Since the Yuan Dynasty set the capital. Because of the need to transport grain from the south to the north, the Grand Canal was re-dredged, and the Tonghui River was opened by Guo Shoujing, so the ships from the canal could go directly to the pond behind the palace from the Tonghui River. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, after the rebels rose up, the Tonghui River gradually silted up, and finally it was Chu Taizu who rebuilt the Grand Canal after his accession to the throne, and also dredged the Tonghui River. However, due to the fact that Jishuitan is in the inner city after all, and the Tonghui River surrounds the imperial city, the Tonghui River was renamed the Jade River by the opinion of hundreds of officials, only to the Datong Bridge.

Because of this, Tongzhou became the northern terminus of the canal. Because it is not yet the opening festival on the first day of the first month of March, the canal is frozen up and down, so the Tongzhou wharf is deserted, and the land route from Tongzhou to Jingshi is also deserted.

Because Zhu is not used to riding in the same car with others. Therefore, Chen Lan just strictly instructed the green calyx and jade peony, and took Chen Yan to a car behind him. Compared with the previous two trips, this time because I had to walk for half a day, the car I took was very different, not only the body was taller and more spacious, but also the cart was pulled by two mules. The interior furnishings are also all comfortable, if it weren't for Chen Yan, the only man, he would even be able to lie down and rest in the back.

This time, the Zhu family went out of the house to recuperate, and in addition to the four first-class girls in the Tatexiang Courtyard, there were also four second-class and four third-class girls, two mothers, four rough mothers-in-law, plus Chen Lan and Chen Yan's sisters and brothers' girls and companions, a total of six cars, eight horses, and more than a dozen guards who walked with the car. Chen Lan remembered the scene of his family when he left at noon, and couldn't help but sigh secretly.

The third uncle, Chen Ying, probably thought that according to the old lady's previous psychology, he would never leave the Hou Mansion until he had to, but now it was a bad move, and he could only watch their sister and brother leave with the old lady, and he shouldn't know what it was like at this time. If you want to blame, you can only blame him for being too aggressive, otherwise, she wouldn't have used such a method of drawing salaries from the bottom of the kettle.

According to the third uncle's temperament, as long as there is still a man in the family who has the hope of inheriting the title, I am afraid that he will not relax easily.

Hongluo saw that Yun'er was happily pulling Sandalwood, the big girl next to Chen Yan, to laugh, while Chen Yan was dozing off there to make up for sleep, so he leaned over to Chen Lan's side. said in a low voice: "Miss, there are only two sisters in the old lady's car, Green Calyx and Jade Peony, but Sister Furong and they are crowded together with the four second-class girls in the back car. When I was in Tatekain, my two sisters treated me very well, and they were kind, not like people who did such backshit......"

She hesitated for a moment after that, but didn't say it completely. Chen Lan knew what she meant, closed her eyes and sighed and said: "The old lady has doubts in her heart after all, but for my words, I am afraid that I will fall into the hands of the third uncle, so I will not fall in court. When you come back and rest, test them both and see if they will say anything to you. If they were just confused for a while or were framed, if they really had anything to do with the third uncle...... I'm just afraid I won't be able to save them. ”

This is a proper word, after all, in this day and age, betrayal is the greatest crime. After all, in the eyes of the master, the life of the slave is not the life of the slave. Chen Lan didn't dare to say anything more when he saw that Hongluo was silent. He closed his eyes. I don't know how long it has been, but she was already a little dazed, but she felt that the carriage suddenly stopped, and when she was about to ask a question, the mother-in-law who followed the car outside the car opened her mouth.

"Third Miss, forgive me, there is a car in front, and the people in the back are going to go over on business, please wait a while."

It's Jinyiwei again!

Chen Lan was now shocked when she heard these three words, you know, the public case of the Jin Wangfu is over, and she didn't even dare to open the car curtain when she passed by the West Fourth Archway, even so, she still seemed to be able to smell the bloody smell that permeated the surroundings because of the beheading and murder. At this time, she heard that it was Jinyiwei passing by again, so she didn't make a sound, but when the sound of the horse's hooves approached, she couldn't help but open a little curtain, but saw the person who was whistling by two or three steps away from the side of the car.

Why is he leading the team again? It seems that this Yang Jinzhou is indispensable in the affairs of the Jinyi Guard, and the commander who should be the real Jinyi Wei Ti Shuai is nowhere to be seen, and the rest of the higher-level commanders are nowhere to be seen, is it possible that the emperor believes in this person so much? However, it is not surprising that this person is meticulous in his work, and his heart does not seem to be an old detective, but he is unexpectedly kind, and it is hard to imagine what kind of brocade guard he is......

This team of brocade guards was about twenty or thirty people, and because of the extremely fast speed, it passed in a moment, so the convoy of the Hou Mansion quickly resumed traffic. Although it is only a few dozen miles from the capital to Tongzhou, it stops and stops along the way, and finally arrives at the beginning of Shenchu. Zhang Zhuangtou, who had only taken over this place not long ago, personally led people to greet him.

Since the capital of Beijing, the nobles and nobles have competed to buy property in Zhili, among which the vicinity of Tongzhou has naturally become the first choice because of the fertile soil and convenient irrigation of river canals. There are dozens of granges in the whole Tongzhou, and the tenants and servants in them are added together, not to mention thousands of people, and this is not counting the dozens of acres of farmland of the royal family. Therefore, when it comes to Tongzhou, in addition to the merchant coolies and ordinary people in the city who rely on the canal to live, it is the tenants who rely on these powerful people and the royal family to live.

The grange that has just been returned to the Chen family's house is located on the edge of the Chaobai River, with a total of 1,000 acres of fertile land. Chen Wei, the father of the elder brother and sister, also ate the thousand acres of fertile land at a low price by mistake, but it didn't take long for him to suffer a disaster because of misconduct, and later lost the right to inherit the title, and even the field was collected.

This is operated by the royal family as a serious imperial village for several years, and the village courtyard under a small hill is tall and neat, and the village head is like the soil emperor in the past, but this time because of the emperor's will was transferred to other places, and this village is also a cheap Chen family. Only the newly sent Zhang Zhuangtou is an unusually stable person, he was looking at the three granges in Zhending Mansion. There are more acres of land than here, and now there is only one place here, but he did not live in the courtyard, but found another two-entry house to live in, and cleaned up the courtyard, but he did not expect this morning's letter, and then ushered in the Zhu family and Chen Lan sisters and brothers who came to recuperate.

As soon as the carriage stopped, Zhang Zhuangtou knelt down with four third-class stewards and some miscellaneous servants in the village, and said: "The little ones knock on the old lady, and knock on the third lady and the fourth young master." ”

Zhu asked the mother-in-law who followed the car to raise a corner of the car curtain, and more than 20 people knelt on the ground before meeting. He nodded and said, "Get up." This time I came out in a hurry, and sent a letter in the morning, and if the house had not been fully packed, I might as well have let it in. ”

"Old lady, I had people clean up this courtyard a few days ago, and when I got the news in the morning, I quickly cleaned up the middle yard again, and the big and bulky ones were all scrubbed. The old lady learned that the village where she originally lived was a relative of a father-in-law in the palace, so she bought a lot of good furniture, and the courtyard in the middle was still new. It is most suitable for the old lady to live there. Just ......"

Listening to it, and looking at the village, the Zhu family knew that what Zhang Zhuangtou said was true, and the scale here was even larger than a few other houses in the family. But the more this happened, the more suspicious she felt. The farmland that the boss occupied at the beginning was to take advantage of the danger of the people, and the royal family took it back to make the imperial village, although it was in the name of the boss's mistakes, but after all, it was also because the land here was fertile. Moreover, even if the land is returned, even such a large village is also given, and this grace is great. Thinking of this, she involuntarily turned her head and found that there were only green calyx and jade peony around her, and then she remembered that Chen Lan's sister and brother were still in the car behind.

Finding that Zhang Zhuangtou suddenly stopped talking, Zhu couldn't help frowning slightly, and asked lightly: "What are you doing, is there any difficulty?" ”

"Back to the old lady, because the first years here are all Huangzhuang, the money and grain collected per mu of land is two stones, so now there are still many tenants who have not paid off the arrears of rent, these days the previous Huangzhuang Xia Zhuang head sent people to urge every day, saying that he could not go to the new place to take office if he did not pay off, so often one or two tenants kowtowed and begged before the door, and the small ones did not dare to agree."

The farmland tax in Dachu is not heavy. If you convert it into one piece of errand service, if you produce three stones per mu of private land, you will pay about two buckets of tax, while official land will be taxed at two to four times the tax on civil land according to the region and the fertility of the land. However, Huangzhuang is a royal property, and those tenants are like domestic slaves, initially only after the Mongolian nobles captured by Taizu when he conquered the world, but after so many years, most of them are homeless people resettled by the imperial court and hidden households who are not on the yellow register of household registration, and the rent is extremely heavy. Therefore, when Zhu heard it at this time, he only frowned, and only felt troublesome.

"When you first took over here, you only restrained these tenants, so as not to let them make a big fuss. As for the arrears of rent ahead, after all, the law is unavoidable, so you don't care...... By the way, that Xia Zhuangtou is a relative of the palace eunuch Xia Gonggong? ”

"Yes, I heard that Xia Zhuangtou is a distant nephew of Grandpa Xia in the palace."

Although Chen Lan, who was behind, did not open the curtain, he heard the words in front of him clearly. Although she felt uneasy about Zhu's indifference, she could only think about it secretly in her heart, but Chen Yan, who had woken up next to her, gently pulled her sleeve.

"Sister, since the accounts of that Xia Zhuangtou have not been sorted out, why did he move away so happily? Also, since this is our Zhuangzi, he has stepped down, why do you dare to make such a fuss to urge, these tenants are kneeling and pleading at the gate of the village, is it forcing us to come forward for the tenants? These people are weird! ”

"You've grown." Chen Lan nodded at Chen Yan, thought for a moment and then whispered, "Let's take a look first." I asked the old lady to come here to recuperate, one is that this place is close to the capital, and if there is anything to do, you can get the news quickly, and it is cheap to rush back. The second is that this is our Zhuangzi after all, although the four families of the Chu family have all arrived here, after all, they are newcomers. Although Zhang Zhuangtou looks credible, we can always be here to see what the situation is, so that we can really rest assured. ”