Ma Dongliang was suddenly startled, and then asked Pu Bing Zhang Yuan: "Master Bing, has my son really become an official?"
Zhang Yuan smiled after hearing this: "Sorry, you still don't believe what I just said?"
"How can I believe this? You are probably joking!"
"He is a soldier's boy, worse than a beggar's boy. It's good to be able to survive!"
Ma Dongliang smiled.
After hearing what Ma Dongliang said, Zhang Yuan simply pointed to the name on the flagpole and said, "Look, is this your son's name?"
Ma Dongliang took a serious look and saw the words "Ma Wei was established in the thirteenth year of Wanli" engraved on the stone flagpole.
on the spot.
He froze in place.
Officials in charge of political education in the Ming Dynasty Navy conducted surprise literacy training on the ship for Ma Dongliang and other returning Han residents.
Therefore, Ma Dongliang still knows a lot of common words, especially his son's name, which he has written silently countless times behind his back.
Therefore, Ma Dongliang quickly recognized the word "Ma Wei" and truly believed what Zhang Yuan said before that his son had won the election.
He burst into tears because of this and touched the stone flagpole over and over again. In his eyes, the cold and hard stone flagpole was like a treasure that he couldn't put down.
"How can he study? Where does our family have the money?"
Ma Dongliang asked hurriedly.
Zhang Yuan smiled and said: "Because there was a son in your house, I know a little bit about your family's situation. Specifically, your son was made by your father who carried coal and his wife who weaved. Now there are many textiles in Wenquan Town. Yes, you can save money by selling directly to places like Japan and North Korea as long as you are willing to save money."
Then, Zhang Yuan pointed to your new big house and said: "This is your Ma family's new house, but your wife does not live here. She still lives in the thatched house that you used to live in and is waiting for you! Only Ling Zunling Hall and your The brothers’ family lives here.”
"Is there a new house?"
As soon as Ma Dongliang asked, he squinted and saw a stooped old woman coming out of a thatched house next to the big house. She had silver hair hanging down her back, pouted, and looked at Ma Dongliang.
"Sister Yun!"
Ma Dongliang and his wife Ni Yun were childhood sweethearts, so they often called her Yunmei.
Now, although Ni Yun has long lost his youthful appearance, his fair-skinned face has also turned into an old face with wrinkles.
But he was still just like Ni Yun when he first met Dou Kao. He couldn't help being excited. He walked towards her quickly, carefully held Ni Yun's face, and looked at her carefully.
"Old!"
Ni Yun said with a smile.
Ma Dongliang said with tears in his eyes: "Not old! Not old!"
"You're finally back. I was afraid that you wouldn't recognize the new house and couldn't find a home, so I kept waiting for you in the old house and didn't let them demolish it."
"I don't know how many times I have waited for the snow to fall, and how many times I have watched the flowers bloom, but I finally waited for you to come back."
Ni Yun smiled and sat back on his loom and started weaving again, as if he had finished speaking for decades.
Ma Dongliang watched from the side and asked proactively: "Where did this loom come from?"
"After you left, there were more and more homespun cloth collectors in the town. Even if you rented other people's looms to weave cloth, you could make a lot of money every year. I also rented one. Gradually, I saved enough money to buy it. I already had one, so I bought one.”
Ni Yun replied.
Ma Dongliang was still overjoyed, secretly sighing at his wife's ability, and began to look at the loom seriously.
After looking at it for a while, he realized that this loom was different from the loom he had seen in the Cai family, the wealthy family in Luzon who enslaved him. The shuttle of this loom could fly!
"My nephew Ma Ren has met my uncle."
At this time, a young student member came over and bowed to Ma Dongliang.
Ma Dongliang looked back and saw a young student member wearing silk clothes standing in front of him, and asked, "Are you really benevolent?"
Ma Ren replied: "It's my nephew."
Ma Dongliang was overjoyed: "You have become husband-in-law. When I left home, you couldn't even speak as a child."
"Thanks to the care of my aunt and brother, my nephew has become a student in the government."
Ma Ren replied.
Ma Dongliang asked again: "How come there are two scholars in the family all of a sudden? We are military households and we don't have enough to eat. How can we have money to study?"
"I don't know, uncle, since I came to the throne, I first cleared my father-in-law's land and exempted us from all the grain silver that the officers imposed on us, and then reissued military households one or two silver dollars in exchange for grain, and it has not been broken since then. It has been rising every year, and now it has risen to two taels of silver dollars.”
"In addition, our military households in Shandong now no longer need to carry troops to the rivers to transport grain. Now they are even exempted from corvee and other miscellaneous labor."
"So, after you left, the family no longer owed taxes. My father can also receive salary, and my grandfather can still earn money by picking coal. In addition, my aunt can weave cloth, and the family can send us children to study. "
"Moreover, now that we have been exempted from corvee service, more people are working and more children from military families can study. It is not just our family."
Ma Ren replied.
After hearing this, Ma Dongliang was in a daze for a long time.
"The Ban Army is gone, and the grain silver is gone too. Does that mean I don't have to hide anymore?"
After a while, Ma Dongliang suddenly asked with joy on his face.
Harsh government is fiercer than a tiger.
If the backward military household system hadn't squeezed ordinary military households so hard, Ma Dongliang wouldn't have been deceived by profiteers into working as a slave overseas in Luzon.
After all, for Ma Dongliang at that time, if he did not escape, he would have to starve in his hometown, have to serve, and even be enslaved by officials and scholars, and maybe he would be exhausted to death one day.
Now, Ma Dongliang is willing to come back because he finds that overseas, he is not treated as a human being, and he even has no human rights. No one cares about him being beaten to death. It is better to come back and die of exhaustion and starvation. Being able to die in my hometown and still see my family.
What's more, he is already fifty years old, so he doesn't care even more.
Therefore, Ma Dongliang chose to go home after being rescued by the army in Luzon.
But at this moment, Ma Dongliang learned that his hometown had changed a long time ago. The battle of the Ban Army was gone, the grain money was gone, but there was still salary money, and there were also people in the family who were studying because of this.
Therefore, Ma Dongliang asked this question.
Ma Ren said "Yes" and said, "And His Majesty has already decreed that military households can be transferred to civilian households at will, but civilian households are not allowed to transfer to military households at will."
"Then have you transferred?"
Ma Dongliang asked.
Ma Ren replied: "No!"
"How stupid!"
"How can you not transfer it? Is it because the official wants the cashier to transfer it?"
"Even if you are a cashier, you still have to borrow money and transfer it. If you turn it into a private household, it will be easier for you to find a wife."
Ma Dongliang blamed Ma Ren.
"Uncle doesn't know."
"The military households now are different from the military households before!"
"Now military households can actually see their pay every month. They are given priority in admissions and official selection. Enlisting as a regular soldier in the camp is also based on voluntary recruitment, which is more noble than civilian households. Therefore, we do not have Converted to private households.”
Ma Ren explained at this time.
Ma Dongliang was silent for a long time after hearing this, and then said: "That's it!"
then.
Ma Dongliang looked up at the blue sky and said to himself: "What age have I encountered? Why is the current emperor so good?"
Snapped!
Snapped!
Ma Dongliang suddenly slapped himself twice.
"uncle!"
"What are you doing?"
Ma Ren shouted quickly.
Ni also stopped what he was doing.
Ma Dongliang himself laughed at this time: "It's true, I didn't dream!"
Ma Ren would also smile heartily, and then said: "Uncle, go back to your home with your nephew. Only if you go will my aunt be willing to move to the new house."
Ma Dongliang looked back at his old house, the thatched house in front of him, and then nodded: "Okay!"
Ma Dongliang and Ni just returned to the Ma family's new house and met their parents.
At first, Ma Dongliang felt new living in his new home, looking around and touching here and there.
He was also very happy that his nephews and nephews could accumulate such a large fortune because of the New Deal reforms, but soon he felt uncomfortable after ten days of leisure, and just wanted to work and kill time. .
"We really don't need to serve now?"
Ma Dongliang specifically asked about his nephew Ma Ren on this day.
Ma Ren replied: "No need! The imperial court now strictly prohibits the private service of military households and common people. Even if you want the Qianhu master above to serve you, he won't dare!"
After hearing this, Ma Dongliang touched his knees with some disappointment, and then asked: "Has the family bought some land? I will farm it, don't use tenants."
"I dare not hide it from my uncle. The family has not purchased any land."
Ma Ren replied.
Ma Dongliang asked: "How can you not buy it? Your houses have been purchased so well. Why don't you know that you should take advantage of your wealth to buy some land and leave it to your children and grandchildren? Do you only know how to enjoy yourself and not make long-term plans? You are still losing money. It’s my husband!”
"Uncle, you don't know, most of the money saved at home is spent on subscription coupons."
Ma Ren replied.
Ma Dongliang was a little surprised: "Subscription coupon?"
"Yes, uncle, it is more cost-effective to buy subscription coupons now than to buy land and lend money. Especially after Luzon was conquered, the family made a lot of money from subscription coupons, so they bought such a big house."
As Ma Ren said that, he took Ma Dongliang to his cellar and opened the cellar for Ma Dongliang to see.
After looking at it, Ma Dongliang found that there were indeed a lot of silver coins stored in the cellar. He was stunned for a moment: "So many?"
"If we don't invest, there will be more silver coins in the cellar than this. But now it's not cost-effective to store silver coins in the cellar, so we don't save many. But we still save some now to prepare for emergency use."
Ma Ren said.
After hearing this, Ma Dongliang asked Ma Ren to tell him in detail about the subscription coupons.
Ma Dongliang felt even more incredible after hearing this, and said:
"Why have so many changes occurred in the past twenty years since I didn't come back? Not only did we not buy fields when we had money, but the emperor and the officials didn't need us to support them, and they even gave us money to support us through subscription coupons. This was called the old days. I can’t even think of it.”
Ma Dongliang said and walked out with his hands behind his back.
He still wanted to do some work. After all, he had been enslaved for decades and suddenly became a somewhat wealthy free citizen. He was really not used to it.
"Are you still looking for someone to carry coal now?"
Ma Dongliang came to the county town through the memories of his old father, found Xu Youjun, a coal merchant, and asked specifically about carrying coal.
The coal merchant boss Xu Youjun met him because he reported to his family that he was the father of Ma Wei, a fellow acquaintance of Donglai Province. However, he did not expect that Ma Dongliang would actually ask him about this matter when he saw him, so he could only laugh and cry and said: "You don't know, now. There is no one to carry coal anymore, so we have to transport coal.”
"Carrying coal?"
Ma Dongliang asked curiously.
Xu Youjun smiled slightly, and then took the initiative to take him to the place where coal was transported. Pointing to the four-wheeled carriages running fast on the railway one after another, he said: "Now they are all transported on the railways on four-wheeled carriages. "
Ma Dongliang looked at the railway that stretched to the horizon like a long black dragon among the green poplars on both banks and the four-wheeled carriages one after another. He said with some disappointment: "No wonder the old man only loves fishing now."
Ma Dongliang left the county seat and returned to Hot Spring Town, walking in the spring with red flowers and green willows. Although he liked this kind of hometown very much, a hometown where everyone was rich and happy, he felt like he was useless.
"Why is this field deserted?"
At this time, Ma Dongliang came to a field that he had rented in the past and asked.
"There are no tenants! We have too many military households who have escaped in the past years, and those who have not escaped are no longer willing to be tenants. They are all doing nothing."
Shao Zhizhong, the former general flag officer under Weihaiwei, came over and said something.
After hearing this, Ma Dongliang looked at Shao Zhizhong and knelt down to kowtow out of habit: "It turns out to be Uncle Xie."
Sao Zhizhong supported him: "Don't kneel down! I'm no longer a man."
Ma Dongliang didn't kneel anymore and just said: "Can you share this land with me? I just need to have a meal."
"real?"
Shao Zhizhong was overjoyed.
Ma Dongliang nodded: "The main reason is that I am too idle, and I don't know anything else but farming. I feel very sad when I see this field being left uncultivated. I don't want it to be left uncultivated."
"Who wouldn't be? If I hadn't been really old, I wouldn't have left this field uncultivated."
"How about this, I don't care about your food, but I only charge you 20% of the rent?"
"Then, you can plant as long as you want, even if you don't plant tomorrow. And if you can plant for ten years, this field will be given to you!"
Shao Zhizhong said.
"OK!"
Ma Dongliang hurriedly agreed, and then he really started to become a tenant of the Shao family.
Ma Dongliang began to go out early and come back late, focusing on spring plowing every day. Gradually, the wasteland he rented was managed well.
"Your Majesty has decreed that trafficking in the people of our tribe is a crime of treason. Both the master and the subordinates will be punished!"
"Your Majesty has decreed that trafficking in the people of our tribe is a crime of treason. Both the master and the subordinates will be punished!"
On this day, Ma Dongliang had just finished tidying up his fields and was about to go home when he heard Youpu soldiers beating gongs and loudly announcing the new policy on the official road.
Ma Dongliang couldn't help but laugh after hearing this: "The current Emperor Wanli really regards us people as human beings. Now, no one will be sold to a far away place like me."
…
Xiyuan.
While Ma Dongliang was returning home from hoeing, Zhu Yijun was reading letters from the people.
Unlike Ma Dongliang who just thought about the emperor's kindness, many people would write to him directly and let the emperor receive their words of gratitude through the informing boxes at various inns, especially boys and girls among the people.
(End of chapter)
