After returning from offering incense in Changning Palace, the emperor specially took the prince to Wu Huaiyu's newly built Zhuangzi.
The river flows from Zhongnan Mountain to the north of the plateau. On both sides of the river for more than thirty miles is Fanchuan, where the nobles and villas of Chang'an are spread.
However, the local people prefer to call it Toad Beach, because on summer nights, in the rice fields of Fanchuan where rice is grown, the cries of toads can be heard so loudly that it can even be heard from the plateaus on both sides.
Pei Ji's elegant property here, as well as a thousand acres of rice fields, have now been renamed and deeded, and now belong to Wu Huaiyu's name.
The wheat on the plateau is already golden, but the ears of rice in Fanchuan thirty miles below the plateau are already heavy, but they are still green.
The water of the Jiaohe River is not deep, and the river is not wide. Except for the fall when there are heavy rains and floods, the river becomes dangerously turbulent, and the rest of the time it flows gently and quietly.
Before the Tang Dynasty, the Yanhe River left Zhongnan Mountain and traveled more than 30 miles between the Shaoling Plateau and the Shenhe Plateau, then passed through Wei Qu and Du Qu, then went north around Han Chang'an City and entered the Wei River. However, now it has reached the Shenhe Plateau.
To the north, it joins the Jiaohe River and merges into the Fengshui River.
"The embankment of the Jianhe River protects the rice fields on both sides. It fell into disrepair after the Sui Dynasty. In the early years of the Republic of China, the embankment was washed away by flash floods. When Huaiyu was the envoy of Du, he also allocated money to repair the eight rivers in Chang'an, and it was repaired for thirty miles.
"River embankments, last autumn there were heavy rains and floods, and the embankments downstream of the Juhe River have been stabilized," Li Shimin said to Cheng Qian with satisfaction as he looked at the water under the embankment of the Juhe River.
Along the Jiao River, both sides of the long embankment have not only been heightened and reinforced, but many poplars and willows have also been planted. Along the banks of the Jiao River, which flows quietly, there are also small patches of reeds, which are full of green. The embankment has also become a thoroughfare.
On both sides of the embankment, there are acres of rice fields. This is the Little Jiangnan in the eyes of Chang'an people.
You can see the nobles' villas, manors, pavilions and waterside pavilions everywhere, and even many Buddhist temples have been built here.
On the day Cheng Qian wanted to refuse the emperor's arrangement, the Su family made the emperor drop his cup. Later, he became a little panicked and regretted. Yesterday, the emperor suddenly asked the guards to send back a dish at a fast speed, and also asked him to accompany him to Changning Palace for a night.
Uneasy, he rushed to Wujiabao early in the morning. After seeing the emperor's smiling face and Wu Huaiyu's nod to him, he breathed a sigh of relief.
We had breakfast, corn pancakes, and tea eggs in Wujiabao. We also visited the pig farm and chicken farm in Wujiabao, and saw the lives of villagers and villagers in Xiangji Temple next door. Then we went to Changning Palace not far away.
Jin Wanxiang did not stay long, although Wu Huaiyu wanted to go to the legendary Shenheyuan Juelong Ridge. Legend has it that in the third year of the Yin Shang Taishi Wen Zhong's expedition to the west, all his mounts died and all his disciples were wiped out. He was defeated and returned to Chaoge to move reinforcements.
, was led into Juelong Ridge by the Xiqi Army disguised as a woodcutter, and was eventually burned to death here.
Later generations remembered the story of Taishi Zhongqin and mourned his death. They dug a cave at the foot of Juelong Mountain and built Taishi Cave. In the cave, Taishi Wen Zhong was worshiped and offered sacrifices at all times.
This Taishi Cave has been passed down from generation to generation. Although it has not been included in the dynasty rituals, it is very respected in this area and is very popular. People come here whether they are asking for a child, asking for marriage, or praying for blessings, etc.
Even on the legendary anniversary of the death of the Grand Master every year, there will be opera singers and fairs here.
It is a pity that Li Shimin only likes Bigan and does not like Wen Zhong, and he is not willing to pay homage to Grand Master Wen.
"You put on your casual clothes and come with me for a private visit."
The emperor asked the guards of the accompanying brigade to stay behind, with only some of his entourage in plain clothes, intending to pay a private visit to the people. He also specifically told the prince, "As a king, you must not be aloof. You must go deep into the people, understand the people's conditions, and understand the sufferings of the people."
, Only in this way can we become a wise king,
If a large group of guards are crowding in front and behind, how can we see the true sentiments of the people?"
Although the prince made Li Shimin unhappy that day, his anger has subsided now, and he is willing to teach the prince well if he has the opportunity to go out for a walk.
Under the god's grassland, there is the shade of water.
Wu Huaiyu, the emperor, the prince and his entourage traveled in a simple carriage and paid a private visit incognito.
When I got close to Zhuangzi, I saw many people crowding in front of Zhuangzi. These were the original tenants of Fanjiazhuangzi. The land of Fanjiazhuangzi, a thousand acres of land, was originally rented out by tenants. There were two Zhuangzi on the left and right of Fanjiazhuangzi.
It is said that they were all refugees in the late Sui Dynasty, but later settled here and worked as part-time workers for the landlords in Fanchuan. Some of them who showed their hard work became long-term workers, and some even rented the land and became tenants.
Nowadays, there are more than 300 households in these two villages, with a population of more than 1,000, but basically few of them own their own land. Most of them are tenants, or even long-term and short-term workers.
The owner of this land suddenly changed, and these people were naturally panicked. When they saw that the managers of the manor and other businesses had changed, they all brought some vegetables and fruits to inquire, mainly because they wanted to know if they could continue to rent this land in the future.
If so, will the rent change?
"Uncle, what's your surname?"
"Old man, my surname is Zheng, and I am from the village. Are you from the family of the new master of Zhuangzi?"
Old man Zheng is dark and thin, wearing a coarse cloth jacket full of patches. He doesn't even have a pair of straw sandals on his feet. His skin is tanned by the sun, and his beard and hair are messy. His face is full of wrinkles, engraved with the wind and frost of the years.
The heaviness of life.
There was a turban wrapped around his head, which was also old and dirty.
"I am from a grain store in Chang'an. I came to the countryside to see Xia Liang. I heard that the owner of this place has changed?"
"Well, the owner used to be Prime Minister Pei, but now he has changed to Prime Minister Wu, and they are all from the prime minister's family,"
"I heard that Mr. Wu also had a thousand-acre farm next to the Xiangji Temple in the west of the plateau. It was very prosperous. His tenants and even nearby farmers all benefited a lot from raising pigs and chickens."
"I've been to Wujiapu, and it's really prosperous. I even bought a nest of chickens there before, and sold firewood there,"
Old Man Zheng was quite looking forward to the new owner of the village, the Wu family, but he was a little uncertain and worried. Now he followed everyone here, also wanting to get some certainty and peace of mind.
"Brother, are you a tenant of Zhuangzi's land? How much land do you own?"
Old Man Zheng smiled bitterly, "You can also see here that the houses in our upper and lower villages are all straw huts, not even an earth house with rammed earth walls. We people used to be refugees, basically
Escaped from the north,"
Huaiyu looked towards the Shangcun and Xiacun not far away. Sure enough, there were many thatched huts set up not far away from the Jinghe River. Some people also dug some simple cave dwellings at the bottom of the slope to live in.
"The imperial court divided the land equally, but you didn't grant the land?"
"This is thirty miles away from Fanchuan, a small Jiangnan area in Chang'an. Here is the best fertile land. The landowners are all relatives of the emperor in Chang'an City, high-ranking officials, or prominent families like Weidu who have been in power for hundreds of years. We,
It would be great if the lowly refugees could settle down here and be taken in as tenants or long-term and part-time laborers, but there is no land to be allocated."
At the beginning of Wude, the imperial court also mobilized some refugees to return to their places of origin. Of course, people like Old Man Zheng, whose family was on the Loess Plateau, were already poor and did not want to return. It was actually okay to stay as a tenant farmer and farm land for these famous nobles.
It's okay, at least you don't have to serve and pay taxes.
"No land allocated?"
"There is no land to be divided. The land is all in the hands of the famous nobles. Even if the dynasty changes and some noble officials decline and fall, there will also be new nobles. The land will just change from one noble to another, just like
Now, isn't this thousand-acre farmhouse also under the name of Mr. Pei and now Mr. Wu? Will the imperial court still use such precious land to share it with us?
Even if it is divided, it will be given to the officials first, and the imperial guards will never get our turn."
"Actually, we don't want to divide it."
Cheng Qian was shocked when he heard this. How could he still be unwilling to divide the land?
"Why, wouldn't it be good if you don't have to pay rent on your own land?"
"Because if you want to divide it, you won't be able to divide it much. Look at the counties in Yongzhou, Gyeonggi Province, and the counties farther away from Chang'an. In the early years, if they were lucky enough to have equal land, they could only get thirty or fifty acres, or even only two or three acres.
Ten acres, but this land is allocated to good citizens who are naturalized and are registered households. In the future, they will have to pay rent and serve as corvees. No matter how many acres are allocated, the rent will be levied according to ding.
Two ounces of stone, two feet of millet, three ounces of silk, these are all unchanged.
You still have to serve 20 days of free service a year. This is only on the surface. In fact, the burden is more than that. The court's rented service has to be served, the state will also send service to collect, the county will also send, and even
People in the countryside often charge a fee to do work, which is too much to bear." Old Man Zheng waved his hand.
It would be better to work as a tenant for the nobles and not even register as a household registration, thus eliminating the need for renting and transferring to regular service. Although there are still some apportionments in the countryside that cannot be escaped, at least the bulk of it does not need to be taken.
"Paying rent to the court or paying rent to the nobles is not always paying rent."
The old man even thinks that it is more cost-effective to pay rent to the landlord's family, because the landlord's rent is divided according to the land you rent. Even if the share is more, it is divided according to the acre. However, the court collects rent and recruits conscripts.
According to Ding, as many Ding as there are, it doesn’t matter how much land your family has. It doesn’t matter whether you have more land or less.
In the early years of the Sui Dynasty and the early Republic of China, many good households even cut off their own hands and feet to avoid service and avoid paying taxes. Now there are many such people with disabled hands and feet in the upper and lower villages. They are called
He was blessed with good hands and feet. If he had not cut off his limbs and gone to Liaodong, or was drafted into the army to suppress the refugees, he would have been gone long ago.
The old man's words had a great impact on Li Shimin. Although he knew these things, it was still different when he heard them with his own ears.
And the young Prince, His Highness, was even more shocked. He always thought that the Tang Dynasty destroyed the Sui Dynasty and unified the world, which was great, and the people should also live a good life, especially now that everyone has to pay two or three dollars for rice, many people say that it is great.
The Tang Dynasty was so great and the emperor was so wise. This was a prosperous age.
He didn't expect that the people in the prosperous age would have such thoughts.
"I heard that in the past two years, the imperial court has repeatedly defeated Fanhu. There is a large amount of land in the border areas that can be allocated for farming. The imperial court also encourages people to immigrate to the border areas and wide villages. One ding is at least a hundred acres of land. There are even travel expenses and settlement expenses. In the past
Farming not only equalizes the land, but also provides interest-free loans such as seeds and farm tools..."
The old man looked at Cheng Qian and said with a smile, "You are a boy from a grain store, you are so ignorant. Who wants to go to the frontier? What is the difference between that and exile? Let alone a hundred acres of land, it is a thousand acres of land."
I don't want to go either. No matter how much land is divided among the frontiers, will I be able to survive and be safe?
Where is this, this is Chang'an, this is Fanchuan, how wonderful it is here, even if you are a tenant, you are still under the emperor's feet. No matter how powerful the Turks are, they can only attack the Wei River, but they have not crossed the Wei River and attacked us in Fanchuan.
"
Unless absolutely necessary, not many people are willing to immigrate to the border areas. Now the court mainly recruits some poor people near the border areas, or some former slaves. After the tribes are released, they move to the border areas, or recruit some
When bachelors and other bachelors go to farm to reclaim wasteland, they are not forced to settle down. At most, it is equivalent to going to work in reclaiming wasteland.
Those who are really willing to go to the border areas are actually those wealthy and powerful families who send out their tributaries and common people to open up wasteland, but their conditions are much better than those of ordinary people.
"In the late years of the previous dynasty, I fled all the way from Jingzhou to Fanchuan. It was so hard for a refugee to escape famine. It was no better to immigrate to the frontier. It was very difficult to get out. Even though I am just a tenant here now, with only three thatched huts.
At least I have a place to live, a wife, children, a family, and a job."
I chatted nonchalantly with Old Man Zheng for a long time.
In the end, Li Shimin was silent, the prince was deeply shocked, and Wu Huaiyu got used to it.
The nobles and relatives are powerful and powerful, but many common people have no place to stand.
What is even more astonishing is that up to now, under the feet of the emperor like Chang'an and in the capital, there are still a large number of people who would rather be tenants of the nobles and powerful, and be attached to them, than be willing to be registered as registered households, or even have twenty or thirty acres of land.
I don’t want to take any of the land granted to me,
The reason is also very simple. Once you become a good citizen by naturalization, you will also become a subject, and the burden will be heavier.
Therefore, everyone would rather be a fugitive and a tenant than a good citizen.
Before the temple land was cleared, there were a large number of tenants from the original temple. Buqu were lucky enough to be assigned a lot of land and became the main tenants, or they were granted permanent tenure rights and became customers. Regardless of whether they were allocated fields or permanent tenants, the land was divided.
quite a few,
These people make Old Man Zheng envious, but it can only be said that they are lucky enough to catch up with them.
"We are now hoping that after the Wu Xiang Gong's family takes over this place, it will be like the Wujia Fort in Xiangji Temple. The rent can be lowered, and we can even make more money by raising pigs and chickens. Our family
If the girl and boy can still be favored by the Wu family, go to their workshop to work or learn something, and they will have a job in the future."
Li Shimin took Cheng Qian and went to chat with some villagers.
It's basically the same as what Old Man Zheng said. There are more than 300 households in the upper and lower villages. It is true that they were all refugees from other places in the past, so they have all kinds of surnames. The surnames of King Zheng, Liu, Yang, Wang and Zhang are all there, and everyone has almost the same surname.
In my heart, I am willing to guard this little Jiangnan of Fanchuan and this Toad Beach, because as long as you work hard here, you can always fill your stomach. This is a fertile land with guaranteed harvests despite droughts and floods, and your efforts will always be rewarded.
In your free time, you can also go to Zhongnan Mountain to carry wood, burn charcoal and other things to make money.
Border immigrants and the like, whoever wants to go there can go, anyway, they don't want to suffer this or that.
Just live a good life here, raise your eldest children, then build a few houses, find wives for your sons and marry off your daughters, and this life will be over.
Seeing that it was noon, Old Man Zheng greeted Wu Huaiyu and the others warmly and invited them to have a light meal in his thatched hut. Old Man Zheng fled from Jingyang, and his wife starved to death, and his parents and a baby also starved to death.
, and later sold a girl in exchange for some millet, allowing him and a son to survive.
After arriving in Fanchuan, he built a simple shack and worked for the landlord. He was honest and diligent and established himself here. Later, he brought back a refugee woman whose husband had died with two buckets of millet. The woman's in-laws took
After paying two buckets of rice, he asked him to take the woman away. A boy was left behind, but the girl asked the woman to take him with him.
Old Man Zheng didn't mind it either, and he happily took the woman and the little girl back to his thatched hut. With his hard work, he later became a tenant of the landlord's family. When he arrived in the rice fields, he used the owner's tools for farming tools, horses, and even rations from the beginning.
He could only share a very small amount of food. Later, he slowly started to take care of various things and his share gradually increased.
He and the woman later gave birth to two more children, a son and a daughter. In the blink of an eye, more than ten years have passed. He is old and has raised four children. His small thatched shed has also become a five-story house with a yard.
There is a thatched hut and even one of his own cattle.
A few years ago, I married the eldest son, and last year I proposed marriage to the second son. The girls the woman brought are all older. The old man is trying to find a good family for her. If you want to find a better family, you have to
A decent dowry will do,
Therefore, Old Man Zheng now hopes that his new owner, Mr. Wu’s family, can continue to let him farm the original land. He even wants to rent more land, and hopes that the land rent can be reduced, or that he can seize some land from the Wu family.
It’s just a little piglet. Just like Wujiabao, you don’t need to pay the piglet, but use the dung in the pig pen as payment...
"The price of grain is getting lower and lower. This summer, the price of rice is 20 to 30 yuan, which has never happened in these years. The grain collected has to be paid for rent, and rations have to be reserved. There are not many left. The price of grain is so low. Alas, it cannot be exchanged.
It’s difficult to make money and spend money. I thought, why not plant an acre or two of sweet potatoes and raise a few more pigs. I heard that when the Wu family’s piglets are grown, they will buy them back, and the price is not bad. After a year, the price is better than
It’s much better to grow land and sell grain.”
Li Shimin smiled and accepted Old Man Zheng's warm invitation.
Shangcun, where Old Han Zheng's family is located, is very close to Zhuangzi. There are more than 100 households in the whole village, with hundreds of people. The whole village is quite simple, with mostly thatched huts and simple back kilns.
The villagers' clothes are basically patched, and they are basically barefoot in summer. Children are more likely to have bare buttocks. The sanitary conditions in the village are not very good.
Wu Huaiyu and Li Shimin were very calm, but Cheng Qian was not used to the dirty and chaotic village.
The old man invited me to dinner, but he didn’t actually treat me specially. I had porridge cooked in the morning, with a lot of sweet potatoes added, not much millet, mostly sweet potatoes, and some corn steamed in the morning.
Old Man Zheng asked his woman to cook two dishes, which were actually boiled vegetables. A few vegetables were simply picked and cooked in one pot. Finally, they were sprinkled with salt. They were very authentic, and of course there were no dipping sauces.
"There's nothing we can entertain at home, so we'll just make do with it," the old man said with a smile.
The old man has a large family, four children, a husband and wife, plus his married daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren, a total of nine people.
It was a very simple meal, but they ate it quickly.
Li Shimin picked up a corn cob and gnawed it. It was very dry and rough. Cheng Qian also picked up a corn and ate a few bites, but he choked and found it difficult to swallow.
Huaiyu scooped up some soup from the sweet potato porridge and handed it to him. Chengqian quickly took a few sips and then swallowed the rough steamed bun.
"Why is this corn steamed bun different from what I ate before?" Cheng Qian asked Huai Yu.
"This bun is filled with crushed corn leaves and corn cobs."
"Ah, what are you adding these for?"
Li Shimin glanced at his son helplessly, "The steamed buns with bean noodles or glutinous rice flour are not what the poor usually eat. Those with added sugar and dried red dates are even more snacks for the nobles. Ordinary people's steamed buns will be added
Crushed corn leaves and cobs are more economical and filling. Some even add some bran to it, but it tastes very dry and difficult to swallow."
