Family Rise: Beginning with Grandfather.

Chapter 592: Killing officials and rebelling
This is a trick used by big households, who take advantage of natural disasters to lend money at high interest rates and control more tenants, while also taking the opportunity to swallow up the fields of self-employed farmers and small landlords.

But the wealthy families did not expect to meet such an idiot county magistrate like Zhao Yuankai. You said you wanted silver, and we would collect some more to give you, but why did you embezzle even such a small amount of old grain?

Is Zhao Yuankai an idiot?
of course not!

He just felt that even if he didn't provide relief to the victims outside the city, nothing would go wrong.

There are only a few thousand disaster victims. After a few days of hunger, they will probably disperse when they know there is no food around the county town.

In his opinion, it would be much easier to disperse these disaster victims than to provide them with relief.

Providing relief to disaster victims may attract more victims, or it may cause the victims to gather outside the city and then disperse.

But if there is no relief, within a few days these victims will either starve to death or go elsewhere to beg for food, and then he will be in trouble.

But Zhao Yuankai never expected that these disaster victims would be so bold as to attack the county town.

Seeing more and more victims jumping into the county government office, Zhao Yuankai shouted in panic: "Master Chen, Master Chen, hurry up, kill these thugs!"

Chen Tong is the county magistrate of Dachang County. He is a big and strong man with a fierce face. He looks like someone who is not easy to mess with.

At this time, the main fighting force in the county government was Chen Tong, who led more than 20 yamen runners.

They are just a group of disaster victims. Although they are all young and strong, due to long-term hunger, their cheeks are sunken, their faces are pale and their bodies are thin. They even have difficulty climbing the wall.

The runners in the county government office were not only strong, but there were even three warriors among them.

The difference between the two was obvious. Dozens of victims climbed into the wall and were killed by the yamen runners without even causing any waves.

Chen Tong killed a disaster victim with a fierce look on his face, and roared: "Damn it, kill all these untouchables!"

But at this moment, a sharp arrow shot from outside the courtyard wall. With a puff, the arrowhead accurately pierced Chen Tong's throat. Chen Tong subconsciously covered his throat and looked in the direction where the arrow came from with fear in his eyes.

He saw a tall young man standing on the roof not far away, holding a bow and looking at him coldly.

"Mr. County Magistrate!" The bailiff couldn't help but exclaimed when he found that Chen Tong had been killed.

But then two more arrows were shot and two more yamen runners were shot dead.

The yamen runners no longer had time to stop the victims from climbing the wall. They fled in panic like frightened birds and beasts.

"Run, there's an expert!"

The smart ones had already run into the house, while the dumb ones were running around in the county government office.

Zhao Yuankai held his head, bent his body, and staggered towards the backyard.

After the young man on the roof shot and killed two more yamen runners, he jumped directly from the roof next to him to the roof of the county government lobby.

"Damn the dog officer!"

He whispered coldly and shot an arrow at Zhao Yuankai without hesitation.

The arrow penetrated his back and came out through his chest.

Zhao Yuankai only had time to scream, then fell to the ground and never got up again.

The gate of the county government office was finally opened by the victims who climbed over the wall. Hundreds of victims poured into the county government office and began searching for money and food.

"Bu Yu, Bu Yu, go to the back house, there are corrupt officials in the back house who have embezzled money and grain!"

A disaster victim shouted to the boy on the roof.

The young man didn't waste any time. With a quiver on his back and a longbow in his hand, he rushed towards the backyard along the roof and the wall.

The young man in front of him was named Chen Buyu, a talented martial artist who had already reached the level of refining strength at the age of only eighteen.

A warrior at the level of refining strength is naturally nothing in Kyoto. If you randomly pick a few people on the streets of Kyoto, one may be a warrior, and there is a high probability that he is an acquired warrior. But in Dachang County, warriors are extremely rare. There are only thirty or forty warriors in the whole Dachang County, and acquired warriors can be counted on one hand.

Chen Buyu is not only a warrior, but also an expert in archery, to the point where he can shoot an arrow through a target from a hundred paces away.

The reason why he attacked the county government office was not for any other reason but because his family did not have enough food to eat.

That’s right, the warrior’s family will also not have enough food to eat.

Not all warriors are superior to others. Many ordinary warriors are actually the same as ordinary people.

Just like in the original Yangjia Village, Yang Zhengxiang was also a warrior, but he was just a small landlord. At that time, the Yang family had 20 acres of land, while Yang Zhengxiang's family owned only 50 acres.

A family with fifty acres of land can live comfortably if the weather is good, but if they encounter a disaster, they will have to live very hard.

If the original Yangjia Village was also in today's Dachang County, Yang Zhengxiang would probably have led his people in rebellion.

There was no way. The tribesmen were all starving. Could he, as the tribe leader, just care about filling his own stomach and not care about the lives of his tribesmen?

Chen Buyu was not the patriarch of the Chen family, but Chen Buyu's father was a centurion of the Zuowei Army of Kuizhou, so the riot in Dachang County was actually a riot led by military households.

The county town was breached, the county magistrate, county magistrate, chief clerk and other officials were killed, and many wealthy families in the city were looted.

When the sky began to darken, Chen Buyu's father Chen Ding'an distributed some of the looted money and food to the refugees, and then took two or three thousand military households and refugees and hid in the mountains to become bandits.

Attacking the county government office and killing the county magistrate was tantamount to rebellion. They could no longer return home and would only become bandits from now on.

The situation in Dachang County was just a microcosm. Riots occurred to varying degrees in various parts of the disaster area. Some of the rioting refugees were suppressed by the government, while others killed officials, stole money and food, and hid in the mountains.

The western part of Jiangnan, the northern part of Yunnan and Guangxi, the southern part of Longnan, and the eastern part of Shuzhou all have one characteristic, that is, they are all within the Wanshanling Range. There are many mountain people living here, and now it is too easy for them to hide in the mountains.

A major disaster created tens of thousands of bandits.

More than 20 state capitals in Dayong were in shock.

However, Yang Zhengshan didn't know all this. At this time, Yang Zhengshan was instructing the young men on the island in their cultivation.

As the island master, he has a lot of free time, but he is not someone who can sit idle. Apart from practicing, what he likes most is to guide others in their practice.

Simply put, Yang Zhengshan has a bit of a know-it-all personality.

When I see others having problems with their cultivation, I can't help but give them some pointers.

This is probably a habit he has developed over the years. After all, he has mentored countless people in the past twenty years.

At the foot of the mountain, in the open space outside the village, thousands of young men were divided into twenty arrays, practicing the simplest boxing and kicking skills.

There are two villages, one for boys and the other for girls.

It might be Yu Tonghai's intention. The number of boys and girls sent was almost equal, just over a thousand each.

These young men were divided into forty classes, each with about fifty students. They were taught by former servants and maids of the Yang family, and there were also many peasant women to take care of their food and clothing.

At this time, they were all wearing neat clothes and practicing martial arts in an orderly manner.

Yang Zhengshan held a bamboo pole in his hand, pointing out the mistakes of the young men, and said, "The greatest function of the body-building boxing is to strengthen the body. It is not a fighting move, but a training technique. You must use all your strength in every move, so as to stretch the muscles of the body." "Don't practice rigidly, but feel the movement of every muscle in your body!"

"How the soles of the feet grip the ground when punching, how the leg muscles exert force, how the waist and abdomen use force, and also the muscles of the arms!"

"You need to feel it carefully, don't practice foolishly!"

Yang Zhengshan corrected a young boy's arm, and the boy smiled brightly at him.

This made him feel a little funny, but he still said seriously: "Why are you grinning? Practice hard!"

Yang Zhengshan gave instructions for more than half an hour before leaving the village with his hands behind his back.

He didn't ride a horse, but just walked casually in the fields with his hands behind his back.

In the dry fields, the refugees who had just moved in were busy plowing the fields. The island had a complete range of farm tools, all purchased from Tenglongwei. However, there were not enough oxen on the island, with an average of only one ox for every ten households.

Oxen have to be used in rotation. Some families cannot wait for oxen and have to plow the fields themselves.

It was very tiring and hard work, but the refugees worked very hard.

Yang Zhengshan saw a white-haired old man squatting on the ground to rest, so he walked over and asked, "Brother, is this your family's field?"

The old man looked at him with a puzzled look in his eyes and said, "Yes, this is the land that the island owner gave to my family!"

Yang Zhengshan was dressed very casually today, in a linen shirt, a pair of cloth shoes, and his hair tied up casually. His outfit was no different from that of a country farmer.

But his temperament shows that he is not an ordinary person.

"How many people are there in your family?" Yang Zhengshan had nothing to do, so he started chatting with his father-in-law in the field.

Although the old man looked quite old, Yang Zhengshan had no idea who was older between him and him.

He is sixty years old this year, while the old man in front of him is probably less than fifty.

This is very normal in the countryside. Farmers in their forties or fifties already have white hair.

"Eight people. I have three sons. The two who are farming the land are my eldest son and second son!" The father-in-law was still looking at Yang Zhengshan.

Yang Zhengshan looked at the two young men working in the field, followed by a teenager and two women.

Eldest son and second son!

Yang Zhengshan asked, "Did your father-in-law ever go to school?"

"Well, I have read it, sir?" the father-in-law couldn't help asking.

Yang Zhengshan smiled and said, "I am the owner of the island here!"

The old man was stunned, then he knelt down in a panic and said, "This old man greets the island owner!"

Yang Zhengshan quickly reached out to support him, "No need to be polite. I just have nothing to do, so I want to chat with you, haha~~"

Seeing Yang Zhengshan's casual behavior and easy-going speech, the old man relaxed a lot, but he still said respectfully: "Thank you very much for saving our lives, if you hadn't brought us here, I'm afraid our family wouldn't survive this year!"

"Is the drought in Funing Prefecture so severe?" Yang Zhengshan asked.

The father-in-law said, "It's very serious. There hasn't been a decent rain since the beginning of last spring. Last year, we basically had no harvest in the spring and autumn."

"I used to be a teacher at a private school in the village, and I had some savings, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to make it this far!"

Yang Zhengshan probably also understood the drought in Funing Prefecture. He didn't care about it, so he didn't ask any more questions. He then asked, "How much land did the government allocate to you?"

"Six acres per person. There are eight people in our family, so we get 48 acres!" said the old man.

The government distributed land according to population. Each person was given four mu of paddy land and six mu of dry land. Only people over twelve years old were considered a group, and this included both men and women.

The eight people the old man mentioned refer to people over the age of twelve, excluding children in the family.

They were a lucky family, as the entire family, young and old, moved to Xingyue Island intact, without missing a single person.

Many of the other refugees who migrated here only had two or three people in their family, and some were even alone.

Of course, this old man is a scholar and used to be a private school teacher. His family background must be much better than that of ordinary people.

Yang Zhengshan continued, "The government office is planning to build a private school for the village. If you want to be a teacher, you can apply for the position! Private school teachers also get monthly wages!"

The old man smiled and said, "The island owner is kind and righteous. He also lets us, the children of the hungry people, go to school. I have already applied for a job at the government office. The government office said that they will build a primary school in the village after the spring plowing is over! I am also a private school teacher!"

Yang Zhengshan nodded slightly.

The two chatted for a long time about this and that, until noon when Yang Zhengshan blew a whistle to summon Hongdou and rode back to the city.

After the New Year comes the spring ploughing period. Only after the ploughing is over can the government do other things.

Recruit young and strong people to build canals and ponds, demolish city walls, build houses, etc.

Although these newly relocated disaster victims still looked pale and thin, their spirits returned after the government allocated land to them.

To be honest, the government gave them a lot of things. Xingyue Island is not Chongshan Town. When Yang Zhengshan settled refugees in Chongshan Town before, he could give very few things to the refugees, and food was also tight. But it was different on Xingyue Island. Yang Zhengshan had no shortage of silver or various daily necessities, so he would naturally not be stingy with the things he gave to the refugees.

Food was scarce in Dayong, but the Yang family business could buy food from other places.

In addition, there are not many refugees resettled on Xingyue Island, only more than 20,000 people in total. If Yang Zhengshan gives them a little, it will be enough to feed these refugees.

When he returned home, Yu Qingyi and the children were already waiting for him to have dinner.

There was a lot of food, including meat, vegetables and a big fish.

"Mingcheng wrote to ask if you want to celebrate your birthday!"

"Celebrating birthday?" Yang Zhengshan raised his head in surprise.

"This year is your 60th birthday!" said Yu Qingyi.

Yang Zhengshan suddenly felt a strong sense of malice, "But I'm not old yet!"

Sixtieth birthday?

This word doesn’t sound good!

I'm still young, there's no need to celebrate my birthday.

"I'll celebrate my birthday when I'm 100 years old!"

As a congenital warrior, he can live to at least 150 years old, and the Yi Mu Chang Chun Gong can also prolong his life. Even if his cultivation cannot go any further in the future, he should be able to live to more than 200 years old.

He can live to be 200 years old, while an ordinary person can live to be 100 years old. So if we convert it this way, his 60 years old is equivalent to an ordinary person's 30 years old.

Humph, I’m only thirty years old, why should I celebrate my birthday?
(End of this chapter)