A few months later, Shujiazhuang Zhenxue hired a qualified teaching assistant, and Zhixin was liberated. In the blink of an eye, the autumn harvest season came, and the imperial court attached great importance to agricultural production, and the official office released officials to go home to farm. Shu Yan and Ruoxin also returned home to help harvest autumn. However, because the two families were in Luoyang before, all the fields were temporarily lent to relatives and friends for cultivation, so there was no crop to harvest, so they helped relatives and friends to harvest. After a few busy days, he returned to the county to take up his duty.

At this time, the Shi family is the busiest. Thousands of acres of fields and different kinds of grains are harvested, threshed, dried, and stored, and the workload is really not small. Although there are a large number of field donkeys, as an important source of income and food and clothing for the Shi family, they must not be taken lightly. Every year, Shi Chang will walk among the various fields, inspect the harvest of each block, and plan and calculate with the head of each village. But he is just a sideshower, and now that the young master of Biyu is back, he is a little restless, but fortunately, this young master doesn't care about anything, which makes him very happy.

Biyu's ignorance of the world made Princess Yongan very depressed. Who can rest assured that there is a potential rat at home?

It lasted for more than a month, and all the autumn grain has been put into storage. Knowing that Biyu didn't ask, Shi Chang made a clear list of the harvest and presented it to Biyu's study. Biyu is of course dismissive of this.

When it was time to eat, Biyu returned to his room, Ah Miao and Ah Yan were accompanying him, and the eldest princess of Yong'an sat on the couch and waited for him. ”

"I see that Uncle sent me a list of harvests, and I should have finished harvesting."

"Really? How much millet has been harvested this year? The eldest princess of Yong'an couldn't wait to ask.

Biyu shook her head lightly.

The eldest princess of Yong'an was both angry and helpless: "Whether it is a prince and nobleman or an ordinary people's family, the harvest of land can be said to be the most important thing throughout the year. You can leave the whole farming process alone, but you should always pay attention to the final result, right? ”

"You have to pay attention, there is a list in the study, you can see it for yourself, why bother asking me?"

In the face of Biyu's disdain, the eldest princess of Yong'an had nothing to do with him, so she had to order a little maid to go to the study to get the list and read it carefully.

It reads: three paddy fields, five dry fields, four mulberry fields, two vegetable fields, how many acres each, and each harvests rice, millet, soybean, wheat, etc. After a total calculation, there are about 5,100 acres of fields, of which about 4,000 acres are grain fields. The total income of all kinds of grains is 7,000 yuan.

Although she has a list in hand, the eldest princess of Yong'an is the daughter of the royal family and is not good at farming. She showed it to Ah Miao and Ah Yan. And although Ah Miao and Ah Yan are from low backgrounds, they have also grown up in a wealthy family since they were children, and they have always been dedicated to serving their sons, and they don't know much about it.

Fortunately, since the eldest princess of Yong'an had her own fiefdom of Yong'an Yi, she still knew a little bit about the output of various grains, and she said to Ah Miao and Ah Yan angrily: "The harvest of seven thousand Hu is definitely not right. Even in the worst year, it is much more than that. ”

Ah Miao also said worriedly: "Since you know that it is wrong, why don't the eldest princess go to the front and ask in person?" ”

"I also thought about asking myself, but Uncle Shi Chang is a member of the Shi family after all. Family relationships, if I ask directly, it doesn't seem appropriate, and I'm not good at it. Those Zhuangtou Tian Yu must have colluded with him, and they had already thought of words with each other, and I couldn't do anything about dealing with me casually. ”

Ah Miao thought about it, and sighed: "The only way to do this now is to ask the son to write a letter to Luoyang and inform the head of the family." ”

The eldest princess of Yong'an snorted and said, "Do you think your son-in-law will write this letter?" Even if it is written, it is general and unclear. What's more, Ah Weng is very busy in the court, and it is impossible to come to Ruyin in person to ask, it will not help at all. ”

"The son doesn't want to take care of it, the eldest princess is inconvenient to take care of it, and the head of the family has no time to take care of it, what can I do, is it up to them to do it?"

"The eldest princess doesn't have to worry, I think of someone, I can ask him for help."

In contrast, the eldest princess of Yongan prefers the steady Ah Miao, and has always been less fond of the tricky and charming Ah Yan. But since she has good advice, she is of course willing to listen: "Who do you say?" ”

"Shu Yan."

Shu Yan! He came from a family of cultivators and was certainly very familiar with agriculture. And he is jealous and hateful, and he hates anything that is unscrupulous, and refuses to let it go, so it must be right to ask him for help.

The eldest princess of Yong'an readily agreed to this proposal. However, as the eldest princess, it was really inconvenient to meet Shu Yan directly, so she had to go through Zhixin and Xiaomo.

After deciding to return to Ruyin to settle down, Shu Yan and Ruoxin collected the fields they had lent to others for cultivation in previous years, and they will start cultivating them themselves from next year. On this day off, Zhixin and Xiao Mo followed Shu Yan to their field to repair the land so that it could be cultivated in the coming year. Zhixin is familiar with field operations, and these farm jobs are very handy. Although Xiao Mo is not very good, he is very enthusiastic. The three of them were willing to leave Luoyang, give up the leisurely life of fat powder, and came to the countryside of Ruyin, not only did not have the slightest depression, but enjoyed themselves.

After a while, the three of them sat down on the ridge to rest. I saw a convoy of chariots and horses coming from the direction of the city, and the first oil painting was set up in a car. In Ruyin, there is absolutely no second person in this level of car driving, except for the eldest princess of Yong'an.

The car drove directly towards the three of them, stopped abruptly, and sure enough, it was the eldest princess of Yongan who got out of the car.

Zhixin and Xiao Mo hurriedly ran over to greet them, but Shu Yan was so anxious that he didn't know what to do, there was not even a hidden place here, and he couldn't hide, so he had to come forward to salute.

"In this wilderness, and there is no one else, don't be formal." The eldest princess of Yong'an asked them to get up without being polite, and said with a smile: "I originally wanted to look for you at home, but fortunately I met here, otherwise I would have been in vain." ”

Xiao Mo smiled and replied: "You can't blame us, the eldest princess wants to come, and he won't say it in advance." We are small farmers, we always have to go out to work, taking care of a few acres of land, how can we be pampered at home like the eldest princess? ”

The eldest princess of Yong'an sighed and shook her head: "What kind of pampering, I see you enjoying the joy of the countryside so comfortably, I am really very envious." ”

Zhixin pursed her lips and smiled: "The eldest princess is making fun of us again." Since the great deignancy has come, we have to put aside the things we have to worry about, and ask the eldest princess to go home with us. ”

"No need. There is no one else here, and it is more convenient to speak. ”

Zhixin listened to the meaning of the eldest princess of Yong'an, and it seemed that she was not just here to meet and play today, so she asked in surprise: "Isn't the eldest princess not playing today, but having something serious?" ”

"Where am I in the mood to play? To tell you the truth, I have something to ask for today. ”

Xiao Mo took over and said: "The eldest princess can only tell me if she has anything, we can't afford the word 'begging'." ”

"Actually, I am not asking you, but your husband."

"Me?" Shu Yan knew that his two wives were very close to the eldest princess of Yong'an, and they had some contacts, but he never thought that he would come for him today. He couldn't help but be a little scared, "The eldest princess is in charge of the inner house in the Shi Mansion, but I don't know what I want Shu Yan to do, as long as I can help, just ask." ”

"If it's a matter of the inner house, I won't bother you. There are really important things to ask for in the family. The eldest princess of Yong'an told Shu Yan about the worries in her heart. Then he asked, "You must be the most familiar with farming." Let me ask you, how much harvest can be per mu in an average field? ”

Shu Yan listened to the question, lowered his head and replied, "The eldest princess asked this question too generally. The fields should be divided into three, six, nine and so on, and there are differences between paddy fields and dry fields, coupled with the different types of crops, whether the wind and rain are coordinated or not, and so on, resulting in a great difference in yield per mu. Under normal circumstances, the yield per mu of first-class fields is more than a dozen hundreds, while the barren land may only be a few buckets. ”

"My house is full of fertile land, and there should always be an average yield of three dendrobs per mu, right?"

"If it's a good field, it's definitely more than three Hu."

"According to the average yield of three hundreds, then my family's four thousand acres of grain land only have a harvest of seven thousand, which is how much they are greedy for!"

"The same cannot be said. There are a lot of fields in the Zunfu, and most of them are good fields. If you only look at the acres and yield, it is indeed much worse. However, this is set in the case that all the land is cultivated by your family. ”

"Is there anything else?"

"Of course there is. With so much land in the Zunfu, it is definitely impossible to keep busy with one's own fields, so it will have to be rented to tenants for cultivation. Of course, all the harvest of the land cultivated by the Zunfu itself with the use of the fields is owned by the Zunfu, but the harvest of the leased land is shared with the tenants. Does the eldest princess know how much land in the palace is cultivated by her own fields, and how much land is leased to tenants for cultivation? ”

Yes? Fortunately, I didn't go directly to Uncle Shi Chang to ask questions, it turns out that there are still so many questions! The eldest princess of Yong'an was a little confused: "How did I know that there were so many things, I didn't know about it in detail at all." ”

"Before these details are understood, it is not good to rashly go to Xingshi to ask for guilt."

"Well, so there's a chance I've wronged them?" The eldest princess of Yong'an seemed to be a little remorseful.

"Not really. I can even say with certainty that the property of the Zunfu is not only corrupt, but also not small. Looking at the surprised eyes of the eldest princess of Yong'an, Shu Yan analyzed for her, "As far as I know, there are no less than 100 people in the fields of the Zunfu itself, and there are many cattle and farm tools, and it is definitely no problem to cultivate half of the fields at home, that is, 2,000 acres." These 2,000 mu are calculated according to the conservative average valuation of the yield per mu of fertile land, and there is also a harvest of 6,000 mu; The remaining 2,000 mu is assumed to be leased to tenants, and the tenants are divided fifty-fifty with the Zunfu, and there is at least a harvest of 3,000 hu. The two add up to nine thousand hundreds. Again, according to the most conservative estimates, the difference may be nearly double that under normal circumstances. In addition to the more than 5,000 acres of land inherent in the Zun Mansion, I can definitely say that there should also be some nearby people. These people put their fields in the Zunfu, and they must take out some harvest to pay filial piety, which is also an income. ”

Zhixin heard Shu Yan's calculations, and said unjustly for the eldest princess of Yong'an: "According to the most conservative estimate, thousands of people are greedy every year, and if it goes on like this, will it be worth it?" Husband, you must help the eldest princess liquidate these people. ”

"As long as you can find out about this matter, the money and rewards will be put aside, and the family will be a two-level Zhongzheng in Yuzhou and Ruyin, so you will be promoted in the future."

The eldest princess of Yong'an's sincere words made Shu Yan angry: "The eldest princess Hugh Ti respects the family!" If it is for the sake of the eldest princess's face, I Shu Yan will respond to all requests; But if it is against Shi Dazhongzheng, I will have no mercy. ”

Xiao Mo understood and sympathized with Shu Yan, and said from her husband's standpoint: "I advise the eldest princess to mention the old thief. When you were in Luoyang, your Ah Weng framed my husband many times, which is more hateful than anyone else! ”

The eldest princess of Yong'an also heard about Shi Hui's framing of Shu Yan, but she had no choice, so she immediately said embarrassedly: "Just for my sake, please ask Mr. Shu for help." ”

Xiao Mo is a warm-hearted person, he was very unkind to the eldest princess of Yong'an just now, and he relented for a while, and helped her beg Shu Yan and said, "Yes." The old thief is far away in Luoyang, so I just look at the face of the eldest princess here, help her. ”

Seeing the helpless eyes of the eldest princess Yong'an, Shu Yan paused and said: "It's not that I don't want to help the eldest princess, but, from the perspective of personal relationships, this is a family matter of the Zun Mansion, and I am an outsider, so it is not easy to interfere; From the perspective of the official, although I am a county official, this kind of matter has always been not held accountable by the people, and it is not easy to directly intervene. If the eldest princess wants me to intervene in a thorough investigation, she must first report to the county. ”

This can stump the eldest princess of Yong'an: "No, no, no, the so-called family ugliness should not be publicized." How can this kind of thing be brought to court and let outsiders see the joke? When my husband finds out, he must be very angry. If Mr. Shu has no other way, I'd rather just stop there. ”

"It's not that there's no way, it's just that you can't rush."

"What do you mean by that?" The eldest princess of Yong'an saw a glimmer of hope.

"The eldest princess only suspects that your family's family is suspected of corruption, but she doesn't have any evidence. Farming takes a long time from cultivation to harvest, and it is not as flexible as doing business, so there is no need to rush. At the moment, we should not be alarmed, and it is not too late to have more evidence and take measures. Besides, no matter how greedy the family of your family is, the loss of the eldest princess will only stop at rice millet, and they will definitely not have the right to move the ownership of the field, and a lot of land will be placed there. As long as the foundation is there, it will not hurt the whole. ”

Although the eldest princess of Yong'an was in a hurry, she had no other way, so she had to listen to Shu Yan's words, keep quiet, and go back to endure quietly.

Shu Yan just made a note of this matter in his heart, and did not take action for the time being, still busy with county affairs as usual.