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 rushing to harvest 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. 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.
"Big, 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 woman 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 doors and walls were in place, 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 in the end he 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 on enviously.
"Eat more!" My mother looked at him with pity and put an extra pickle in his bowl.
"Yes." 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, many 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 while I work. He has better food than me. My parents love him and stick to him in everything."
"If I can't save him, his sons are all over the place. 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 housing—"
"I'm afraid we're not going to fight!"
"I heard my husband say two days ago, what about Liaodong, what about peace, there is no more war in the world, there is peace in the world." The more Ergou listened, the more excited he became. When he went home at night, he couldn't fall asleep.
The next day, after working hard for a long time, he came to the private school during his lunch break. 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 husband hesitated: "The county government didn't come forward, so I think it was the acquiescence." Ergou was overjoyed and started discussing it when he returned home.
"Big brother, give all these acres of land to your eldest brother. I will join the army as soon as we finish the robbery, and then we can spread the branches and leaves of our family." The father, who usually had a dull face, now looked eager: "You should Soldier, that would mean death! A good man should not be a soldier, and a good man should not 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 be rewarded 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 the five acres of paddy fields. , he felt it was hard to say 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 to take care of each other."
"It's the same reason." The news spread more and more widely, and the tenants, who had children and poor families, also saw it as a way out, gathering hundreds of people in a short period of time, 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 recently updated it, switched sources, and have many reading sounds. .yeguoyuedu is available for Android and Apple.
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"Dad, all the village elders nearby came to our door, asking whether the recruitment was true or not?" the eldest son hurriedly ran over and asked breathlessly.
"It should be true." Yu Yinggui tossed a cattail fan and swayed: "The bitter cold land of Liaodong is vast and sparsely populated, so it is reasonable to recruit soldiers 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." Yu Yinggui 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, looking at him as if they wanted to eat people.
And his sister-in-law, wearing a commoner and a jingle hairpin, holding a jar and pouring water, her pretty and plump figure made all the men drool.
"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: "Register your name if you want to go, and then leave after grabbing both." Then, a pot of pots of food just came out. When the steamed rice comes out of the pot, each person is given a large bowl. Everyone's eyes are straight and they are burying 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 their tongues.
"It's so delicious--" Everyone licked the bowls, savoring the soft taste of the 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?" Now, the first shot was fired immediately, and there was an endless stream of people coming to recruit.
My parents were heartbroken: "Son, what if I get cheated and eat this?"
"Everyone in the village knows the basics, and besides, it doesn't matter much if you have relatives, 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. Too many people.
The hundreds of people who were sent out also lived up to expectations and brought back satisfactory numbers. The few were dozens of people, the many were 1,800, 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 court and gave each person five silver coins as settlement expenses, which were transported by car and water to the seaside and taken to Liaodong by boat.
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.
