burning nations

Chapter 11
Zhang Cai is from Qizhou, although she is from Qizhou, she has only been to three places, namely Qizhou City, Zhangqiu County and Qingcheng Mountain, and the other is to go around Qizhou City, the daily life of the city residents Drinking water is scarce.She didn't know anything about other places, and she had never been there.

First of all, Qizhou, which governs Licheng, has jurisdiction over 7 counties: Zhangqiu, Tingshan, Zhu'a, Linyi, Linji, Quanjie, and Shanian. , runs through the whole prefecture, and divides Qizhou into two halves, north and south. Among the seven counties, Zhu'a, Linyi, and Linji are in the north of Jishui.

Further north of Jishui is the Yellow River, the largest river in the Zhagu Empire, and further north of the Yellow River, it leaves the Qizhou area and reaches Dezhou, which belongs to Hebei Road.

From the perspective of the Zhagu Empire, Qizhou is located on the south bank of the Yellow River, belonging to Henan Road, located in the northeast of Henan Road, very close to the ocean, and is the rear of the empire. The land is flat and has water, which is suitable for farming.

Qi Qi took Zhang Cai out for a tour, and the first stop was to Jeju in the west.When I arrived in Jeju, I lived in Changqing County for half a day, climbed Taoshan Mountain and Wushan Mountain the next day, and then went to Zhoucheng for a tour. Zhang Cai felt bored and felt the same as in Qizhou.

Qi Qi smiled and said nothing to Zhang Cai's performance, and continued to travel. The next stop was Yunzhou, where he lived in the city, and brought Zhang Cai a lot of gains as soon as he entered the city.

I saw a large number of beggars and refugees begging on the streets, in the corners of the walls, and under the shade of trees in Yunzhou City. Zhang Cai even saw some noble men in rich clothes deliberately throwing a few pieces of rotten rotten paper to the beggars. Cabbage leaves, the beggars did not hesitate to fight for a few rotten leaves, while the instigator watched the fun from a distance, sometimes pointing and sometimes commenting, smiling and scolding the untouchables for being lowly, and then left with a loud laugh.

What's more, they instigated the servants to pick and choose among the refugees, picked out some pretty girls, and threw them to the girl's family members who could only eat a full meal.Note that it is bran, it is bran!It is the chaff that the cattle eat!Not even the cheapest rye!

And the refugees who got the chaff had to kneel and kowtow three times to thank the lord for his life-saving grace, and the refugees who didn't get the chaff still cried and begged to offer their children and themselves in exchange for a meal of chaff. Rare.

The most ruthless ones are the official servants, who call out "the untouchables in the place will be dirty by death", and beat the refugees with weapons and sticks of water and fire, and drive the refugees out of the city with all their strength. , I don't care about the crying and begging of the refugees.

Zhang Cai, who had just entered the city, was stunned when she saw this scene. It was Qi Da who pulled her aside so as not to hinder the officials from performing their official duties.The people's misery made Zhang Cai grit his silver teeth, his eyes burst open, and he was about to draw out the dagger from his waist to kill all the officials, evil servants, and noble children, but Qi Qi quickly pinned down his plain hand.

"Girl, what do you want to do?" Qi Qi whispered.

Zhang Cai gritted his teeth and said word by word: "Father, I'm going to kill these animals!"

Qi Qixin's words were commendable, but he still said: "People must learn to restrain themselves, Zhang Cai, now suppress your temper for this old man!"

Zhang Cai forcibly restrained his anger after hearing this, don't look back and can't bear to watch this scene again.

"Daddy, aren't you angry at all?"

"I've seen a lot." Qi Qi said leisurely, "Compared to mountains of corpses and seas of blood, compared to mountains of human heads, compared to watching my fellow-robed pigs being slaughtered by tens of thousands like pigs and sheep, what are these? "

"Son, when you have seen what is a pile of dead people and what is eternal dryness, you will not be so angry like today."

Zhang Cai gritted his teeth and said, "Daddy, can you punish the governor of this state? The governor of this state is not a good official. Instead of helping the people, he still does this. He is a beast with no conscience."

Qi Qi's old eyes began to blur.

"Relief? What kind of relief? The government granary doesn't have much food, and it has to guarantee the basic life of the people in the city. If you rescued the refugees today, have you ever thought about what you will use to save the people in the city tomorrow?"

Qi Qi spoke, but it seemed to be repeating someone's words.

Zhang Cai was very dissatisfied with this answer.

"Bullshit!" This voice called Qi Qihun back.

"Daddy, my son only knows everything. There is no question of whether he can do it or not, but whether he wants to do it or not!" Zhang Cai said emotionally, "As long as my son wants to do something well, no matter how difficult it is, he will try his best to do it." Do it well! In the same way, if you don’t want to do something, even if it’s as simple as moving your fingers, your child will definitely not be able to do it well!”

"Food is not enough, but can't we borrow it if we don't have enough food? Can't we grab it if we don't have enough food? It can only be said that the governor doesn't want to give relief at all."

Qi Qi's eyes became sharp, which startled Zhang Cai, but at this moment, Qi Qi's thoughts had drifted away, to 8 years ago.

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"There are [-] people affected by the disaster in the three states. Do you want me to turn a blind eye to it? Li Xiang!"

"Then what is Qi Shuai going to do? The government is all ears."

"What else can I do? Naturally, it's relief! Isn't this your duty, Mr. Li?"

"Relief? What kind of relief? The government granary doesn't have much food, and it has to guarantee the basic life of the people in the city. If you rescued the refugees today, have you ever thought about what you will use to save the people in the city tomorrow?"

"You are absurd! Then the commander-in-chief can transfer the army rations to save the people's head office!"

"Qi Qi, how dare you?! If you don't want to hurt the Qi family in Ezhou, then don't do it! Isn't it just food, I already have some clues."

"Oh? Why does Li Xiang have a clue?"

"This requires the assistance of Qi Shuai. Give me a legion of soldiers in my house. My family will go to greet each other, and ask each family to borrow food. If you don't borrow food from my house, I will grab it! My house dares to issue a military order and starve to death. Go to jail and face the crime."

"Absolutely impossible! Nobles are the cornerstone of the empire, Li Yan, don't even think about it! Don't think that the commander-in-chief doesn't know, you want to take this opportunity to suppress the Donglin Party members!"

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"What's wrong with you, Dad? Don't scare me!"

Qi Qi came to her senses and saw Zhang Cai who was looking worried, caressing her forehead.

"My son is both righteous and evil," Qi Qi said meaningfully.

Zhang Cai didn't understand what it meant, and Qi Qi didn't want to explain, it was his bad memory.

I lived in Yunzhou City for a day, during which Zhang Cai became more and more uncomfortable wandering around the city, and my impression of the governor of Yunzhou has improved. Although the policy towards the refugees is very cruel, the common people recognize it in terms of governance, and they are sympathetic to the governor. Having a good impression also offset the hostility in Zhang Cai's heart.But for the local aristocrats in Yunzhou, Zhang Cai does not have any good impressions. Compared with the Zhang family, the Zhang family is better than the nobles in Yunzhou.At least Zhang Cai has never encountered the best scum in Zhang's family, otherwise she would not have such an idea.

Alas ~ good-looking is also a sin!

Zhang Cai's appearance is originally a beauty, plus she has a wildness that other women don't have, even after being trained by Qi Qi for half a year, this wildness still can't be changed, which makes her more capable of seducing people to commit crimes than ordinary women.Naturally, some people put their minds on Zhang Cai. Maybe they are used to bullying and dominating the market. They think that Zhang Cai or Mr. Qi Qi is just like ordinary untouchables in their eyes. to the point of captivity.Some second-generation ancestors even said in front of Zhang Cai and Qi Qi: I want to rape this little beauty, Zhang Cai, and take him as the first concubine.

Fortunately, Zhang Cai knows kung fu, her boxing, sword, and arrow skills are very good, beating this group of second generation ancestors, evil servants, and Xiao Si is like beating children.

Fortunately, there was Qi Qi beside Zhang Cai to rely on, Qi Qi waved his hand with a dark face, Qi Da and others who were cleaned up by Zhang Cai at the hut in Qingcheng Mountain on the spot raised their fists to help, and fell down with one punch.

Qi Qi escorted these people to the yamen, found the local governor and directly took out his identity card to ask the governor to give him an explanation.The governor was numb for a moment, and invited the patriarchs of the offending families in front of Qi Qi. When the patriarchs heard that they had touched Qi Qi's daughter, their brains froze instantly, and said in front of Qi Qi that our family was not such a big one. People, these are counterfeit products, insulting the family reputation, and then the governor cut them all decisively.

Things are over here, but on the way back, Zhang Cai has been thinking about a problem.

If it wasn't Qi Qi's righteous daughter, if Qi Qi wasn't there, if he was just an ordinary citizen, would today's incident end like this?
Obviously not!

Zhang Cai seems to understand the knowledge that is not in the books. Not all the people in the empire sing praises to the high-ranking eighth-level nobles.

Reminiscent of the refugees when he entered the city, Zhang Cai asked Qi Qi a question: "Father, when I was in Qizhou, although I saw several times of exploitation by the people in the Gongmen (forced buying and selling, no money for meals), but I have never seen the scene of today's Yunzhou. Refugees, officials, nobles. The states and counties of the same empire are so different, why?"

Qi Qi said calmly: "This involves many aspects."

Zhang Cai waits for the next article.

"First of all, there are two large Yunzhous in the area under the jurisdiction of Qizhou, and there is also a lake in Yunzhou. It is closer, the prosperity is stronger than Qizhou, and prosperity means more people. The population of Yunzhou is at least tens of thousands more than Qizhou, but the amount of arable land is not as good as Qizhou. The second is that there are more people and less land; As for the third, it is exploited by the government, and natural disasters and man-made disasters happen."

Zhang Cai nodded. She roughly understood that the food grown in Yunzhou could not feed the population of Yunzhou, and the inaction of the government caused the people of Yunzhou to suffer.

Zhang Cai said: "Since there are more people and less land, why doesn't the empire immigrate? Isn't it solved by moving to a place with fewer people and more land?"

Qi Qi smiled: "Naive!"

"Um???"

"Where do the immigrants go? There is no place in the heart of the empire where there are few people and a lot of land. Either go south to a hot and flat land, or go north to a cold and barren land. Do you know how many people will die if they go all the way without food and drink? Children, there is no one in ten."

Qi Qi educated and said: "The empire has always been emigrating, but the burden is too great. In the two years of Lingyue Wuhe, the empire moved 2 landless people from Henan and Hebei to the four states of Ping, Liao, Ying, and Lelang. Water and sea routes migrated at the same time, and the empire prepared food along the road and made full preparations, but the result? One million landless people in the two provinces migrated spontaneously, 60 died of starvation and thirst on the road, and only 100 survived to reach the four states."

"Immigration is not that simple!"

Zhang Cai was silent.

Soon asked why.

Qi Qi said: "Girl, let the old man do the math for you. A refugee travels nearly ten thousand miles from Qizhou to Yingzhou and consumes about two shi of grain. The refugees had nothing. In order to prevent them from eating up all the food in the states and counties along the way, or even rebelling, at least one hundred thousand refugees had to send more than ten thousand troops. The 30 infantry soldiers consumed 250 shi per day, and 40 shi in ten days. One stone (40 Jin) Rye needs at least one dinar, [-] shi is at least [-] dinars. After the refugees arrive in the local area, the empire will not be able to collect taxes for the first three years, and they must prepare arable land, houses, farm tools, seeds, and livestock , Water conservancy facilities are all money!"

"For each immigration, the money spent by the empire is not calculated in dinars, but in thousands of gold pancakes!"

Qi Qi also said: "In the 7th year of flattering Zhangwu, the old man was still in the south, and the empire moved to Jiangnan, Lingnan, and Shannan to enrich the frontier. There are 13 people missing, and the cost is 80 gold."

"So much money."

With a series of death and missing numbers, and a huge amount of immigration expenses, Zhang Cai finally realized how much he took for granted.Zhang Cai swallowed the words like letting the refugees walk to their destination by themselves.

She remembered another sentence in the book - human life is not as good as a dog!

Many things happened in the city of Yunzhou, and he left the next morning, heading south along Jishui River, Qi Qi wanted to take Zhangcai to Puzhou, and then go to Caozhou, Songzhou, Bianzhou, Zhengzhou to Luozhou, if If Zhang Cai is willing, he will inevitably go to the ancient city of Dijingzha.

In order to let Zhang Cai see more of the world, Qi Qi deliberately did not take the ready-made "highway" straight road. This decision opened Zhang Cai's horizons again, and also made Qi Qi feel mixed feelings in his heart.

Which is right?Who is wrong?
(End of this chapter)