Idle courtiers

Chapter 112 Let's see who is faster (three more, please recommend tickets)
Fatty Zhan was amazed: "Zimu, one of us is a seventh-rank court official, and the other is Jinyi Qianhu. You are a famous scholar. If you were arrested and entered the army, you might be spread as a legend, and you will be ashamed to see others in the future. Also, if you enter the camp as a labor force, it is too late for others to hide, and you expect to be arrested instead. I have lived for more than 40 years, and I have never heard such a strange request."

Xia Yi also laughed: "I haven't heard of it either... Cough, cough..."

Zhou Nan sighed: "Brother, just now you said that you should go back to the inn to wait, is it possible? Not to mention that it will be dark soon, and you will not be able to go there with your footsteps. Even if you go back to the city, there is still a place Board and lodging. The reason why the shopkeeper of the inn kept me waiting for food and drink was because we owed him a lot of money. If we are kicked out, where will the money come from?"

"Didn't you hear that you were deaf in the morning? Shopkeeper Wei has sent the three of us to hard labor. Now that we're going back, it's no wonder they want us to stay in an inn."

"Look, it's still raining today, and it's very cold. Let's sleep on the street. With your bodies, I'm afraid we won't be able to survive tomorrow's sunrise."

"Let's not talk about it, we haven't got dinner yet. If there is a place to take us in, at least we can eat and sleep!"

Zhan Tong's complexion changed greatly: "Yes, everything else is fine, if you go hungry, you might as well die. It's over, it's over!"

Xia Yi was so angry that she coughed up another mouthful of blood, and smashed her fist hard on the ground, kicking up a ball of mud: "Wei's abominable, I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him, and that thief Xiaoer, too!" Can't let it go."

Zhou Nan rolled his eyes at him: "Xia Qianhu, you old man should save some effort and find a way to survive!"

Not to mention, after tossing and tossing for two hours, his stomach is really hungry like a knife is being cut.

Seeing the fine cold rain, I was worried for a while.

In such a cold day, there are still many people coming and going, shouting loudly, which seems very lively.Some of these people who looked like masters were escorted by military officers, while others were accompanied by their families.Not only the elderly and children, but also quilts, pots and bowls, obviously all the belongings are on their backs.

Zhou Nan's heart moved, and he asked a commoner who was not escorted for a long time.

Only then did he realize that this person was a refugee, begging for a living in Yangshe Town.

It turned out that after the scourge of Japanese pirates, several surrounding state capitals were in ruins, a large number of people fled, and many people had nowhere to live.

Yangshe Town is Tang Shunzhi's logistics headquarters, and there are more than a dozen office offices in it.In order to fight against the Japanese, a large amount of supplies were gathered here, some of which were inexhaustible food.

All departments are accepting civilians and soldiers recruited from the local area. When there are more people, the economy will be active. This small town benefited from the war economy and prospered immediately.

The people who can’t afford to eat come here to do the work to make a living. Unlike the conscripted laborers who are subject to military law, if some people are hired by the yamen, although the wages are low, they still have personal freedom. Volunteer support personnel who are loyal to the country and the nation.

Jiang and Zhejiang were originally in the hinterland of the Ming Dynasty, but now they have become frontiers, which makes people sigh inwardly.

Zhou Nan was greatly disturbed, and said to the two of them: "Hold on, I'll go and see if there is any place to ask for someone, and at least I can make a living."

So, the three of them followed the refugee to a place.

But I saw more than a dozen tables set up in the open space of Nuo Da, and behind the tables sat a few clerks and servants who were registering with umbrellas as usual.

The refugees swarmed up, besieged three layers inside and three layers outside, shouting: "Officer, take me, take me!" "Master, please do me a favor, take me in, I am strong and can eat Capable... No, no, I can't eat at all, but I have great strength."

It was so lively that it seemed to be rushing to the New Year's Eve.

The guards kept shouting: "Don't squeeze, don't squeeze, come one by one."

"Open your mouth, let me take a look at your teeth. Straight lady, if you have good teeth, you will have a good appetite. You should be in good health. I'll take you in."

……

Another officer shouted: "Come to me, we need ten sailors here. The wages are high and the rations are high. Don't miss it when you pass by. You will regret it later."

As he spoke, he stretched out his hand and pinched the refugees who had come to apply for the job to see if their muscles were plump.

……

"I really can't do these jobs." Zhou Nan smiled wryly.

"There's no way to do it." Both Zhan and Xia shook their heads.

These jobs are obviously heavy physical labor. The two sick patients were pampered before, and Zhou Nan is also a person who is used to enjoying it.

Besides, it is humiliating to be forced to open your mouth to look at your teeth and stretch out your hands to squeeze your flesh.Anyway, if you are an official of the imperial court, even if you are down and out, you still need to be decent.

"The three of you should have had a good life before the military disaster. The work here is really not suitable for you." The refugee who Zhou Nan held back for questioning appeared again.It can be seen that this person is an honest and honest person with a kind heart.

Zhan Tongzheng was so burned that he heard him, muttered something, pointed at Zhou Nan and said, "Nonsense, I am a seventh-rank imperial court official. Telling our identities will scare you to death. Take Zhou Zimu, who has the lowest status here, as an example. Scholar."

He said that he was a seventh-rank official, but the refugees naturally didn't believe it.Hearing that Zhou Nan is a scholar, his eyes lit up: "So you are a scholar, you are a treasure here! Just because you can write and count, you can get a tael of silver a month, unlike me. If you only know how to work hard, it is a blessing to give you three or five dollars. Now we are recruiting people who can read and write. If you go, at least you will be living in a house. After a while, you may be able to become a teacher ...and ask over there, maybe there is a door."

He pointed to a table placed in a street shop and told Zhou Nan to find a way out there.

This store used to be a grocery store, and everything inside was emptied and cleaned very well.Zhou Nan helped Xia and Zhan to go there, only to see a piece of paper with words written on it pasted at the door, and there was a line of ink writing "Su Song's Bing Bei Branch patrolling the Changzhou Prefecture Branch Division", which was quite grand, but in fact there were only two people sitting inside. A person who looks like a book office, looks like a grass-roots team.

The recruiter was a thin-shaven middle-aged man with a fair face and clean clothes.However, for some reason, there was a poor look on his body.He was wearing the robes of a Confucian scholar, but not a skirt, so he probably had no fame.

Seeing Zhou Nan and the other three, he was not polite, and asked, "You are looking for work, have you read, can you write?"

Zhou Nan helped the two of them to the chairs and sat down, nodded: "I have studied for a few years, and I can barely write." He dare not say that he is a scholar, and if he is really tested, he will reveal his secrets.

The middle-aged book office nodded, and still asked Zhou Nan a few questions.He probably also felt that Zhou Nan, who was in a mess, was not well-educated, so he asked him, "Which Four Books are the Four Books?" "How many chief envoys did I have in the Ming Dynasty?"

He also handed over an official document and asked Zhou Nan to read it to him. This is a test of sentence punctuation.

After the assessment, the middle-aged book office nodded: "I listen to your ability to punctuate sentences. If you have read books for a few years, what you say is true. That's it. , one tael of silver per month, and rest on the fifteenth day of the lunar new year. Well done, the boss will reward you."

Zhou Nan was overjoyed, and pointed at Xia Yi and Zhan Tongdao: "My two companions are also literate, please give me a way to survive."

The middle-aged secretary showed a smile when he heard the words: "Okay, okay, let them come over to investigate, and if it is true as you said, they can stay together."

The literacy rate of the Ming Dynasty, even in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, a large cultural and educational province, was only one percent.In other provinces, another [-] percent to [-] percent is not bad.

Based on a county with a population of 20, the literate population is only a thousand or even a few hundred.

There used to be a lot of scholars in Changzhou, but those who can study these days are not from middle-class families. When the war broke out, they all ran away from their mothers, and went to hide in big cities like Nanjing and Yangzhou.

When Tang Shunzhi conscripted the young and strong from Changzhou to join the army, they were all illiterate farmers, not many scholars.

An army without culture is a stupid army. In the era when literati ruled the country and the army, everything must fall on words.Scholars are needed for military order exchanges and calculation of money and food.

But it's hard to find scholars, that's why this kind of military equipment is so deserted.

I was lucky today, not only did I recruit someone who could write and draw, but I also hired three people as soon as they came.

At this moment, Xia Yi started to cough violently again, until tears flowed down her face.

Seeing his flushed face, and seeing Zhan Tong who was sitting on one side with his eyes full of gum, the middle-aged secretary was furious, pointed at Zhou Nan and shouted: "Go, go, look at your honest appearance. Come to make money old man. Go somewhere else, I don’t want you here.”

Zhou Nan: "What's wrong with me?"

The middle-aged secretary office shouted: "These two people clearly got the plague, and they were dying of the disease. You still receive it from me. What if you infect others?"

At this moment, another old man in a mandarin duck battle jacket that had been washed white came in and shouted: "Scholar Sun, you have read the book, calculate this month's money and food for me, my head is about to explode!" gone."

This man was in his early fifties, dark and thin, but he seemed to be an honest and responsible person.It should be an old military household who is prepared for military affairs.

The army is a place that pays attention to qualifications, especially for this kind of military households who have served in the guards for generations and intermarried with each other. It is not surprising that there are several relatives of officers behind them.

Naturally, he was not very polite to Shuli Sun. He threw an account book on the table and said, "I put in 160 and three cowhide armors in the warehouse last month, and spent 75. The soldiers in front said that the armor was unusable." Bing Bei asked to remove the available armor leaves and cowhide from the two armors to make one. Among the remaining armors, 34 can be made into one with two, and the rest can be made into a set with three. Ask, how many can be synthesized in total? sets, how many unusable ones are left to be returned?"

As he spoke, he held his forehead, looking in pain.

Sun Shuli: "It's difficult, I'll figure it out."

He picked up the abacus and began to fight.

When Zhou Nan heard it, isn’t this an elementary school practice problem?Opened his mouth and said: "A total of 51 armors can be synthesized, and the remaining eleven cannot be used and must be returned to the arsenal." That would kill me. It’s a novel, just read the meaning.)
"Bad, it's true." Sun Shuban calculated for a long time, and found that the final result was the same as what Zhou Nan said.

The old pawn glanced at Zhou Nan, and said, "I have 26 shi of table salt in the warehouse, which is packed in sacks. You also know that this place is humid, and the salt will get wet, and the weight will increase by [-]% every ten days. Now I accept This batch of salt has been stored in the warehouse for a month and six days, I want to know how much it weighed in the first place?"

As soon as the words were finished, Zhou Nan said: "Originally there were 71 catties of salt, nineteen stones, and the extra weight was water." He wanted to compete with that Sun Shuban to see whether his mental arithmetic was faster or his abacus arithmetic faster.

Back then, he still won the ranking in the elementary school students' Olympiad in the city, and this question was not difficult for him.

Sun Shuban calculated for a long time, tore off two withered beards, and finally said with a "silk": "That's the number, it's amazing! Do it for Mr. Accountant, we need talents like you here, stay here." Leave."

Zhou Nan: "My two companions?"

Sun Shuban frowned: "You should take care of yourself first, I will definitely not accept these two people, and I can't take responsibility."

Zhou Nan: "I appreciate Sun Shuban's kindness. I'm sorry, but I can't do such a thing as abandoning my companions."

(End of this chapter)