On the third day of the sixth lunar month, Li Zhi rode in the countryside of Shandong and watched the people harvest a bumper harvest of wheat. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Looking over from Li Zhi's perspective, he only saw that under the bright summer sky, there was a piece of gold everywhere. The golden wheat is like the garment of the earth, and the whole vision is covered with golden yellow.

After a year of disaster relief, Shandong survived this year's drought. Now that the winter wheat of the new year is ripe, the people are beginning to reap the fruits of their labor. The countryside was full of laughter.

Seeing Li Zhi's guard of honor, the people who harvested the crops bowed to Li Zhi from afar, and then continued to busy their farm work.

"The general manager of the newspaper" Huan Yihua said with a smile: "Grandpa Guo, there was no drought and flood last year, and the people's harvest was good. After a year of starvation, the people can finally eat enough. ”

Li Zhi nodded. Although last year's weather was not smooth, there was no rain for a long time and the fields were flooded, and the wheat output was relatively stable. In this way, Shandong's disaster relief can be regarded as a complete success.

This year, Li Zhi invested 13.5 million taels of silver to buy sweet potatoes, rice and rice noodles for disaster relief. Although Li Zhi earned seven million taels of silver from the gentry by manipulating the price of grain, he still spent another six hundred and fifty taels of silver. It can be said that all the silver seized after the destruction of the Zheng family was put into disaster relief.

However, when Li Zhi's finances were tight, he grabbed another 10 million taels of silver and 2 million stone rice in Japan. Those paddy plum plants are ready to be stored for a rainy day. And the silver stolen in Japan was intended to be used by Li Zhi to expand the size of the army.

At present, Japan has 5,000 soldiers and horses, and Li Zhi's troops are only 25,000, which is not sufficient. Li Zhi is ready to recruit another 10,000 soldiers.

Li Zhi was in the countryside and suddenly saw a newly built small ancestral temple in front of him. The small temple is obviously a renovation of an old building such as a land temple, and it looks a little old. But there are many women and children coming in and out of the small temple gate, and there are a few children playing in the mud at the entrance of the ancestral temple, looking like incense is endless.

Li Zhi walked to the door of the small temple to take a look, but saw that the gate said "Li Guogong Ancestral Hall".

Huan Yihua saw the plaque and said loudly: "Grandpa Guo, this is the ancestral hall built for you by the people!" ”

Li Zhi was stunned, jumped off his horse and walked into the temple.

The people who offered incense in the temple saw Li Zhi's honor guard, and they were so frightened that they fell to the ground. Li Zhi walked into the small temple, and sure enough, he saw his immortal tablet in the middle of the ancestral hall. There are dozens of burned incense sticks in the incense burner in front of the tablet, and it is obvious that the common people are very grateful to Li Zhi, and many of them come to offer incense.

Li Zhi smiled, but he felt fresh. In the past, I only heard that the bureaucrats patted Wei Zhongxian's sycophants and gave the 9,000-year-old Jiansheng Temple, but I didn't expect that there were still people in Shandong who built the ancestral hall for themselves.

Li Zhi rested in the ancestral hall for a while, and then walked out with the honor guard. But as soon as I walked to the door of the ancestral hall, I saw dozens of old people and peasants walking up with pots and jars.

Li Zhi was stunned and stopped the horse.

The peasants walked up to Li Zhi, knelt on the mud one by one, kowtowed to Li Zhi, and then got up. A gray-haired villager held a flatbread in his hand, was so excited that his eyes were filled with tears, and he said loudly: "Grandpa Guo is on top, and I and the other Xiaomin are villagers of Hanjia Village, and this year we have survived by relying on Grandpa Guo's sweet potatoes." ”

"Now that the crops are abundant, we can see through it. The great kindness of the national prince, we have nothing to repay. This flatbread is made of flour from the newly harvested wheat in our crops, please taste it. ”

Li Zhi had just been assassinated, and he didn't dare to eat strangers' food at will, so he looked at Huan Yihua. Huan Yihua took the old farmer's flatbread, took a bite, chewed a few bites, and said with a smile: "The flour milled by this winter wheat tastes good, and there is no problem with the people's rations this year." ”

When the villagers and peasants saw Huan Yihua eat the cake, they knelt on the ground one by one and kowtowed to Li Zhi, who had saved the people of a province.

Li Zhi smiled and picked up the white-haired old man who delivered the cake, and said with a smile: "Why do the villagers need such a big gift? ”

After a pause, Li Zhi said: "Don't worry, the days in the future will only get better and better!" ”

####

Cai Laoda, a farmer in Jinghai County, Tianjin, pushed a cart of wheat into the barn in his yard and wiped the sweat from his head.

The weather in June was really hot, and after Cai Lao and his daughter-in-law finished harvesting more than 40 acres of wheat fields, they were as busy as if they were prostration. The sweat on his body soaked through Boss Cai's coarse cloth clothes, and he looked like he had just been fished out of the water.

However, although tired, Boss Cai was full of joy.

This year's harvest has been very encouraging.

Boss Cai stood in front of the high pile of grain in his warehouse, full of pride. He grabbed a few handfuls of wheat in the pile with his hand, felt the feeling of the wheat on the tips of his fingers, and then walked out of the barn contentedly.

As soon as he went out, he saw his second brother Cai Lao Er running in with a sweat.

"Big brother! Good news! Good news! ”

Boss Cai clapped his hands and asked calmly, "What good news?" ”

"Jin Guogong has recruited new soldiers again, this time recruiting 10,000 people, this is a good thing that is difficult to find with a lantern!" Cai Lao Er grabbed the eldest brother's arm and said loudly: "Big brother, let's go to the recruitment together." If you become a soldier, you will have no end to your good life in the future! ”

Boss Cai looked at his younger brother, thought about it, and said, "I'm not going to apply, you can go by yourself!" ”

Cai Lao Er was stunned and asked, "Big brother, don't you want to keep up with the team of Jin Guogong and get ahead?" ”

Cai Lao laughed and said: "Even if I don't go to the army, I have a good life, I still like to grow crops, so I won't join in the fun." ”

Boss Cai does have the confidence to refuse the temptation of the tiger master, and his income this year is really good.

The Cai family has 21 acres of dry land, and in the past, these dry fields had to be paid seven stones, and the Cai family was miserable. The four of them only had a food ration of 10 stone a year, and they couldn't eat enough. Boss Cai gave birth to three children, the first two were starved to death, and only the youngest and thinnest one was still alive.

But in recent years, with the deepening of the rule of the Duke of Jin in Tianjin, the life of the Cai family has undergone earth-shaking changes.

After the Duke of Jinguo equalized the field endowment, the harvest of each mu of land was seven liters and one he, and the Cai family only needed to hand over one and a half stone of field endowment, and the income suddenly increased by five and a half stones. Because of this reform, the Cai family's income doubled.

This year, his family's 21 acres of dry land have harvested 20 stone of grain, and in addition to the field endowment and seeds, there is still a harvest of 16 stones. That's the income of forty taels.

Not only that, in recent years, Jin Guogong has opened up water conservancy in Tianjin, and has also sent a large number of young laborers to Taiwan to reclaim the famine. Tianjin has a large amount of spare land, and the per capita cultivated area is constantly increasing. In particular, after the opening of the Jinguo Public Court, the social atmosphere continued to improve, and the phenomenon of relying on power to embezzle other people's fertile land was completely eradicated. Private property rights have been protected, and many landlords and peasants have taken the initiative to build small water conservancy facilities and open up land for irrigation. The total number of fields in Tianjin is rising rapidly.

In Yujia Village, where Boss Cai is located, Mr. Yu's 22 acres of dry land are vacant, and no one is tenants. Boss Cai, Boss Cai, and Boss Cai's daughter-in-law still have the strength to rent these fields. This year, twenty-one stones of grain were harvested from these tenant fields, and after deducting the land rent and seeds, Cai Laoda collected nine stones of grain from his family. This is another harvest of more than twenty taels.

Combined, Cai Huaishui can collect 25 stone rice noodles a year into his own warehouse.

Twenty-five stone of grain is equivalent to sixty-two taels of silver, and a family of four can live a decent life. Boss Cai has a family and a mouth, and he doesn't want to be a soldier.