The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 728: The Return of Duke Yansheng

Jinzhou Guard in southern Liaoning, Balipu Tunbao.

Farmer Wang Guojie suddenly fell ill.

His legs were numb and his steps were unsteady. One morning, as usual, he carried a hoe and went to work in the fields near the garrison. As he stepped onto the ridge of the field, he tripped over weeds and fell.

The barefoot doctor in the garrison charged the patient fifty coins - free medical care in various parts of Liaodong has been cancelled now - and after a thorough examination, he prescribed some herbal medicine for the patient, saying that he had caught a cold and should not do any strenuous work in the future, otherwise the disease would spread to his heart and he would die.

In short, this genuine farmer could no longer be a farmer.

Wang Guojie, originally from Qufu, Shandong, arrived in Jinzhouwei by boat from Dengzhou twenty years ago. He later received land in a garrison and married a woman, settling down in Jinzhouwei. He and his wife depended on each other for survival, but they still had no children.

In the past two years, there are fewer and fewer people in charge of the garrison. Many farmers have abandoned their land and run to the interior to do odd jobs. Some went to Songjiang Prefecture to pick cotton, some went to northern Zhili to mine, and some went to the Hanyang Arsenal... I heard from the letters they sent back that life in the interior is better than in Liaodong.

Wang Guojie was also eager to leave, but after being a farmer for decades, he didn't know anything except farming. Besides, he still had dozens of acres of land to make a living, so he never left Jinzhou.

In the past two years, the former civil officials have become landlords, the garrison has become a mere shell, and the fields have been rented out by civil officials and wealthy households for cultivation.

As the population of Tunbu decreased, the clinics, schools, and shops that previously served the residents were occupied by wealthy people. Of course, according to the government, they were rented.

In the past, patients like him would receive free care and medical treatment from the Tunbu, but now everything has to be paid for.

Wang Guojie had no choice but to sell ten acres of land and get some money to pay for his medical treatment.

Soon, he had spent all his and his wife's money on medical treatment.

The doctor prescribed three doses of medicine for him, but there was no improvement after he took them, so he took another three doses, and then another three doses.

Until Wang Guojie's family's fifty acres of land were all sold at a low price, the doctor said that he had an ancestral elixir that could cure any disease.

However, Wang Guojie had no money left.

He and his wife could no longer continue living in Jinzhouwei. Bored with nothing to do, Wang Guojie decided to return to his hometown in Qufu to recuperate in his village.

Not only is it easier to recuperate at home, but living expenses are also cheaper.

As the saying goes, "It's good to be at home for a thousand days, but it's hard to go out for a moment." There is some truth to this.

Moreover, compared with the area inside the Great Wall, the area outside the Great Wall is becoming less and less suitable for ordinary people to live in.

After the new emperor came to power, everything changed dramatically.

The imperial court gradually became unable to support the huge military expenditure in Liaodong - the cost of tens of thousands of troops stationed in Liaodong was an astronomical figure - the land of farmers like Wang Guojie was annexed by civil officials and military officers for various reasons, and the original civil officials and military officers were transformed into new landlords and gentry.

The population outside the Great Wall kept moving inward, just like when they entered Liaodong on a large scale.

I don’t know what others think about this. Wang Guojie has been numbed by the suffering and he doesn’t think about these national affairs.

He just wanted to go home.

"My hometown of Qufu would be better. It's the hometown of Confucius and there would be more great and kind people there."

The desperate farmer comforted himself in this way.

In early February of the seventh year of Guangde, when food prices skyrocketed in Liaodong's rural areas due to a shortage of crops, Wang Guojie took his wife back to his hometown, Wangjiazhuang, Qufu.

According to Wang Guojie's childhood memories, the home in Wangjiazhuang was a bright, comfortable and clean place in his mind.

That was when the retired emperor had just ascended the throne. The property of the eldest master of Qufu (Duke Yansheng) was confiscated, hundreds of thousands of acres of land were distributed to the surrounding poor for cultivation, and the millions of ancient trees in the Confucius Forest became firewood for the farmers and were carried back home by the villagers.

At that time, the civil officials of Da Qi would never annex land. They worked diligently and honestly, and built water conservancy projects everywhere around the farmland, so there were no floods or droughts. Even if ordinary people encountered any disasters, there were garrisons to help them out. For example, the typhoid fever that Wang Guojie had could be cured by the garrison doctors, and it was basically free...
However, Wang Guojie wanted to join the army at that time. He left Shandong and went to Liaodong. However, he failed the physical examination and finally condescended to become a farmer in Jinzhouwei.

Now, when he returned to Wangjiazhuang with his wife, he was shocked.

The couple stood at the entrance of the village, and everything they saw was so dark, so narrow, and so dirty.

The village is surrounded by mud-brick houses. When it rains too much, the bricks will melt and the entire wall will collapse.

It should be noted that this kind of adobe house is rarely seen in Liaodong.

Wang Guojie grabbed a hunchbacked woman, pointed at the dilapidated fort, and shouted:
"Where are the brick and tile houses that were previously built in Wangjiazhuang?" "They were demolished and sold, and the remaining stones were taken away by people sent by Yanshenggong."

"I'm the son of Blacksmith Wang. Do you recognize me?"

The woman was only about thirty years old, but her hair was dry and yellow, her face was dark and covered in dirt, she had a mouthful of black, rotten teeth, and her cheeks were sunken, making her eyes seem strangely large. She was so thin that her ribs were counted, and lice and fleas were often seen in her hair...

"Blacksmith Wang died a long time ago."

Wang Guojie's wife saw a man with a stiff neck walking past them - there was a huge lump of flesh on his neck, and his eyes were bulging like a rooster.

"Now that salt and iron are no longer free, ordinary people can't afford salt and are suffering from goiter."

Wang Guojie handed the woman two cents and continued to ask her about the news of Wangjiazhuang.

"The Wang family at the east end of the village, the one that used to be the blacksmith..."

"I know. The old man froze to death last winter, and the blacksmith shop was demolished."

Wang Guojie's hopeful eyes suddenly turned to ashes.

"The Tunbu Farmers' Association is no longer popular. Farming, even salt and water, are all decided by the master."

The eldest master is the Duke of Yansheng.

The descendants of Confucius have returned.

One of the contents of Emperor Guangde's new policies was to welcome back Duke Yansheng, which was said to be conducive to restoring the civil governance of the Great Qi.

Although Duke Yansheng himself had been beheaded by the retired emperor more than 20 years ago, because he had many illegitimate children - it was said that the line could stretch from Qufu to Nanjing - as soon as the decree to restore Duke Yansheng was issued, more than 3,000 descendants of the Kong family rushed to Qufu, claiming to be the direct descendants of Duke Yansheng.

After a fierce battle, the new generation of Yansheng Duke Kong Youren was officially canonized by Emperor Guangde.

Theoretically speaking, the entire Qufu is the private property of Duke Yansheng.

Moreover, in order to demonstrate the court's determination to restore civil governance, local officials in Shandong granted Duke Yansheng great power and even allowed him to set up his own court.

If ordinary people went to the mountains to poach or dig wild vegetables, once they were discovered, they would definitely not be able to escape a good beating, and most of the time they would be beaten to death.

~~~~~
Wang Guojie and his wife walked to the home of Wang the blacksmith in the east of the village. Wang the blacksmith was Wang Guojie's father, but he was now buried in the loess. There was only an old lady in the house. Needless to say, this was Wang Guojie's mother whom he had not seen for many years.

Wang Guojie looked around and found that his family was so poor that only four walls were left. His mother was hunched over, doing some housework.
"Mom, I'm back."

The old lady remained indifferent.

"Mom, I'm back."

"Ah? I've already paid the rent, and there's no one left at home..."

Wang Guojie's mother was old and her eyesight was blurry. She mistook her son for a servant of Confucius who came to collect rent.

Wang Guojie's wife stared blankly at the bare walls, which were stained black by firewood and flies.

The logs on the wall were tilted, as if the cabin was about to collapse.

In the corner of the wall, near the statue of the deity (the portrait of the retired emperor), there were cheap oil paper and newspapers from a few years ago.

Aunt Wang didn't wash her face and had a cold expression on her face. She didn't even glance at the people who came in.

"Your father is dead, and you're not a money-maker anymore! Why don't you die in Liaodong? Why did you come back?"

Aunt Wang looked at her son's sickly body and said with sadness.

"All the farmers in our family are unlucky. Your father worked so hard as a blacksmith and finally saved up some money. But then the emperor issued a new policy, saying that blacksmithing in the forts was no longer allowed and only the Duke of Yansheng could do it. So they dismantled your father's iron furnace and took it away..."

"Your father only knows how to drink and complain about the unfairness of the world. It's not the world that's unfair, it's the emperor who's angry with us."

As the old lady spoke, she pointed to the smoke-blackened portrait of the retired emperor on the wall. The kind-looking Liu Zhaosun, now missing an ear, was looking at his people kindly.

(End of this chapter)