After the Wanshou Festival, it entered November, and Yingtianfu began to get cold.

There was just a snowfall last night, and the palace people in the palace were clearing the snow with brooms.

As the saying goes, the snow is a good year.

But for the Ming Dynasty of this period, it doesn't seem to be the case.

Because it means that winter is coming.

The cold not only made it impossible to carry out agricultural activities, but also forced the people to try their best to resist it.

A velveted carriage slowly drove out of the palace......

……

The carriage did not stop inside the city, but went straight out of the city.

Originally, Zhu Xiongying wanted to take the old man straight to Zhuangzi in Jubao Mountain, but the old man temporarily changed his course.

He also wanted to take Zhu Xiongying to see something.

It was a small town outside Yingtian City, Jiangning Town.

The road was covered with snow, and the world had become a white world.

The crops in the fields have been harvested, and there is no one in the middle of nowhere.

At first glance, the world is covered in silver light, like a beautiful picture.

It's just that there is a lack of vitality in this beautiful picture.

The wilderness is vast, but there is no one to live.

The carriage traveled all the way, leaving two deep marks on the snowy road.

The carriage stopped in front of a village, which is called Stone Village as you can see from the roadpost at the entrance of the village.

The two got out of the car here, and the snow in the village was not cleared, and there were some sparse footprints left on it.

Zhu Xiongying supported the old man and walked carefully towards the village.

The village is quiet, with the occasional dog barking.

From time to time, a few children could be seen playing, and the children saw two well-dressed strangers, their eyes a little evasive, and then hurried away.

Zhu Xiongying couldn't help but sigh lightly: "What an idyllic scenery in the snow." ”

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and didn't speak, and continued to take Zhu Xiongying to the village.

Finally, in front of a large mansion, I saw the figures of adults.

The house is profound, and you can see that it is a large family at a glance.

The snow in front of the gate was swept clean, but it was evident from the marks above that people often entered and exited the gate.

The grandfather and grandson stopped here to watch for a while.

From time to time, I saw that the villagers who wrapped their bodies tightly with coarse rags came out of the house, as if they were carrying something in their arms, but there was a little sadness and confusion in their expressions.

Zhu Xiongying couldn't help but stop an old man and asked, "Uncle, what are you doing here?" ”

The old man raised his head and glanced at Zhu Xiongying up and down, a touch of disgust flashed in his eyes, and he didn't say anything, so he bypassed Zhu Xiongying and walked slowly into the distance.

Zhu Xiongying looked at the rickety back, a little speechless.

But at this time, a young man who came out of the mansion with his feet behind him said loudly: "This nobleman, you are from the city, right?" ”

Zhu Xiongying turned his head and saw a thin young man with his hands in his sleeves looking at him, so he nodded with a smile.

The man asked with some vigilance, "Are you an official?" ”

Zhu Xiongying shook his head and said, "No, I'm from out of town, passing by here, I'll come in and have a look!" ”

"Oh!"

The man sighed.

Zhu Xiongying asked: "By the way, I see that many people in the village are running to this Zhou family, is there anything going on in the Zhou family?" ”

"Humph!"

The man snorted lightly and glanced at Zhu Xiongying with slanted eyes: "You really don't know?" ”

Zhu Xiongying shook his head.

The man said: "Like you rich boys, you think that the crops in the field are all grown by yourself, and it's normal to not know!" ”

Zhu Xiongying smiled awkwardly and politely.

The man saw that Zhu Xiongying was quite good at talking, and he couldn't help but open the chatterbox, and said with a bit of sarcasm on his face: "If there is really something in their Zhou family!" I'll tell you the truth, we're here to get paid! ”

Zhu Xiongying suddenly understood, and said, "You are all tenants of the Zhou family? ”

The man nodded and said with a wry smile: "At the end of the year, I can get a few dollars, it's difficult!" This winter, the family is going to tighten their belts again! ”

Zhu Xiongying's brows furrowed slightly when he heard this, and said, "Didn't the imperial court give you land?" Why do you want to be a tenant for others? ”

"Huh-"

The man smiled bitterly and said, "Do you think we want to?" Three years ago, our village suffered a disaster, and the food in the field was not enough for the winter, so we had no choice but to borrow grain from the Zhou family! ”

As he spoke, the man glanced at Zhu Xiongying, "Do you know what nine out of thirteen returns?" ”

"I don't know!"

Without waiting for Zhu Xiongying to speak, the man continued: "It's that we pressed the title deed, borrowed ten stone rice from him, and he only gave us nine stones, and then in the next year, we will pay him back thirteen stone rice!" ”

"I know that he wants to trap us, but we have no choice, we can't watch the family starve to death, so we can only borrow it!"

"But in the second year, a good year, there is not much grain left in the field, where can I find thirteen stones of grain and return it to him?"

"So I can only transfer the land deed to his Zhou family to pay off the debt, and the family has no land, do you say that we have any other way to live except for his Zhou family as a tenant?"

Listening to the man's words, Zhu Xiongying couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

Oh, yes!

A peasant household with no economic foundation, whenever it encounters some natural or man-made disasters, there is really no other way but to sell the land on which he lives.

"Hey, life is hard!"

The man sighed: "You rich boys don't understand!" ”

After that, the man picked up the bag of rice he had just gotten from the landlord Zhou's family and walked home, and the family was still waiting for this rice to go to the pot!

Following the young boy to complain a few words, it also made him feel a little more relaxed......

Looking at the man's back, Zhu Xiongying clenched his fists.

At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang walked over, looked at Zhu Xiongying and said, "Eldest grandson, do you know why we oppose war and expansion?" ”

"Once the war breaks out, it will inevitably increase the taxes of the people, which will only cause more and more people to lose their land."

"There are all kinds of natural disasters every year, which is what we are most afraid of!"

"Every natural and man-made disaster means that more and more people have to borrow money from the landlords and gentry, and it also means that the land and land deeds in their hands will be taken by these landlords and gentry!"

"The poorer the poorer, the richer the rich!"

"But we can't help it, what we can do is to reduce the taxes of the people as much as possible, so that as many people as possible can keep their own land."

Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes were deep, and he sighed softly: "We have also worked for the landlord's family, we know how difficult it is!" ”

"So after we conquered the world, we thought about distributing the land to the farmers, but in the end, the problem of land annexation began again and again."

"We have almost flipped through the history books, and all dynasties and dynasties are helpless on this issue!"

"Eldest grandson, you told us to fight before, but is it really okay to fight out?"

"Look at Meng Yuan, how wide the territory is, but it's only a hundred years, and they will perish!"

As he spoke, Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Zhu Xiongying and said, "Your proposal to get grain and silver from neighboring countries this time is very good!" It's really good! ”

"The problems we can't solve, we hope to be able to solve them in your generation!"

"While we can live for a few years, let's help you check the gates, and you can rest assured to do it boldly! Got it? ”

When Zhu Xiongying heard this, he nodded heavily.

It is conceivable that there are still many, many such scenes in various places in the Ming Dynasty, but under the rule of the old man, this era is still called the prosperous era of Hongwu!

Why?

Because the people can eat a bite of food, it is already a precious thing, if it is in the faint monarch or the war era, there will even be a situation of changing children and eating, so when they are full, it is a prosperous age!

You must know that even in the Republic of China period, there are still many people who have not eaten enough.

Zhu Xiongying came from the era of later generations, he did not experience those times when he could sell everything in order to eat a full meal, he didn't know that people would be hungry to a certain extent, and they would be like animals.

But he saw the tip of the iceberg today, and he knew that in this era, many people, their requirements are really low, just to eat a full meal, they are already very satisfied.

Even many people do not realize even this most basic and simple wish.

Zhu Xiongying suddenly felt that he had thought a lot, but there were many things, far from being as simple as they seemed.

For example, advocating aggression.

The question of aggression is definitely not as simple as it seems.

Sometimes it's not hard to get a small country, but the layers involved are not as simple as you might think.

There are many questions to consider if we want to change this era from the roots.

In the final analysis, if you want to promote the development of a society, productivity is always the first element.

The old man braved the heavy snow to take him to see these things, just to let him know that the things he watched were far from being as real as those in depth, and many questions were not as simple as patting his head.

What can be done and what cannot be done must be thought through, because as an emperor, a decision can affect thousands of people.

"Eldest grandson, don't you want to show something to grandpa? Let's go! Zhu Yuanzhang said.

"Well, my grandson understands!"

Zhu Xiongying nodded and helped Zhu Yuanzhang to walk back.

At this time, it snowed again in the sky, and the sky and the earth gradually became white, and the old and the young walked slowly in the snow.

The two backs supporting each other gradually drifted away in the white snow, and gradually became two black dots.

It's like a scene from a Chinese painting.

It's so natural, and it seems that there is a feeling of compassion for the world in it.

Zhu Xiongying helped the old man, his steps were firm, and he was already a little impatient to take the old man to Zhuangzi in Jubaoshan, wanting to tell the old man that he had a magical thing in his hand, which might be able to change the current problem of people not having enough to eat......

(End of chapter)