Chapter 85 Recruiting troops and relocating people
The scorching sun is beating down, and although the summer harvest has only passed for three to five days, many families in Duchang County are still busy grabbing land.
Double grabbing means grabbing crops and planting crops.
Rice is generally grown in two seasons in the south. The early rice matures in June. After harvesting, the fields must be plowed and transplanted immediately. The late rice seedlings must be planted before the beginning of autumn in early July.
If the season is late, the harvest will be greatly reduced or even lost.
In just one month, harvesting, plowing, raising seedlings, and transplanting rice seedlings, with the scorching sun above our heads, can be described as a very busy time, which is called a double rush.
At this time in Heshe Village, everyone and animals are busy. Even the school is closed, the husband is busy working in the fields, and the children have to go home to help.
In the rice fields, middle-aged men with shaggy hair and boys of fifteen or sixteen years old were walking side by side, carrying wooden plows on their backs, while women in aprons and headscarves were holding on to the wooden plows as they moved forward.
Two younger sisters, aged seven or eight, were picking up fallen ears, clearing weeds, and occasionally playing.
"Da, let me take your place!"
At this time, a young man suddenly walked up the embankment. He was naked and wearing a long robe. He was about to take off his coat and wanted to go to the fields.
"Bah, stop it!" The man immediately turned his head and scolded: "You are the scholar in our family, but you are dirty when you go to the fields."
"Yes, Da Ya, don't mess around." The old lady also waved her hands, with an eager look on her face.
"Go back to study, go back quickly——"
Helpless, he could only go back.
The two dogs working as cattle on the side looked envious.
In the evening, the family reunited. Although the yard was small, the gates and walls were complete, the house was neatly tidied, and the small vegetable patch was green and beautiful.
The sky was already dark, and several people were eating porridge and wild vegetables in the yard with thick bowls. Although their stomachs were not full, it was the lake that made them full.
The boss seemed to feel that it was getting dark and wanted to light an oil lamp, but he finally put it away.
"Studying consumes your brain, eat more." The father directly put half an egg into his son's bowl, and then added a drop of rapeseed oil.
Ergou looked at it with envy.
"Eat more!" My mother looked at him with pity and put an extra pickle in his bowl.
"kindness."
The unfair treatment at home made him feel uncomfortable no matter what.
Although I understand that studying has a bright future, after the eldest brother becomes a scholar, the family will surely ascend to heaven and live a happy life.
But this kind of life is too torturous.
After the meal, the two dogs put down their bowls and wandered near the grain drying field.
There are some rice residues in the gaps here, and there are many voles and birds here. Catching one is considered a feast.
As a result, a lot of teenagers have gathered, and they all like to come here to play and enjoy a moment of leisure.
"Brother, have you heard that Heshe Village is recruiting troops?"
"As long as you serve as a soldier for five years, you will be given ten acres of land. Then you can start a family and start a business. It is better than staying in your hometown."
"I don't know if it's true or not..."
"Even if it's fake, I don't want to stay at home anymore." Someone said irritably: "My eldest brother is studying, I am working, and the food is better than mine. My parents love him and stick to him in everything."
"If I can't save it, all his sons are running around. I can't even see the pot cook..."
These words immediately touched Ergou's heart.
Learning is valuable than anything else.
But their sons are all the same. They are all born from human flesh and blood. The difference is as high as heaven and earth.
"It's good to be a soldier. I heard it's half a dollar a month, including food and lodging -"
"I'm afraid we're not going to fight!"
"I heard from my husband two days ago that there is no such thing as Liaodong and there is peace. There will be no more wars in the world, and there will be peace in the world."
Ergou became more and more excited as he listened. When he got home at night, he couldn't sleep.
The next day, after working hard for a long time, he took his lunch break and came to the private school. After hesitating for a long time, he asked his husband what was going on with recruiting troops.
"This!" The teacher, who was from the same family, was not bothered and said directly: "I heard that in Heshe Village, ten miles away, there was someone who came back from the north and wanted to recruit troops to go to Liaodong..."
"Is it true that every five years a soldier will be rewarded with ten acres of land?"
"It should be true." The gentleman hesitated: "The county government didn't come forward, so I think it was acquiesced."
The two dogs were overjoyed and started discussing it when they got home.
"Big brother, give all these acres of land to your eldest brother. Once we finish the robbery, I will join the army and spread the branches and leaves of our family."
The father, who usually had a dull face, now looked anxious: "If you become a soldier, you will die! A good man cannot be a soldier, and a good man cannot hammer nails!"
"Dad, I have a big brother in school, can I continue to study?" Ergou said dissatisfied: "I will eat food as a soldier and reward you with fields. When the time comes, I will take you to enjoy the blessings."
The eldest brother bit his lip. It was about the ownership of five acres of paddy fields. He felt it was hard to talk about it, but he still said: "I can't stop you, but it's not safe for you to go alone. You have to gather a few more people in the village. When the time comes, Look out for each other.”
"This is also the reason."
The news about him spread more and more widely, and the tenants, who had children but were poor and had no place to live, also saw it as a way out, gathering hundreds of people in a short period of time and affecting thousands of households.
In nearby Yujialing, Yu Yinggui, who was retiring leisurely, was also alarmed at this time.
He is originally from Duchang County.
In the 16th year of Chongzhen, Tongguan fell. Yu Yinggui became the right minister of the Ministry of War and replaced Sun Chuanting as governor of Shaanxi military affairs. Emperor Chongzhen gave him 50,000 yuan to fight, but he went to Shanxi, hesitated and was dismissed.
[To be honest, I have been using Yeguoyuedu recently to read and catch up on new books. I can switch sources and read aloud with many sounds. www.yeguoyuedu.com is available for Android and Apple.]
"Dad, all the village elders nearby came to our door, arguing whether the recruitment was true or not?"
The eldest son rushed over and asked breathlessly.
"It should be true."
Yu Yinggui tossed a cattail leaf fan and swayed: "The bitter cold land of Liaodong is vast and sparsely populated, so it is reasonable to recruit troops to acquire farmland."
"But I shouldn't come forward in this matter, let the magistrate do it!"
"Forget it, tell the villagers that you can give it a try."
As soon as Yu Yinggui provided guarantee, he immediately made Yuan Jiang's recruitment more effective with half the effort.
Yuan Jiang, who was recruiting troops in Heshe Village, was surrounded by a group of men who looked at him as if they wanted to eat people.
And his sister-in-law, wearing a commoner and a jingle hairpin, holding a jar to pour water, her pretty and plump figure made all the men swallow their saliva.
"Okay, I know what you are thinking."
Yuan Jiang stood up and stood in front of his sister-in-law, letting her in, and then said loudly: "If you want to go, register your name, and we will leave after grabbing both."
Then, pots of freshly steamed rice came out of the pot, and each person was given a large bowl. Everyone's eyes were straight, and they buried their heads in the bowls, just making it with all their strength.
White flowers, fragrant rice, just eat it dry.
Each person only tasted a small portion of the bowl and almost swallowed it with his tongue.
"It's so delicious-"
Everyone licked the bowl, savoring the soft taste of white rice.
"In the army, we eat rice every day and meat every now and then. Isn't this better than working in the fields back home?"
At this time, the first shot was fired immediately, and there was an endless stream of people coming to recruit.
My parents felt very distressed: "Son, what if I was tricked into eating this?"
"Everyone in the village knows the basics, and besides, among friends and neighbors, it doesn't matter if you give up a bowl of rice."
After the double robbery, more than 800 people joined the army in Duchang County alone, many of whom were half-clothed. Although the Jiangnan water town was nice, there were too many people.
The hundreds of people who were sent out also lived up to expectations and brought back satisfactory numbers.
There were as few as dozens of people, as many as 1,800 people, and some even evacuated several mountains.
They are basically people who live in poverty in the countryside. In other words, they are all explosives.
The governors of each province had to cooperate with the imperial court and gave each person five silver coins as settlement expenses, and they were transported by car and water to the seaside to take a boat to Liaodong.
The number of people recruited exceeded 100,000, which put Jilin Dusi in trouble and there was not enough food.
So I can only spend the winter training in Liaodong, and then go to Jilin in the spring.
The Immigration Department of the Ministry of Household Affairs, which had been established for several years, suddenly understood that recruiting soldiers was faster and more convenient than pure immigration, and was accepted by the people.