My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 566 What If?

Therefore, the process of bankruptcy for a self-sufficient farming family is quite obvious.

At first, they cultivated a hundred acres of land and ate more than 280 shi of grain every year. They couldn't get rich, but they were also unlikely to starve.

Then, a sudden change causes your hundred acres of land to shrink by half.

You still try your best to maintain the cultivation of your hundred acres of land through a combination of renting and self-cultivation, but the output has shrunk to 80% of what it used to be, or even less.

This is undoubtedly adding insult to injury for your already strained family finances.

The extra hole you create for no reason can only be borrowed, and in the end, you still have to borrow from the landlords who have the most surplus grain.

And so the nightmare began.

—A landlord who takes advantage of your family's misfortune to seize your land is clearly not a kind-hearted person.

When they borrowed grain from him, they came up with all sorts of schemes: nine outs and thirteen returns, small measures for outs and large measures for insufficiency, and interest that seemed to snowball...

Go ahead and lend it to them; they don't say a word once they borrow it.

After borrowing for three to five years, the landlord came to his door and said that he had borrowed too much, and the interest had compounded to several hundred bushels of grain.

You naturally can't repay it.

If you can't even survive on a deficit of several dozen bushels of grain every year, how can you possibly have the resources to pay off your debts?
The landlord, of course, knew that you couldn't pay me back.

They'll lend you money even when you can't repay it, which means they're eyeing the land your family has left.

And just like that, the grain debt accumulated over the years caused you to lose another ten acres of land.

After that, the speed at which you borrow grain, owe grain, and lose land will naturally become faster and faster.

In just over a decade, the remaining forty or fifty acres of land were also 'eaten up' by your large family.

You fell into deep thought.

—They are working hard to cultivate the land and survive. They are still cultivating 100 acres of land. Why is this family getting poorer and poorer and why is it becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet?
But nobody cares about your contemplation.

The rolling wheels of time are like flower thieves, not caring whether you like it or not, only leaving their marks on you.

Having lost all your land, you became a tenant farmer through and through.

They still cultivate a hundred acres of land, but at least 30 to 40 percent of the total harvest must be given to the landlords as 'rent'.

The deficit is even greater than before; you can no longer support this large family.

There's no other way but to lay off employees.

—Son, you sent me to a distant relative's house, supposedly to help out and get some food, but in reality, you're just handing me over to be their slave.

Your daughter, too, you sold her to the landlord, supposedly to be his concubine, but in reality...

After 'slimming down' for your family, your stress has lessened a bit.

But once the landlords have set their sights on you, they're not going to let you go.

Even a self-sufficient farmer can be reduced to a semi-self-sufficient farmer by a sudden change in circumstances. Now that you have become a tenant farmer, your ability to withstand risks is naturally further weakened.

Inevitably, at some point, they will have to borrow money and grain again, borrowing from landlords and wealthy people.

Even if you're lucky enough to never borrow money from a landlord, they can still keep you on a tight budget and slightly increase your rent.

You, who were just breaking even, were suddenly manipulated by a wealthy landlord who was constantly calculating with his abacus. It was just a side effect of his actions.

Just like before, they gradually 'ate up' their own dozens of acres of land.

This time, it's your turn to be eaten up little by little by the landlord.

In just twenty years, you, who originally owned a hundred acres of land and had a harmonious family, became a servant of a landlord.

Barring any major unforeseen event, your descendants—generation after generation—will be enslaved and subservient to the landlords, and may even be grateful to them for saving your lives.

But what's interesting is that at the beginning, the hundred acres of land you cultivate are all your own.
Later, in addition to the fifty mu of land you cultivated yourself, the fifty mu of land you rented out was also sold to the landlord.

Once you become a tenant farmer, you'll rent a full hundred acres of land from the landlord—and coincidentally, it's the very same hundred acres that were originally yours.

Now, you have become a servant of the landlord, and your job is still to cultivate this hundred acres of land—still cultivating this ancestral farmland that rightfully belongs to you.

But the output from those 100 acres of land has absolutely nothing to do with you anymore...

Looking at the process by which you lost those 100 acres, everything seems perfectly reasonable.

—At least it's legal.

But judging from the results, this is clearly unacceptable.

From beginning to end, the 100 acres of land are still the same 100 acres, and you are still the same you;
The only thing that has changed is the ownership of these 100 acres of land and the right to distribute the final output.

This is the core reason why land annexation in the feudal era could become a death knell for dynasties.

So, what role did Shanglin Garden, the regulatory valve created by Emperor Taizu of Han (Liu Bang), play in this process, and what kind of 'regulatory' function did it have?

To use the same example again—you are a self-cultivating farmer who is granted 100 acres of farmland by Emperor Gaozu.

Then your family encountered a misfortune, selling off more than half of your farmland, and in the following years, selling off the rest as well.

You have completely transformed into a tenant farmer.

Without the Shanglinyuan as a regulator, your future fate would have been to be exploited by landlords and become a hereditary slave serving them generation after generation.

But with the Shanglin Garden, everything changed.

—When you encounter misfortune and sell more than half of your land, you will be included in the local county government's inspection list.

When you sold all your land and became a tenant farmer, the county magistrate was very angry.

It's not because you're related to the county magistrate, but because you, as a self-cultivating farmer, were originally the county magistrate's achievement.

Now that you've become a tenant farmer, the local population, registered households, and acreage will all decrease, effectively reducing the county magistrate's achievements.

The county magistrate was angry, but he was unwilling to clash with the landlords who exploited him.

After all, political achievements are political achievements, and wealth is wealth.

Children make choices, mature officials choose to have it all. So, the county magistrate had no choice but to accept the reality that you, a self-cultivating farmer, would be exploited by the landlord and become a tenant farmer—after all, the landlord was sensible, and the county magistrate had taken plenty of benefits from him.

But the county magistrate still hasn't completely given up on you as a person, your household registration, and the land you own.

In an effort to make amends and salvage the situation, the county magistrate reported you to the Chang'an Inner Secretariat.

Upon learning that you were originally a self-cultivating farmer but have now become a tenant farmer, the Inner Historian's office attached great importance to this matter.

—It's not that they're paying high attention to you personally, but rather they're paying close attention to the list of thousands upon thousands of bankrupt self-sufficient farmers, including you.

After discussion, the Inner Secretariat ordered the local county government to move you to Shanglin Garden and lend you a farmhouse free of charge.

As for the land, you will be given one hundred mu of land from the royal official land.

The rent is lower than that of private tenants, remaining stable at around 30%, and includes taxes.

It looks no different from renting farmland from private landlords, but in reality, it gives you a chance to turn your life around.

—The official land in Shanglin Garden has a very high probability of being exempted from rent and taxes!

In addition to auspicious occasions such as the birth of a prince, the emperor's wedding, and every time a general amnesty is granted—even the birthdays of the empress dowager and the emperor—the official land rent and taxes of the Shanglin Garden may be exempted!

After all, the purpose of these government-owned lands is not to squeeze food out of you bankrupt self-cultivating farmers, but to enable you to turn your lives around, become self-cultivating farmers again, and contribute taxes, levies, labor services, and military service to the Han Dynasty.

Therefore, after you rented royal land in Shanglin Garden, the Manchus paid rent once in five years.

Compared to this expense, your income is staggering!

—In the four years without paying rent or taxes, your family, as a tenant farmer, managed to break even solely through grain production, without incurring any external debt!
Even in the year you paid taxes, you managed to avoid borrowing money or grain by digging for wild vegetables and hunting wild game.

For five years in Shanglin, the grain grown from the rented fields, the wild vegetables dug from the forest, and the chickens and rabbits hunted successfully fed your family of five.

During those five years, you received individual rewards that, while not particularly generous, added together to a considerable sum.

First, on the Empress Dowager's birthday, your wife was granted a rank of nobility because of becoming a mother, which allowed you, as the head of the household, to be granted a similar rank.
You exchanged the accompanying pound of meat and two bolts of cloth for money.

Not much, only three or five hundred coins.

Then several princes were born one after another. The emperor was pleased and bestowed several ranks of nobility upon fathers throughout the land. He also bestowed wine, meat, and cloth upon them on several occasions.

In addition, there's the Crown Prince's private garden in Shanglin Garden, the favors bestowed by the Crown Prince, the labor you do during the off-season, your wife's laundry duties, and the noble children who frequently stroll around Shanglin Garden, spending lavishly and bestowing golden horns upon you.

Five years later, you are surprised to find that farming 100 acres of land can support a family.

Not only can they be raised successfully, but they can also save up tens of thousands of dollars in savings!
With this savings, you were filled with hope for the future and immediately decided to rent 120 acres of land!
The extra twenty acres will serve as the foundation for your turnaround!
Farming 100 mu is the limit for an adult male, or a family of five farmers. Farming an additional 20 mu will make you age rapidly in just a few years.

But you're happy.

Because Heaven rewards diligence.

In the second five years, thanks to the extra twenty mu of tenant land, your family earned an extra three hundred shi of grain!
Although the value is not high, only a little over ten thousand but less than twenty thousand coins, your family has been fortunate enough to be exempt from rent and taxes for five consecutive years!
The extra twenty acres of land contributed an additional 15,000 coins in income over the past five years;
Just like the first five years before, in this second five years, your family has once again received tens of thousands of coins in windfall thanks to various favors and the slips of the fingers of a spoiled brat.

All things considered, your family has lived in Shanglin for ten years and not only has no debt, but you have also accumulated nearly 100,000 coins in savings!
This 100,000 yuan is enough to make your family a middle-class family!
So you left Shanglin Garden.

—You have no choice but to leave. The government has an assessment, and if they determine that you can turn your life around, they won't allow you to stay in Shanglin Garden any longer.

You returned to your hometown, found the landlord, and under his reluctant gaze, redeemed the hundred acres of farmland that rightfully belonged to you.

Moreover, you are no longer the self-employed farmer whose family suffered misfortune, but a respectable young man officially recognized by the Chang'an court!
Your daughter is eligible to participate in the talent show and join the imperial harem!

Your son is eligible to be drafted into the army, to fight as a regular soldier, and to receive the highest level of military honors and death benefits!

You didn't miss this opportunity either, sending your only daughter to participate in the talent show and sending both of your sons to the military.

Your luck isn't exactly extraordinary—your daughter failed the imperial concubine selection and couldn't enter the palace to become the emperor's woman;
But your luck isn't too bad either.

Even if your daughter doesn't make it into the talent show, she still gets attention from all around because she participated in it.

Although she didn't marry into a wealthy family, she eventually married into a good family.

The two families are well-matched and share resources. It's not a matter of one family doing the other a huge favor, but they certainly won't drag each other down.

Your two sons aren't exactly lucky either.

After serving in the military for several years, he never got the chance to fight a war where he could make a name for himself.

But your years of military service have honed your two sons' martial arts skills!
After your two sons returned to their hometown, the landlord came to your door with gifts. He was no longer reluctant as before, but instead asked your two sons to work as martial arts instructors for his family.

The work wasn't heavy; it was simply to teach the landlord's most capable sons some military skills and subtly impart information about military affairs to them.

In the future, if the sons of landlords and wealthy men join the army, your son will most likely be hired by the landlords and wealthy men as their personal guards.

Of course, that comes at a different price...

Another ten years passed, and you were over seventy.

Lying on a recliner inside the courtyard gate, watching his children and grandchildren playing happily around him, and looking at the granary piled with grain;
You look down and see the patches on your clothes, but you don't feel embarrassed at all.

With a smile, she closed her eyes and looked back on her life, those tragic years vividly before her eyes.

But you are very fortunate to have come out of that situation, and you are very fortunate that those ten years at Shanglinyuan gave you the opportunity to start over and even reach a higher level.

Thinking of this, even though you've never been to school, can barely read a few characters, and know nothing about etiquette, you still slowly stood up.

He meticulously tidied up his patched old clothes, then wiped the sweat from his face and the mud from his hands.

Then, you solemnly face Chang'an City, towards the direction of Weiyang Palace, and kneel down to kowtow deeply.

There are thousands of people like you.

Like you, there are tens of thousands of farmers who kneel and kowtow before the Weiyang Palace to express their gratitude for the Emperor's boundless grace.

Thus, the Han emperor who was hidden in Weiyang Palace, whom farmers could hardly see even once in their entire lives, became known as a living saint: Emperor Xiaowen of Han...

As for Shanglin Garden, it was like a selfless and unparalleled national hero—just lying there, nestled west of Chang'an.

While continuing to regulate the world and save bankrupt farmers, he also looked down on all living beings with a smile.

If Shanglinyuan had an image, it would definitely be a kind and amiable old man.

As the sun sets, the old man strokes his beard with a smile, surveying the world and its people...

(End of this chapter)