The white porridge and pickled mustard is enough, why am I wearing a royal robe?

Chapter 36 Zhangjia Village

There are many villages in the south of Yanchuan, and they are basically built around a landlord with a big surname. Some of the more prosperous and well-developed villages have almost become towns.

This is the case in Zhangjia Town.

All flat, arable land within three miles around Zhangjia Town belongs to Zhang Tiansheng, the eldest son of the Zhang family.

"Keep urging! None of these bastards have starved to death yet. They must be hiding food." Zhang Tiansheng sat on the Taishi chair. The two maids Qingmei and Lvzhu next to him were hanging on his shoulders. The housekeeper in front of him Huangpu bowed his back and responded repeatedly.

After Huangpu reconciled, he got Zhang Tiansheng's letter and turned around and left quickly. The master was in a bad mood at this time and was very angry. He moved forward just to get beaten. Now he has to go to the surrounding tenants' homes to collect the money.

"Fuck the emperor," Zhang Tiansheng didn't shy away from it. The emperor didn't care about those things that were revolting everywhere. What happened to Zhang Tiansheng's curse?

In this Zhangjia Town, he is a local emperor. Of course, if this local emperor continues to be the emperor, he will also have to deal with the eunuchs who come to collect money.

During the Chongzhen period, taxation became more and more serious.

When Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Youjian took it over from his elder brother, the treasury of the Ming Dynasty was still very rich, sometimes as much as 200 million taels of silver.

However, after Emperor Chongzhen came to power, he actually abolished the industrial and commercial tax. The wealthy businessmen in the southeast were very excited.

But most of the country's tax revenue comes from industrial and commercial taxes.

There was no money in the treasury, and Emperor Chongzhen actually lost his mind. Instead of going to northern Shaanxi to provide disaster relief, he just levied additional taxes on northern Shaanxi, which was already suffering from severe drought and locust plagues.

He, Zhang Tiansheng, had scolded Emperor Chongzhen countless times for this behavior. There was already a drought and locust plague, and the tenants below could not grow food. He relied on squeezing the surplus grain from these tenants for this year's harvest.

Now this eunuch is coming to northern Shaanxi again. In any big town or county where the rebel army has not swept through, these eunuchs will come to collect money.

He, Zhangjiazhen, is one of them. He still has a long way to go to pay for the few harvests this year. Landlords have always been picky. How could he get the missing taxes out of his own hands? He must have found the tenants below. .

There has been a severe drought for so long, but not one of these tenants has starved to death. They pretend to be poor on weekdays, so they must be hiding food.

After a lot of cursing, Zhang Tiansheng felt his mouth was dry, and the maids around him hurriedly offered some fluids.

Liu Zhenhua is wearing neat clothes and has a knife on his waist. He does not look like a disaster victim at all now. Instead, he looks like the young master of a wealthy businessman and the son of a landlord. He is accompanied by Yang Lichao, Ren Zhuohuo, and Wang Yousheng. The three of them pretended to be servants, and the four of them went around in circles to Zhangjiacun.

It's said to be a village, but it already looks like a town in size. I don't know how much bigger it is than the Shijiazhuang that Liu Zhenhua first saw.

"Is this the Zhangjiacun you are talking about?"

Liu Zhenhua looked at the villages and towns in front of him and asked. If he planned to fight the landlords, he must first inquire about the situation of the nearby landlords. It would be best to incite the villagers here to join him.

In this way, Liu Zhenhua can not only successfully fight the landlords, but also gain a group of villagers. In three days at most, he can eat two prestige meals a day, both at [-] prestige per day. Within a week, he can increase the upper limit of prestige meals. Ichiban.

"Master, let's go back to Zhangjia Village. Grandpa Zhang has a large manor, which is the most magnificent here," Wang Yousheng said sideways. "Is there any relationship between Zhangjiacun here and our place?"

Liu Zhenhua asked, "There were few people in ancient times. There were only over 5000 million people in the late Ming Dynasty, which was more than 1000 million fewer than in the early Ming Dynasty. As long as these people have the same surname and are not too far apart, they can go up several generations." Maybe they are all related.

"I don't know much about that."

A look of embarrassment appeared on Wang Yousheng's face. He had been staying with Liu Zhenhua for a few days. The people around Liu Zhenhua were basically all talented people. The handsome man on the left was said to have been close to the young master since he started his career. The one on the right He is very good at playing with sticks, but he can't do anything.

He was able to follow the young master because he was local and not so dull. Now that he didn't answer the young master's question, he felt a little guilty and embarrassed.

Liu Zhenhua noticed the embarrassment on the man's face and did not offer any words of comfort. There was no need to waste energy if he was incapable. The miracles on his body were enough to tie such a man to the warship.

"Let's go and take a look," Liu Zhenhua noticed that the doors of every house were open, and he could see a group of people gathering somewhere in the village from a distance.

"I only give you three days, three days! If you don't get enough food, you will have to wait until there is no land to farm next year."

From a distance, I heard someone yelling at the top of his lungs. Liu Zhenhua and others stood beside the people gathered in front, watching a group of farm men being trained by a man with a white face and a shrill voice like a eunuch, one after another. Like a kid, he didn't dare to say anything.

Butler Huang's words were like thunder in the ears of the villagers, and they suddenly panicked. Each of them bent over and held their hands, looking at Huangpu in front of them with a pitiful expression.

"No, steward Huang, please do it. As you know, this is a disaster year. We have worked hard and diligently, and nothing has fallen through the year. There is really no food."

For these tenants, although they were severely deducted by the landlords, their only source of income was the grain left over after paying taxes on the land owned by the landlords every year.

This year there has been no harvest and it is almost impossible to survive. If there is no land to cultivate next year, what will they do? This land is their lifeblood.

Although this life is in the hands of others, there is nothing that can be done.

"Haha, Zhang San, tell me what you are doing. Go tell Mr. Zhang and the eunuch who collects the money." Huangpu sneered.

"Damn it, everyone hasn't starved to death yet. Take out all the food you can get, and hand over the food first."

"As for what you eat, I don't care. Every one of you is like a hen that can't lay eggs. You have nothing to eat. You all go to Yanchuan County for me to ask the county magistrate to open a warehouse for grain."

"Don't tell me more."

Huangpu looked at these people, and regardless of how these villagers begged for mercy, he threw away a villager, knelt on the ground, pulled his sleeve, turned around and left.

These people are said to be tenants, but in fact they are slaves. They don't get as much as the servants below them every year, and their status is not as good as that of the Zhang family's dogs. How could Huangpu have mercy on these people.

Seeing Huangpu go away, some tenants collapsed on the ground and cried, what a life, they really can't get any food.

(End of this chapter)