Established a thousand-year family from the end of Qin Dynasty

Chapter 506 Humanity and Freedom ([-])

Spring of the eighth year of Duke Yan 290 (508)
Star City

Southwest Plantation

The 41-year-old Lin Zhi is leading the cattle and farming in the scorching sun.

The land of Yan is vast and sparsely populated, and Lin Zhi needs to open up a lot of land.

The government of Yan State redistributed the unowned farmland last year, and each citizen of Yan State was allocated 300 mu of farmland on average. (equivalent to 600 mu in the Central Plains)
Yan Guo did not intend to allocate unowned farmland to the immigrants purchased from the Southern Dynasties and the grasslands, but let them go to the miasma area to reclaim wasteland as before.

Obviously there is a large piece of farmland that has already been reclaimed and cannot be planted, but they are unwilling to distribute it to the new immigrants, just to let the new immigrants continue to reclaim more farmland.

From the beginning to the end, the purpose of Yan State was not to feed more people, but to reduce the population as much as possible on the premise of producing as much food as possible to avoid too many people consuming food.

For the local people of Yan State, after the black epidemic ended, the living standards of the survivors increased instead. Everyone owned a large piece of farmland, which could not be planted at all.

However, the new immigrants cannot obtain those unowned farmlands, and they still have to risk their lives to open up wasteland.

As for the local people of Yan State, their large tracts of farmland can only be inherited to one person from generation to generation as before, and the rest of them still have to go overseas to open up wasteland.

This is like, there is a pile of ready-made food on the ground, but the manager does not allow the people to eat it, and requires the people to go to the mountains to collect and hunt by themselves.

Because for managers, food is the purpose, and the people are just tools.

A year ago, Lin Zhi was lucky enough to succeed in the election and become the chief bookkeeper of Chang'e City due to infighting among the hostile Zhulu Guild.

However, with the end of the internal strife in the Chasing Deer Guild, he was accused of embezzling city public funds, raping women from a good family, deceiving people, and attempting to rebel. He was finally arrested and imprisoned, and sent to the Spice Islands to become a land reclamation slave.

"As long as you admit that what you said is deceitful, we can withdraw the charges against you, exempt you from punishment, and allow you to return to Chang'e City and make money with us."

"Lin Zhi, is it worth it to torture yourself for the sake of a group of ordinary people?"

The mayor of Chang'e City has colluded with the people from the Chasing Deer Guild, and the citizens are just tools for them to make money.

Lin Zhi did not agree, but chose to become a slave to land reclamation.

However, when he has a rare rest, he will also calm down and write something, and realize his dream in the world of words.

"The poor citizens of Chang'e City work hard but don't get what they deserve. Instead, they are accused of various unwarranted crimes, and then they are arrested and imprisoned by the government and become slaves for land reclamation."

"Man is a spiritual creature, they can think, have love and hate, not a tool for land reclamation, let alone their personal belongings."

"If you don't open up wasteland, you can't make Yan strong. If Yan is not strong, it will be invaded by barbarians. Opposing wasteland is tantamount to colluding with barbarians. This is what they propagate to us."

During the pioneering years, Lin Zhi wrote books in his spare time. The first book was "Peony Girl", which was a beautiful girl he met when he was young, and it was his first love, in a garden of peony flowers. The other party is a descendant of a nobleman.

However, not long after, the girl in the dream contracted the black plague and died.

As life becomes more and more difficult, Lin Zhi misses the beautiful moments of his youth more and more.

Lin Zhi is not a saint, and he does not want to be a saint. He is an ordinary person who fell in love with a beautiful girl at first sight.

"People always talk about saints, and talk about character, nobility, and holiness every day. They show their worship of saints in front of other people, but they ignore the most ordinary people around them."

"Every day, saints are used as standards, asking us to do what we want, not what we want to do. We learn from saints, but lose ourselves."

"One should be oneself, not someone else, even if that other person is a saint."

"Perhaps, this is Zhuangzi's saying that the sage never dies, but the thieves never stop."

His second book is called "Self", which believes that people are not tools, but independent individuals.

"We are not a tool for opening up wasteland, nor are we a tool for saints. We should not open up wasteland for the ruler's future generations, nor should we go against our own nature in order to learn from saints."

"Whether a person is lustful or not, whether he loves money or not, is just his own human nature. As long as it is within a reasonable range, these are all freedoms. Why force everyone to be as indifferent to fame and fortune as a saint?"

When he finished writing these two books, it was already three years later.

An aristocratic girl who came to supervise the land reclamation saw his book by chance, and admired his talent very much, and was also surprised by the deviant words in his book, because she also had similar thoughts, but she never dared to speak out in public , and even more afraid to write a book.

"It's really delaying you to open up wasteland here." The noble girl spent a lot of money to buy his freedom and let Lin Zhi become her assistant.

"I'm just about to become the new mayor of Chang'e City, can you help me?" The girl's smile was as sweet as a peony in full bloom.

Lin Zhi looked at the beautiful girl in front of him, she was a bit like the girl who died in the black plague back then, and after some communication, she realized that the girl who died in the black plague back then was the aunt of the girl in front of her .

"How do you plan to govern the city?" Lin Zhi asked. If the mayor of Chang'e City treated the citizens as a tool to make money, he would definitely not assist.

The aristocratic girl roughly explained her own governance ideas, which mentioned that she should break the authority and not use the saints as a shield to ask the citizens what to do. The citizens can question the government's decision-making, and even the ancient saints.

"I don't know how to govern the city specifically, but there must be talents in the city who know how to govern. We should use their talents instead of forcing them to become obedient tools with the authority of saints."

Lin Zhi decided to assist this "Ming Lord". He believed that under the governance of this noble girl, Chang'e City should become better.

However, when Chang'e City Political Council heard that the new mayor was actually with Lin Zhi and had thoughts similar to Lin Zhi, they immediately held a meeting and deposed the new mayor before he took office. Among the aristocrats of the country, a heir of an aristocrat who seemed relatively useless was re-selected to become the new mayor.

And the government of Yan State doesn't care, as long as the city council of Chang'e City pays taxes honestly and doesn't rebel, everything else doesn't matter. Anyway, the mayor must be a nobleman or descendant of Yan State.

As for the life and death of the people in Chang'e City?Is it important?
(End of this chapter)