I served as an admonisher in the Song Dynasty

Chapter 226 Life is like a piece of grass! The survival problems of the people at the bottom of the Song Dynasty

The lower household was promoted to the upper household, which made poor households have to work more.

Reducing the upper household to the lower household makes the rich households have young servants.

The original intention of the exemption law was to reduce the pressure on the poor, but now the officials below have used it to enrich their own pockets.

Instead, it increases the burden on the poor.

The rich and poor situation of the people in the Song Dynasty changed frequently. A disaster or illness could make the rich peasants return to poverty.

The fifth-class books are all filled in by the staff at the bottom. Sometimes they are not updated for a long time, and sometimes they are updated suddenly.

It is often full of errors and omissions.

The grass on some people's graves is ten feet high, and their names are still on the labor books.

……

In front of the Yushitai gate, on the carriage.

Su Liang learned everything he wanted to know from Ge Shitou's mouth.

Ge Shitou, [-] years old, is from Gezhai Village, Dongming County, Kaifeng Prefecture. Both his parents are farmers, and his family has nine acres of fourth-grade farmland.

Among them, three acres were purchased after the policy on annexing farmland was enacted.

Due to the implementation of the exemption law, Dongming County Prime Minister Xu Dayou revised the fifth-class book and changed his family from a fifth-class household to a third-class household.

The villagers are telling his father that as long as he pays some "favorable fees", he can be changed back to a fifth-class household and reduce the free service fee.

But the autumn grain had not yet been harvested, and Ge's father had no money at all, so he planned to kill the three chickens Ge Shitou had raised and give them to Li Zheng.

Kudzu stone is not allowed because its mother is sick and needs eggs to nourish her body.

When Ge's father was killing the chicken, Ge Shitou had a big quarrel with him, and then rushed nearly a hundred miles to Bianjing City.

Ge Shitou felt that the culprit was County Prime Minister Xu Dayou.

Without Xu Dayou changing the fifth-class book, his chickens would not be killed and his mother would not be without eggs to eat.

He heard Su Liang's story from a storyteller, so he wrote a petition to look for Su Liang at the Yushitai, asking Su Liang to seek justice for him.

Su Liang thought about it.

First, he treated Ge Shitou to a full meal, and then arranged a place for him to rest at the Yushitai.

Su Liang is planning to go to Gezhai Village in Dongming County with his colleagues from the Reform Department tomorrow.

The most difficult part of the Song Dynasty's political reform was actually in the villages.

Dongming County is less than a hundred miles away from Bianjing City.

But most people in many villages in Dongming County have never been to Bianjing in their lives.

In their eyes, Bianjing City is in the clouds, and it is not a place where mud-legged people like them can go.

The countryside has its own logic for how to deal with people. This logic is more effective for them than "Song Xingtong".

In the eyes of those people who only know how to cultivate the land and weave cloth, the integrity of the village is the king's law, which controls the fate of all villagers, and even the power of life and death.

The common people were completely unaware of resistance.

Because their experience from childhood to adulthood has told them that if they offend someone in the village, it will be difficult to move forward or even survive.

In the village, only the rich and government officials have the right to speak and have dignity.

A petty official is like the Lord of Hell to some villagers.

There were many people's rebellions in the Song Dynasty. Most of the people actually followed the herd. They had no idea what was right or wrong.

Just because he followed the people in the village who had the right to speak, he fell into an abyss.

This way of cognition makes them fools.

When the people in the village told them that they needed to "use money to do things," they did not hesitate and did not think it was wrong.

They just want to live in peace.

And in order to live safely, they have exhausted all their strength.

Common people like Ge Shitou dared to sue the county magistrate to the Yushitai.

I'm afraid there is only one in ten thousand.

Maybe if he were two years older, he would have passed the rebellious stage and had some understanding of things in the village, so he would not dare to do this.

Fortunately, he met Su Liang.

If no one is found, and then the county government officials find out about it, his family's life may be difficult. Su Liang was thinking about it at the moment.

It is not a solution to the problem of Ge Shitou's family, nor is it a problem of Gezhai Village, nor is it a solution to the problem of Dongming County.

It is about how to eradicate this problem that exists at the bottom of rural areas throughout the Song Dynasty.

……

Early the next morning.

Two carriages and a cavalry appeared outside Xuande Gate.

Fan Zhongyan, Wang Yaochen, Liang Shi, Su Liang, Wang Anshi, Sima Guang, plus Ge Shitou, sat in two carriages.

Cao Hu led several plainclothes guards to protect Su Liang and others.

This matter was approved by Zhao Zhen.

Reform policies cannot always be written in the Reform Department; we must always go out and take a look.

Ge Shitou didn't expect that there were so many officials.

Before getting on the carriage, he whispered to Su Liang: "Su... Mr. Su, are so many people going to my house? My house may not have that much food to entertain you?"

Su Liang smiled slightly and patted his shoulder.

"Don't worry, we will take care of ourselves while we eat and drink. We will definitely solve your problem here."

Ge Shitou asked cautiously again: "Then... after the problem is solved, I... should I give each of you a chicken? I have no chickens at home!"

Hearing this, Su Liang couldn't help but feel sad.

Ge Shitou has lived in an atmosphere of "taking money to do things" for a long time. He has always felt that officials should benefit from doing things, and it is a matter of course.

Su Liang shook his head and said: "No need, I will give you some hens that can lay eggs then!"

Immediately, Su Liang looked at the bun in Ge Shitou's hand and asked, "Why don't you eat it?"

"I want to keep it for my mother. She has never eaten Bianjing's steamed buns. I want her to have a taste."

Su Liang rubbed Ge Shitou's head.

"It's hot and the buns will go bad in the afternoon. You can eat it. When you meet your mother, I will give her a box of snacks in the carriage."

"Really?" Ge Shitou was overjoyed.

After Su Liang nodded, he picked up the bun and stuffed it into his mouth, eating it deliciously.

……

After a while.

Everyone got on the carriage and drove towards the outside of the city.

Everyone planned to arrive at the Dongming County government office this evening and then explore in multiple ways.

In addition to the problem of equal households existing in the exemption law, they also want to see the effect of the implementation of the Green Crops Law and the Land Acquisition Suppression Law, as well as see what other problems the people have that need to be solved urgently.

Inside the carriage.

Fan Zhongyan, Wang Yaochen, Su Liang, and Ge Shitou were all riding in a carriage.

After Ge Shitou got acquainted with Fan Zhongyan and Wang Yaochen, he gradually started chatting and told the three of them many things in the village.

such as:

One of his cousins ​​jumped into the river behind the village because she did not want to marry a gambler. In the end, her body was not even found, and she was scolded by her father as a loser.

A cousin of his clan had an accident while pulling a boat, and his legs were broken. No one paid for the accident, and his wife ran away, leaving his seventy-year-old mother alone to support him and his five-year-old child.

……

Ge Shitou said it very easily.

These things seem to be the daily life of ordinary people. In addition to their village, such things are also happening in other villages.

No one thought of going to the government for help, and no one thought there was something wrong with the court's policies.

They have no idea who to complain to.

In their eyes, all bad accidents are fate, and they can only accept their fate and spend their lives scrupulously.

(End of this chapter)