Begging in late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 292

I’ve heard about the difficulty of poverty alleviation in the Dabie Mountains before, but it’s only when I’m here that I realize how difficult it is. Shanxi, which has eight mountains, one water and one field, is considered to be poor in land resources, and it’s even more poor here. The rare flat place between the two mountains, the nearby cultivated land is only one-sixth of Dai County.

There are quite a few places on the mountain that can be cultivated, however, someone has already occupied them. The result of the tough folk customs in this area is that in the face of the harsh natural environment, most of the residents of Yinghuo rely on the powerful and build a stronghold to protect themselves. The Dabie Mountains in the south of Xinxian County There are eight such villages in the main mountain range. The county has a population of about 6 to 1 people. The county town is only over [-] people, and the surrounding countryside is less than [-] people. More than half of them live in the mountains.

The county magistrate's surname is Chai, which has the same surname as the famous Chai official in the Water Margin Xiaoxuanfeng, Chai Jin. Unfortunately, his life is not good. He was assigned to this poor place. It's not that he doesn't want to be greedy. With a few acres of Susukida, the common people could barely support themselves, and they couldn’t pay the court’s taxes every year. Chai Jin once wanted to plead guilty and dismissed from office, but the Ministry of Households replied and exempted him for three years.

For the imperial court, the new county is not important, but the national system is important. As long as the new county is under the rule of the Daming county magistrate, the taxes here are not worth mentioning. Anyway, there are many places that the imperial court can collect. On the other hand, the new county is always poor It can also be seen.

It is said that the life of a thief is like a comb, and the life of a soldier is like a dog!Under the banner of robbing the rich and helping the poor, the peasant army from all walks of life is still the one who helped the poor. Song Qingshu was lucky. The first thing he did when he arrived in this new county was to ask the relationship between Shanxi merchants to buy food in Huguang, Henan, to help the local hungry people. The county magistrate said that if they were too hungry to survive, less than 1 county residents would have to flee to the mountains.

With the last rations in the army, Song Qingshu worried about the lack of rations for several days, but it can be counted, there are traveling merchants gathered in twos and threes outside, this one brought two carts from Xinyang, and the other bought three carts from Kaifeng, but the price is definitely enough You're cheating, a load of food costs two or three taels of silver!Coarse grains such as wheat, millet, and sorghum are still mostly used, while fine grains such as rice have risen to more than ten taels of silver.

There is no way, the road here is too far, too remote, and there are bandits everywhere, without double the profit of the money, the merchants are not willing to come at all, this end collects food, and the other end has the same black forehead of Song Qingshu Sweating profusely, envious and thick-necked, he looked at the money, wishing he could order all these profiteers to be slaughtered.

Of course, this is just a thought. Now that he has finally squeezed into the business network of Shanxi Merchants, he has to abide by the rules of the game of these guys, otherwise, everything he has done in Dai County will be in vain.

Fortunately, Qu Botao, who came with the army, came up with a way to imitate the Ming Dynasty's method of opening Chinese. Song Qingshu didn't pay for the money, but paid with a delivery coupon. With Song Qingshu's delivery coupon, he can go to Jiaduobao, Shanxi The firm extracts [-] times the value of ready-made clothing and footwear.

Selling a piece of clothing, Song Qingshu's profit can be almost half, and now Jiaduobao has covered most of the clothing market in the five northern provinces. up.

That's the case, even after collecting 8 to [-] dans of grain, it still cost Song Qingshu [-] to [-] taels.

God is still saving face, these profiteers are almost gone, the continuous rainy season has finally cleared up, this heavy rain is not all bad, at least Song Qingshu brought more than 100 loads of sweet potatoes, potatoes and corn sticks as seeds, and all of them sprouted again!Some green seedlings are very long, and they can be planted after a little tidying up.

Although it is already July at this time, after crossing the Qinling-Huaihe River line and entering the southern region, the frost-free period is two months longer than that in the north. Although it is later, the burden is enough to support another season of harvest this year. He started his old business again, opening up wasteland!
Even if you don’t want your own professional army to go to the ground, you have to go down at this time. It’s a good name, to practice engineering operations, so that you can dig trenches to resist cavalry in the future. You bought a batch of shovels through businessmen, and only left more than 1000 people as a security force. , the remaining [-] or [-] people who had just recovered were all taken down by the enemy, even generals such as Liu Zongmin and Miao Mei did not escape, but everyone had nothing to say.

As the commander of the first army, Song Qingshu rolled up his sleeves and went to the field.

The fields on the small plain near Xin County are basically untouched. It’s not that Song Qingshu is so kind and doesn’t seize people’s land, but that a lot of rice has been planted here, and it’s almost mature. These things from the Americas are not picky. There are still a lot of mountainous wastelands a little farther away in Xinxian County. It follows the model of Daixian County. This is the land that is soaked after the rainy season. Thousands of men are working in full swing. One day, two days, The excavated stones and tree roots piled up in a big pile at the foot of the mountain, and a continuous piece of corn field appeared in this southern land.

The land reclamation of the begging army also attracted many local people, who were willing to send food to hire them. In the first month of coming to Xinxian, Song Qingshu expanded the army by more than 1000, and the number of vassal family members increased by [-]. The begging army began to flourish. .

"time to eat!"

It was another hot and dry day, and crisp shouts suddenly sounded from the bottom of the mountain. The tired and sweaty beggar boys put down their hoes one after another as if it was the New Year, regardless of their muddy bodies, all of them were excited Gathered in Tianbian Mountain, all of them were wearing paddy field clothes, with a handkerchief wrapped around their hair, all the girls and daughters-in-law in the production team organized by Song Qingshu came to deliver meals.

There are no good dishes, the jerky has been eaten up long ago, but five or six steaming steamed buns, plus a big pot of spinach soup, are refreshing to eat, especially when you are hungry, everything is delicious.

Looking at the large plowed fields behind him, there are cheers of people gathering together to eat, and some thick-skinned guys even teased the young daughter-in-law, but the girls are not as gentle as imagined, and the naughty ruffian who yells at them falls into the wild And fleeing, it caused a burst of laughter. Seeing Shu Tan let out a sigh of relief, Song Qingshu also put down his hoe.

In the past, the family owned a piece of land. Song Qingshu claimed to be a college student and never helped out. Now he has experienced the hard work of his family members. Is this also re-education for the poor and lower-middle peasants?
But the good mood lasted for a short while, and Song Qingshu became depressed again, carrying a big basket that was almost thicker than himself, and wrapped a handkerchief on his head like the locals, with beads of sweat still dripping from the tip of his nose. Wei also came to deliver the meal, but behind her, there was a girl who was also dressed in Mizuki, but with a frosty face.

"Humph!"

After losing the hoe, Xing Hongniang, who was digging with her, hugged her arms sourly again, and went to the side to look for radishes. Liu Dazhuzi and the others ate them together. To be honest, Song Qingshu wanted to hide, but there was nothing he could do. I couldn't hide, so I had to force myself to greet him with a smiling face.

"Brother, look at you, you are covered all over again, I brought water, wash first!"

No wonder the big basket is so heavy. Caiwei also brought a small basin of water for washing hands. Unfortunately, Song Qingshu hurriedly took it aside in embarrassment, and at this moment, Caiwei spread another piece of cloth on the ground , put the love snacks she made by herself, the kitten-shaped buns, and the boiled vegetable soup on the cloth, and then she was full of happiness, waiting for Song Qingshu with a smile.

Next to him, Little Pepper also sat down, but his face was as rigid as a frozen iceberg, without saying a word.

"Everyone eats, eats!"

After finally washing her hands, Shanshan nodded again, and sat down with the cornbread. Song Qingshu started to eat sullenly.

No way, he really didn't know how to face Little Pepper. Faced with this brief but turbulent love, Little Pepper had risked everything for him, but in the end, it was Song Qingshu who lied to her.

The meal was quite dull, except for Caiwei who was chattering about how many children she had started a school again, Song Qingshu and Xiaojiao didn't say a word, it seemed that neither of them had anything to do with each other. That's it.

After finally finishing the meal and helping Caiwei to clean up the dishes, the two girls can be regarded as going down the mountain, Song Qingshu finally heaved a sigh of relief, this time, the short-term happiness is over, and the big guys continue to get up and dig , as an example, Song Qingshu himself quickly picked up the hoe.

But just at this time, there was a burst of quarrels from the other end. It seemed that dozens of soldiers gathered together. The xenophobia was not only foreign, but the local xenophobia was especially severe in the Ming Dynasty. These days, the begging army and the local There have been several times of friction between people, and he cursed irritably, waved his hand to call Zhou Yuji, and looked over angrily with Song Qingshu, his personal soldier.

But this time, something was not quite right. It was the poor county magistrate who was kneeling on the ground sadly, while Qu Botao's thin body stood aside vigorously. Ma Meng, one of the two guerrillas who defected to the north after the eradication of the Ma family army, was also angry. Shouting and cursing.

"The handsome man is here!"

With Zhou Yuji's voice, no one dared to quarrel anymore, and they all bowed to see him. When Qu Botao blushed and his neck was thick, Song Qingshu was full of curiosity and asked loudly.

"What's the fuss, what happened?"

"Report to Commander-in-Chief, the last general is leading his subordinates to carry out the task of garrisoning the fields, and this old man is preventing us from digging up this piece of grass and trees!" Immediately, Ma Meng started to make a small report.

"Old Qu, why are you here to make trouble if you don't take care of the business?" Song Qingshu turned his head helplessly, and asked again, but the old man who heard it became excited all of a sudden.

"Marshal, I can't dig anymore, these are all tea!"

"Tea?"

Pointing along Qu Botao's finger, Song Qingshu felt that his eyes were shining with golden light. On the opposite side of the sloping land to open up wasteland, there were all over the mountains and plains the kind of tea mountains that he had seen on TV. Countless tea trees exuded The unique fragrance is constantly swaying with the mountain wind.

The most amazing thing in China, the miracle that leaves can be exchanged for money, there is actually a whole mountain here!

(End of this chapter)