A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 721 The People of the Empire

Yushu Township gets its name from Yushu River, which was once a villa in the Shanglin Garden of Emperor Wu of Han. Emperor Wu would stay there when he traveled to the river.

Eight hundred years later,

Emperor Li Shimin of the Tang Dynasty also spent the night in this river.

"Keep dinner simple," the emperor instructed.

Li Yi did indeed prepare a very simple farm-style meal.

When this meal was placed on the table, Li Shimin looked at it with great curiosity.

"What kind of food is this?" The emperor held Li Yi's eldest daughter, Little Chili. This little girl was not afraid of strangers and even dared to pull the emperor's beard. She spoke generously and was innocent and naive. Li Shimin liked her very much.

"Your Majesty, these are all country-style dishes. Today's main dishes are sweet potato rice, cornbread, pumpkin and millet porridge, and multigrain pancakes."
The vegetables are simple, all grown and raised on our own.

This is stir-fried pumpkin blossoms with eggs, this is stir-fried shredded pork with sweet potato leaves and stems, and this is stir-fried eggplant, potatoes, and peppers together as a dish called "Di San Xian" (Three Treasures of the Earth).

This is a delicious country-style dish made by stir-frying pork, eggs, and chili peppers together.

This dish is stir-fried pork with wood ear mushrooms, cucumber, and pork. This one is Kung Pao Chicken made with our own free-range chickens, and it's on the spicy side.

This dish is stir-fried cured pork with dried chili and scallions, and also includes stewed fish with pickled cabbage, and stir-fried pork cracklings with fermented black beans and dried radish.

There's also stir-fried chicken, old duck soup, wolfberry leaf and pork liver soup...

All are farm-style dishes.
Seeing that it looked and smelled delicious, Li Shimin's mouth watered.

It's not as refined as imperial cuisine, but it looks delicious.

"I never knew pumpkin blossoms could be used in cooking. Won't picking the blossoms affect the fruit's growth?"

"This stir-fried pork cracklings with dried radish is delicious."

"Your cured pork is really good. It's not too salty or dry, and the dried white chili peppers it comes with taste great. Paired with fresh pickled scallions, it's really delicious."

Li Shimin ate with great enthusiasm, praising each dish and even offering his own commentary on it.

"This cured pork knuckle is really fragrant, salty and flavorful."

"Hmm, this tofu is clean and white, and tender and smooth."

The combination of "Three Treasures of the Earth" also earned praise from Li Shimin.

Today's meal doesn't even have mutton, let alone any delicacies, yet Li Shimin can't stop eating.

He also likes several kinds of whole grain staple foods.

The multigrain pancakes are chewy, the cornbread is fragrant, and the sweet potato porridge is sweet.

"Your pork is indeed delicious; it's quite famous in Chang'an now."

We ate and drank our fill, but still wanted more.

The emperor patted his belly, feeling quite full today, having a great appetite. It was a rare occasion for him to eat so heartily.

Although the imperial cuisine was exquisite, there were too many rules. The imperial chefs had to strictly follow the recipes and could not make any mistakes. In fact, someone had to taste the dishes before the emperor ate them.

It was said to be testing the saltiness, but in reality, it was testing the emperor for poison.

Often, the emperor's food was cold by the time he ate it.

"If all the people in the world could eat such farm-style dishes at any time, that would truly be a prosperous and harmonious era," Li Shimin exclaimed.

Li Yi thought to himself, "Yes, the place I came from, although it was stressful, the country hadn't had a major war for decades, and the people had basically solved their food and clothing problems. Even the poor wouldn't say they couldn't afford meat."

Throughout China's thousands of years of history,
That era seems to have truly been the best of times. Although there were various problems and injustices, at least people had no worries about food and clothing.

The country-style dishes he served the emperor today...

In this era, most landlords wouldn't normally be willing to eat like this.

The vast majority of farmers still don't eat meat even once a month, and their diet is still mainly porridge, with vegetables mostly boiled in water and hardly any oil.

They can't even guarantee their food rations yet.
Raising a few chickens is all about selling eggs to make money for needles and thread, so people are reluctant to eat the eggs, let alone kill the chickens to eat.

A chicken is worth sixty or seventy coins, which can be exchanged for three or four bushels of rice.

After dinner,

It's still early.
It was nearing dusk.
Li Shimin insisted on visiting the villagers' homes.

"Knowing that the villagers of Luojiabao have all become wealthy, go to the neighboring villages and find a few households with average means," the emperor said.

Li Yi led the emperor across the Luojiabao Bridge to Sanjia Village in the rice paddies on the north bank.

In the past five or six years, Sanjia Village has grown from three households to thirteen.

They used to be three brothers who moved down from the plateau.

In the past, they relied on renting rice paddies for a living, and life was very hard.

How many people are in your family?

The emperor entered a small courtyard surrounded by a fence. The roof was thatched with yellow straw, and the walls were made of mud bricks. The houses were relatively low, and the doors and windows were small.
The room was rather dark.

A simple hearth with a clay pot on top serves as a kitchen.

An old woman with no teeth is cooking.

The emperor specifically looked into the pot.

Crushed corn grits, diced sweet potatoes, a handful of rice, and water are added to cook a large pot of porridge. Judging by the amount of water, you can tell that this is porridge.

The old man, with his trousers rolled up, sat down to rest at the doorway.

The sudden arrival of Li Yi and his group caught them somewhat off guard.

"Old Guo, this is His Majesty the Emperor. He's come to see you. Just tell the truth," Li Yi said with a smile.

The old man used to know Li Yi well, after all, Li Yi used to be the village chief on the other side of the river.

"The old man now has a family of seven: the two of us, our son and daughter. Our son is married and has two children."

"How old are you this year?" Li Shimin asked, looking at the old man's gray hair and the fact that most of his teeth had fallen out.

"I'm forty-seven this year, my son is twenty-three, and my daughter is fifteen..."

The emperor looked at the old man in surprise. He thought he would believe the old man if he said he was sixty-seven, but he was only forty-seven? Was he that old?

"How many acres of land did your family receive?" the emperor asked again.

“Thirty mu!” the old man replied.

Li Shimin frowned. "Thirty mu? Is that per capita land? How many mu are the mulberry fields?"

The old man replied, "A total of thirty mu, twenty mu of mulberry fields and ten mu of allotted land."

"Your family has two sons, so you're only entitled to a total of thirty mu of land? Did you already own any land before?"

The old man shook his head.

“I used to be a tenant farmer. I moved here from the plateau and rented eighteen mu of paddy fields from my master. When the Tang Dynasty was founded, the court allocated land, and I was only granted thirty mu of land. I haven’t taken any other land since.”

"Your son is twenty-three. He came of age two years ago, but he hasn't been allocated land since?"

The old man smiled bitterly, “Most of the tens of thousands of acres of fertile rice paddies along the thirty-mile stretch of the Haohe River in Yusuchuan are already owned. There is no surplus land to be given. If it weren’t for the change of dynasties, I would never have been able to get these thirty acres of land.”

He was already quite content to be allocated thirty acres of land.

The emperor asked Guo Er, the village head who was accompanying him, "Is there no land left in the village to distribute?"

Guo Er answered in a low voice: "In the first, second and third years of Wude, land was granted, but the amount granted decreased with each passing year. In the following years, there was no land to be granted at all."

Even if a landowner dies, his or her son is usually given priority for inheritance.

The land is limited.

For every bit more land the rich take, the less land is left for the poor.

Yushu River is located on the outskirts of Kyoto. The land here is fertile and is a traditional place for growing Osmanthus Rice. Countless nobles and powerful families have their eyes on it and will try to take it over whenever they have the chance.

Where is there any land left to grant?

"With only thirty acres of land, how do you plan to make a living?" the emperor asked.

"We live like this," the old man said, feeling that his life was pretty good. He pointed to the porridge his wife was cooking, "Now we have two meals a day, and we can eat our fill every day."

He was grateful to Li Yi for bringing the auspicious crops.

Sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes, and pumpkins kept these poor people from getting so hungry, so they no longer had to dig for wild vegetables or even peel tree bark to fill their stomachs during the lean season.

Of course, we also have to thank the Li family for giving them the opportunity to work and earn money. During the off-season, they would work at the Li family's workshops and farms.
Even when their grandchildren are older, they can go to Wuji Primary School for a year or two to study for free.

Of the thirty mu of land, twenty mu were mulberry fields on the plateau, used for growing mulberry trees and raising silkworms. Wheat could also be intercropped in the mulberry fields.
The annual yield of wheat and rice is more than thirty bushels.
They also rented twenty mu of land on the plateau to grow corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other miscellaneous grains.

Coarse grains were the staple food of the family. After paying land taxes, most of the rice was sold to mills to be processed into rice and sold to Chang'an.
They also raised a few pigs. The piglets were obtained from the Li family's pig farm. They didn't need to pay; they just needed to give the Li family the pig manure. These pigs needed to be fed with sweet potatoes, corn, radishes, and other crops from two acres of land. After a year of hard work, they could still make some money by selling the pigs.

The family also grew mulberry and hemp, and his wife and daughters raised silkworms and wove silk. The family's clothing, as well as the silk and cotton supplied by the imperial court, all depended on the hard work of his wife and daughters.

The old man is satisfied with his current life, saying it's much better than before.

They used to rent eighteen mu of rice fields, working hard all year round, often going hungry. They said that the couple had a total of seven children, but only one son and one daughter survived. The rest either died of illness or starvation. There was also a grown man who died on the way to transport grain to Liaodong.

I've suffered too much in my life; I'm not even fifty yet, but I already look like I'm in my seventies or eighties from all the suffering.

We are content with our current life, as we have enough to eat and wear.

Farming, raising pigs, and working odd jobs—the whole family toiled away, but these few thatched huts provided shelter from the wind and rain, and they had sweet potato porridge and cornbread to fill their stomachs.
What more could a family ask for than a stable life?

As for the idea of ​​granting a hundred acres of land to each son, the old man didn't take it seriously.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

To be allocated thirty acres of land was a stroke of luck, especially if it coincided with a change of dynasty.

The emperor looked at the simple thatched hut.
Compared to Li Yi's Wuji Fortress on the other side of the river, it was indeed worlds apart.

The bustling and prosperous town of Yushu was completely out of place here.

He pondered for a long time.
Ask the old man,

"If the imperial court were to relocate you to Kuanxiang, guaranteeing each adult male a full 100 mu of land, 20 mu of permanent mulberry fields, and 80 mu of allotted land, would you be willing to relocate?"

The old man shook his head without hesitation.

He shook his head like a rattle drum.

"No, no, we're living very well here. We're doing just fine."

Kuanxiang has a lot of land but few people.
The term "Kuanxiang" today refers not only to border prefectures and counties, but also to areas south of the mountains, in Jingxiang, Longyou, Jiannan, and even the Jianghuai region. These areas have all experienced the post-war period and are now considered sparsely populated.

But the farthest the old man had ever been in his life was Chang'an, thirty miles away.

He had never left Yongzhou, nor even been to the north bank of the Wei River. He would never dare to leave Guanzhong.

Moreover, he is very satisfied with his current life.

They owned thirty mu of land and rented another twenty mu. There were also jobs available right outside their door, providing them with money and food.

With a life like this, what more could one ask for?

“But if your family moves to Kuanxiang, with seven people and two men, you will be entitled to two hundred mu of land. Of this, forty mu will be permanent land that can be passed down to your descendants.”

"No, no," the old man shook his head, afraid that if he was too slow to refuse, the emperor would really move his family away.

Li Shimin remained silent for a long time.
The old man's toothless wife squatted on the ground, stirring the mixed grain porridge in the pot. She seemed not to hear the conversation between the emperor and her husband at all, and was just focused on stirring the pot to prevent the porridge from sticking to the bottom.

"If the imperial court were to collect grain from the public granaries, would you prefer to pay four or five dou per household, or two sheng per mu?"

The old man pondered for a long time, seemingly calculating the difference in the amount of grain he would have to pay between the two.

Finally, they seemed to give up, saying, "It's all up to the government. We pay whatever they say. We can't choose what to pay."
We common people just hope that the imperial court will levy only what it sets, and that there won't be any more extra levies like fire loss fees or transportation fees.

Whether it was six dou per mu or five dou per household, although it was another burden, life could still go on.

"You're willing to move to Kuanxiang and be given 200 mu of land, with rent and tax exemption for the first three years?" Li Shimin asked, still somewhat unwilling to give up.

The old man shook his head.

His cloudy eyes, however, revealed an unwavering resolve.

"I can't bear to leave this place. Our ancestors' graves are here, and we're used to farming this land. Besides, I can't bear to leave such a good family as the Li family."

(End of this chapter)