At the end of the second year of Wanli, the bottom peasants of the Ming Empire finally felt some changes that were different from the past.
Starting from the second half of the year, in the countryside of Dengzhou Prefecture, Shandong Province, many things that Huo Laoshuan had never seen began to appear at the market every seven days.
Thick and heavy glass candlesticks, iron oil lamps, etc. are things that no one would buy if they had spare money. Huo Laoshuan once saw several vendors selling them with all his strength and shouting, and then picked them away in despair amidst his sneers. .
But some must-buy items, such as salt, have actually dropped in price. Coarse salt used to cost 19 cents per catty, but starting from the second half of this year, it will actually cost only 16 cents per catty, and the amount of sand in it is less than half, which is very gratifying.
My hair has been worn down to less than a fingertip. If someone else digs the ground once, I have to dig twice, so I have to buy this thing.
To Huo Laoshuan's surprise, the new haircut was not the half-baked and rotten household items sold in the past. The two-finger-wide part of the front part of the head shone coldly, as if it were covered with steel.
Huo Laoshuan squatted on the ground, lowered his head and touched his new beauty, feeling a little confused. He pushed the black felt hat on his head with his hand, wiped his face full of grooves from his forehead downwards, and asked the vendor: "Is this steel?"
The vendor who came to the market was carrying two baskets of farm tools, adding up to 156 kilograms. He was sitting on a pole and panting. The heat was rising from his head in the winter. Hear Huo Shuan ask, but don't answer yet. He took out a big gourd from his back, opened the red cloth-wrapped wooden stopper and drank some water.
After he had regained his breath, the dealer smiled and said: "Huo Laoshuan, I am an old man in this episode. To be honest with you, I really don't know if this is steel. But -"
The vendor first took out a finger-thick stick from a thick cane tied to the edge of the basket and placed it on a flat stone on the ground. Then he took out a hammer, held the iron ring on the top of the hammer, and dug hard on it.
"Look, there are two sections at once!"
Huo Laoshuan first gasped as if he had a toothache, then snatched the hair from the dealer's hand and said distressedly: "...Don't chip your tooth!" Touching it with his rough hands, it seemed like It's like touching your own mother-in-law when you were young.
The hawker smiled and said, "You haven't even bought it yet, and you touched it?" Seeing Huo Laoshuan checking the sun, he added, "If it breaks a little, I'll give it to you!"
Huo Laoshuan checked it several times, then a thought came to his mind, he raised his eyes and asked loudly, how much does this beauty cost?
The dealer smiled and said: "It's not much more expensive than before. It's forty cents. If you don't have copper coins, you can give me rice, wheat or beans."
After Huo Laoshuan heard this, the meat strips on his cheeks popped out and he gritted his teeth. He scolded: "You donkey, you are eight cents more expensive than last year. How much more expensive are you talking about?"
The hawker picked up the two broken pieces of rattan and said to Huo Laoshuan: "Can the butt of the past break off this non-bounced one? How much can you save if you can push two or three of them with one like this!"
Huo Laoshuan was at a loss for words, then pointed to the shovel in the basket and said, "How much does this cost?" The hawker replied, "This one is made of the same material as the buttocks, thirty-eight cents."
After hearing this, Huo Laoshuan's eyes burst out with fire, as if he wanted to kill him. The hawker was frightened when he saw it and said, "Uncle Shuan, you and I often come and go. Just give me seventy-five cents for these two items. I won't make any money from you."
...
After some intense bargaining and asking two villagers to come over for evaluation, Huo Laoshuan finally bought these two farm tools from the vendor for seventy cents.
Then he walked around the market and bought a bristle board hat for his youngest son for six cents.
Due to the increase in the price of pig bristles on the market, this hat was a penny more expensive than before. Huo Laoshuan almost got into a fight with the hat seller, but was scolded by Huo, an old man from the same village: "When you sell pig skins and bristles in the spring this year, sell more Why don't you talk about the money? What are you talking about now?" Huo Laoshuan then stopped.
On the way home, several people's faces were flushed by the cold wind. Huo Da gossiped: "I heard from Master Ji that the imperial court has conquered the Northeast and has a large territory. The land is black and oily, but there is no one to plant it."
After hearing this, Huo Laoshuan sneered: "Is there any good land that no one is planting? I don't know where this is made up. I don't believe it."
A young man from the same village named Huo Lin had just returned from Linqing as a part-time laborer. Hearing Huo Laoshuan's disbelief, he answered: "Brother, this is true. Linqing is in an uproar. I heard that the emperor has made a decree that as long as these humble Lehu households are willing to go and farm, they will be free. Not only will the land be given to them, but they will also be given to deregistered farmers. No matter who they are, they will not have to pay a cent of the royal grain for the first five years."
When Huo Da and Huo Laoshuan heard this, the flames of jealousy burned their hearts to ashes. They all cursed: "Is there such a truth in the world?! This guy with a lowly family background, whose descendants can't study, is given free land to grow by the court? Why don't you pay the royal rations?"
Huo Lin was startled when he saw smoke coming from the noses of some old men, as if they were going to beat him. He stammered: "Maybe... maybe I'm a lackey."
After hearing this, these few people breathed a sigh of relief. First they laughed at him, then cursed him a few times, and then dispersed at the entrance of the village.
...
However, beyond Huo Laoshuan's expectations, what Huo Lin heard in Linqing was actually true. With the advent of the New Year, the county officials went to the countryside to supervise classes and brought news, which confirmed this point.
The villagers in Huojia Village spent a restless New Year without getting fat or thin. They ate a few days of fine grains that they were reluctant to eat on weekdays, and gained some fat and water in their stomachs.
On the ninth day of the first lunar month, Mrs. Huo of my family called everyone in the village named Huo to gather in the ancestral hall. He also called Wang Peng, the only literate person in the village with a foreign surname.
Wang Peng first read the notice he had copied from the county government office. No one in the ancestral hall understood it. Wang Peng translated again in native dialect and explained clearly the imperial policy of developing the Northeast.
Everyone's breathing became heavy when they heard that the imperial court had invited more than a hundred families to go to the Northeast to compete in horse racing and enclosure. There was a lot of chatter in the ancestral hall, and soon it was hard to hear what everyone was shouting about.
The seventy-year-old old man paused the handle of the shovel in his hand. Seeing that it had no effect, he shouted twice at the top of his lungs, but it was still in vain. Huo Lin, who was standing next to Mr. Huo, saw this and yelled, "Shut up, stop talking, and listen to the old man!"
After the roar, the ancestral hall fell silent. But then the soles of his father's shoes reached the top of his head, and Huolin had to kneel down and kowtow to the elders to apologize. One of the uncles who was being held in his grandfather's arms also got down to the ground and accepted Huolin's gift.
Old Mrs. Huo has a strong body. In addition to missing a few teeth, he can still work in the fields and bear more than half of the labor force. Seeing that everyone was quiet, the old man pointed to the genealogy on the wall of the ancestral hall and the hundreds of tablets placed underneath and said: "Our family with the surname Huo originally had its roots in Shaanxi. Later, our ancestors could not survive. Come to Shandong with a begging bowl in hand."
After spitting on the ground, Old Madam Huo said again: "I heard from my dead father that we have been in Huojia Village for 1670 years, and we only had five brothers when we came here." He pointed. The tablet said: "Look, the genealogy is memorized. The ancestors on this tablet are all buried here. How many people do we have now?"
He said to Huo Laoshuan: "You are a donkey who married a mother-in-law who can give birth to children. Now you have seven children! It's so stupid that even one of the girls is still alive! It's so stupid. It's a pity that our Huo family doesn't have scholars. One, fighting is fine, but studying is like a dead mother! In this world, if a clan cannot produce scholars, there will be no land!"
Looking around the room full of people surnamed Huo, the old lady said fairly: "We have one now, who has land? They all farm the land for Mr. Wang's family and do the work! Now the court has promised -" Wang Peng saw that he was stuck. , took the word and said: "Constitution."
The old man nodded approvingly and continued: "The imperial court agreed to a charter and gave land in the northeast. I think it's good. The emperor's favor is so great! I discussed it with the elders of the clan and let's move our family there! The imperial court said that if there are more than 100 people, we will run away. The enclosure is grass, and how big is it if you ride a horse for a day?”
"It's not better for us to farm our own land than to pay rent. I called you here today just to discuss this matter. Let's talk about it - well, come one by one, don't call me blindly."
Wang Peng listened next to him, his heart was pounding and he was crying. The entire Huo family has moved, and my distant branch, Mr. Wang, is in trouble!
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