Currently, there are two places where corvee service is performed in the county.
One is that the family can't afford the money, so they can only send people to do the work according to whose turn it is.
But the jobs these ordinary people do are easier than those hired by wealthy people to replace them.
The officials considered that, after all, they were working for free, and if someone died, it would be a lot of trouble.
The other place is where the Xu brothers are.
They were managed by the village owner's son and the petty officials.
These petty officials rely on the price difference between them, receiving five taels from the rich and giving three taels of silver to those below. They then repay their duties to those above and tighten the rations for those who work below. They can earn a lot of money throughout the year.
And since they are hired with money, they think that you have to work hard to receive money, so the dirty work must be assigned to these people.
But even so, the Xu family brothers were envious.
It's nice to live in the city. They country folk do corvee work not near home.
If this could be done close to home, we wouldn't be like the people in the city who don't know how to live and still hire someone.
They rural people perform corvee labor, and usually have to go far away and squat in a mountain col to dig for coal. I heard from the elders that in some years they would be sent to build city walls and tombs, and they would be away for a year or two.
So spending three taels of silver to hire someone to work for just over a month, and still having so much money in one month, was new to the Xu brothers' eyes, and they thought it was too good of an opportunity to miss.
After all, if they want to come back to the county to find work in the future, Uncle Li Zheng may not necessarily guide them.
When they heard the owner's son asking the employees who were about to expire: "Do you still want to continue working? Next month, the salary will be increased by two cents." The Xu brothers were tempted.
The price increase was due to heavy rains, which made the work of cleaning the ditches heavy and dangerous.
Xu Youyin nudged his second brother: "Second brother, the money has gone up. Doesn't it make you feel sad? I feel sad. Why don't we work for another month? As long as we work for another month, it will be two and a half of Xiaoliu, plus How much do you think this is from the six taels we had before? How much did it cost to build our house? How much did our family save in total over the years? Give her back the two taels she owes her milk, and our family will be ready next year. It will add two acres of fertile land.”
Leave it for fertile ground.
In this year of disaster, land is cheap. If you are lucky and meet a land seller, you can really buy two acres for more than ten taels of silver.
Xu Youliang squatted in the shed and thought:
The pile of firewood stored at home is enough for the whole winter, and his wife can help her mother with the farm work in the back garden.
So what are their brothers going to do when they go back? Also wasting food.
As for mother's concern, she asked the third child to go back.
It was too hard for the third child to carry the logs, so he had to go back to recuperate and rest, just in time to bring back their wages that were due today.
"become."
In these years, I am not afraid of hardship, but I am afraid that I will not make money even though I endure hardship.
The second brother didn't dare to think about adding two acres of fertile land next year and how good the food would be this winter. What he was thinking about was that his two brothers hadn't married yet. After the two brothers got married, and then the niece got married, there would be plenty of space in the family to use in the future. money.
When the two brothers came together to study how to make up the lie to fool my mother, the whip suddenly fell on the second brother.
Originally, I was going to smoke the fourth child.
The second brother instinctively hugged his younger brother from behind, his rickets back receiving the whipping.
The supervisor yelled: "I'm telling you, you have to work until dark before you can get your wages. Don't think you can be lazy on the last day. It's so fun, don't you see that it's all work?"
The two brothers didn't dare to talk anymore, so they quickly took off their wet clothes, naked to the waist, and lined up with sticks to dredge the mud.
This team of people does not have any protective equipment. Later, they will directly use their hands to clear the silt and garbage in the channel.
It is said that the number of people who drown every year is not as many as the number of people who die from unknown diseases.
The fourth child, Xu Youyin, was relatively thin and was even asked to leave while waiting in line.
But this time in Xia Dou Qu, the accident happened so suddenly, and the fourth child almost lost his life like his third brother.
When Xu Youyin went deep into the narrow and shallow sewer, his mouth and nose were flooded by a sudden influx of sewage.
He struggled, no longer caring about holding his breath and holding it in, otherwise he would drink all the sewage in his stomach.
And as there was a lot of sludge in the sewage, Xu Youyin couldn't change it if he wanted to. He felt that all the places with eyes on his face were blocked.
Thanks to his good water quality, he was still struggling to stay afloat even when he was completely out of breath. If he hadn't kicked his legs, there wouldn't even be a bubble above him before he was about to drown, and the people above him wouldn't have noticed that he was about to die.
And if he flapping a few more times, at least there would still be sound, "What's the sound below?"
"Go and do your job, you young lady is lazy!"
"I'm not lazy. It's really loud. Get it out quickly. People are going to die."
Xu Youcang arrived at this time.
I don't know if he is warm-hearted or has telepathy. When he saw those two people being stubborn and not doing anything serious, he didn't know who the people below were, so he unloaded his luggage and pear and ran over, thinking that you could fish it out. Once you catch it, you will know what the people below are like.
When Xu Youyin was dug out of the sludge and finally able to breathe, his face turned white and his mouth turned purple, he kept spitting out sewage and mud. He seemed to have seen his third brother in a trance, and then his second brother also ran towards him, and he murmured The first words out of his mouth were: "I want to go home."
The boy who had previously broken his fingers and settled the accounts for his second brother excitedly, and kept saying that he would buy a field if he made another sixty-and-a-half taels, was so frightened that he almost died outside.
The second and third children hugged their younger brother with red eyes and shouted together: "Go home."
There was another incident that day that made the three brothers determined to go home.
That is, after Xu Youyin saved his life, another old man who was doing corvee work for others fell.
The old man's feet were rotting and infested with maggots. As he watched, insects crawled out from the inside of his feet, crawling all over his feet and moving towards his calves.
Some workers asked the officials what to do.
The clerk in charge asked: "What should I do? If you have money, go and treat it yourself. If you don't have money, just bite the handkerchief and amputate the leg yourself."
What about the money for medical treatment?
"I'm not giving you three taels of silver. I want to find out what skills you have in addition to your brute strength. How can you earn these three taels of silver if you don't have any skills? Before you start working, you must understand that this is the money you have to pay for your life. "
…
That night, the Xu brothers got all their wages and squatted at the city tower, waiting for the city gate to open.
On a rainy day, the three brothers did not dare to think that there would be any fellow villagers in this county to rush to.
For example, Uncle Li Zheng's eldest brother's home is in the county, and Uncle Li Zheng's parents also live here.
But they couldn't go. In the past, they had trouble even finding directions when going out, let alone going out for a night.
The three brothers were even more reluctant to live in a big car shop. The bunk cost 20 copper coins per person, but they only spent 40 copper coins to buy two large carp weighing five kilograms.
With the money for the bunk, how about buying fish for the family?
Later, the rain was so heavy that there was lightning, and there was no place to take shelter, and I was really afraid that the pears would rot.
Acid rain, acid rain, the pears didn't last long after being exposed to the rain, so they were willing to spend ten coppers to stay overnight in a nearby residential warehouse.
You cannot burn firewood to start a fire in the ten copper plates, you can only use water to press the well yourself.
So the three brothers were very busy this evening.
They were brushing the blood off the mats and washing their clothes.
The three brothers also discussed that if they didn't have a car tomorrow, they would drive in the rain, and wait until there was no one on the road to take off their clothes and let the rain wash away the mud and hair on their bodies.
They want to return home in fine clothes so that their mother can look good in front of the villagers and be envied by others.
"If you can't buy it tomorrow, buy a piece of oilcloth and wrap the pears properly."
The tarpaulin can also be used as a rain shelter after use, so it is not a waste of money.
"Yes, there is also a fish. We have to keep it alive when we try to enter the village."
