sweeping the world

Chapter 725 Under the Calamity Year
Spring is supposed to be a scene of revival and vitality, but some areas in the northwest are covered with loess, and cracks can be seen on the ground.

Before the drought came, people who had been farming for a long time had actually seen the clues from the changes in the weather.

People who have been dealing with the land for a long time may be illiterate, but it does not mean that they do not understand some common sense, such as the rainfall throughout the year and the amount of snow in winter, and they can probably judge what kind of agricultural scene will be in the coming year.

In winter, there was only a light snowfall in the northwest, and the scene of auspicious snow heralding a good year is gone.

At the beginning of spring, people have been looking forward to a continuous and heavy rainy season, but only a few places had moderate or light rain for a few days, and some places didn't even have a drop of rain, and they realized that it was bad.

"The river bed has bottomed out!"

"No snow, no snow to melt and wet the ground."

"It's not raining, the river must be dry."

"Then what to do!"

In Liao Village, most of the people have the surname Liao. The surname Liao in the village migrated from Shu to Xiliang. According to legend, they are the descendants of Liao Hua, a general in Shu, but no one can come up with strong evidence.

Liao Village, located at the foot of the mountain, has 37 households with a total of 160 people. They belong to the jurisdiction of Rile County, and Rile is under the jurisdiction of Zhangye County.

Zhangye County was established in the Western Han Dynasty and belongs to one of the four counties in Hexi.The area under the jurisdiction of Zhangye County was originally the land of Kunxie King of the Huns. In the sixth year of Yuanding ([-] BC), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty divided the eastern part of Jiuquan County into Zhangye County.Take the meaning of "Zhang Guo's arms are tucked in to pass through the Western Regions".

The population of Zhangye County has not been large for a long time, and the past dynasties have been the frontiers of the country. Although it is located in a place that must pass through to the Western Regions, it has not been taken seriously. There will be no shortage of corvees, and how much tax should be paid by the government I will never forget, but it is not an exaggeration to say that my grandma doesn't love my uncle and doesn't hurt me. When the country has any good things, they never have their share.

Not only Zhangye County, there are too many similar areas, all of which have no sense of existence at ordinary times, and undertake the obligations of the country in obscurity. After something happens, it is difficult to get the government's due responsibilities after fulfilling their obligations. .

Liao Fang looked at the cracked ground with a distressed expression.His family has more than 100 mu of fields, located in a flat area at the foot of the mountain.

There is a stream not far away. The ancestors dug a small canal for water diversion. Liao Fang has been working hard to maintain the canal, but this year the stream dried up, and the canal could not draw water at all.

There is no water to irrigate the land, and there is no rain from God. The farmland will naturally be dry if it loses water. If there is spring, there will be scorching sun. How can the land not be dry and cracked?
Liao Fang was more than one person standing at the head of the field. This area was the farmland area. He knew that the land in the field was so dry that it could not be cultivated, but the owner of the farmland still came to take a look every day, and one after another had a sad face. Squat down on the edge of the field ridge.

It's spring, and it's time to get busy. Weeding, weeding, and overhauling, we wait for the time to start seedlings, and then bring a family of able-bodied people to the field to plant seedlings.

Today, although the signs of drought have been discovered, and the government has repeatedly sent people to the countryside to inform, the family that should be pregnant is still pregnant.

It's not that they don't believe the government's announcement, and they don't think there is something wrong with their eyes, but everyone has a "just in case" fluke mentality.When it was time to plant the seedlings, the seedlings at home were growing and consuming water every day. The expected rain did not fall, and no one had to laugh at who was stupid.

"The man who went upstream is back!"

"How about it?"

"The brook is dry, and the river that connects it is also dry!"

"Then what to do!"

They were lucky, thinking that the upstream village had cut off the water source. This kind of thing had happened in the past, and the young and strong in every household were ready to fight again for water.

This is all right, there is no village to cut off the water, even the rivers and streams are all dry, they just want to find someone desperately, but they don't know who to desperately fight with.

"It's all over!"

"It's over, it's really over!"

The stream is dry, the river is dry, but there are still wells in the village, even if the water level is very deep.

It’s not that no one has ever thought about getting water from the well to the farmland, but the old people in the village said in tears that it couldn’t be done, and people who understand things also objected. It is also very slow to fill. If the well is dried up, people will not be able to live.

"It's not just our village, it's like this in several nearby villages."

"The elders of several villages have been discussing, and I don't know if they can discuss countermeasures."

Liao Fang looked up at the scorching sun, the sun above his head was naturally very glaring, his eyes were so irritated that he lost his sight after watching for a while, and tears would flow down uncontrollably.

A burst of "dangdangdang" gongs came from the village, which was a signal to summon the whole village.

Liaojia Village was full of 160 seven people, and it didn't take long for them all to gather in the small square in the village.

The village head, Liao Yu, stood on a high place padded with a wooden shelf as usual during the gathering.This time, there was also a man from the government in a soap suit standing beside him, holding a roll of yellow paper in his hand.

"Men, old and young, calm down." Liao Yu's words were still very effective, and the sparse voice stopped, but everyone saw that it was not him, but the person in the suit beside him.He bowed to the man in the soap suit, but was avoided, and said without hesitation, "This man is familiar to everyone, and he is an official from the county. He brought a notice from the county."

Huang Yi wasn't considered an official, he was a small official in the county, he didn't have a specific official title, and he belonged to Wen Wuhai (the inspector of the Qin system), and what he did was go around the village to teach the Fa and post notices.

"Men and women of Liao Village, Huang will not repeat." Huang Yi was watched by anxious and anxious faces, suspecting that his nonsense would cause a riot, so he spread out the notice and read it directly. Three times, and then I had to choose a brief and emphatic statement: "Today, the Shang is compassionate and exempts from taxes for three years, and will no longer pay taxes this year, next year, and the year after. People who are out of corvee can go to the county to recruit workers."

During the calamity year, no one has any production. If they have to pay taxes, the moderate people should sell their sons and daughters and daughters-in-law. They are forced to sell their land, even themselves.If they are violent people, they should arm themselves. It is better to call friends and tigers roaring in the mountains and forests. It is not impossible to occupy villages or attack county towns and turn into rebellion.

In times of calamity, the government usually exempts taxes. It’s not because the government is so benevolent. In fact, the tax is not collected at all. It’s the local government who is not stupid or the county magistrate. Will beg the county, the county can only plead with the central, otherwise the people can't survive and rebel, then whose fault should it be?

It’s just that it’s not an easy task to request tax exemption from the central government. It requires the central government to send someone to conduct an on-the-spot investigation. How to get the officials who have been inspected to report the truth is a hurdle. Usually, it’s not easy to get the officials who have been inspected. Even if they can handle the inspection It also takes a long time for officials to get the tax-free official documents from the center.

When the bureaucracy is strict, the officials who come down to investigate may not dare to be corrupt, but if they are not attentive, they will inevitably be stumbled.He didn't dare to conceal the truth, but he could keep procrastinating until it was really impossible to procrastinate, and he didn't know how long it would take until the center had something to do with it.

If the country's officials are rotten, the officials who come down to investigate will never leave unless they are greedy enough. Even if they leave, they may not really use the money to do things. It is still what he should have done.

The national center will not easily exempt a certain area from taxation. It is not that the center is not human, but the local government can always find ways to request tax exemption. The central government really agrees to tax exemption, but the local people are still paying taxes. It went into the personal pockets of local officials.The local government will do everything in its power to cover up or evade the incident, and will report the savagery of the people to the central government. The local people will think that the officials who manage the country are all bad, and the blame has been blamed on the high-level officials who cannot really see the situation at the grassroots level.

"Officer Huang." Liao Fang waited to enter the link where he could ask questions, and immediately asked for instructions loudly, and asked after getting permission, "Did you bring the list of corvee service?"

There are 160 seven people in Liao Village, and nearly NO.35 are men aged over 50 and under [-].They are all people who have served corvee, so they naturally know that there is no subsidy if the corvee is not overdue, and they can use the public house when they go to eat and drink.

The corvée in the Han Dynasty is still very humane. Although the period of corvée service must be completed, people are allowed to serve corvée beyond the period. It is an alternative kind of part-time job. What is more reasonable is that after receiving the wages, you can directly buy food or cloth from relevant institutions. .

Generally speaking, the people under the rule of the Han Dynasty are not as afraid of corvée as before. They will be at risk because of the different scenes or things they work in. After they die, they can get a pension that was not available in previous dynasties, and they are willing to extend the period of corvée. Usually, they can take something home with them, which leads to the people's enthusiasm for corvee service that was not available in previous dynasties.

"Of course there is." Huang Yi didn't write any ink, and put away the re-rolled yellow paper notice, and later he had to post it on the dirt wall next to him, took out a wooden letter from his arms, and began to read the name, and finished counting. Seeing the disappointed expression below, Ming shouted: "Except for the seven people who should serve in corvee, the rest don't need to be disappointed. Today I miss the people in the county, and this year I specially pass down orders. Not only young men can go to the county government to recruit Workers, young and old, women and children can also go.”

Liao Fang was not on the list of corvee workers. Disappointed, he had already made up his mind to go to the county government to recruit workers. Otherwise, the family didn't have much food reserves, and the fields were dry and cracked, so they couldn't farm. Staying at home was just waiting to die.What he didn't expect was that not only could he go, but the government also accepted old and weak women and children.

"How merciful are you today!" Liao Yu is the village chief, and he is actually an official official. He gets his salary from the county every year.But he didn't say good things just because he was paid: "In the past years of natural disasters, no one would take care of us. It's different today, he will take care of us! But listen carefully, if the men of any household are in disaster If you don’t ask for a living, you will starve yourself to death. If you starve your parents, wife and children, you are inhumane!”

Many heads of the family, including Liao Fang, were thinking that they must be going to the county to recruit workers.Whether the whole family goes depends on the structure of the family members. The elderly or those without young children who are too old to move at home basically think that they should go.If there are old people and young children who cannot work in the family, it is natural for the wife to stay and take the children who can work with her.

There are people like Huang Yi in every village to deliver the official announcement. It is very clear that those who cannot wait to die at home in a disaster year will naturally respond. Before the date of calling for corvee, the people who should serve corvee will not wait. away from the county.In addition, those who want to recruit workers don't even need to wait, and even have to start early, otherwise they are afraid that they will lose their share.

Rile has been a county for hundreds of years, but because it is in the northwest frontier, it is not very prosperous. The county has full northwest characteristics, the city wall is yellow, the ground is yellow, and the inside is yellow except for the roof. Even in the spring of drought and disaster years It is also rare to see green.

Knowing that the disaster year is coming, no one in their right mind will wait for death. All villages and towns gather in the county. The rapid increase in the number of people in the city, which originally only housed about [-] people, makes the city look extremely lively. That kind of liveliness is boring. kind of.

"Brother." Liao Fang is 32 years old this year. His parents have passed away. He has a daughter-in-law and a 13-year-old child. The whole family has come to the county.The person he called his elder brother was a subordinate of the county magistrate, and the two were originally in the same robe: "Elder brother said that the recruitment quota is only five hundred?"

The person who was called elder brother was Zhang Yong. He was just an ordinary soldier, but he was a serious establishment in the county, not the kind of county soldier system that served corvee.Both he and Liao Fang originally belonged to Zhang's Liang army. I was a senior in Zhang's Liang army, and Liao Fang was once a soldier in his shrine.

After Zhang's Liang State was destroyed by the Han State, the regular army of Zhang's Liang State was reorganized. Some were added to various standing armies, and more were distributed to counties across the country. Liao Fang was one of them who was abolished. One of them, Zhang Yong, was lucky enough to be assigned to the territory of the original Liang Kingdom of the Zhang family, and more coincidentally, in the county where Liao Fang was located.

"There are more than a thousand households in the county, with nearly four thousand people. Taking out one out of nine is already a benevolent act." Zhang Yong spoke from conscience. Said: "The big man talks about the law in everything, not to mention that the brother is a small soldier, even the county lieutenant can hardly be placed."

Liao Fang immediately showed a disappointed expression, and asked how to recruit workers and how to make them more likely to be selected.

"It's not a secret anymore. The Han Dynasty is about to re-enter the Western Regions. The county is recruiting workers to raise some military supplies." Zhang Yong still looked around before saying: "The number of five hundred belongs to the old, weak and women. It is inconvenient." People come first."

Taking care of groups that should be taken care of more, the Han Dynasty continued to carry forward the virtues of Zhuxia characteristics, but Liao Fang immediately became more miserable, and his family was not in the right way.

"Apart from corvee and recruiting, there are other ways to survive." Seeing that Liao Fang was so depressed that he was about to cry, Zhang Yong said mysteriously: "Recently, some comrades have settled in, and I heard that they want to emulate what happened in southern Xinjiang. .”

Liao Fang didn't know that much, so he was stunned to ask questions.

(End of this chapter)