"You talk nonsense!" At the same time as the slap landed on the thug's head, a childish voice sounded.

"Who is talking nonsense, what nonsense? If you go to the cement kiln and take a look, you will know what kind of life the people there have. Oh! That's right! The people who manage the cement kiln are all the people who have retired from your first division. Maybe there are still your senior officials there, and if you go there, I have to invite you to the restaurant for a drink. "The thug may have been hurt by the beating, and he covered his head and shouted loudly.

"Shut up!" Cheng Ye burst into applause and wanted to come over to fight again. The guy who looked like a thug immediately rushed out: "Second uncle, even if you beat me to death, you have to say it."

They only see that we are cruel to the workers, but they don't know that we pay the workers every day to let them live. Over there in the cement kiln, hehe! If you don't go to work for one day, your salary will be gone.

In terms of wages, how much money did they hack? You spend all day paying these coolies, and you know how many people laugh at you behind your back. The killing talents of your first division are not good people at all. With the support of the handsome, they dare not do anything, they ......! ”

"Shut up! Shut up! Cheng Ye held down the thug, slapped it up, and slapped it down without making a fuss.

Li Xiao's face turned black all of a sudden, he didn't expect that there would be such a thing. There are many properties in the Dashuaifu, all of which are in the hands of Tokugawa Chihime and Li Xiu's wife Zheng. It is also possible to ask a few retired soldiers from Ao Canghai to manage this kind of cement kiln.

The first division fought all the way from Liaodong to Jiangnan, and almost every soldier exuded a tyrannical bloody atmosphere. It is difficult to say that a person with such a bloody spirit has not committed a lot of atrocities. Because killing people is already as casual for them as eating and drinking. As for the abuse of people, the killers who come down from the battlefield will have psychological problems to a greater or lesser extent.

"You talk nonsense! You are talking nonsense! My Uncle Ao's soldiers won't be like that, and I'll tear your mouth if you talk nonsense. Li Lin pointed his little finger at Cheng Ye and roared.

"Young Master Nephew! This child in my family has hysteria, and he has Hu Qin today, don't take it seriously. This man, you are a master. This kid is also from Liaodong, and he is never ambiguous about killing enemies on the battlefield. For the sake of the fellow, you will spare him this time. I promise that he will never dare to bark nonsense next time. Obviously, the words "my Uncle Ao's soldiers" frightened the seemingly fierce Lao Cheng.

So the coolies saw a strange scene, Cheng Ye, who could walk sideways on the sixteenth pier, kneeling in front of a doll as well-behaved as a pug, if there was a tail, he would definitely be able to wag non-stop.

"Brother, get up. Our Liao soldiers respect the heroes who go into battle to kill the enemy, and they don't like this. Li Xiao stretched out his hand to help Cheng Ye up, and glared at Li Lin by the way.

"Apologize to this uncle." With all his strength to pull Cheng Ye up, Li Xiao looked at Li Lin with a dark face.

"But he said that Uncle Ao's soldiers ......!"

"Apologies!" Li Xiao's face darkened.

"Oh! I'm sorry for this uncle! Although he didn't understand why he apologized, Li Lin still bowed his head under his father's obscenity. In his heart, Uncle Ao, who wants the stars not to give the moon, is really a first-class good person.

"Young Master Nephew! Don't dare, don't dare. Cheng Ye, whose face was as pale as paper, shook his hands like windmills. Based on his perception of being born and raised, there is no doubt that the two men in front of him must be big shots.

"It's not that all these rough benzene jobs are done by foreign laborers. The official family is not allowed to ......! ”

"The officials are not allowed, but the foreigners need to buy from the slave market. Javanese and Cochin people are small and don't have the strength to work. The Egyptians and Kunlun Nu were in good health and could work hard, but the price was also expensive. An Egyptian slave was sold for two Javanese.

Those people in the cement kiln are too expensive! I didn't go to the slave market to buy at all, because in the past two years, there were many people from the mainland, and the wages were much cheaper than buying slaves. So, they just hire people instead of buying them. People are handsome's business, and the government doesn't dare to manage it or ask. ”

Li Xiao nodded, and sure enough, it was in line with the laws of the economy. Where people are cheap and good, start there.

"Take me to the cement kiln!" Li Xiao sighed helplessly, he really didn't want Cheng Ye to tell the truth, but reason told him that what Cheng Ye said was ten percent likely to be true. These things can't deceive people, as long as you take a look and ask the people around you, you will know.

It's easy for one or two people to lie, but it's too difficult for thousands of people to lie together.

"This master, aren't you embarrassed for me Lao Cheng. You also know that the brothers who came down from the first division were fierce. I Lao Cheng took you there, and I won't have to mix in this area in the future. You can do well, I also have a large family to eat. The cement kiln is a little far from here, on the side of Jinshanwei. If you want to get there, you'll have to take a horse-drawn carriage, and the handlebar knows the place.

But you have to report your name first when you get there, because the brothers there are fierce and have a lot of big wolf dogs. They are all brought from the Mongolian steppe, and you must be careful with your children. Cheng Ye bowed, and looked at this master in his heart to leave quickly.

As for who this master is, he doesn't care what he wants to do. It's better not to touch this kind of person, God knows if it's a brick or a pie when God drops this piece.

"Thanks!" Li Xiao arched his hand, turned around and left.

Cheng Ye panicked, and it wasn't until the uncle with the child walked out of the gate of the sixteenth shop pier that he was relieved.

"Second uncle! Who is he? The thug covered his cheeks and came to Li Xiao's side.

"It's our Liao army, I can smell the smell of him. Boy, don't tell anyone about today's events. God knows, it's a blessing or a curse. Hear me! ”

"No! I heard the second uncle! The thug nodded in a panic, for fear of being beaten again.

As soon as Li Xiao and Li Lin stepped out of the gate of the Sixteenth Shop Wharf, they were immediately surrounded by a hundred and ten men in strong suits. The first big man glanced back at Cheng Ye's uncle and nephew, with a fierce face!

Xiao Cheng swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and the sound was very loud!

Li Xiao doesn't speak, and neither do others. Everyone didn't speak, just walked on the sand and gravel after the rain.

"Send my son back, find a carriage, and go to Jinshanwei to have a look." After walking for a while, Li Xiao suddenly commanded. He could imagine what Jin Shanwei was like, but he really didn't have the courage to let Li Lin see the ugly scene in this world.

"No!" Someone said yes, turned around and ran out to call the carriage.

"Daddy, I want to go too. Uncle Ao's soldiers will definitely not be like that. The last time they sent a little tiger was obedient, I saw that they spoke very politely. Li Lin held Li Xiao's hand and refused to let go, and the people next to him didn't dare to go over and drag it.

"Silly boy, seeing is believing, hearing is false. Daddy is going to see it today, and when you're older, Daddy will take you there. ”

"But I'm ten years old this year, and my mother said I was a big child." The mother in Li Lin's mouth is Tokugawa Chihime, and I don't know what method she used, anyway, Li Lin now sees Tokugawa Chihime closer than his mother.

"Hmmm! It's a big child, but it's not old enough. Go ahead, Daddy will be back later. Li Xiao patted Li Lin's head, and the carriage beside him sounded. Two carriages came one after the other, and Li Xiao lifted Li Lin into the carriage. As soon as Li Lin got into the carriage, the carriage started.

Li Xiao got into another carriage and went to Jinshanwei surrounded by his personal guards.

Jinshanwei was in the south of Huating County, and it was already evening when Li Xiao arrived at Jinshanwei surrounded by chariots and horses. In the eyes of Huating people, this is already a standard country place.

It rained all day, and the sun finally came in the evening. The twilight sun pierced through the clouds like a sword. It seems that God has opened his eyes to see this land and the people on the land that is not illuminated by the sun. 67

There are not many people in the countryside on weekdays, and when they see this luxurious team, many people come out of the thatched houses to watch the excitement.

Although Li Xiao was mentally prepared, when he saw the clothes of the people here, his heart was still cold.

On both sides of the road are thatched huts next to each other, and it is time to cook, but there are not a few smokes in sight. There were old people and children who went out to see the excitement, and all of them had patches on their clothes. Many of them already have patches on top of each other, and they can't tell the true color of their clothes.

There were also a lot of children, who were simply wearing a tattered robe that didn't fit well. The wind blew the robe, revealing legs as thin as hemp rods. The children here are very distinctive, that is, they have big heads and big bellies. It seems that there is a prominence of a big head, and many children have big eyes.

On the other hand, their arms and legs are nothing short of skinny. Li Xiao had seen such a scene on the photos of the Great Famine in Africa, but he didn't expect to see such a scene in Daming, Daming under his rule.

Numb faces watched tall horses and ornate carriages pass by on the road, as if they were zombies, or walking dead.

Junko dusted off the rain on her coat and pointed her whip at a quick-witted-looking fellow. "Take us to the cement kiln."

The man looked at Junko and didn't speak or move. Just stared at Junko like that, looking straight at Junko, as if he hadn't heard Junko speak.

"He is deaf, and his ears were slapped twice by Hao Ye, and it became like this." An old voice came from the side.

The whip raised by Junko was flicked twice, shaking off many droplets.

Maybe I don't like the weather in the south of the Yangtze River, maybe I don't like the dialect of the southerners, or maybe I don't like the Donglin Party in the south. Anyway, the Liao army basically doesn't like the southerners.

"Take us to the cement kiln, there is a reward." Junzi said something lazily, and a few copper brothers threw it over, smashed it on the old man's clothes, and then fell into the muddy water.

"Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir! Dog, hurry up, take these officials to the kiln. The old man shouted loudly into the house as he bent down to pick up the copper coins in the muddy water.

"Got it, grandpa!" A half-grown child sprang out of the room, his gown blown by the wind, not even a crotch cloth, and two black straw sandals on his feet.

"Wait!" Li Xiao shouted and got out of the carriage, and the handlebar immediately pressed the stop wood, and someone behind him moved to step on the pier to let Li Xiao get out of the carriage.

Seeing Li Xiao's majesty, the old man involuntarily knelt on the ground, and his head was clubbed into the muddy water and he didn't dare to raise his head. The boy who had just come out, as if he had seen a ghost, dodged and shrank back into the thatched hut.

Li Xiao got out of the carriage and patted the old man on the shoulder: "Get up, take me in to have a look." ”

The old man did not answer, but just clubbed his head in the muddy water, and his whole body shook up and down like chaff.

Junko knew that the old guy was almost paralyzed. With a dip in his hand, he scooped the old guy up from the ground. A strong stench immediately came up!

"Dashuai, this old guy is scared." Junko covered her nose and looked like she was choked with smoke.

"Put it down and give the old man some money. Don't scare you to death! Li Xiao shook his head helplessly and walked straight into the thatched house.

Junzi hurriedly threw the old man on the ground, and rushed behind Li Xiao with a gun in one hand and followed closely.

The thatched hut was dark inside, and there was a bonfire in the middle. The bonfire was scorching the black pot, and Li Xiao also saw that there was cooking smoke in this house, so he wanted to come in and see what these people were eating.

The smell of grass foam fills the house, and when it gets into the nose, it makes people want to vomit.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and Li Xiao took advantage of the firelight to come to the bonfire. The pot is made of stone, and there is something black boiling in it, so you don't need to taste it, as long as you smell it, Li Xiao knows that he may not be able to eat tonight.

"What is this?" Li Xiao asked, pointing to the inside of the pot.

No one answered, and the half-sized boy just now shrunk up in the wall and in the cotton wool and shivered.

Junko directly grabbed the child's neck collar and picked the child up.

"It's a wild vegetable paste." The accent is very strong, and it took Li Xiao to understand it after saying it twice in a row.

Find a spoon that is half missing, and tie a piece of stick with a rope. I fished a handful of wild vegetable paste!

Sure enough, they are all dark green wild vegetables, and you can see a few grains of rice in the stars. The rice is small, like the ring scar on the monk's head.

picked it up and put it down, Li Xiao really didn't have the courage to try a bite.

"That's all you eat?"

"A few days ago, I ate grass roots and tree bark, and now I have wild vegetables." The boy was so scared by Junko that he was about to pee.

Grassroots! Bark! God, the pigs raised in Liaodong now eat the soybean cakes left over from oil extraction.

"Where's your family?"

"My father was working on the kiln, and the kiln collapsed and was stoned to death."

Li Xiao then glanced at the firelight, and the inside of the room was bare with mud walls on all sides. There was a mat on the floor, and on top of it was a bed of wet cotton wool. There was a bonfire in the middle of the house, and there were a few broken bowls next to the stone pot, which was all the belongings of the family.

This is no longer poverty, this is living abject poverty.

This is a slap in the face of the Ming Empire, a slap in the face of his Li Xiao!

Fortunately, there are no self-media with cameras on their shoulders or mobile phones everywhere in their hands. Otherwise, this is an absolute scandal, and one shell of the main gun of the Zhiyuan is enough for ten such families to feed for a year.

But Jiangnan doesn't know how many people there are, and they are still struggling in dire straits.