"My lord, have mercy on me, my lord, please have mercy on me..."
After saying that, the old man banged his head on the ground several times, fearing that the other party would chop him down in anger.
Soon, the Chief of Qingjia saw that he had knelt down and his head was bleeding, so he kicked him to the ground and scolded: "Get out of here quickly, I am here to collect food today, not to kowtow to you!"
Although the old man suffered a bloody head, he was more afraid of collecting grain than the pain. It was only the beginning of August, and some families had not finished harvesting wheat, so they simply could not provide that much grain for the other party to collect.
"Sir, the wheat in the fields hasn't been harvested yet, so we can't produce that much food."
However, the Chief of Qingjia did not pay attention to his words, and just said with a cold eyebrow:
"I'll give you a quarter of an hour. Call all the people in the village and let them take as much as they have. Those who can't give you food will pay with money."
The old man didn't dare to ask any more questions. He stood up quickly and knocked on the door from door to door. While talking about the food requisition, he asked them to hide the children. There was an unwritten rule here that there was neither food nor food.
Those who wanted money would use their children as payment. They would send these children to various big families to sell them and serve them as maids and coolies for the rest of their lives. Therefore, after giving birth to a child, people in the village would usually hide the child at home and not report it, for fear of
He was robbed by these soldiers.
Soon, hundreds of people from the village, large and small, carried heavy grain bags and piled them up in the center of the village. Some who couldn't afford that much grain put some coins and copper plates as collateral.
Chief Qingjia rode his horse up to the crowd, glanced coldly at the group of old, weak, women and children, and then sent a few of his men to start counting the food and supplies.
Everyone stood there for an entire hour before the Qingjia soldiers finished counting, but then asked them to carry the food to the carriage. After everything was over, they left.
Rishi breathed a sigh of relief when he saw this. Fortunately, there was some surplus grain left over from last year's bumper harvest. Of course, some of it was sold for silver. But fortunately, everyone paid the grain tax and there were no casualties. It was just such a payment. This winter
It's not going to be good again.
Seeing the group of green-armored soldiers drifting away, the blood marks on the old man's forehead had already condensed. He covered his forehead, waved his hands to the group of ordinary people on the field, and said:
"It's all gone, it's all gone."
After saying that, he limped towards his home regardless of what they did. Because he had stood for so long, his legs were numb, but he didn't dare to move.
…
In the evening, several fully loaded carriages drove towards the back door of Tan Mansion. At the back door, a housekeeper dressed as a servant had been waiting for a long time. When he saw the visitor, he quickly called several guards over.
"Open that gate and let a few people come and prepare to unload the food."
"yes!"
The few guards are not ordinary people. There are many masters in the Mang Realm. Even the housekeeper has a very high level of cultivation.
Chief Qingjia immediately got off the carriage when he saw Tan Mansion. To show his loyalty, he had to hold the carriage himself.
It was already getting late when the group of people arrived at the back door. When Chief Qingjia saw the ordinary-dressed butler, he directly clasped his hands in his fists, knelt down on one knee, and said:
"Sir, the food collection in Qinghong Village has been completed, please check it."
The housekeeper nodded, then waved his hand, and several accountants came out of the door and began to count the grains. The count was completed in a short time.
Several accountants summed it up, put the account books together, and handed them to the housekeeper.
The housekeeper quickly finished reading the account book after taking it. He nodded and ordered the guards of the Tan family to move the collected grain bags into the backyard. He patted the Qingjia Chief on the shoulder and said:
"Liu Shichang, thank you for making this trip."
The green-armored commander trembled when the opponent slapped him like this. He was afraid that the opponent would use too much force. After calming down, he quickly replied: "It's not hard, it's not hard. It's a blessing for me to be able to do things for you."
After the housekeeper smiled, he helped the Qingjia Chief up and said:
"It's getting late. How about Liu Shichang staying for dinner before leaving?"
However, how could Chief Qingjia dare to stay? He calmed down his trembling heart and replied calmly:
"Thank you for your kindness, sir. It's just that my subordinate has other things to do, so it's a little inconvenient. I hope you can forgive me."
"In that case, I won't give it away. Please do it, Mr. Liu."
After saying this, Chief Qingjia took the group of soldiers and left. As for the carriages, they stayed in the mansion. It seemed that these carriages were still useful.
On the way back, Qingjia Shichang had lingering fears. The man in simple clothes just now was the chief steward of Tan Mansion, a person with real power. How could he dare to be disrespectful?
Although he is from the City Lord's Mansion, Yunxi County does not have the final say of the City Lord. The entire Luo Yun Kingdom knows that the most powerful people in Yunxi County are the Ouyang family and the Tan family. They would rather offend the City Lord than
To offend them both, the six major families are not something that little soldiers like them can afford to offend.
…
At this time, the accounting gentlemen in Tan Mansion did not leave, but took advantage of the night to open several granaries. The grains collected from other villages were stored in them. Each of the accounting gentlemen was responsible for one
, and counted the grains inside again.
After confirming that everything was correct, the account books of several granaries were finally put together and submitted to the steward.
"Sir, all the grain collected in the granary has been counted. This is the general ledger."
After hearing this, the housekeeper took the account book and glanced at it briefly, and then said to everyone:
"Everyone has worked hard. Let's go to bed early after dinner."
"Yes, sir."
Immediately afterwards, the accountants and the guards left the place and dispersed.
After those people left, the housekeeper took the account books and walked towards the study room where the head of the Tan family was. However, he did not open the door directly before he walked to it. Instead, he knocked on the door first and said:
"Master, the collected grains have been calculated. Please take a look."
"Well, bring it in." An old voice came from inside the door.
"yes."
Then, the housekeeper gently opened the door. There was an old man practicing calligraphy in the door. There was a tea table next to the desk. There was a blue and white teapot and several tea cups on the tea table. However, there was only one tea cup among them.
It's filled with tea.
The housekeeper walked to the old man with gentle steps and slowly placed the account book on the desk. Then he glanced in the direction of the tea table and saw that the mouth of the teapot was still steaming, but the teacup filled with tea was already cold.
Immediately afterwards, he walked to the teacup again, poured out the cold tea, made a new cup of tea for the old man, and then put it back.