worthless [rebirth]

After leaving Linglong Pavilion, Jiang Chi proposed to walk around Chaozhou City to experience the local customs and customs.Butler Li said that he was a guest from afar, and he could send a servant from the Xiao Mansion to lead Jiang Chi and the others, or directly let Cao Xun be his companion, but Jiang Chi declined with a smile.

"Why don't you let Cao Xun accompany us? Didn't you say before that it would be much more convenient for us to have a local accompany us?" Chen Ling was a little unpredictable, and couldn't help but ask Jiang Chi after Steward Li left. Late.

"Some things are better seen by yourself." Jiang Chi smiled at Chen Ling and said, "Let's go, let's go to the pier."

"Wharf?" Chen Ling was taken aback. Seeing the peddlers carrying grain on the street, he seemed to understand something. He raised his legs to follow Jiang Chi's footsteps, and headed towards the Lujiang Wharf.

Lujiang is worthy of being a fortress hub connecting Jiang, Qi and other countries. The tens of feet wide river is crowded with large and small ships transporting goods, some transporting tea to Wu State, some transporting cloth to Qi State, and others. Farmers use small boats to pull the grain they produce to sell in other towns. The boats come and go, which is very lively.

The embankments on both sides of the river are made of clay mixed with fine sand and gravel, which are more than one foot above the water level. In this way, even if there is a heavy rain and the water level soars, the strong embankment will not burst and cause disaster.

One Lujiang River is enough to support thousands of farmers in Chaozhou, not to mention the other two water systems of Muhe River and Yanhe River. Logically speaking, the life of the people will never be as poor as Cao Xun said, so poor that they would hate people when they saw people wearing fancy clothes. the point.

But soon Chen Ling and the others saw how Chaozhou officials oppressed the people, and they also understood why the farmers here have been in dire straits.

"What's on the boat?"

When Chen Ling and the others arrived at the Lujiang Wharf, several government servants in official uniforms were interrogating a farmer in gray linen.

The latter was wearing a short jacket covered with patches, the waist of the trousers was tied with a piece of cloth casually, and he was wearing shoes woven with straw ropes, without socks. With red bruises, he lowered his head and said submissively: "Return...Return to the official, this is my own millet. I heard that there are grain merchants in Maozhou who bought it at a high price, so I borrowed a small boat to transport it. Go and exchange some silver."

"Miuzi?" The yamen servant who looked like a small boss snorted, "Get out of the way, show me, don't be smuggled salt!" He bumped away the farmer with his shoulder and walked towards a small boat moored on the shore past.

There are still some laborers carrying goods on the shore, and the piled up boxes and sacks can just block Jiang Chi and the others, so as not to attract the attention of Yashan and the messenger over there.

Jiang Chi saw that there were three bulging sacks on the boat, and guessed that they should be the millet in the farmers' mouth.

The farmer was bumped by the arrogant leader, took a few steps back and almost fell into the river, but before he could stand still, he immediately ran to stop the yamen servant, saying: "The official is joking, how dare the little one sell it?" Private salt, if you get caught, you will have to turn around!"

"Boss Wang can just watch it if he wants to. Where are you talking so much nonsense!" The rest of the yamen guards pulled and pressed the farmer, and even one of them pulled out the saber from his waist as if threatening.

Jiang Chi frowned slightly.

"Why didn't the farmer let the officials inspect it? Wasn't the food on his boat?" Chen Ling lowered his voice.

Jiang Chi shook his head and said, "Not exactly."

Chen Ling glanced at Jiang Chi, and saw that the other party was paying attention to the movements on the other side of the pier, so he didn't say anything, and turned his head to carefully watch what happened next.

The leader walked to the side of the boat and took out a two-inch long dagger out of nowhere. He looked back at the struggling peasants with some contempt, and then plunged the dagger into the sack , and slowly drew a slit about five inches long on it.Immediately, golden grains "squeaked" out of the damaged part of the sack and fell into the river.

"No, sir!" Seeing the grain that he had worked so hard to grow into the river, the farmers' eyes were red with distress, but they were weak and weak, so they couldn't help these yamen servants, so they had to beg bitterly, "Master, these are small ones. A year's harvest!"

"Yo, it's really grain!" The leader laughed, stretched out his hand and grabbed a handful of stubborn grains in his palm, looking at the golden-yellow grains, the more he looked, the more he was satisfied. It is still ground to make pancakes, the taste must be fragrant and soft.Picking up a few grains, stuffing them into his mouth and chewing them raw, the leader scattered the remaining grains into the river, walked back a few steps to the side of the farmer, waved his hands to signal the two yamen servants to let go, and asked with a smile: "One year's harvest? "

After being freed, the farmer thought that things had turned for the better, and hurriedly nodded and said, "Yes, yes, yes! I beg the officials to show mercy!"

"It's easy to say, easy to say!" The man said, and asked again: "How many catties? If you want to pass through the pier, you have to pay taxes by the catty."

"No more, no less...three, three hundred catties..." said the farmer.

Paying taxes by the catty is clearly stipulated in the laws and regulations of Jiang Guo, so there is nothing wrong with the leader demanding to pay taxes, not to mention in Jiang Guo, even other countries are the same.

"Three hundred catties is three stones, and one stone pays for silver!"

Jiang Chi's face darkened. You must know that when the law was enacted, he stipulated ten Wen, and a penny was one thousand Wen.

"These bastards really ate the bear's heart and leopard's courage!" Jiang Chi cursed unhappily, and couldn't hold back his hand and smashed hard on the sack where he was hiding.

"It's really too much." Chen Ling frowned. I can't fit it anymore."

"Do you think they handed over all the tax money they collected?" Jiang Chi turned his head to look at Chu Ling, and smiled helplessly: "You know that every year, officials will ask me to reduce or exempt local taxes. "

"What relief? The tax is obviously a hundred times higher than before!" Chen Ling was surprised.

"Have you ever heard of pocketing?" Jiang Chi said, "I didn't expect those old foxes to hide me like this. While I ordered tax exemptions, they secretly raised the tax. The difference in the middle may all go into this Help the bastard's pocket!"

Jiang Chi and Chen Ling were talking when they suddenly heard a commotion from the pier.

"Come here, bring a bucket! Weigh the grain by the bucket!" The leader said, "You said it was three hundred catties, and a bucket is ten catties. If it is found out later that you underreported the weight of the grain for tax evasion, you will be jailed." of!"

As soon as the words fell, someone immediately took a bucket and weighed the grain.The sack on the boat was carried down, the sack was cut by a dagger, and the officials poured the grain inside into the bucket.

The bucket for weighing grain is in the shape of an awl, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, and the yamen servants didn't stop until the bucket was full until the tip came out.

"Well, it's getting sharper." The leader of the yamen servant thoughtfully looked at the millet that was about to overflow from the bucket, so he raised his foot and kicked it up, and said while kicking, "Master, make it solid!" Following him With the kicking movement, the bucket began to shake, and the food that was about to overflow was directly spilled on the ground.

"Ouch!" the farmer cried out in distress when he saw that the grain had been spilled.

The leader of the yamen servant gave him a blank look, and said: "What's the hurry, it's not over yet!" Then he said to the others: "Continue to measure!"

The remaining half of the incense burning time was spent in buckets, kicking buckets, and buckets. Three bags of grain fell, and almost one sack fell on the ground, but it was strange that it had already exceeded three Ten buckets.

According to the calculation of ten catties per bucket, three hundred catties of grain should be exactly thirty buckets, and there will be no situation where thirty buckets have not been measured.

"If my guess is correct, the buckets used by the yamen servants are not ten catties at all, but six catties at most." Jiang Chi said.

"They're bullying too much, no, I can't just watch them like this." Chen Ling said, and was about to go out to help, but was stopped by Jiang Chi.

"Wait a minute!" Jiang Chi signaled Chen Ling to look down for a while.

"Didn't you say 350 catties? Now it's [-] catties!" The leader of the pressure difference said: "Underreporting the weight, intending to evade taxes! You are so brave, you can't fart on my ginger law! Come on, Send him to jail!"

"The small one at home is indeed 350 catties. I don't know why it is [-] catties when I come to you!" the farmer argued.

The yamen servant was furious, kicked him in the stomach, and cursed: "You mean that the master can't cheat you! Come, send him to the prison!"

"Officer, please spare me!" The farmer fell to the ground, clutching his stomach and arching his waist, almost breathless in pain, and said, "Who doesn't know... if you enter the prison, you will have to peel off your skin if you don't die... I beg the official to hold you up!"

"What? Don't want to die? Why did you go?" The yamen servant kicked him again, spat, and said, "It's fine if you don't want to go to prison, as long as you pay five taels of silver as a fine!"

"Where did I get so much money..." The farmer wanted to cry but had no tears.

"If you don't have money, just go to the prison and stay in the prison!" the yamen servant said, raising his foot and kicking again.

"Wait!" At this moment someone called out to stop.

I didn't expect that there would be people meddling in this kind of nosy in Chaozhou's territory, and the yamen servant was stunned for a moment, but he really didn't kick it down.He turned his head and saw two young men in fancy clothes walking towards them. The sample wanted to scold "who the hell wants to meddle in his own business", but he changed it to "We will do it impartially, you two better not meddling" warning.

Jiang Chi clapped his hands and said with a smile, "What a fair way!" It's just that the coldness in his eyes made it hard to believe that he really praised it.

"..." Xu Shi was caught by the coercion of Jiang Chi's gaze, and the leader of the yamen servant involuntarily took a few steps back.When he soon realized that his fear was completely groundless, he regained his confidence, puffed out his chest, and said, "Are you going to fight against the government?"

"Don't dare!" Jiang Chi smiled and shook his head.

The farmer thought he had seen a savior, but when he heard Jiang Chi say he didn't dare, he was worried that he would go to jail, so he jumped up and wanted to hug Jiang Chi's thigh, but seeing that Jiang Chi didn't look as good as Chen Ling, he changed it to hug Chenling thigh, pleadingly: "Two young masters, please help me! I have an old man and a young man!"

"This..." Chen Ling moved his legs back uncomfortably, but was unsuccessful in being hugged.

Jiang Chi frowned slightly, pulled Chen Ling to his side, and said, "I'm just waiting for a grassroots, so I don't dare to fight against the government, but I heard that the fine is five taels, so I just brought some silver with me, so I'll pay it for him." .”

"You?" The yamen servant looked at Jiang Chi suspiciously, seeing that he seemed to be very rich, so he said, "If you want to pay, five taels is not enough, at least ten taels."

Chen Ling became anxious when he heard it, and felt that the other party was bullying too much, "Didn't you just say five taels?"

The yamen servant sneered: "It was just now, now is now, why, do you have an opinion?"

"you!"

"Ten taels is ten taels." Chen Ling wanted to say something, but Jiang Chi didn't let him continue. He took out ten taels of silver and threw it to the gang of yamen servants, saying, "Now you can release him."

"Let it go! Let it go, of course!" After getting the money, the yamen servant immediately changed his expression and said with a smile, "Let's let it go!" He kicked the farmer on the ground as he spoke, and said angrily, "Someone is begging for your mercy!" , hurry up!"

"The millet on the ground..." The farmer looked at the millet scattered all over the ground, and refused to leave for a long time.

"There is no reason for the grain falling out of the bucket to go back to the sack! If you don't leave, even ten taels of silver can't buy your freedom!"

"Thank you two sons..." The farmer loaded the little grain left in the sack onto the boat, thanked Jiang Chi and the two, and silently got on the boat and left with tears in his eyes.

"Sweep quickly!" As soon as the farmers left, the leader of the yamen servant immediately asked someone to take a broom and sweep the grains on the ground into piles and put them into the prepared sacks.

Jiang Chi watched coldly, feeling more and more unhappy.In the palace, he was well-clothed and well-fed, and the ministers and dignitaries in Beijing he saw were all glamorous. Who would have thought of staying away from the people in the temple, but the common people lived such a life of being oppressed. , going to prison and being oppressed and tortured by these yamen servants.

Chen Ling had mixed feelings in his heart. He was very emotional. Seeing Jiang Chi's expression suddenly fell silent, he knew that he must be feeling bad. He wanted to say something to comfort Jiang Chi, but he swallowed the words again.

He didn't know what to say.

"Let's go." Jiang Chi said calmly, didn't look at Chen Ling, and didn't even have any expression on his face, just walking ahead on his own.

Chen Ling let out a "hmm" and quickly walked a few steps to follow.

"Although Cao Xun said that Chaozhou officials often use 'kicking' to oppress the people." On the way back, Jiang Chi, who had been silent all the time, said, "But I saw with my own eyes that...all the millet was confiscated by the government officials. It's over. Why don't I want to stop them, but now is not the time..." There was a bit of depression in his tone that he couldn't even detect.

"You've done a good job, Chi." Chen Ling said, "You've really done a good job."

"Oh?" Jiang Chi stopped, turned around and looked at Chen Ling, meeting his beautiful black eyes, eyes full of affirmation.It was the first time he was encouraged and affirmed like this, Jiang Chi was taken aback.

"Although I don't want to admit it..." Chen Ling lowered his head and said softly, feeling uncomfortable being stared at by Jiang Chi, "But you are a good emperor."

"Oh..." Jiang Chi smiled lowly. At that moment, when Chen Ling said to him, "You are a good emperor", he suddenly regained his strength, raised his hand and rubbed the top of Chen Ling's head fiercely, and said with a smile: "I've heard so many things said by people today, but Mao'er's sentence is the best!"

"What cat..." Chen Ling pursed her lips, waved Jiang Chi's hand away, raised her head and feigned anger, and said, "Don't make fun of me about that night again."

"Don't make fun of it, don't make fun of it." Jiang Chi agreed, smiling undiminished.

Chen Ling curled his mouth and looked at Jiang Chi with a smile, his beautiful eyes were so clear.

The breeze blows, and the willows blow the embankment.