Jia Yujing of Red Mansion

Chapter 64 Special Travel
In the Linfeng Pavilion, the mountain chief and Li Yun sat opposite each other, and the academy was quiet.

The students were attending classes as usual, except for the crackling sound of bamboo falling from time to time in the bamboo forest on the east side of the academy.

Li Yun asked: "Mr. Songxi, this time all eleven students from Wansong Academy are on the imperial list. This is really a grand event for the Chinese culture. Doesn't the academy also celebrate it?"

Tang Lun said nonchalantly: "Wansong Academy teaches and educates people, and success or failure cannot be judged solely on the basis of imperial examination results.

Besides, the people on the list are not here, so why waste time celebrating. "

Li Yun sighed: "Songxi Duke's magnanimity and insight are greatly admired by the lower officials.

I will soon leave for Beijing to meet the Holy Spirit. I am afraid that I will no longer be able to listen to Songxi Gong’s teachings. "

Tang Lun said with a smile: "Li Tixue has been summoned by the Holy Spirit this time. He must be entrusted with an important task. I would like to congratulate you first."

Li Yun cupped his hands and said, "It is thanks to the teachings of Wansong Academy that I was summoned by the Holy Master this time.

This time when I go to Beijing to meet the Holy Spirit, I will definitely tell the Emperor the merits of the academy’s education and ask for credit for the academy. "

Tang Lun said nonchalantly: "The academy is a place for teaching and educating people. It doesn't ask for any merit, so you don't need to worry too much."

Li Yun waved his hand and said: "What Mr. Songxi said is wrong. The academy educates talents for the court, and the court should reward him.

Moreover, the more famous the academy is, the more talented students it can attract, so that more talents can be cultivated. "

Tang Lun smiled and said: "Master Li said yes, so I'll thank you in advance."

Li Yun asked again: "I heard that Wansong Academy will participate in an academy lecture this year, and the location will be in Hunan.

I wonder who Wansong Academy is planning to send to lead the team this time, and when will they set off? "

Tang Lun said: "The distance is too far, I can't afford it with my old bones.

This time the team is led by Shen Hengfeng and will set off at the end of the month. "

Li Yun smiled and said: "This is the first time Wansong Academy attends a lecture. With Jia Qiong here, it will definitely become a blockbuster.

After the poem "Conquering the Hetao from Dudu Yang", he has not published any new works for a long time.

Thinking back to the Lanyue Pavilion Poetry Festival, Jia Qiong's four poems shocked the world and won him the reputation of a little poetry fairy.

I don’t know what amazing works will come out this time. It’s really exciting. "

Tang Lun smiled and said: "Haha, it's hard to say.

As a student, I actually prefer the study of managing the world and applying it to practical applications, but I am not very keen on poetry. "

At the end of March, Jia Qiong and his entourage bid farewell to everyone in the academy and set off as planned.

The academy prepared a strong horse for everyone. Except for Shen Yan, the ten students all carried bows, swords, and hats.

This is the time of brilliant spring, with birds chirping and flowers fragrant, and the climate pleasant.

It was a rare opportunity for the students to travel far away like this, and everyone was extremely excited.

The spring breeze made the horses' hooves gallop, and everyone ran hundreds of miles in one breath.

In the wilderness, you can meet some pheasants and hares from time to time.

Everyone scrambled to use their half-baked skills in riding and shooting. They were outnumbered and fired random arrows, but they managed to hunt a few.

Riding horses for a long time is also very hard. After riding for most of the day, everyone felt tired and hungry, but Shen Yan didn't say anything.

Gongsun Yue came to Jia Qiong's side and said, "Yu Jing, everyone is already hungry."

Jia Qiong nodded and looked around, just in time to see smoke rising in the distance.

He said to Shen Yan: "Grandpa, it's getting late and everyone is hungry.

There should be a village in the south. Let's go there to have something to eat and rest for the night before leaving. "

Shen Yan said: "As I said before departure, the food, clothing, housing and transportation will be arranged by you. You don't need to ask me."

Jia Qiong nodded and said to everyone: "Let's go to a village in the south to stay overnight and ask for some food."

"it is good."

"I'm already hungry."

Everyone turned their horses and ran south.

Xu Fengnian asked: "Yu Jing, we are penniless, can we get food?"

Jia Qiong patted the two pheasants hanging on the horse's neck, and a hare said: "These game meats are enough to exchange for a simple meal. It shouldn't be a problem to stay overnight."

After traveling south for two or three miles, I saw a small village with only a few dozen households.

Jia Qiong asked everyone to stop outside the village. He and Xu Fengnian entered the village, but were soon stopped by several young men.The leading young man saw that all of them were riding horses and carrying weapons, so he was very vigilant.

He stopped the two of them and asked, "Who are you and what are you doing in our village?"

Jia Qiong cupped her fists and said, "Brother, we are students from Wansong Academy.

Passing by your village, everyone was a little hungry and wanted to come to the village to ask for some food. "

Hearing that they were students and behaved politely, the middle-aged people became less alert.

He led everyone from the academy into the village and led them to Li Zheng's home.

Li Zheng was considered the most knowledgeable person in the village. Knowing that they were students of Wansong Academy, he was very enthusiastic.

He gave them the best food in the village and arranged accommodation for them.

Mo Dao, the farmer's wine is thick with wax and wine. In good years, enough chickens and dolphins are kept here.

After everyone had a good meal, they were taken to various houses to stay overnight.

The family that Jia Qiong went to was considered a relatively wealthy family in the village, with five adobe houses.

Through the conversation, Jia Qiong learned that the owner of the family was less than 40 years old and had three sons and two daughters.

Both daughters are married, and the eldest son is also married and working as a farmer at home.

The second son has gone to serve in the military and will not be back for another two years.

The third son works as a waiter in a nearby town and comes back to help when the farming season is busy.

After learning about this situation, Jia Qiong offered to help them write a letter home to their second son, and the host happily thanked her again and again.

There are some people in the village who have attended elementary school, but they only know a few words, and they don’t even have pens, ink, paper and inkstones at home.

So if they want to write a letter, they have to go to the town to find a bookmaker, which costs dozens of pennies each time.

Jia Qiong and the others stayed in the village for one night and helped the villagers do whatever they could.

For example, I helped them repair their house, wrote letters, and gave a newborn baby a nice name.

They were scattered in various houses, and through contact with the villagers, they learned about their lives.

Only by going deep into the people can we feel more clearly how difficult people's livelihood is.

When they hit the road again the next day, Shen Yan asked everyone to share what they learned yesterday.

This village is not far from Hangzhou, in the Qiantang River Basin, with fertile land and abundant water resources.

The harvests in the past few years have been pretty good, but every household in the village doesn't have much savings.

The unified standard for land tax in Dachu is one tax per ten, which does not seem to be much.

But in addition, when the court was short of money, it would also levy various miscellaneous taxes from time to time.

For example, war taxes are collected during wars, and river taxes are collected in unaffected areas when floods occur in other areas.

Calculated in this way, the average annual tax amount will reach [-]% tax.

This alone is fine, what the common people fear most is corvee labor.

Ordinary corvee work, such as building rivers and roads, was easy to say. It was just a little harder, but I could always get through it.

But if you are tasked with transporting grain from the canal, if you are lucky and have saved up for several years, you can do it smoothly.

If you are unlucky, you will lose everything and your family will be destroyed.

Last year, two families in the village were unfortunately assigned the task of escorting grain to Beijing.

Everyone in this village has the same surname. In order to help these two families tide over the difficulties, the whole village chipped in money for them. To this end, the savings of each family in the village were spent a lot.

Most of the students in the college come from wealthy families, so it is difficult for them to truly understand the sufferings of the people.

Even though Song Mian's family was relatively poor, his family was a rich farmer with hundreds of acres of land, otherwise it would not have been able to support him from traveling all the way to study.

It is difficult for a real ordinary farmer's family to support a child. It would be good if the child can go to school for two years and know a few words.

In the past, we only learned about people's lives through books, but after getting in-depth, we can truly understand the suffering of the people, and the articles we write are naturally more meaningful.

In this way, the academy group traveled around and learned about the people's conditions in various places.

The various shortcomings and people's suffering hidden under the prosperous age of Dachu were also revealed to them one by one.

Jia Qiong and the others not only had to complete various homework assigned by Shen Yan, but also had to find ways to solve the problem of eating by themselves. This trip was really very training.

(End of this chapter)