu all the way.

"Oh no, come and put out the fire. Lu Jia's big house was set on fire, come and save people. There are several people in there. "A local, shouting out to everyone to go and put out the fire.

Qin Tai held Xiao Ping'an in his arms, and Zhan Xiaoxiao immediately took Qiu Xiaoqiu to help fight the fire. Although Zhan Xiaoxiao and Qiu Xiaoqiu are outsiders, their contribution is not less than everyone's. Zhan Xiaoxiao's skills are sensitive, and Qiu Xiaoqiu's strength is not small. In addition, Zhan Xiaoxiao knows some common sense of firefighting, and while directing everyone to put out the fire, he rushed into the house with Qiu Xiaoqiu and picked up the victim. A few people went back and forth, and finally rescued all the people before the hut collapsed. But there was no time to take the contents and almost all of them were burned. In fact, there is nothing in it, and it is not worth taking out at all.

Qin Tai on the side helped to wake up the victims, gave these people some medicine, and finally saved everyone's lives. However, the family was very strange, and after waking up, not only was they not grateful to Qin Tai, but they also wanted to continue to rush into the hut. Qin Tai had no choice but to take the old drunkard's medicinal wine, and one person poured a sip, and the whole family was drunk. This medicinal wine has no side effects, it just makes people sleepy, and sometimes it can also be used as a narcotic medicine such as "hemp boiling powder". The reason why Qin Tai did this was mainly because he was worried that the family would continue to do stupid things.

At this time, Qin Tai also learned the true situation of the family from his neighbors.

This family's surname is Lu, and it turns out that they are a large family, and it can be said that they are prosperous. The old man of the Lu family has three sons, and seven years ago, because the third son was going to marry, he was making a fuss about separating the family. Lu Laohan lived with his eldest son's family, and of course, the Lu family also got the largest share of the family wealth. After the second and third children got home, they each found a place to live. Mr. and Mrs. Lu lived here with their eldest son's family, and the family changed from Lu Laohan to Lu Jiada. Ah Da is young, not only strong, but also an expert at work. The women of the family were not only capable, but also able to give birth to children, and gave birth to four daughters and two sons. Two husbands and wives, plus parents-in-law, and six children, a total of ten people, can fill a table. Unexpectedly, five years ago, Ah Da's mother was ill, and in order to treat the old mother, Ah Da borrowed ten taels of silver from a rich man, saying that he would repay the rich man's family thirteen taels of silver at the end of the year. But the old lady's illness was not optimistic, and the silver had been spent. In addition, in order to treat the old mother, almost all the family's savings were taken. So at the end of the year, I couldn't pay off the debt, so I had to rewrite it into an IOU of fifteen taels of silver, saying that I would pay it off the next year. However, the next year was not good, and the harvest had just had to be paid in taxes. So this debt dragged on until the third year, and said that Ah Da would repay the principal and interest of the rich man's family, a total of twenty-seven taels of silver.