The great hero of the Silk Road, starting from a farm farmer

Chapter 14 The New Year's Eve passed away, and the prince is going to serve corvee!

Grandma didn't stay at Jiang's house too long, so Song Yingkui and her second brother were asked to carry her home on a mule that afternoon.

In the next few days, we will welcome and send off relatives.The gift I brought was a pack of snacks and other small items, and what the owner brought was given to the west, so to put it bluntly, it was meaningless.But relatives, that's what it is. Take a walk around during the Chinese New Year's slack, which means that this family is still there, and you can still contact them in the future if something happens.

The market in Wuying Town will reopen after the tenth day of the first lunar month, and Song Yingkui has no place to do business, so if you transfer relatives, you can earn relatives, and nothing will be delayed.

There are always accidents. I thought that the New Year is almost over, and I can finally spare time to make tofu and yuba, and try to see if this business can be done.

In the end, something came to the door again, and it was quite a big deal.On the seventh day of the first lunar month in the 19th year of Wan’an, Yang Shun’an, the treasurer of Baochang and Yangjiabao, knocked on the gong and yelled on Zhuang Road. The old King Sukang of Wazhou City had passed away.

Don't you have to pay the commissioner's silver every year?Why do you still have to smoke and serve corvee?I'm sorry, the feudal dynasty is so unreasonable, and the money paid for the servants is just the normal annual difference.For example, if the royal family dies and people repair their graves, if they need to repair the city in case of military disasters or natural disasters, or if they encounter major wars, they will draw extra money.

When drawing ding, if someone in the family has served in the government office or barracks, the corresponding ding amount will be reduced or exempted.If the family has a reputation, the corvee will be reduced or exempted.

The Song family is naturally not within the scope of these two reductions, and their family has to send someone to repair the grave of Lord Suzhuang.

This time, the ratio of drawing ding is 16 for [-] ding, and [-] for [-] ding.Song Tianshun, Song Yingqin, and Song Yingyong of the Song family are Zhengding, and this year, unfortunately, Song Xueliang and Song Yingkui just turned [-] during the Chinese New Year, and they also became Zhengding.So, the whole family happens to be five people, and two people are going to be selected to repair the grave.

"Boss Yang said that after three days, Dingkou of the whole village will be sent to the Wangling. Let's discuss who will be sent to serve?" Knowing about the conscripts, Song Tianshun, the head of the family, called all the males in the family to the main room to discuss who to send.

"Brother, let Kuiwa and the third child go. You will definitely not be able to go when you are old, and the second child will not be able to cope if you go. The work at home cannot be separated from me. Kui Wa and the third child can work hard, and they went out to work in winter, so they can be adults." Song Yingkui's father, Song Xueqin, did not give others the right to express their opinions.Although the nominal shopkeeper of the family is grandpa, it is actually Song Xueqin, the son of Song's eldest son who is doing the big work. Song Yingqin has the most say in arranging labor.

"Hmm! What's the deal with this arrangement? Let's make some preparations at home, put on a pair of new shoes for the third child and Kuiwa, and brand some dry food for them to take with them, and follow the people from the village to the Royal Tomb of Zijinbao the day after tomorrow." Song Tianshun's proposal was approved by the eldest son, and he probably had such a plan in mind.

"Xiu Ling needs to bring irons. There are only two irons at home. After the third child and Kui Wa take them away, the family will be useless. Da, let's do this. When we pass by the county town on the way to Zijinbao, give them two hundred Wen and let them go to the county to buy two irons." Song Yingkui made arrangements to bring tools.

Serving corvee is purely bringing your own dry food and tools to work in vain, and you have to bring everything you use. The government basically doesn’t care about anything, and the labor is in vain.

"Come on! Alas, fortunately Dongshang Kuiwa and the third child went out to earn some cash, otherwise they would go to repair the grave, and they wouldn't even be able to afford the iron lift." When Song Tianshun said this, he felt very grateful.This poor family almost got worse because of repairing the prince's grave.

The adults who are in charge of the family have given the matter of corvee service, what else can Song Yingkui say?For the time being, he has no say in this matter.It seems that the plan to start a tofu business can only be postponed.Wanting to start a business to make some money is really full of twists and turns, and there are always some messy and unexpected delays.

The only thing that is acceptable is that the work of repairing the grave will not last long, at most seven or eight months before returning home.It's not because the people of Sukang Palace are sympathetic to the people's sentiments, and actively think about shortening the project cycle.Rather, the imperial court has strict requirements on the construction period of the royal tomb. The prince must be buried in the earth within eight months after his "death".The Wangfu was held accountable for being too polite, and the consequences were quite serious. No prince would make such a mistake when he was full.

Although the Dazheng Dynasty was an evil feudal dynasty, compared with the previous dynasties in terms of royal funerals, it was quite frugal.Mausoleums cannot be built in front of the emperor and princes. After death, the emperor must be buried within one year, and the prince must be buried within eight months.Such a policy greatly limited the scale of the emperor's tomb and minimized the loss of people's power.In the previous dynasties, the first thing the emperor and princes did was to start the construction of their own mausoleum as soon as they were in place. The project of immortality cannot be stopped.

After receiving the conscription order, the Song family, other families in the Yangjiabao Village, and even the people in the entire Yuyuan County got busy.Every household has to prepare things for their family members who are going to serve in corvee.On the third day, Song Yingkui's uncle and nephew, each with a shoulder strap on their backs, arrived at the gate of Yangjiabaozi, joined other families in the village, and set off for Yuyuan County under the leadership of the security chief Yang Shunan.

After looking it over, the people who went to serve the corvee this time were almost all young men who were as old as me.It's almost spring plowing, but any family with a way will not send the real pillar of the family to serve in corvee.In ancient times, corvee labor was generally not imposed during spring plowing and grain harvesting seasons, and farmers really couldn't afford the loss.But things like repairing the grave of a dead prince can't be delayed and can only be recruited at this time of year.

Among those who went to serve in Zhuangshang, Song Yingkui saw a few people he was relatively familiar with. Ding Huanyi, Ding Degui's second son, was also standing in the team with a strap on his back and an iron lift.There are three Dings in his family, the father and the eldest have to do farm work and earn money, so it is just right to send Ding Huanyi to serve in corvee.In the old house, Song Yingzhen, the fifth eldest in the third uncle family of the second room, was serving corvee, and he brought the only man in the family, and the old house also had two servants!

Starting from the village, they left the village and walked for three or four hours along the mountain road before the team arrived at the county seat.The head of the security guard stopped the team, calling for those who wanted to buy tools in the county to go to the city to buy them. After an hour at most, the team would continue to set off, and they had to rush to the construction site of the Zijinbao royal tomb tonight.

Following other people who wanted to buy tools, Song Yingkui and Sanshu went straight to the blacksmith's shop that sold iron bars after entering the county town.In the past few days, there are more people selling iron picks. The blacksmith shop has raised the price in line with the principle of making money and not making bastards. Originally, a 120 cents a piece of irons has been raised to [-] cents, and there is no wooden handle!If it has a wooden handle, add ten Wen.What I do is the business of pit shop.

"Kuiwa, it's too bad to buy a wooden handle for ten pennies. Let's just buy an iron handle?" The third uncle Song Xueliang saw that the blacksmith shop was so cheating, so he thought about buying an iron handle instead of a wooden handle and saving twenty pennies.

"I'd better buy it. I can't tell what the situation will be when we arrive at the construction site. If we don't find the wooden inlaid handle at the site, we will be caught blind." Song Yingkui took out his private money from his pocket and added it to the communal money held by the third uncle to get enough money to buy the iron lift.

Fortunately, when giving Ding Gui money, Song Yingkui withheld his one hundred Wen wages and kept it as private money, otherwise he would not even be able to afford the iron lift this time.Grandpa is also true, when he gave money to buy tools, he only paid two hundred cash, leaving no margin, and almost cheated people!Haven’t you heard the old adage that a poor family is rich?
(End of this chapter)