Dawn of the Empire

Chapter 2' If Le Yi is born again (3)

When he met the reasonable military master, Zhang Zhiqiao was secretly grateful and hesitated: "Forgive me, General. We can't bear to reclaim the land where our ancestors shed blood and sweat." He looked at Zhao Xingde, and the rain gradually became heavier. General His face was full of sincerity, the rain dripped down the gray cloak, and his more than 200 people were also standing in the rain, silent, the spring cold was not gone, many people began to shiver in the rain, but they dared not leave , with a look of begging for mercy in his eyes.It can be seen that these people are unwilling to leave their homes.

"It's not that I haven't been victimized by the Hus in the past, but I have survived it. In the future, maybe I can survive it?" This is the true thought of most people. Many people have never left this place for four or five miles in their entire lives. The land, they are just a piece of grass that grows on this land, and they are always reluctant and resisting in their hearts even if they promise a future like gold and silver.

The raindrops fell on the soldiers and civilians, and without Zhao Xingde's military order, the soldiers all faced the scene in silence.In the Kingdom of Xia, forcing the people to relocate in an emergency requires the consent of the county tribunes.For further actions, the highest even requires the consent of Zhu Guofu.However, this is the frontier and the battlefield. There is no established system and rules here. The present and future of the people must be determined by those who hold the knife.If Ms. Xia did not decide for them, then the Liao Army and Jin Bing would decide for them.

"The general is kind, please be pitiful." At first someone murmured in a low voice, "I'll wait for you, please." "In the future, I will set up a tablet of longevity for you." At first, some people knelt down and kowtowed to the soldiers of Chengying camp, begging for mercy, While crying, the woman tried her best to stop the child from crying.

Zhao Xingde frowned, pointed to the nearest house, and said in a deep voice, "Let the women and the old and the weak enter the house to shelter from the rain."

"Yes!" Jin Changtai agreed, but did not act. He looked at Zhang Zhiqiao and said in a deep voice, "Did you hear what your lord said?"

Zhang Zhiqiao was taken aback for a moment, and then he realized that he hurriedly asked the women and children of all families to hide from the rain, so as not to get sick from the drench.Li Erniu's house is only a dozen steps away from here. Although the three houses are not big, they can accommodate more than a hundred people if they are squeezed together. Every window is crowded with heads, looking anxiously at the rain. The big old men who are soaked in water.

Zhang Zhiqiao was grateful, and had a lot of hope. He said loudly: "General Rende, can you leave a way for the common people to survive and not move away from their homeland?" As he spoke, his knees softened, and he was about to kneel on the ground He kowtowed, but before the clinker was knocked down, a long black lance reached his chin and stopped him.

Zhao Xingde said in a deep voice: "The rules of our army are to kneel to the parents of heaven and earth, and not to kneel to others."

"Yes, yes." Zhang Zhiqiao said tremblingly, unable to remember when the Han army added this rule.He was originally a peaceful and good citizen of the Liao Kingdom, and had never dealt with Han's cottage. Zhao Xingde's speech and behavior were quite different from what he heard about the Han army in the past.

Zhao Xingde looked at more than a hundred Liaodong peasants underground, with rough faces, ragged clothes, and calluses on their hands and feet. Everyone looked at him with hopeful eyes, secretly expelling a trace of "female" benevolence from their hearts, and said in a deep voice : "You were all born in Liaodong. I don't need to say more about the brutality of the barbarians. Now Liao is at war with the Jurchens. They need food and grass to feed their horses, they need to spoil women, and they will sign troops at will to fight for them. The war drags on. The longer it grows, the barbarians will become more and more cruel, and they will treat you more and more like pigs and dogs. Now you only want to make ends meet, if I fulfill your wishes, I will harm you instead."

His face was sinking like water, his words were as cold as ice, and the cold wind and rain made these honest and responsible people have to face the bloody and dangerous future. These people used the word "boil" to anesthetize themselves almost Ten years, but Zhao Xingde just wanted to scratch their ears, awakening their extravagant expectations of law-abiding and self-discipline.

"If you survived in the past, it doesn't mean you can survive in the future. If you survived today, the Khitans didn't assign you to the tribe, and the Jurchens didn't assign you to Moke. You worked as cattle, horses, and slaves, but it doesn't mean you can escape tomorrow. If you follow us, you can still be a human being. If you don’t follow us, you will only be slaves on that day. Every piece of grain must be filial to the future owner first. If you stay, this will be your end." Zhao Xingde said slowly.He looked at the pale faces in the rain, the begging and numb eyes of these men showed panic, pain, sadness, or anger.

Zhang Zhiqiao understood that what the general said was the truth, it was not unheard of for the whole village to be taken as slaves.Hu'er soldiers and horses passed by, looting and massacres were commonplace. The people just couldn't resist, so they forced themselves to be numb to these things. Take a little more risk.Ma Biaozi felt that what the official said was too damn right, and all men with seeds would go with him.Fang Lianjiang looked over at Li Erwa's house. He couldn't let go of the women and children being taken away, but he saw the strange military master standing under the tree outside the yard, preferring to stay with these 'women' and children in the rain. Looking at the distance, I felt a sense of relief and less fear of following them.

"I will respect your choice. Those who don't want to leave can stay. But the mountains need cattle to be cultivated. I will take all the cattle. Of course we will pay. Also," Zhao Xingde stared at these people in panic and disappointment Common people, "If you have a house deed and a land deed, you must collect it. After the world is peaceful, the house and field will still be yours, and your children and grandchildren's."

"Most of us don't have land deeds, house deeds, etc." Zhang Zhiqiao said with a wry smile.The land here is vast and sparsely populated, and there is wasteland everywhere. Most of the Han children were captured here to build houses and open dozens of acres of land. According to the old man, the county government had registered taxes on houses and land in Han Chang's time, but the books were early. Burned in the war 'chaos'.The imperial court of the Liao Kingdom was too lazy to enshrine the real estate, and it collected more and more taxes every year.The deeds written by the people in private, with official seals are called official deeds, and those without official seals are called draft deeds. Now the people in this barren village basically don't have any.

"Then I'll send it to you." Zhao Xingde immediately interrupted him, "You can come back when the military disaster is over. It's no problem to pass on the house and land here to your son or grandson."

"Really?" Zhang Zhiqiao asked in confusion, he didn't expect that there was such a thing as a land deed. "If it's true, then following them will not be considered abandoning the ancestral homeland." Fang Lianjiang secretly thought, and couldn't help but glanced at Li Erwa's courtyard again, and turned his face away.Fang Pu blurted out and asked, "What about the land opened in the mountains, can there be a title deed?"

Zhao Xingde smiled slightly and said, "Of course." His smile was very confident, and these peasants were skeptical.Seeing the general's kind face, someone boldly asked, "Why should we trust you?"

"Just rely on this!" Jin Changtai said at the right time, took out a big seal from his bag, and held it up high, "My general's golden seal is a witness, and we will sign a land deed for you." He took out a large seal from his pocket. A piece of paper was taken out and shook in the rain, the rain quickly soaked the paper, but the red official seal underneath was very vivid.

The people in this barren village have never seen the real official seal, not even the notice, they just heard about this kind of thing, even Zhang Zhiqiao was puzzled, took the paper from Jin Changtai, and muttered Said: "Is it really okay?" He was full of doubts.

"It's really no problem." Jin Changtai said with a slightly reserved smile.This land deed and house deed is his plan.An ingot of gold was melted to cast a gold seal for Zhao Xingde, with six words on the front "Seal of Xingde Protecting the People".It is used to make house deeds and land deeds issued to the displaced people.He had also decided on the format a long time ago, and he brought out hundreds of copies in his leather bag, as long as he filled in the owner's name, the size of the house and land, and stamped the official seal, it looked decent.

"It's a good feeling, a good feeling." Zhang Pu leaned behind Zhang Zhiqiao's shoulder, trembling with excitement.He only heard about the official deed from the old man at home, and that was before his grandfather was taken captive from the Southern Dynasty.The sample of this official deed was passed around among the common people of the Han Dynasty. The pattering spring rain has been falling. After more than 100 pairs of rough hands, it is still intact. Almost everyone holds it like a heart, and even holds it. Take up your clothes to protect it from the rain.Finally, Zhang Zhiqiao reluctantly handed it back to Jin Changtai.

"The general is virtuous, and the villain is very grateful. Everything is arranged by the general." Zhang Zhiqiao said sincerely.Zhang Pu and Fang Lianjiang stood around him, nodding repeatedly.Zhao Xingde looked around and said in a deep voice: "If there are those who don't want to leave, I will never force them." The answer was silence.He turned his head and said to Jin Changtai in a deep voice: "Then make a contract for these people and arrange for them to tidy up."

Chengying Eighth Battalion's coercion of the people is far better than that of other Han army cottages. The soldiers have rich experience in governing the people.During the Xia Kingdom, the Prime Minister's Mansion even asked the soldiers to assist in the improvement of agriculture, and the entire taxation and management system of the Xia Kingdom was also copied to the gradually expanding settlement of Phoenix Mountain.The highly respected people in the original Han villages were simply elected as tribunes, and these people played a great role in helping to appease the uneasy emotions of the people.

For those people who would rather die than move into the mountains, the Chengying Camp did not force them, but established a household security guard among them, serving as the eyes and ears and footholds of the militiamen outside the mountains.Jin Changtai secretly observed dozens of people and began to develop the Brotherhood of Volunteers.

In just half a month, thousands of households were moved to Phoenix Mountain.They carried simple farm tools and a small number of cattle, and began to reclaim land in large tracts under the supervision of sergeants.Although Li Ruobing got a lot of grain in exchange, Zhao Xingde worried that the seeds in the south were not suitable for the water and soil in Liaodong, so he asked the people to spread the seeds and rations saved last year as much as possible.The sergeants issued them southern grain to partially replace the rations.In addition to the food, Zhao Xingde also arranged for several shady households to try to grow ginseng.

Because of the precautions of the Khitan people, the iron tools in the hands of the people were extremely scarce, and many farmers even had only wooden hoes and plows, which were extremely ineffective in opening up wasteland.Zhao Xingde had to speed up his search for the iron ore veins in the north of Fenghuang Mountain, and before that, the shady households began to collect and burn the charcoal necessary for ironmaking.