Northern Dynasties

Chapter 21
Thirty miles is not too far away, Li Tai and his party arrived in Shangyuan Township in the afternoon.

Shangyuan is located on the east bank of Luoshui River, and half of the territory is hilly. The name of the mountain is Shangyan Mountain, and because of its shape, it is commonly known as Tiexian Mountain.It is not the Shangyan Mountain where Shangshan Sihao lived in seclusion in the early Western Han Dynasty, but this Shangyan Mountain also has historical sites in the Han Dynasty. The Longshou Canal used to irrigate Luoshui during the Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty passed through here.

These surface knowledge were all told to Li Tai by the county officials who were traveling with him.The county magistrate's name was Zheng Man, and he was not very happy about this trip out of the city on business, but when he learned that Li Tai was from the Li family in Longxi, he immediately became enthusiastic.

This feeling is probably similar to those outdoor variety shows in later generations, passers-by will always enthusiastically help those variety show stars.In ancient times, when the concept of aristocratic family was prevalent, Li Tai, who was born in the Li family in Longxi, was naturally full of star flavor, and it was easier to get the kindness of others.

The government office of Shangyuan Township is located in Shangyang Garrison on the south side of the hill. It is a small-scale dock wall built against the hills.The so-called head of the township is just a common name, not an official official title.

In the Northern Wei Dynasty, the system of three heads was implemented in the township. There was one head for every five households, one head for five neighbors, and one head for the party for five blocks. There was no so-called head of the township.

The so-called head of the township in the Western Wei Dynasty, the official name is the supervising corporal, and it is not the head teacher who manages the classroom discipline, but the grassroots official who urges the collection of taxes. It is also a variant of the military-first politics of the overlord regime in the Western Wei Dynasty.

"Gao Situ's farmland is not equal to the land, and the rent and transfer are exempted. However, the country's use is difficult, and the Daxingtai Xunshi who receives rewards of land and acres needs to transfer products to help the military. Therefore, it is necessary to send to this Report to the Township Governor's Office."

Arriving outside the Shangyang garrison, Zheng Man explained to Li Tai, and then leaned closer and said in a low voice: "The order is new, and the format of the output is not yet determined. If the harvest in the field fails and it is inconvenient to use, there are also some flexibility. "

Li Tai smiled knowingly after hearing the words, but he still felt weird in his heart. Can you, a civil servant, teach me how to dig the corners of the imperial court?
Shangyang Garrison is the place where soldiers from Zuojin Township gather to practice during the slack season, but at the end of spring and early summer it is the busy farming season. Li Tai saw many farmers working in the fields all the way from Huazhou City, so he naturally had no time to practice martial arts.

Therefore, there are only a dozen slave soldiers stationed in this fortress, and even the garrison master is not in the fortress. When he stepped forward to ask, it turned out that he had gone to work in the fields.

Under Zheng Man's repeated urging, a slave soldier reluctantly went to look for the garrison master.

Everyone waited for another half an hour outside the fortress, and the lord of the garrison arrived late riding a nasty horse. He was a tall and strong middle-aged man in his forties with a hat on his head, and his trouser legs were rolled up. There is a lot of mud.

"It's you, Zheng Chou, who came to trouble me again and missed my farming work! If the harvest fails, my family will go to your house to beg for food!"

The guard who looked like an old farmer pointed at Zheng Man and cursed from afar.

"You clumsy man, don't be disrespectful in front of nobles! This time I entered the township, it was the garden where the high-ranking Situ was rewarded in the Kuoding Dynasty. This gentleman works in the government, and he is also the direct blood of the famous Li family in Longxi. He is willing to work in your township. It is to add glory to your hometown!"

Zheng Man was also used to the vulgarity of the villagers. He first laughed and cursed, then pointed to the lord and said to Li Tai: "This one is the lord Zhou Changming here. Although his description is vulgar, he is also a strong man of righteousness in the country."

Li Tai got off his horse and cupped his fists and said, "Hello Zhou Shuzhu, I am new to your hometown to make a living. If my words and deeds touch the local customs, I hope Shuzhu will give me some advice."

"People from Longxi? Why do you come into my hometown! I don't care what high-ranking official you are, just remember that you are not allowed to harm my hometown. The land outside is vast, but this town has its own rules! The local son is not afraid of fighting for his life!"

The governor obviously had never heard of the famous Li family in Longxi, and he was very resistant to Li Tai and other outgoing visitors, and his words were not polite.

Li Tai is not a resigned character, so he sneered after hearing the words: "The homeless people live only with blood and a bow and knife in their hands! People don't disturb me, I don't harm others, if it is true Unfortunately, there is a loss of harmony, life and death are small matters, and spirits are big matters!"

Hearing this, the guard's expression also changed, he stared straight at Li Tai, and after a few breaths, he went straight to the inside of the castle, ignoring everyone.

"Zhou Changming was angry this time, and it wasn't directed at Li Lang. Since Daxingtai ruled Huazhou, most of the state's public lands have been cut off to honorable ministers. The army is arrogant and tyrannical, and often duels with the villagers. Li Lang is a well-known gentleman, Nature has the art of governing people, and if they don't interfere with each other, they won't hurt harmony..."

Zheng Man saw that Li Tai looked a little ugly, so he hurriedly stepped forward to persuade him.

After Li Tai heard the words, he just nodded and didn't say anything else.When he was poor, even Zhao Gui, a general of the Western Wei Dynasty, dared to insult and offend him, so naturally he was not afraid of the provocation from the villagers.However, going out of the city and going to the countryside is ultimately for the purpose of sinking and developing, and I don't want to make the relationship with these villagers too stiff.

After a while, Zhou Changming, the lord of the garrison, came out of the fort and threw a deed to Li Tai: "In the past seventeen hectares of gardens in the north, we planted valleys in the open air and planted mulberry in the mountain fields. Don't blame me for acting in accordance with the king's law to remove and destroy it!"

After saying this, the garrison master strode away.

After this unpleasant meeting and handover was over, after getting the land deed, Li Tai rode his horse and wandered around the fort to observe the terrain, thinking about how to attack the fastest way to break through.

Zheng Man didn't know what Li Tai was thinking, but seeing him lingering and refusing to leave, he guessed it was not a good thing, so he hurriedly stepped forward to persuade him: "It's getting late, the garden industry still needs to measure and make books..."

Li Tai then turned around, waved to Buqu and continued on the road, rushing to the field of distribution.

Although the Shangyuan is half of hills, the hills are not barren hills with abrupt cliffs and rocks. They are all covered with thick soil layers.

The farm is located more than ten miles north of Shubei, and on the way, it passes a rural grass market set up on a plateau, where some elderly women sell agricultural by-products and some simple farm tools.

Li Tai has already felt the anti-foreign sentiment of the villagers from Zhou Changming, the garrison lord. He was worried that after the conflict intensified, he might not be able to buy anything he wanted, so he stopped for a while and asked Li Zhusheng to go to the original place with a few followers to buy some village houses. Necessities, be prepared.

Their group of hundreds of people marched mightily in the countryside, attracting the attention of the villagers working in the surrounding fields.A few young and bold villagers even followed behind the team with wooden sticks, looking around to find out their movements.

It took another half an hour before Li Tai and his party arrived at their destination, a piece of land between two slopes.Zheng Man got off his horse and searched for boundary stones nearby, while Li Tai rode forward and looked at the field.

This piece of land is newly reclaimed public land by the county, and the title deed states that it was reclaimed in the seventh year of Datong, that is, the year before last. This year, it has not been cultivated due to rotation.

The reason for the rotation of cultivation is not that the land is damaged. Zheng Man explained that it is because of the defeat of Mangshan and the lack of labor force in the county. The newly reclaimed land usually needs to be planted for three years to maintain the land. If there is sufficient manpower, even rotation cultivation will not be so large. , but a small piece of a small piece of rotation.

If there are conditions for intensive farming, it is farming one row at a time.

Because there is no tillage this year, many weeds have grown on the ground.In the distance, some villagers were driving pigs and sheep to graze. Seeing Li Tai and a group of people pouring into the field, they drove the livestock to the distance, and some people carefully picked up the pigs and sheep with baskets on their backs. stool.

"The boundary stone is here!"

Zheng Man stood beside a ditch, wiped the sweat from his brow, and pointed to the stones under his feet.

Li Tai walked over quickly, frowned after looking at it for a while: "Has this boundary stone been moved?"

The title deed states that the western boundary of the pastoral area is located along the east edge of the ditch, but now the boundary stone is a full mile away from the ditch, revealing more than ten acres of land, and those lands are already full of crops and green seedlings.

Not far away, a few farmers were standing by the ditch with hoes in their hands and looking out. Others were running towards the village at a fast pace, and they kept shouting to the field, obviously trying to shake people.

As Li Tai frowned, Li Zhusheng and the others had already put their hands on the saber.

Seeing this scene, Zheng Man sweated profusely on his brow, pulled Li Tai and said in a low voice: "The villagers are diligent in plowing and cherishing the land. It is inevitable to see the good land abandoned. Since the deed is defined as [-] hectares, there will be no shrinkage." I beg you to allow me to measure again in a short time, and make a new field book..."

Li Tai didn't have the idea of ​​being abusive in the village, and he didn't even think that the villagers encroaching on the land was a hateful way of making trouble for the people.

In ancient society, there were distinct classes. Compared with those aristocratic families who were polite on the surface but were actually cannibalistic, the low-level villagers used cunning tricks to make a living, which is really not morally corrupt.

If the villagers who occupied the land were willing to explain it to him in a nice voice, he would definitely not care about it, but seeing that more and more villagers gathered by the ditch, it seemed that they had no intention of talking properly, and he was inevitably a little angry.

"You stay here first, if anyone dares to cross the line, just beat them out!"

Li Tai gave instructions to Li Zhusheng and others, and then signaled Zheng Man to start measuring the fields.

Zheng Man carried a thick and long measuring rope, tied one end to the boundary stone, and pulled out the other end on horseback.

The measurement of hills and mountains is a bit more troublesome. A mountain is more than [-] meters high, and the part that can be used for farming only reaches the mountainside.

Li Tai followed Zheng Man over the top of the mountain, and saw a gentle valley with many bamboos and wild fruit trees growing in the valley, and a gurgling stream, the scenery is very beautiful, the eastern boundary stone is at the foot of this mountain .

Li Tai walked directly across the valley, stood on the opposite hillside and looked at it again, the more he looked at it, the more he liked it.

When he was about to turn back, he saw the Hu man named Poyetou Baolu who was following him, directing them to come here carrying the boundary stone.

"My lord, our open field has been invaded. That Zheng Zong originally said that he would add it elsewhere. The boundary stone can be moved a thousand steps eastward. The servant has long legs. Where should the boundary stone be placed?"

Hearing what this guy said, Li Tai's mood also improved. He pointed to the hillside to the east and said with a smile, "If you can cross the mountain with a thousand steps, I'll give you half a fat sheep tonight!"

Hearing this, Po Yetou Baolu was so happy that his molars were exposed, he strode towards the hillside in stride, still counting the steps: "Four hundred and thirty-five, two hundred and fifty-seven... "

Zheng Man simply sat in front of the bamboo forest in the mountain stream, and did not follow the inspection at all. Li Tai was very happy when he saw this, and raised his hand to call Li Yantou, and told him to bring two lambs bought from the plateau to Zheng Man later.

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(End of this chapter)