Walking on the road, looking at the fields full of flowers, Wang Xiaolie couldn't help but feel much more relaxed. This is the most beautiful time of spring. If it were in a peaceful era, I don’t know how many people would help the old and the young go out to see the beauty of nature. It’s just that wars have happened one after another, and people have lost their nature. Some people are struggling to survive, some are fighting on the battlefield, and others are working hard.
This is the road leading to Tangzhou, and the civilian workers summoned from nearby are repairing it. In the past, people traveling from the north to Xiangyang usually took Huyang on the opposite side of Bihe River. Then enter Fuzhou and then turn towards Xiangyang. Fuzhou was not under Wang Xiao's control, so a new road was built in Xinye.
After walking for a while, I saw a peach blossom blooming very brightly on the side of the road. It stands out in the bright spring light. Wang Xiaolie stood in front of the tree and looked at it for a long time. It has been almost a year since I came into this world, and now is a rare moment to relax.
After watching for a while, Wang Xiaolie saw two people moving rocks there. One has gray hair, the other is young and strong.
Walking forward, Wang Xiaolie said: "Where are you two from? How long have you been working here?"
The old man stopped, wiped his sweat and said, "We are from Nanyang County, father and son. It has been thirteen days since we arrived here."
Wang Xiaolie said: "Building roads is hard work. You have been doing it for so long, but you can still do it?"
The old man said: "What we people fear most when doing hard service is not tiredness. It is lack of food and clothing and overwork. Officials, if it were in the past, every time the government started to serve, many people would die? It is different here. How many hours do you work every day? , there is no mistake. And it is difficult to feel full even if you eat two meals a day. So I have been doing it for more than ten days, but I still don’t feel that much."
After hearing this, Wang Xiaolie was a little happy. This was my special order. These people who come to serve must be ensured that they have enough food, clothing, and a place to live. Logistics work must be done well, and they must not be forced to sweat or exert force, and they must not have enough food or clothing to keep them warm.
Seeing that the old man looked good, Wang Xiaolie said: "If that's the case, you can put in more effort to build the road as soon as possible, and then you can go back."
The old man sighed: "My lord, it's spring now, and it's time for spring plowing. If we don't go back early and miss the spring plowing, we will lose a year's food. We, father and son, are discussing that we can go home for spring plowing alone and stay here. I work here alone.”
Wang Xiaolie was startled. I had overlooked it, but the farmers had to plow in the spring. At this time, corvee work is in full swing and it is easy to miss the farming season.
In fact, spring plowing has already begun at this time. It’s just that the ground in this area is warm and spring plowing takes a long time, so it can be postponed. Especially in this era, there is only one season a year here, and the farming season is not strict.
After thinking about it, Wang Xiaolian asked: "How much land does your family have? What do you want to plant?"
The old man said: "My family only has ten acres of fields and two acres of paddy fields. In addition, we also plant twenty acres of the big households in the village. The paddy fields are naturally used to grow rice, and the rest of the land is planted with millet and hemp. The rest is just miscellaneous grains.”
"Why don't you plant wheat? If you plant wheat, you don't need to do spring plowing at this time."
The old man smiled and said: "The officials are joking. Wheat needs good land and no shortage of water to grow well. Although there is no shortage of rain here, the spring is still dry and the wheat will not grow well. I heard that the climate in the Jianghuai area is similar to ours. You can grow wheat there. I don’t know how they grow it.”
Wang Xiaolie said: "There is no shortage of rain, but we are afraid of spring drought. That is because there are few water channels in the pond."
The old man said: "What the officials said makes sense. But if we can get water, we will stop planting wheat and plant rice instead."
Wang Xiaolie said: "You can grow rice in the summer and wheat in the autumn, so you can get two crops a year. Now the government collects taxes and the owners collect rent, which is only counted as one season of food. If you can get two crops a year, wouldn't life be much easier?" "
The old man shook his head repeatedly: "If you can plant two seasons a year, how can you be so busy? Besides, there is no shortage of land, so why be so tired. I heard people say that in the Jianghuai area, when the wheat season comes, you have to hire people to make wheat. .”
Wang Xiaolie nodded. Indeed, in areas where wheat is grown in the Jianghuai area, wheat merchants are hired when the wheat is ripe. However, unlike later generations, most of the current Mai Ke are from Jiangnan. They went all the way north along the river. It happened that the wheat began to ripen from the south, and the farther north it got, the later it ripened. After a season of wheat is harvested, Mai Ke's income is about the same as farming his own land. This is a way for people in the Jiangnan area to make money.
Thinking back to my previous life, even in the Hebei area, we would plant two seasons a year. During the rush to harvest and plant crops, men, women, old and young all join forces, and even schools have a wheat holiday. It has become a trend of the times for primary school students to go to the harvested wheat fields to pick wheat ears. In this era, because China's population was still small and its land was still large, it was very different from that of later generations.
After thinking about it, Wang Xiaolie understood that the farming system at this time was different from that of later generations. Wheat cultivation is promoted, but in most places it is just a substitute for millet. Only in densely populated areas are there incentives to plant two crops.
Why are government taxes and rent collection from principal households only counted for one season? Because counting two seasons, there will be no human race in the second season. It’s not that there is a lack of land, so why bother? If you want to harvest more food, just plant more land.
In my previous life, people often talked about how Chinese culture was. For example, relocation, diligence and frugality, more children and more blessings, preference for sons over daughters, and so on. In fact, the Chinese may not be like this. It's just that these habits were formed under special conditions. When external conditions change, these will also change. These habits are far from being called culture, they are just forced by conditions.
Some literati are unable to think deeply about understanding issues, but only look at superficial phenomena. In order to show that they are different, they often figure out culture. For example, the Chinese people moved back to their hometown and entered the industrial society. China's great migration is rare in the world. It is said that Chinese people are blessed with more children and prefer sons over daughters. In fact, once industrialization reaches a certain level, the birth rate will drop significantly. Moreover, as the burden of marriage on men increases and the status of men and women in society is similar, many people begin to like daughters. For example, Chinese people are diligent and frugal. In fact, after becoming rich in material resources, Chinese people are no less extravagant and wasteful than other countries. This is a phenomenon that occurred among Chinese people at a certain period, and it is far from being called culture.
This question generalizes, and there is more. Most people who are originally uneducated regard some phenomena as culture to show that they are educated people. For example, during the Manchu and Qing dynasties, there were many Eight Banners disciples in Beijing. They had formed some habits over hundreds of years, which some people called traditional culture, while others proudly called them the exquisiteness of Beijingers. Even when talking about traditional culture, some people invited some of these old people out and said they wanted to teach modern people about old etiquette. What old etiquette? Most of them are just some habits of the banner people when they were rich and poor.
For another example, some habits of the Beijing Opera troupe are also called traditional culture. What about offering tea and kowtowing? This is the habit of this group and that group. In fact, most people in vast areas of China do not have this habit.
What is culture? This should be a serious word with a heavy connotation. It’s just that some people who have no culture and pretend to be culture have dragged this word from the sky to the earth. No matter what it is, just talk a few words and it’s traditional culture. Eating is culture, playing is culture, drinking is culture, anything with a bit of history is called culture. Especially the snacks in some places are blatantly called culture by making up stories about Qianlong and Cixi. In the end, except for real culture, which is not culture, everything that is made up is culture.
Looking back now, Chinese culture in previous lives was actually very poor. The only surviving ancient civilization in the world, with thousands of years of history, is of little help to modern Chinese culture. Promote Chinese culture to foreign countries, that is, Chinese Kung Fu, Chinese food, this cow, that European. True culture, on the other hand, no one talks about.
It is very rare for people who are truly willing and able to study Chinese culture in previous lives. In the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, those who spoke half-baked foreign language were considered to be educated people. When I arrived in New China, I could speak foreign languages and read foreign documents, and became a new cultural person. Most of the culture they talk about has little to do with China. Even in some developed areas of China, it has become a social trend for children to learn foreign languages from an early age, go to foreign schools, and take pride in working abroad after graduation.
At the beginning of the reform and opening up, when the country was first opened, mainlanders said that people from Hong Kong and Taiwan spoke in a effeminate manner. Especially some vocabulary, for example, men and women are called boys and girls regardless of their age. For example, different grades in a school are called seniors and juniors. For example, a meal is not called a meal, but a kind of cuisine. For example, literature and art are not called literature and art, but called arts. Some of these words have historical reasons, and some come from Japanese.
Twenty or thirty years from now, those who despise Hong Kong and Taiwanese will grow old. Suddenly looking back, I found that my children and nephews had begun to say this.
Even language is like this. How can culture be called developed? To a large extent, it has been four hundred years since the fall of the Ming Dynasty and about one hundred years since the invasion of foreigners. China's cultural decline is far from getting back on its feet.
When New China was founded, the great man said that the Chinese people had stood up. But Chinese culture has been far from standing up in the past hundred years. The Chinese people’s own stories and thoughts have not yet been told.
People often complain that China has developed so well over the past few decades, why do the Chinese people in the world still look down upon it so much? Are those white, black and foreigners of various colors born noble? Or their eyes cannot see. Not really. It's because Chinese culture has not yet developed. It’s not that culture lags far behind the West, but that our own culture is lacking.
Thinking that their own culture lags behind the Western world and that China's development means moving closer to the Western world is another symptom of some Chinese literati. Some people even think that if they know a little bit of Western knowledge, they should preach to China. Some places even have laws prohibiting the eating of dog meat, saying that civilized areas such as Hong Kong and Taiwan do not eat it. What kind of disease is this?
Chinese culture has nothing to do with how much Western culture you learn. China has lagged behind for a period of time and needs to learn from the West and also from many places in the world. Even if you don't fall behind, you still have to learn. Learning knowledge is learning knowledge, building your own culture is another issue.
Seeing the flowers blooming in the fields and the people working hard, Wang Xiaolie suddenly understood. After traveling through a thousand years, I came with the knowledge of a thousand years later, not the culture of a thousand years later. The culture after a thousand years is actually no culture.
