Chapter Eighty-Seven: Pioneering

Sam followed his father to the edge of the canal. ()

When the soldiers heard about their father's plan, they stuck out their tongues, and this was not an easy task: my father was going to dig a trench more than 60 meters long, and then dig a reservoir at the end of the ditch.

Sam and You discussed for a long time, Sam said that if the pool was to be dug open, more than 30 people would have to take turns to catch up for more than two months, and the wood and iron should not be a little bit, and the loss of tools in the project would be very large, and the gains would outweigh the losses.

He thought that if he could bring the canal over, he would not only restore more than a hundred acres of land, but also divert water to the middle of the manor to irrigate the land directly, and hundreds of baskets of silt could be dug up on the river beach, which could be used to improve the soil.

After seeing Sam's resignation, his father did not waver, he knew that if he only looked at the immediate interests, then it was best to do no work in the manor, just bury his head in sowing and reaping, but this is how countless manors gradually declined.

Managing the manor, like building trees, is not a one-time thing, it must be constantly maintained to revitalize, and if it is neglected or lazy, the decline of the manor will be a matter of time.

This is largely the reason why many families decline over the course of a few generations. The first generation belongs to the pioneering generation, and those who can succeed are the best who have gone through the training, and their abilities are often much better than the next generation. As a result, offspring are often tired of endless work when accepting the family business, and then gradually give birth to slackness, after which the family will spiral and slowly decline, and finally fall to the bottom.

Another reason is the problem of separation, a wealthy manor needs to accumulate land for many years, while the division of a large family is always carried out once every 30 years, and the speed of land aggregation is often slower than the reproduction of the family population, once it is encountered to divide the family, the owner of the large manor will be divided into a number of small manor owners, and the small manor owner will become a number of landlords, and the landlord will become a yeoman farmer, and the yeoman farmer will eventually become a poor landless peasant, and the landless peasant will later have to sign a contract to become a tenant farmer or even a serf.

This is also one reason for the decay of the estate, and it is because of this consideration that huge families often do not break up easily. Especially on land, some families would rather let the remaining heirs take everything on the land, and give the land to the only heir. With land, there is hope and capital to continue to grow.

However, the White Dove family is still in a pioneering era, and the most exciting thing about the creation of an era is that the members of the family are always humble but energetic, and these two qualities will create a prosperous family. However, my family has been an only son until my generation, which is obviously not good for the reproduction of the family, if it weren't for the huge changes in the future, maybe I would have my own younger siblings.

Many years later, when I returned to the Valley of the White Pigeon, only some old people held my hand and wept, and I sat on the high ground and watched the wheat fluttering in the valley. Recalling the trajectory of the family, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the heavy story, and this heaviness was also a kind of touching.

The gravel road in the valley once gave away Sumi's grandmother's father's white tasseled helmet; The wheat fields here bear the footprints of grandfather's boots; The cemetery behind the castle is buried with so many people who are connected to me by blood; My father once accidentally caused the tragedy of the housekeeper here; Uncle Gil had seen frozen butterflies curl up in the grass...

Years later, when I sit on the hill and reminisce about my family's story, I try to think of everyone. Some of them have left, but I have never forgotten.

The last thing my father did before he left for the expedition was to take care of the farm.

Every morning, several maids would be woken up by the cook, who would arrange for them to prepare the day's food. My father began to use iron drills and shovels to plan the land to be excavated. Sam and a few soldiers followed, striking a stake every distance. Dense wooden piles outline a long and narrow construction site.

The father borrowed six mules from Lagrange, which were emaciated by the time they came. My father mixed the grass with beans and oats, and sometimes coarse salt, and soon the mules began to light up even when they were doing heavy work. Sam teased that Lagrange had actually sent the animals to recuperate.

It's easy to carve out a construction site, but it's troublesome once you start working.

My father, according to the system in the army, woke up his soldiers at five o'clock every morning, and then went to the river with them and their tools. Before breakfast, Dad asks Yu or Sam to start arranging the day's progress.

Sam and You have been at odds over how to construct the project. The father felt that it was not good to meddle, so he let them assign the work by themselves, as long as the work could be completed on time, how to do it The father did not interfere. However, the father promised that there would be a reward for the team that completed first, and I don't know who said that the reward was that the father would give priority to the maid in the manor to the winner as his wife, of course, the father was only a matchmaker at most, and the only people he could handle the marriage at will were the two melancholy Vikia slaves.

Sam is usually very familiar with the soldiers, and at this time, he preemptively took a few able-bodied soldiers away, and took the lead everywhere in the distribution of equipment, mules and horses, and You always looked at Sam with a smile.

Sam and You made a rule that they would take turns to do it, one round a day.

You felt bad and said, "In this case, if you take over mine, I will take over yours, and in the end it will be chaotic, and I can't figure out who is in charge." When the time comes, I will win you, what if you don't admit it? ”

One sentence made Sam half angry, so he gritted his teeth, "Okay, I'll do it for fifteen days, and then you will do the rest." See the results in a month. ”

Sam took a lot of soldiers with him, and these people generally felt that they had a better chance of following Sam to the end of the day. Some soldiers usually ask for potions to treat diarrhea or headaches, and You's ointment has saved many people on the battlefield, and they are a little embarrassed to leave You at these times.

You saw that some people around him were hesitant to follow Sam, but they were embarrassed, so they waved their hands generously: "You guys follow Mr. Sam, I won't be angry, hehe." ”

Before You could finish his sentence, the surrounding soldiers rushed to Sam's side, leaving only a swarthy groom, two honest soldiers, and a gray-haired tenant farmer. The people who rushed to Sam's side all turned around and smiled embarrassedly at You, You's eyebrows twitched, and only the people around him heard You say, "Eh, people's hearts are not ancient, people's hearts are not ancient." ”

Sam made a plan to dig a fifteen-meter ditch in 10 days, and then level the ditch in five days, and install wooden planks to lay it.

In particular, they expressed their willingness to wait and see the results.

Father advises Yu and Sam to start at the same time, so that they can speed up the progress. But You said that he didn't need to do it in advance, anyway, it would be earlier than Sam.

This sentence made Sam's eyes red, "Old Sam can shoot the hardest bow, can ride the fiercest horse, can sleep the toughest, this little ditch will lose to you a kujitte?" ”

Yu yawned and walked away with his small team.

The father quickly returned to his room and began to work normally. Every day, a messenger would deliver news from the city, and this transmission would only be interrupted when it was raining. The captain of the more than 20 soldiers in charge of guarding the city would explain the recent tasks from time to time, and those guys all heard that the manor was under construction, and their hearts were itching to come over. My father wrote back and told them to stay on duty, and when they were on their shifts in three months, they would be replaced.

My father learned about the city's movements from the captains of those men, and the soldiers saw people being arrested every day. They all hate some of the soldiers with white cloths wrapped around their helmets, they are all soldiers of a guard battalion next to Fidré, whenever there is a place for them, there will be commotion, they will always take some people, and then the people who are taken away will disappear forever.

The people in the city were terrified, and no one knew what would happen in the future.

A few days ago, several lords' families were hanged in the square, and they were said to have participated in the mutiny, and the soldiers said in the letter that they were worried about the present day, and that every few unknown people would come and ask the soldiers all kinds of questions, and these people were sneaky and unpleasant.

The captain wrote to his father, saying, "There is always a miserable feeling in the city now, and we don't like it here. Some people hid behind them and trembled with fear when they were fighting, but now that there is no fight, they jump out and accuse this one of being traitors and that of being against the party. When my brother was in the tavern, we often heard gossip. Some people make a fortune by filing a lawsuit, because after confiscating the property, the whistleblower can get a 10 percent reward. If that were the case, I would have gone home, and I would not have starved to death in the mill at home, and my wife was very strong, and the fortune teller said that I would sleep with her for forty years. I came out to fight just to have a good start, and if I do this, I might as well go home and be a little miller."

"By the way, my lord, I heard that you are in Kaitian? En, I'm pretty good at this, I've helped other people dig earthworks before, I just helped my father-in-law dig more than a thousand earthworks, and finally he moved the old man, and finally he gave me his daughter and the mill together, haha in a few months I'll come and see how the two bastards, Sam and Yu, are working. Also, the two of them are betting on who will work faster? I told my brothers, and they asked if we could bet, and if we could, we would be willing to support Sam with a month's salary, and for the sake of harmony between my comrades, I would not tell You about it, and I would have to ask him for ointment. ”

This kind of letter was probably my father's favorite thing to see in the manor. Other letters, such as orders for the reorganization of the army, land approval and signing, orders for the requisition of grain, etc., had to be read by my father word for word, and then ironed his own badge, and the next day he entrusted a messenger to bring them back to the city.

At the manor, my father heard that Sam was working hard every day, so he divided the team into three teams, each working for four hours, taking turns day and night.

The hard work forced my father to increase the food supply to Sam's team: in the morning they added a boiled egg to each of them, which forced the cook to carry the basket to other estates to buy hundreds of eggs; At lunchtime, my father had several maids bring them porridge with rotten meat and honey cakes made by Vicchian slaves, and the supply of wine changed from one liter a day to one and a half liters a day; For dinner, there is no change, just add some fried rice, which is especially recommended, and he said that everyone should get used to eating rice food as soon as possible.

Sam's efficiency was astonishing, and on the eighth day he had broken through the fifteen-metre limit, and it was not surprising that he had finished twenty metres on the fifteenth day and laid the planks, given that the soldiers were well-rested and became more and more proficient in their work.

While working on Sam's team, my father wandered around the manor to see what Yuu was doing. As a result, he saw You and several people around him chatting in his cabin in the oak woods, explaining the benefits of the coordinated use of various medicines, and conveying the idea that using food as a medicine is the best cure.

The first day his father went like this, and then it was still like this, he couldn't help but wonder a little, although seeing You's state was unable to complete the task after fifteen days, but You didn't necessarily feel worried about it at all?

Father looked for You, and asked You unkindly when he was going to take his construction team to work, You thought about it for a while, and then solemnly promised: "Tomorrow." ”

The father was very happy: "Well, are you going to polish the tools, or are you going to find another craftsman to help?" That Vikyan slave used to be a winemaker, and now he can't be used without food, so you can transfer it and use it. ”

"No, sir," said You, "we're going to do something else tomorrow." ”

"Huh?"

"I've already agreed with these guys to help me go and get my bean field out tomorrow. A few of us are enough, we don't need too many tools, and we have the seeds ready, which is good, eh, sir, how did you go? ”

When my father returned to his room, he began to reply to his subordinates in Decherim, "Well, I think you have a point in supporting Sam. ”

In this way, while Sam and his supporters were digging trenches and making boards in a dark sweat, You was picking and working hard with a few old men to open the bean fields neatly, and thinking about things such as light, ventilation, and how to prevent birds from pecking at seedlings.

Fifteen days, all at once.

Sam and his men were exhausted and waiting for this moment, even the mules around them were tired and immobile, it was a moment of excitement, and the time for ugliness was coming.

On the first day, You didn't move, in fact, until the fourteenth day, You was sowing seeds on his bean field.

My father's face was a little unsightly, as if he had been tricked by You, and the key was that the progress of the construction was delayed. He found You and told You that it had been fifteen days and that he was going to explain what he was going to do.

You patted his head: "Oh, it's been so long, it's easy to say." ”

Soon the people of the manor were all gathered, and it was said that the next day You was going to dig a ditch. Sam had rested these days, and he was happy and angry when he looked at the ditch, and now that he heard that You was ready to start, he happily informed everyone that he was ready to see the next day.

You let a few people set up some tents, and they themselves took a bucket and sprinkled some powder under the shed. He grunted and babbled for a day, and no one could see why. Sam got impatient and went to sleep.

That night, twelve o'clock. You looked up at the sky: "It's the fifteenth day." ”

Soon, the whole manor, no, the whole highland, was awakened by a loud noise.

The sound of scolding, wailing, and the neighing of livestock spread throughout the wilderness.

It is the night when the moon is bright and shining in all directions.