Jinzhou Guard, Balipu Tunbao in southern Liaoning.
Farmer Wang Guojie suddenly fell ill.
His legs were numb and his steps were unsteady. One morning, as usual, he carried a hoe to work in the fields near Tunbao. As soon as he stepped onto the edge of the field, he tripped over some weeds and fell.
The barefoot doctor in Tunpu charged the patient 50 cents - now free medical treatment in Liaodong has been cancelled - and after some questioning, he prescribed some herbal medicine to the patient, saying that he was suffering from cold. , I will not be able to work hard in the future, otherwise I will get sick and die.
In short, this out-and-out farmer will never be a farmer again.
Wang Guojie was originally from Qufu, Shandong. Twenty years ago, he took a boat from Dengzhou to Jinzhouwei. Later, he got a wife in Tunpu and took root in Jinzhouwei. He and his wife are dependent on each other and have not yet given birth to a child.
In the past two years, there have been fewer and fewer people in charge of things in Tunpu. Many farmers have given up their work and gone to work odd jobs in the pass. Some people went to Songjiang Prefecture to pick cotton, some went to Beizhili to mine, and some went to Hanyang. The arsenal... I heard from them that life in Guan Nei was better than in Liaodong.
Wang Guojie was also ready to make a living, but he had been a farmer for decades and knew nothing but farming. Besides, he still had dozens of acres of land to live on, so he never left Jinzhou.
In the past two years, the former civil affairs officials have become landlords, the forts have ceased to exist in name only, and the upper fields have been rented out for farming by civil affairs officials and wealthy households.
As the population of Tunpu becomes smaller and smaller, the clinics, schools, and shops that previously served the residents are all occupied by wealthy people. Of course, according to the government, they are leased.
In the past, Tunbu would take care of patients like him free of charge and provide medicine. Now, everything costs money. .
Wang Guojie had no choice but to sell ten acres of land to get some money to treat himself.
Soon he was spending all his and his wife's money on medical treatment.
The doctor prescribed three doses of medicine for him, but he didn't feel any better after drinking it, and then another three doses, and then another three doses.
Until Wang Guojie's family's fifty acres of land were sold at a low price, the doctor said that he had an ancestral elixir and would keep it until the disease was cured.
However, Wang Guojie was out of money.
He and his wife could no longer live in Golden State Guard. It was boring to have nothing to do, so Wang Guojie decided to go back to his hometown in Qufu and the village to recuperate.
Not only is it easier to recuperate at home, but living expenses are also cheaper.
As the saying goes: "It's good to stay at home for a thousand days, but it's difficult to go out for a while." This is not unreasonable.
And compared with the inside of the pass, the place outside the pass is now increasingly unsuitable for ordinary people to live.
Not only Puxing, the imperial court could no longer support Liaodong's huge military expenditures - the tens of thousands of troops stationed in Liaodong required an astronomical figure - the land of farmers like Wang Guojie was destroyed by the civil administration for various reasons. Officials and military officers were merged, and the former civil affairs officers and officers were transformed into landlords and gentry.
The population outside the Pass began to flow continuously into the Pass, just like they did when they entered Liaodong on a large scale.
I don't know how others feel about this. Wang Guojie has been numbed by the suffering and does not think about these important national events.
He just wants to go home now.
"The hometown of Qufu may be better. The hometown of Saint Kong may have more good people."
This seriously ill farmer comforted himself like this.
In early February of the seventh year of Guangde, when grain prices were rising sharply in the rural areas of Liaodong, Wang Guojie took his wife back to his hometown of Wangjiazhuang, Qufu.
According to Wang Guojie's childhood memories, the home in Wangjiazhuang was a bright, comfortable and clean place in his mind.
It was when the Supreme Emperor had just ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor. All the property of the eldest father of Qufu (Yanshenggong) was confiscated. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land were allocated to the surrounding poor people for farming. The millions of ancient trees in Konglin became the property of farmers. Firewood was carried home by the villagers.
At that time, the civil officials of Daqi would not annex land at all. They were conscientious and honest. Water conservancy projects were built everywhere around the farmland, so there were no floods or droughts.
Even if an ordinary family encounters any disaster, Tunpu will always be there to help take care of it. Typhoid fever like Wang Guojie can be cured by Tunpu doctors at basically no cost...
But Wang Guojie wanted to join the army. He left Shandong and went to Liaodong. However, because he failed the physical examination, he finally deigned to become a farmer in Jinzhouwei.
Now, when he returned to Wangjiazhuang with his wife, he was simply shocked.
The couple stood at the entrance of the village. Everything they saw before their eyes was so dark, so narrow, and so dirty.
There are adobe houses made of mud everywhere around the village. When it rains a lot, the adobes will be washed away and the entire walls will fall down.
It should be noted that this kind of adobe house is rare in Liaodong.
Wang Guojie grabbed a stooped woman, pointed at the dilapidated fort, and shouted:
"Where are the brick houses built earlier in Wangjiazhuang?"
"Tear it down, sell it, and let Yan Shenggong send people to take away the remaining stones."
"I am the son of Blacksmith Wang, do you still recognize me?"
The woman was actually only thirty years old, but she had yellow hair, a swarthy face stained with dirt, a mouth full of rotten teeth, sunken cheeks that made her eyes look weirdly big, and she was so thin that she had only a few ribs on her body. Yes, there are still lice and fleas infesting the hair from time to time...
"Blacksmith Wang has died long ago."
Wang Guojie's wife saw a man with a stiff neck walking past - a huge fleshy ball on his neck with protruding eyes like a rooster.
"Nowadays, salt and iron are not distributed for free. Ordinary people can't afford salt, so they get big neck disease."
Wang Guojie handed the woman two cents and continued to ask her for news about Wangjiazhuang.
"The old Wang family at the east end of the village, the family that used to make iron..."
"I know, the old man froze to death last winter, and the blacksmith shop was demolished."
Wang Guojie's hopeful eyes suddenly turned deathly gray.
"There is no Tunpu Peasant Association anymore. Farming, even eating salt and drinking water are all decided by the great master."
The eldest master is Yan Shenggong.
The descendants of Saint Kong are back.
One of the contents of Emperor Guangde's new policy was to welcome back Yan Shenggong, which was said to be conducive to the restoration of civil rule in Da Qi.
Although Yan Shenggong himself had been beheaded by the Supreme Emperor more than 20 years ago, because Yan Shenggong had many illegitimate children - it is said that they can be lined up from Qufu to Nanjing - so when the restoration As soon as the edict of Duke Yansheng was issued, more than 3,000 descendants of the Kong surname rushed to Qufu, claiming to be the direct descendants of Duke Yansheng.
After a fierce battle, the new generation of Yanshenggong Kong Youren was officially canonized by Emperor Guangde.
Theoretically, the entire Qufu is the private property of Yan Shenggong.
Moreover, in order to demonstrate the court's determination to restore civil rule, local officials in Shandong gave Yan Shenggong great power and even allowed him to set up a private court.
If ordinary people go to the mountains to poach and dig wild vegetables, once they are discovered, they will never escape a good beating, and most of them will be beaten to death directly.
~~~~~
Wang Guojie and his wife walked to the house of Blacksmith Wang in the east of the village. Blacksmith Wang was Wang Guojie's father, but now it has been buried in the loess. There was only an old woman in the house. Needless to say, this was the old woman Wang Guojie had not seen for many years.
Wang Guojie looked around and found that his house was so poor that only four walls were left. The old woman was hunched over, doing some housework:
"Mom, I'm back."
The old woman was indifferent.
"Mom, I'm back."
"Ah? My land rent has been paid, and there is no one left in my family..."
Wang Guojie's wife was so dim-sighted that she mistakenly mistook her son for the servant of Kong Shengren who came to collect rent.
Wang Guojie and his wife stared blankly at the bare walls, which were stained black by firewood and flies.
The logs on the wall were crooked, as if the small wooden house was about to collapse.
In the corner of the wall near the statue of the God (portrait of the Supreme Emperor), there are cheap oil paper and a few years ago
newspaper.
Aunt Wang didn't wash her face and showed a cold and indifferent expression. She didn't even glance at the people who came in.
"Your father is dead, and you are no longer the one making money! Why didn't you die in Liaodong? Why did you come back?"
Aunt Wang looked at her son's sick body and said with bitterness.
"The farmers in our family are all unlucky. Your father worked hard to forge and finally saved some money. Who knew that the emperor issued a new policy, saying that no more forging was allowed in Tunbao, and only Yan Shenggong could forge? They I dismantled your father’s iron stove and took it away..."
"Your father only knows how to drink and complain about the unfairness of the world. Why is the world unfair? It's the Supreme Emperor who is angry with us."
As the old woman spoke, she pointed to the blackened portrait of the Supreme Emperor on the wall. Liu Zhaosun, with kind eyes and a kind face, was missing an ear and was looking at his people kindly.
