Just seeing the 9 enlightenment points left on the system panel, Su Hao couldn't help but sigh. Now he was completely back to before liberation.

Before, he went from Jining Prefecture to Jinan Prefecture with Fang Haichuan and others. Fang Haichuan and the others were all wearing Feiyu uniforms, so naturally no bandits would be stupid enough to attack them. After leaving Jinan Prefecture, he had been relying on carriages. Although practicing Qing Gong may seem a bit silly, when others see that he has martial arts skills, they naturally stay away from him.

In the past year, rebellions have been rising everywhere, and there are signs of great chaos in the world. Bandits are everywhere. Some have no choice but to turn into bandits, while some local gentry and evil tyrants secretly turn into bandits. The most serious ones are deserters from the garrison who turn into bandits.

In the Ming Dynasty, the issue of deserters from guard stations was a problem. The guard system established by Zhu Yuanzhang was actually not wrong. In the chaotic state of the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties, the guard system allowed the Ming Dynasty to be pacified in the shortest possible time. Come down.

Moreover, Zhu Yuanzhang, as a civilian who was born as a beggar, had personal experience of the sufferings of the people. When he established the guard system, he equipped each guard with enough military households and farmland. The military households cultivated the farmland and then paid Food taxes support the health center and make it self-sufficient.

It is a pity that Zhu Yuanzhang overestimated his authority and underestimated the greed of human nature. In the eyes of the guards officers and local gentry, the military households occupying dozens of acres of land were no less than fat sheep.

So the inside and outside cooperated, and the guards officers and the gentry worked together to divide the farmland of these military households, and bribed hundreds of officials in the court, leaving the military households with no way to sue. In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang's military household system at the time, these were gone. Tian's military households could only become the personal servants of the guards' officers, and some who couldn't bear it had no choice but to flee and become bandits.

In addition to deserters, there are also many people who were forced to live by excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes. When it comes to excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes, the Ming Dynasty was worse than other dynasties.

Zhu Yuanzhang himself came from a poor background. After becoming emperor, he was also extremely harsh on officials. The monthly salary of a dignified first-class official was only 87 dan. In normal times, the price of one dan of grain was only about 89 dan. Two is sixteen coins, which means that eighty-seven stones can be converted into about fifty taels of silver.

Good guy!

When you reach this level of officialdom, you are not a member of a large family. You need servants to serve you, you need good clothes and food, you need to be pompous, and you need favors. Fifty taels of silver a month is just a hair.

The worst thing is that the seventh-grade magistrate's monthly salary is only seven dan, which is only about 4 taels of silver. When he heard He Liu said that the salary of a hundred Jinyiwei households is 10 dan, which if converted into silver is six taels, He was also confused. It cost him more than a thousand taels to buy a precious medicine. With that little salary, he would never be able to afford a single precious medicine in his whole life.

However, it is not the worst, only worse. Although this amount of money is not enough for fine clothing and food, it is still possible to survive. However, the old Zhu family is not a good person, so this salary is still withheld. When Zhu Yuanzhang was there, most of the salary was just a few cents. Partial banknotes are issued, and officials in the seventh and eighth grades are basically issued grain every month.

But when it came to Zhu Di, this guy's heart was even darker. He actually invented the system of "Zese", which harmed his grandma's family. Zese means folding rice into things, mainly into pepper, sappan wood, and silk. Cloth, cotton and other sundries, now the entire Ming Dynasty is rotten from the root.

It is said that being an official for thousands of miles is just for money. Now that I can't even survive, I naturally have to find a way to survive, so all kinds of official money have gradually become popular. There are countless money for ice, charcoal, and tea.

Moreover, it is recognized by the official circles, and the court will not pursue it, because everyone has a share.

He also has these regular money, which can bring him thousands of taels of silver a year, and it is not possible not to take it. Throughout the two hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, only Hai Rui and a few other literati who believed in being honest and honest would refuse to take these regular money.

However, these people are also outliers in the officialdom, and it is self-evident where the regular money comes from.

Therefore, the Su family's huge family business was still controlled by Zhang Jiatao. Without Zhang Jiatao's protection, after several rounds of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, the Su family would be close to bankruptcy.

However, Su Hao didn't have any pity for these people who were forced to become bandits. They all said that pitiable people must be hateful, and the same goes for these people.

Because these people are forced to become bandits, they only persecute the more pitiful ordinary people. If they rise up, or attack those rich and powerful families, he can still call them heroes, but it is a pity that these people only become bandits.

They will point the knife at the weaker people and become a member of the persecutors.

After passing through Qingzhou Prefecture, Su Hao turned south. Although the Ming Dynasty's official roads had connected to all the prefectures and cities, and there were official roads from the prefectures to the counties under the rule, there were only a few official roads. When he thought of Mengyin County, he had to

First go to Qingzhou Fucheng, go south through the official road of Fucheng, pass through Linqu, Yishui, and Yinan counties, and then pass through Yinan to reach Mengyin County.

…

After four days of long journey, Su Hao arrived in Yishui County.

After entering the county town, Su Hao casually found an inn and settled down. After washing up a little, he ordered a table of wine and food and started to feast. Although he was assisted by precious medicines during his cultivation, he did not need to eat as much as ordinary warriors.

He had been fed dry food and cold water for five days, and he was tired of it.

Just when Su Hao was enjoying his meal, the conversation between two diners on the side caught Su Hao's attention.

"Did you hear that?"

One of the taller men said mysteriously: "There was a man named Ma over there in the East Village. The man named Ma died a few years ago, but half a year ago, the woman named Ma was pregnant again. She gave birth to a baby some time ago.

A big fat boy, everyone said she stole someone, but she insisted that her dead husband came back from the underworld and had her with her."

"Your news is too slow."

The other shorter man smiled and said: "This matter was brought before the county magistrate yesterday. I heard that the county magistrate is planning to interrogate it personally."

"real?"

The tall man was suspicious: "Will this matter alarm the county magistrate?"

"Then Ma's mother-in-law insists that this child was conceived by her dead husband through a puppet."

The short man said helplessly: "Now the county magistrate is also worried about evil spirits causing trouble. I heard that some time ago, there were ghosts in the city that harmed people."

Hearing this, Su Hao suddenly frowned. According to the travel notes of the ancestors of the Su family, there is a difference between life and death. Once you enter the underworld, it is basically impossible to return to the earth. What's more, humans and ghosts have different paths, unless they are borrowed.

A living person has a body, otherwise it would be difficult for ghosts to touch a living person, let alone give birth to a child.

"Uncle Fu, what do you think?"

Really unable to understand, Su Hao could only eat in a hurry and then came to the carriage to ask Uncle Fu.

"A soil puppet gives birth to a son?"

After listening to Su Hao's words, Uncle Fu thought for a long time, and finally said slowly: "Maybe it's the fetus of ghosts and gods."

PS: This is from "Volume 10: Soil Puppet"


Chapter completed!