Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 74 What shall we eat?
Zhao Xin wanted to go to Sendai Domain to pull people, but what he didn't know was that Sendai Domain had already fallen into a huge predicament due to famine.

It is said that in addition to four major famines in the Edo period, the "Horari famine" centered on the northeastern region of Honshu, which occurred in the second year of Horeki (1753) to the sixth year of Horeki (1757), is considered to be the second The most serious regional famine in Tianming and Tianbao.

Because of the famine in Baoli, coupled with the general request of the shogunate, the financial burden of Sendai domain was greatly increased.

You must know that the general request of the shogunate in the Edo period was based on the stone height system. The Tokugawa family had already investigated the foreign daimyo with a height of 62 stones like the Date family and more than 200 million stones in private. Clearly.

Take advantage of your illness to kill you!Hurry up and start the large-scale project. This bridge is repaired by Date's family, and this city wall is also yours.

But the Date family is still dying to save face, financial difficulties do not talk about saving, and they insist on maintaining their own gorgeous and majestic style.

Since Date Masamune went to Kyoto to meet Hideyoshi during his reign and staged a grand parade of 3000 people, later generations began to call those who behaved exaggeratedly and gorgeously as "Date people" or "Date men".Therefore, even if the successive lords of the Sendai Domain do not compete with the Tokugawa family for the world, they must inherit the one-eyed dragon's family tradition.Shenqin's confession became an excellent occasion to compete with the Tokugawa family and the various feudal clans.

The finances are so tense, and the number of people who attend duty every time can't be less than 480. (The one with the largest number of people in history was when the eighth-generation general Yoshioka was in power. The Sendai Fan's attendance team was as high as [-] people. .)
Under the huge financial pressure brought about by the death to save face, the Sendai Domain has resumed the previously abolished "Mishishi Law" since the first year of Tianming.One was to forcibly purchase the tribute rice distributed to the retainers in the domain at a low price, and the second was to buy the rice remaining after the farmers paid the annual tribute at a lower price, and then transport it to Edo for sale to make up for the financial shortage of the domain.

The consequence of the Sendai clan's actions was that the farmers' homes in the clan did not keep rice, nor did the local tyrants. As a result, rice smuggling was rampant and the price of rice soared.

When the "mountain back" frost disaster came in the second year of Tianming, the Date family didn't take it seriously, and they didn't buy grain from other high-yield areas.Therefore, when the spring of the fourth year of Tianming came, the famine broke out in the territory immediately, and the leaders at all levels in the vassal panicked immediately, because there was no food to give!
By the end of February in the fourth year of Tianming, hundreds of townspeople and farmers in the Sendai Domain had been starved to death.Of course, those landless peasants who fled to the Sendai Domain were "inhumans".Those who are not human are not human at all, so no one cares about how many people die every day, and they are not included in the official statistics.

Katayama Kanbei, the co-heart of the Matsushima-cho practice office, dragged his exhausted body back to his home.Since Zhengdan, he has been busy dealing with robbery and fights every day.Due to the outbreak of the famine, Matsushima, which was originally peaceful, was also in chaos.

As the disaster continues to intensify, there have been cases of cannibalism in surrounding villages.

This morning, Katayama received an order from Honmachi. In a black market outside the town, someone disguised human flesh as dog meat for sale, and he needed to lead a team to arrest him immediately.

After Katayama Kanbingwei led a dozen of his men and more than 100 other concentrics to act together, and wiped out the black market dealers, he discovered that those bastards were chopping up the meat of the newly dead and stirring it together with weeds and leaves. , Put it in a basket pretending to be dog meat for sale.

Katayama Pian'er jumped violently on the spot, pulling out his knife, and he was about to slash those bastards. Fortunately, everyone hugged him desperately, and those bastards who sold human flesh escaped.

Several colleagues kept persuading him, why bother with these bastards, anyway, their final fate was to be sent to the beach to be "shot". (Tie the person to the rack, and then stab to death with two spears, one left and one right.)
However, one of the arrested bastards sneered at Katayama Kanbei who was being hugged with a nonchalant expression: "If you samurai masters hadn't taken away all our food, we would Why do you want to do this! Sir, tell me, what do we eat?!"

Yeah, what do they eat? !

After Katayama Kanbei came out of the training center, all he could think about was that person's roar.Not to mention the peasants, even the lower-level warriors like them are almost at a loss at home.

Fanli forcibly purchased tribute rice paid as wages at a low price. At the same time, the price of rice on the market soared, and the money in exchange could not buy much food at all.After the famine broke out, the price of rice doubled again.

If Sheng Haizhou hadn’t donated 20 taels of fine before leaving last year, Katayama Kanbingwei’s family would have starved to death.

"Master, there's not much rice at home." During dinner, his wife Duo He said softly.

Katayama Kanbei heard the words and put down his chopsticks and rice bowl involuntarily.

"Sir, tell me, what do we eat?!"

The peasant's contemptuous and angry face appeared before his eyes again.

"Master, what's the matter with you?" The wife put down her tableware and looked at Katayama Kanbei worriedly.

The two daughters are still young, it is time to eat.At this moment, I was holding a bowl of brown rice, with a little pickle and seaweed pickled at home, and it was very sweet.

"I ate quite full at noon, and I'm not hungry now. Let's eat." Katayama smiled at his family, then got up and left.

His wife, Duo He, stared at her husband with a worried look on her face.

Katayama Kanbingwei's home is only more than 30 ping, which was left by his grandfather.Otherwise, with his little salary, he couldn't afford it at all.In the small yard, there are more than a dozen radishes, a few eggplants, and a little green onion.

Katayama Kanbei, sitting under the corridor, looked into the distance, not knowing what he was thinking. "Gu~gu~" A protest came from his empty stomach, and he raised his hand and rubbed his stomach with a wry smile.

The sound of footsteps sounded beside him, and Duo He took the bowl of rice he had left behind and placed it in front of Katayama, and put down a pot of hot tea.

"The rice is cold, let's eat it with tea soup." Duo He didn't point out her husband's lie about being full at noon. She was just worried that the only man in the family, the head of the family, must not fall.

"I went to buy rice today, but I didn't expect that the price of a liter of rice in the rice shop had risen to 105 yuan. At that time, I didn't bring enough money, so I ran back and took some money. When I went again, the price of rice had risen to [-] yuan. Money. Where are many neighbors scolding the shopkeeper for his black heart."

(As mentioned earlier, in the Edo period, one stone of rice was put together in ten buckets, which equaled 130 liters, which is about 2 kilograms today. In the era when rice was the main source of food, a family of four a day had to eat 1.5 kilograms of rice. OK. If it is a coolie, at least 2 to [-] kilograms of rice a day is enough for a person.)
"Oh? No one cares?" A trace of anger flashed in Katayama's eyes.

"I heard that the owner of the rice shop has attached himself to Lord Ishikawa, who dares to care."

Mr. Ishikawa is the elder of the Sendai clan, Ishikawa Cunwen.This person is the ninth generation head of the Kakuda Ishikawa family. In the 12th year of the Horeki (1762), the 13-year-old Ishikawa Murakami inherited the family governor and became the head of the Kakuda Ishikawa family.

Duo He's tone was relaxed and flat, as if he was talking about other people's parents.

"Is there enough money at home?" Katayama Kanbei asked in a low voice, turning to look at his wife.

"Don't worry, there's still a lot left over from the 20 taels that your friend gave you last year. Tomorrow I'm going to buy some more rice so that the rice store won't raise the price again."

Katayama nodded after hearing the words, expressing his approval of his wife's decision.

"Master, when do you think this famine will end?" Duo He said worriedly.

Katayama shook his head and sighed.As far as the situation is concerned, where is the head?

Suddenly, a person flashed through his mind, and he remembered saying to himself last year that this famine looked like it would take at least five or six years to end.

"Ah, what's wrong with that young man Sheng Haizhou?" Katayama patted his forehead, and then, Zhao Xin's figure and that weird boat appeared in his mind.

"Let's eat quickly, the tea will be cold in a while." His wife Duo He reminded Katayama worriedly, then got up and went back to the house.

"I haven't eaten eel rice for a long time." Katayama thought silently.

The Takasakiya restaurant in the town, which specializes in eel rice, suddenly closed a month ago, and the owner and his wife have left Osaka to seek refuge with relatives.

Katayama poured the hot tea into the bowl and thought to himself, "Katsumi, spring has come, will you guys come back?"

"My lord, the pier has been laid." Sheng Haizhou said after giving Zhao Xin a salute.

Zhao Xinyan said, and immediately got off the watchtower, ready to go to the beach to see the situation, Sheng Haizhou and Li Ji followed closely behind Zhao Xin.

Liu Sheng and the others have been gone for seven days. If there is no accident, they should return the day after tomorrow.If the aborigines who launched the attack can be dealt with by them, then Zhao Xin can lead the team away with peace of mind.

Walking to the beach, Zhao Xin saw that the simple dock modules he bought had all been assembled.The long light red trestle looks like a pair of big hands, spreading out from the beach to the sea, and the longest trestle extends more than 200 meters away.

"Has the water depth been measured there?" Zhao Xin turned his head and asked Sheng Haizhou.

"I tested it with a rope tied with a hammer. The shallow water area here is very short. At the southernmost trestle, the water depth has exceeded forty rooms." Li Ji said quickly.

A room in the ancient island country is 6.3 feet, which is about 1.82 meters in modern times.Zhao Xin calculated in his mind, okay!The water depth is more than 70 meters.What a natural deep-water port!
He then said to the walkie-talkie on his shoulder: "Deng Fei, Deng Fei, do you hear me? It's over."

Soon, Deng Fei's answer came from the walkie-talkie.Zhao Xin then told Deng Fei that the wharf had been erected, and the water depth at the southernmost end of the trestle was more than 70 meters, so the Thunder God could be brought over to dock.

In other words, the docking process of large ships is a very troublesome thing. Generally, the mooring cable can only be docked by the tugboat or the jacking or pulling operation.Zhao Xin originally wanted to buy two full-turn port tugboats, but the problem was that no one drove them.Driving a tugboat is not like driving a yacht, it requires strong professional skills.

In response to this situation, Thor had two fixed side thrusters at the bottom of the bow. During the early reconstruction, two computer-controlled pod side thrusters were installed at the stern (the propulsion motor was placed in the The outside of the cabin is directly connected to the propeller, which can be rotated horizontally within 360° to achieve vector propulsion.) This thing is easy to use, but it is very troublesome to maintain and expensive.

On the Thor, Deng Fei stared nervously at the three computer screens in front of him, carefully manipulating the bow and pods at the bottom of the ship.If he hadn't been guarding it during the early transformation of Thor, he wouldn't be able to play this thing.

A few hours later, Deng Fei, who was nervous and sweating profusely, finally slowly docked the boat beside the simple trestle bridge with a width of five meters.On the shore, Zhao Xin and a group of more than a dozen people hurriedly tied several cables thrown from the boat to the bollards.

After the ship stopped, the huge iron anchor dropped, and everyone let out a sigh of relief.After the gangway was lowered, veterinarians Liu Zheng, Pan Xiucheng, Hengji, Yalha and others started to board the boat, preparing to bring the horses down.

"Sir, we also want to help." On the beach, a prisoner of Qing soldiers suddenly got up and walked towards Zhao Xin who was walking back to the shore.

"Go back and sit down!" Kuzang took out his sharp samurai sword and shouted sharply to the Qing soldier.

Zhao Xin turned his head and squinted his eyes, staring at the Qing soldier who came up to speak for a while, and then asked, "Do you speak Chinese?"

Seeing Zhao Xin asking himself, the prisoner hurriedly got up and knelt down and said, "It will be a while. The villain had been to Sichuan before and beat Xiao Sha Luoben with Da Shuai (General Agui of Dingxi)."

"What's your name? Old Manchurian or Kulkazy?"

"The villain's name is Samusu, he is from Kulkaqi, and his family is in Hunchun. His ancestors lived in the Yellow Banner in the third year of Tiancong. They moved from Suifen, Usuli, to Hunchun in 54 years of Kangxi."

In history, the father and son of Nurhaci and Huang Taiji conquered the outer northeast and brought under their command various ethnic minorities in the Suifenhe, Wusuli and Heilongjiang rivers. Among them, the most killed were the Xibo people.Although these aborigines also continued to resist, it is a pity that the scattered aborigines tribes with outdated weapons could not defeat the wolf-like Manchurian Baja Lajia soldiers, and finally had to surrender.

Zhao Xin thought about the information he had read before, nodded and said, "This place is thousands of miles away from Hunchun. Even if you escape, you won't get out of the mountain alive. Are you all aware of this?"

Samusu lay on the ground, kowtowed, and said, "The villain knows. You and your subordinates are gods descended from the earth, and the villain dare not have any unreasonable thoughts. All I want is to exchange for a few meals. Full meal. If the villain tells a lie, he would rather be struck by thunder."

After Zhao Xin listened to Samusu's strange-sounding Chinese, a faint smile appeared on his face.

(End of this chapter)