Brother Zhu Youxiao

"Ran'er, be careful!"

"Oh! I know..."

"laugh!"

"Crackling-"

With the sound of firecrackers a year old, the spring breeze sent warmth to Tusu.

At the gate of the Qianqing Palace of the Beijing Imperial Palace, when Zhu Ciran lit firecrackers at the gate of the palace, accompanied by the sound of crackling, this kid ran back to Zhu Youxiao's side, looking at the people around him happily.

The sound of bells and drums followed the sound of firecrackers, and then the whole city of Beijing was filled with firecrackers.

In the next hour, the entire capital city was constantly ringing with firecrackers, and this also heralded the past ten years of Tianqi and the arrival of Tianqi's 11th year.

The entire Qianqing Palace became lively. Zhu Youxiao brought his favorite concubines, Zhu Ciran and other six brothers and sisters, plus Zhu Youjian and Yuan Xi, a total of 16 people started the family banquet for the delegation.

It was still the huge round table built by Zhu Youxiao himself, and 16 people sat on it. Next to Zhu Youjian sat Yuan Xipin and Zhu Youxiao, and next to Zhu Youxiao was Zhang Yan.

But he doesn't just eat, he also has a task to go home this time.

"The land of several prefectures has asked the Ministry of Households to exempt the summer tax. I think it is possible."

"Well, this is the first time that Qiongzhou has encountered a blizzard in so many years." Zhu Youjian responded, and Zhu Youxiao also waved his hands when he heard the words:

It's like the people in the county town, most of them scold the magistrate for being a dog official, and they don't even scold the government.

At that time, Zhu Youjian didn't know that Li Dingguo had already ridden away, and told Zhu Ciran that maybe he had gone out.

"Repeat the grade? What do you mean?" Li Zhangshi and Li Dashou were stunned for a moment, unable to understand the words.

But what he said made Li Dashou's heart move: "Then our family has to..."

"In this village and town, there is a problem with the wages paid to us. Some villagers do half of their work, and they have something to leave at home. They say that it is not wages."

"What kind of knowledge do you gain... What's the use of being Qiu Ba, mother wants you to be a Wenqu star and a champion."

"That's too dangerous, so we can't discuss whether to go or not?" Li Zhang immediately became anxious when he heard that his 11-year-old son was going to the battlefield.

"But at that time, the wind was tight. The previous two dog officials told us not to go out of the village for five miles. They also smoked some male men and exempted them from the field tax of a few buckets of rice, so that they could patrol the village."

While eating, he raised his head and said, "Father, Mother, Your Highness asked me to repeat the grade for one year."

Three people and six dishes, this is the configuration of the Li family for the New Year. Although it is not as good as Zhu Youjian and others who are also having a reunion dinner at the moment, the small family and the taste of the countryside are not something that can be tasted in the palace.

"Confiscated from the village..." Li Dingguo was a little embarrassed, because he knew that when the village officials confiscated the village's grain, it was mostly grain from the court.

Although they all know that after these people become corrupt, they have to manage from top to bottom, and the officials above will also benefit, but they have never seen those high-ranking officials, so it is difficult for them to feel hatred towards the village officials and county magistrates.

"Can I go up and sue?" Li Dingguo felt a little unreal, which was different from the "cleanness" he heard in the palace and government schools.

"Hmm..." Li Dingguo nodded, of course he had an impression of the Shaanxi civil uprising, even though he was still young at the time.

"He asked us to go to the county and report to the yamen of the Metropolitan Procuratorate with the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" on our heads."

"His Royal Highness wants me to follow him to Taining Mansion so that I can see how the war is fought."

The people in their village are almost finished, and after Li Dingguo came back, he saw that many families had given birth.

"Didn't he say something else..." Li Dingguo felt embarrassed, so he wanted to ask some good things.

Li Dashou couldn't believe that everyone planted [-] mu of land, because it exceeded his cognition.

Asking the villagers to go to the village officials to report corrupt officials, isn't this just letting the villagers go directly to the corrupt officials and say that they want to report the other party...

At the same time when the two brothers resettled hundreds of thousands of disaster victims, the dishes of the family banquet began to be passed up plate by plate.

This sentence Li Dingguo thinks it makes sense, after all, in the six years he has been sensible, he has never seen what the Ming army looked like.

"Tell me, isn't this taking off your pants and farting? It's better to tell my family that Dingguo works."

"I'll ask His Highness when I go back." Li Dingguo didn't make any further claims on his own, but was going to go back and ask Zhu Youjian.

Speaking of this, Li Dashou couldn't help sighing: "The situation is much better now. When the inspector censor comes, he will ride a horse and walk around the village in official robes."

Mrs. Li Zhang chattered about the bad things the village officials did, as if in their eyes, the magistrates and magistrates who embezzled tens of thousands of taels of silver were ordinary people, but the village officials who embezzled dozens of taels of silver were heinous villains.

"The day your mother gave birth to you, I was still building a bridge outside Yan'an City. Three days after your mother gave birth to you, I was released home."

It's hard for Li Dingguo to make it too obvious, that's all he can say.

"But I went to the construction site that day, and they clearly counted people, but on the day they said they didn't count, they wrote it with ink pens, and the rest were ink pens."

"Eat slowly, eat slowly..."

According to his guess, after the end of the third Northern Expedition in Dongshan Village, many people should move away.

For example, Li Dashou and his family of three live in Yanshan. In fact, the upper limit for the whole family is [-] mu. Unless a new child is born, the upper limit is [-] mu for one person.

"I went to the town, and some yamen servants said that Zhu Bi's is a fraud."

"Some people sue and some don't. Those who sue are all about trivial things, or some big things that the inspector censor can't control."

"Hehe..." Looking at the appearance of his parents, Li Dingguo said with a heartless smile:
"Don't worry, it's not dangerous to follow His Highness. His Highness is just commanding the Chinese army. I have learned a lot in the past."

In the familiar small mountain village at the foot of Yanshan County, Li Dashou and his wife, who were eating in the courtyard with earth walls, were looking at Li Dingguo who was eating, with unstoppable smiles on their faces as Li Zhang's distressed voice sounded.

"The difference is that when the inspector censor came to the village in the past, the villagers had to take out chickens, ducks and geese to entertain them, but now the village entertains them."

As soon as he heard what his uncle Wang said, Zhu Ciran immediately ran to Zhu Youxiao, but he didn't know what Zhu Youxiao whispered to him, but after he nodded, he stopped making trouble.

"If anyone sneaks off to the county to report the crime, he will be beaten to death if he is caught."

"Why are you in such a hurry? You can come back slowly."

In the simple courtyard, there is only one main house and two side houses, plus a cowshed and firewood shed in the backyard.

That snow disaster spread as far as Guangdong, and the Little Ice Age that Zhu Youjian is now facing has actually begun to show its power. The winter climate outside the customs will be more severe than that of later generations.

"His Royal Highness will farm cattle according to human hair. As long as they move to Nu'ergan, they will be given [-] mu of human head fields."

Zhu Youjian, who was sitting on the seat, shook his head with a smile on his face, remembering the scene of Li Dingguo riding a horse back to Yanshan County with his schoolbag on his back as soon as he was on vacation.

It's a pity that although Zhu Youjian has been improving the reputation of ordinary soldiers, most Ming people still think that being a soldier is "Qiu Ba", not as noble as a scholar.

"In short, the imperial court has created something that allows people to farm the land easily, and the only thing that goes there is weeding, which is more tiring."

"Apart from the village officials, is there anything unfair in the village?"

It's just that what they said made Li Dingguo curious: "When the corrupt county magistrate and magistrate in Yan'an were arrested before, the village was also so happy?"

"Later when I asked, it wasn't corvée at all. The court gave us wages, but the dog officials above didn't pay us. They just used corvée as an excuse."

As Zhu Youxiao raised his wine glass to signal the start of the family banquet, everyone also picked up their chopsticks and prepared to eat.

For this reason, he could only try his best to make up for it, but before he could speak, Li Zhang said with a smile:

"Say it." Li Dashou nodded, but spit out and said:

Li Dingguo felt underestimated, but he just smiled and did not refute, but asked:
"Father, after the corrupt officials were killed last year, are the officials who came later better?"

Although it has not reached the peak period of the Little Ice River in the late Ming Dynasty, the global temperature has actually dropped by one to two degrees.

It was not until dinner time that Yang Rushi told him that Li Dingguo had run away to go home.

"In addition, several places in Huai'an, Yangzhou, Xuzhou, and Jining suffered heavy rains, flooding the dams, submerging more than 26 houses, affecting more than [-] people, and more than one million mu of crops were destroyed and mud accumulated."

"Is it snowing in Qiongzhou?"

"When the two dog officials died, the people in the village were very happy. Every family collected some money, bought firecrackers and set them off at the entrance of the village for three days. Your father even ordered a pig in the family to be killed."

"Do people from the Metropolitan Procuratorate care?" Li Dingguo was still too young to place his hopes on the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

"One hundred acres? Then our family can develop three hundred acres of land? Can this kind of land come here?"

Almost at the same time, while they were eating, Li Dingguo, who had been running for three days, also arrived at home, catching up with the first meal of the new year.

As he said that, Li Dashou couldn't help saying by chance: "Fortunately, the two village officials in our village were not convicted, and they basically didn't overcharge the village's grain."

"Father! Shall we go to Yanshan County to escape the summer heat?!"

Li Dingguo heard it, and did not refute his own mother, because he had heard many people say this.

"That's not true." Li Zhang denied: "When the magistrate and magistrate of Yan'an were killed, a few people from the hometown of Yan'an in the village chatted with each other, and felt that it had nothing to do with us."

"I dare not..." Li Dashou said out of habit:
"When my family was still in Yan'an, people from the government and the county were called to work. Our family paid corvee food, but it turned out that we were called to serve corvee."

"There's nothing else to do." Li Dashou could only choke out these words after a long time, but Li Zhang patted him: "Have you forgotten about the township?"

It's just that what she said made Li Dingguo a little embarrassed.

"Unfair?" Li Dashou didn't quite understand his son's words. After all, he was the same as most of the villagers. He basically didn't care about the affairs of the village, and only cared about his own fields.

After all, Li Dashou is a man, and he is quite curious about the current situation. As for Li Dingguo, he nodded:
"When Jianlu is gone, father, prepare some money and food. At that time, many people in the village will migrate to work as slaves."

Zhu Youjian had nothing to worry about in the battle to destroy Jianlu. The only thing he worried about was the weather.

"Although this battle is not difficult to fight, the land of Nu'ergan is vast. It is nearly two thousand miles from Taining and Yidonghe City to Udolun City behind Jianlu."

"Yes..." Zhu Youjian responded, as if he knew that Zhu Youxiao would arrange this way.

"At that time, an inspector censor came to the village. He was an official two grades older than the inspector censor. I heard it was..."

He thought it was too simple to govern the place.

One person planted one hundred acres, which almost made both Li Dashou and Li Zhang bite their tongues.

"Three days ago, Qiongzhou Prefecture was hit by a snow disaster. The snow was about a foot thick, and ten counties in the three prefectures of Dan, Wan, and Ya had no harvests, and more than [-] people were affected."

"So the village officials in the village are greedy for money, and we will not expose them."

"Just take a break for a year and study again next year." Li Dingguo explained while eating while swallowing:

Zhu Youjian shook his head, rejected his brother's words, and told when the war would end.

Zhu Youjian calmly told about some disasters that the people of Ming Dynasty encountered before the new year. Among them, the blizzard in Qiongzhou Prefecture surprised Zhu Youxiao:

"That's what I said, I just thought about it, and I feel that the two village officials bullied us more, the magistrate and the magistrate, although the notice said that they bullied us and took away a lot of money, but I feel that it has nothing to do with us. "

"With [-] mu of land, do you have to ask the tenants to take care of it?" Mrs. Li Zhang teased Li Dingguo with a smile, obviously not believing what he said.

"When? Before? Or now?" Li Dashou couldn't keep up with his son's thinking.

He originally thought that if the corrupt officials were killed, a new batch would be clean, but the people who didn't want to come were worse than the few village officials before.

"Yes! An official of the seventh rank!" Li Zhang said excitedly: "At that time, many people in the village who migrated from other places said that they had never seen such a big official in their life."

Perhaps many people have no concept of this temperature change. If there is a concept to be drawn, it will be the snow disaster in [-].

"At that time, each household paid money according to the head, and each person paid ten coins, which was said to be travel expenses for inspecting the censor."

"Alas..." Li Dashou shook his head when he heard about the officials:
"What's the matter? I heard from people in the next few villages that the people who came later were even more aggressive. Their buckets can hold a bucket or two of grain, and they are worse than those village officials before."

"Our family doesn't need it. If you go to slaves, I will have trouble finding you." Li Dingguo quickly interrupted his father's thoughts, and patted his chest and said:
"What is a hundred acres of land? I will become a general in the future and buy you [-] acres of land."

"There are also things about suing the neighboring village, but I won't sue my own village anyway."

"After all, if we can't destroy the captives before September, I'm afraid there will be a stalemate until the beginning of spring."

"The people from the Yumajian found out when they gave us gifts once, and they were dragged to Caishikou in Yanshan County and beheaded."

"But what those two village officials did was bullying in front of us. Do you think people in the village can't hate them?"

"What about those two dog officials?" Li Dingguo didn't expect his parents to encounter such corrupt officials.

In the case of cattle, one person can plant ten to thirty mu at most.

"Is there any reason to discuss what His Highness asked you to do?" Li Dashou also had a sad face.

He also asked Zhu Youjian, and Zhu Youjian's answer to him was "It's a matter of the court that the people look down on the soldiers, and it has nothing to do with the soldiers."

It was also thanks to him that he ran in time, because within two hours after he left, Zhu Ciran came looking for him on a bicycle.

Zhu Youjian had experienced the snow disaster at that time. Even though it happened in modern times, it still caused hundreds of deaths and 1606 million people were transferred urgently.

No, for the Chinese New Year, both families were hurt.

The floor of the front yard was rammed earth. The three members of the Li family sat in front of the wooden table. On the table were a bowl of chicken, a plate of fried pork, a basin of mutton and three vegetarian dishes.

To put it bluntly, for people like Li Zhang and Li Dashou, the people who directly exploited them were the village officials, not the magistrates and prefects, so they felt nothing.

Speaking of this, Li Dashou was a little proud, but Li Dingguo was very embarrassed.

No, what happened the day before yesterday was brought up by Zhu Ciran again in Zhengdan today.

Li Dashou said while eating, Li Zhang saw that the two father and son were talking excitedly, so he couldn't help interjecting:
"Didn't many officials be killed in the civil uprising in Shaanxi a few years ago?"

Li Dingguo explained that the headland is the upper limit of reclaiming land according to the number of people.

Li Zhang paused, unable to remember for a while, but Li Dashou said: "Zheng Qipin."

"Why doesn't it matter? He also took a lot of money from us?" Li Dingguo was very puzzled, but Li Zhang didn't understand either:

It was probably because Zhu Ciran pestered him so much that he ran away without even eating.

"The supervisory censor also said at the time that whoever dares to oppress us and collect taxes by force, let us tell them. We asked him how to tell, and he said let us tell the village officials."

"Now the atmosphere is better. Your Highness and Wansui Rende are exempted from corvee. Those dog officials have no excuse to let us go to corvee. Otherwise, we won't be able to get a penny of the wages of the prefecture and county roads."

Zhu Ciran knew Li Dingguo's details clearly, but Zhu Youjian shook his head: "I went to Yanshan County."

Such severe extreme weather and such a large natural disaster have affected a total of 0.3 degrees Celsius.

Mrs. Li Zhang interrupted Li Dingguo's words, and complained about Zhu Youjian inside and out, and looked down on generals and soldiers.

"Hey..." Hearing Li Zhang's words, Li Dashou couldn't help laughing dryly with some embarrassment.

"Dare they do this?" Li Dingguo was surprised.

"Going home? Have you returned to Shaanxi?"

"What's the difference between now and before?" Li Dingguo wanted to know about the former Daming and the current Daming.

"If you suffer from a disaster, you will be exempted for the whole year, and don't divide the summer tax and autumn tax."

"He went home for the New Year, and you won't see him this year."

The reason for this regulation is to prevent overpopulation in some places, resulting in more people and less land.

"What are you doing, Nuer? Why did you go to that place?" Li Dashou has been in Yanshan for so many years, and he almost knows how bad the environment in Nuergan and Liaodong is.

"Oh yes yes yes!" Li Dashou was reminded by his daughter-in-law, and immediately thought of the township, so he said:

"Those dog officials, no one in the village has seen them before, how can they hate them? Just scold the dog officials and it's over."

"..." Hearing what his father said, Li Dingguo couldn't believe that the people below could still do this.

"We, a group of mud-legged people, never saw their faces. We didn't know when they came. We only knew they came when the village officials asked every household to collect money and prepare chickens and ducks."

Li Dingguo wanted to know more about the affairs of the village and the difficulties of the people, because this was the knowledge he had learned in the government school.

In his opinion, the unfair thing in the village is probably that Zhang's family picked up half of the field ridge the day before yesterday, was blocked by a dozen people from Tian's family and beat them up, and then Zhang's family led people to beat Tian's family up again.

But Zhu Youxiao looked up at Zhu Youjian after finishing speaking: "Is my brother still free to escape the summer heat this March?"

"As for the inspecting censor, the previous inspecting censor left after eating, and had to ask for some money before leaving."

The family banquet hadn't started yet, and as soon as everyone sat down, Zhu Ciran ran to Zhu Youjian's side in a hurry, and asked aggressively, "Uncle Wang, where's Li Dingguo?"

"I'm afraid there's not enough time. I'm going to take the Xiao cavalry guards to Taining City in March, and then organize the supplies of all the ministries, and prepare to attack Jianlu in June."

Although he wanted to know some things about the village and the needs of the people in the village, he didn't want to hear all the negative things about the court...

Thinking of how her son killed corrupt officials in several villages last year when he opened his mouth, Li Zhang felt proud.

"That's not bad. The inspector censor will still listen to us. Counting before, we can't even see each other. The biggest official some people have ever met in their life is Muramasa."

What he saw was a new generation of Ming army reformed by Zhu Youjian. They had salaries, salaries, and military discipline.

Anyway, if it was him, it would be impossible for him to go to slaves to do it.

"A few years ago, I heard that there were troops on the mansion road. After this battle, I guess it will be stable for a while, right?"

For them, one hundred mu of land is already a big deal. Although Li Dingguo followed His Royal Highness Qi Wang, it is impossible to get ten thousand mu of land to plant. This is their idea.

The surrounding air was filled with a bit of sulfur smell, and with the fragrant food, Li Dingguo ate even more deliciously.

The high-ranking official corrupted Li Dashou's money, but Li Dashou and the high-ranking official had never met each other, and they only had a relationship of their interests being embezzled.

But the village official, not only did he meet Li Dashou and the others, but he also demonstrated how he exploited Li Dashou and his group of villagers verbally, verbally, and in deeds. Therefore, in Li Dashou's opinion, the village official was more damned than a high-ranking official.

"It's useless to say these things. The village officials in our village have only been in office for two years. I just don't know if the village officials who come after them will be so "clean" after they leave."

Li Dashou's words brought Li Dingguo back to reality, and he no longer asked about his parents' village affairs, but kept his head down and kept eating.

Perhaps the information he received today has shocked him to the point of numbness...