Crossing the green wheat ears

The season has entered October, and the weather is already very cold. The adults and children in the family are all wearing thin cotton jackets and thin cotton trousers.Some families in the village do not have the conditions to make two sets of cotton padded clothes, thin and thick, so they make a thicker one and wear it all winter.Xiyuan's family followed Xiyuan's words, no matter adults or children in the family, in addition to a set of fitted thin cotton jacket and thin cotton trousers and thick cotton jacket and thick cotton trousers, they also made another set of large cotton clothes specially for cold weather. Time to go out and wear.

Now, Xi Mingwen has to go to Ciyansui City every three days. When he leaves early and returns late, it’s colder outside. Grandma makes the big thick padded jacket for him early and wears it on his body when delivering food. cold.Xiyuan told Xi Mingwen to ask Shopkeeper Qi to bring back the goose down from the goose slaughtered in Judelou. He was going to discuss with his grandmother and mother to see if he could make a down jacket for his father. In the cold weather, Xi Mingwen would suffer a lot if he ran like this again in the coldest weather, and the big padded jacket on his body might not be able to withstand the cold air in the north.For the shoes on his feet, when Xiyuan went to Wande Town, he saw a store selling sheepskin boots and bought a pair for his father. Xi Mingwen wore them once and then took them off. Wear it when it's cold.

The life at home is peaceful. Xiyuan gets up every day to teach the three little guys how to read. After they have recognized the new characters, they review what they have learned before, and then let the three children use the tracing red book to trace the newly learned characters.The three little guys worked very hard, and basically they could master everything taught by their elder brother. Occasionally, Xiyuan failed to answer a question. to appease.

Because the students don't have to worry, the Xiyuan class is also easy to teach.Every time after class, Xiyuan would use the charcoal brazier at home to boil a small pot of pear syrup. Grandpa had a cough, which would occur in winter.So in autumn, Xiyuan and his father went to the big forest and picked a lot of wild pears and put them in the cellar. Although some were rotten, most of them were well preserved, but they would lose water after a long time, and they would not be juicy after eating. , but it is just right for boiling sugar water.Wild pears are a bit sour. Xiyuan cut the pears into small pieces and put rock sugar in them. After cooking, it tastes sweet and sour. It reduces phlegm and relieves internal heat. I don’t know if it’s the effect of pear syrup or psychological effect. Grandpa I also said that this year cough is less than in previous years.Xiyuan guessed that the psychological effect was greater.

Every time he boiled pear syrup for grandpa, Xiyuan would bring a portion for the two little guys, and now he added another pillar.At first Zhuzi refused to drink it. He knew that although the pears were wild, it was not easy to keep them till now. Besides, the rock sugar in them was very expensive, and his family didn’t buy them once a year, so Xiyuan gave him pears every time. Even though his mouth was full of saliva, he still shook his head and refused to take it. If Xiyuan gave it to him again, he turned around and ran away quickly.Later, it was grandma who told grandma Wang San, asking her to go home and tell her eldest grandson, don't be polite to what Xiyuan gives you in the future, just take it.Grandma Wang San also knows that now that Xiyuan accepts Zhuzi, she will not treat him as an outsider. If her family is too polite, she will be heretic, so she explained the truth to Zhuzi, and Zhuzi generously enjoyed Xiyuan with Xiwei Weicheng. It's delicious.

However, Grandma Wang and the others would bring some bad and infrequent food to Xiyuan's family every now and then.They are all passing through their lives, and no one is ashamed to eat and drink for nothing, even if it is just their own children.

On this day, Xiyuan was on the kang watching a few little guys writing, when the door of the main room slammed, Xiyuan heard the voice of the neighbor's aunt from the east.Although Xiyuan's family is next to Cong's, they are not very close.The Cong family used to look down on the Xi family. The old man and the old lady of the Xi family are brave (meaning capable), but unfortunately they are getting older. Xi Mingwen and his wife are both honest and honest. It seems that they are not promising at first glance, so meeting is just a face-to-face. There are few substantive contacts.

Cong's four sons, after getting married, the three younger ones separated and built an adobe house elsewhere in the village. Now Cong's aunt lives with the eldest, Conglin.From Cong's family's point of view, the boss, Cong Lin Ke, is much better than the neighbor's boss, Xi Mingwen. He is tall and burly, and he has a lot of contacts. He has a past with most capable men in the village, and he usually goes to Wande when he has nothing to do. Doing odd jobs in the town is more expensive than ordinary farmers.So they were polite to the honest Xi family on the surface, but actually they looked down upon them in their hearts.Grandma and grandpa knew that the family was a bit powerful, so they didn't take the initiative to curry favor with them.

I don't know what's going on today from my aunt.Aunt Cong is actually not a few years younger than grandma, and I don't know how they are called in the village, but she is just a generation younger than grandparents of the Xi family.Xiyuan didn't pay too much attention. Although he didn't have much past, his family and Cong's family were not without any contact.

After a long time, grandma entered the east room from the main room, and her face was a little ugly.Because there were a few little guys there, Xiyuan Ninja didn't ask, watching grandma stick her head into the cabinet, fumbled for a long time, and took out a small bag wrapped in a blue cloth gown.Xiyuan knew that inside the blue cloth gown was a flowered cloth bag, and inside the flowered cloth bag was an old handkerchief, and inside the handkerchief were scattered pocket money from the family.What does grandma do with the money?Seeing that grandma turned her back, Xiyuan opened the veil and took some money from it. Could it be that she borrowed money from her aunt and grandma?

Xiyuan watched with doubts as grandma put the blue cloth gown back into the cabinet, wrapped the copper coins in a cloth towel, and went out again.

After a while, Xiyuan heard grandma and mother seeing off the guests.He told the children to finish writing carefully, and then he got off the kang and came to the main room.

In the main room, after seeing off the guests, grandma was sitting in front of the basket on the table, rubbing corn while lost in thought.

"Grandma, what happened to you from your aunt just now?" Xi Yuan asked in a low voice.

"Come to borrow money!" Grandma also replied in a low voice.

"Borrowing money, isn't his family doing well? What are you doing borrowing money?" Xi Yuan was a little curious, why did he go to other people's houses to borrow money with his family's eyes above the top?

"It is said that when the boss went to the county to pay the land rent, he beat him, and he had to pay him several taels of silver." The corn in the basket was almost full, and grandma picked up the basket. Bag the corn together.

"He went to pay the public rations, why beat people?"

"You don't know, when it comes to paying land taxes, sometimes you catch up with the errands in the yamen to talk, and you can pay enough, and sometimes you will suffer a lot when you meet those wicked people." This Xiyuan listened to his grandfather. Talked to my father.

The imperial court divided the land into high-grade land, middle-grade land, and low-grade land. Among the three classes, there were nine classes in total. The yield per mu is calculated, but it is all thirty-one, that is, a ratio of 30:1. For example, thirty buckets of grain per mu should be paid to the yamen for one bucket.

Logically speaking, this tax is not too heavy, but in order to profit from it, there are often tax collectors in the yamen who are responsible for collecting grain. Dendrobium is used as a measuring vessel, and the people who pay the grain have to put grain into the dendrobium to calculate the amount of grain. The spilled food fell to the ground, and the people were not allowed to sweep back the spilled grain. It was said that it was to make up for the loss in the process of storage and transportation. In fact, the people in the yamen divided up the spoils privately.This is the so-called "drenched tip kicking dendrobium".Sometimes when encountering cruel subordinate officials, it is common to hand over a few buckets of food.So this year, Xiyuan's family didn't pay the food in the land tax, but paid it in silver money. One was because the family didn't have much food, and the other was to avoid being idle.

Today, Conglin, the boss of the family, went to pay the land tax with his brothers, but met a greedy errand, and was kicked hard. The boss felt angry, but he knew that he was an ordinary person, and he couldn't afford to mess with the people in the yamen. So the ninja didn't say a word.Because of a bad mood, when I came out, I didn’t pay attention to scratching each other with people who also came to collect food from other villages. The two of them fought together without holding back. To be honest, the beating was a pleasure, but there were villagers from the same village and relatives with the same surname. In the end, after mediation between the two parties, the beating family had to compensate the beaten taels as medical expenses.

"Hey, it's not easy to plant a little land all year round!" Grandma sighed.

"Grandma, look at you, your own family has nothing to worry about, but someone else's family is worried about it." Xi Yuan persuaded grandma.

"But yes, my eldest grandson is right." Grandma smiled.

"Grandma, do you have other things on your mind for you to think about?" Xiyuan didn't look like grandma really put it all down.

"You can't hide anything from my family, Xiaoyuan." Grandma smiled wryly.

"What's the matter? Tell me." Xiyuan said anxiously.

"It's okay, grandma just figured out that our family has nothing to do with the cong's family in that courtyard, and we don't usually walk around a lot. Why did your aunt from the cong's family suddenly come to our house to borrow money today!" Grandma sighed again Take a breath.

"Grandma, are you worried that anyone in the village will go to our house to borrow money in the future, and if you don't borrow money, you are afraid that if you don't come back, you will offend them for nothing?" Xi Yuan asked after thinking.

"That's right, grandma is just thinking about it like this, what if you said that everyone came to our house to borrow money!" Grandma worried.

"How much did you lend to your aunt today?" Xiyuan asked.

"She opened her mouth like a lion and wanted to borrow two pennies from me. I said our family didn't have that much money, so we saved enough money to buy donkeys. We only had 450 cash left in the family, which we used for emergency and to buy new year's goods for the time being." Yes. So I took [-] Wen for her. I thought she was too small to accept it, but I didn’t expect to take it too.” Grandma said anxiously.

"Grandma, that's all for now. Whether you come to borrow money or not is up to others, and it's up to us whether to lend it or not. What are you worrying about!" Xi Yuan looked at grandma helplessly.

"Oh, but it's true. I'm not a fool. When our family borrowed money from others, didn't they have money and didn't want to borrow it? I really don't know what to do if I have two dollars! "Grandma said with a smile.

"Yeah, I have to discuss it with my grandpa and my parents, and earn money at a leisurely pace in the future. I can't earn too much at once, or I'll make my grandma worry about me!" Xiyuan teased grandma with a bitter face, shaking his head.

"You child!" Grandma helplessly pushed Xiyuan's head down, and couldn't hold back her joy even after thinking about it.

The author has something to say: Regarding the issue of taxation in ancient times, Jin Yao turned to Du Niang for help.