A tour of Japan's Warring States Period

The whole Ejiri was a fiery scene, and the rice fields along the Tenryu River were so heavy that they could no longer nod their heads.

In the fields, men and women were bent over harvesting rice. The cheerful beat of field music spread from one end of the field ridge to the other, and the children picking up rice ears followed behind the adults. Of course, the younger children are more likely to run around in the wild, and the adults don't have the energy to take care of them.

Farmers who went to the village yard to dry the rice had their poles bent, and the newly harvested rice had to be threshed, inspected and aired before it could be shelled. Finally, use woven straw bags to pack them into pieces and put them into bags one by one.

Autumn harvest is always happy. Although this happiness is just the kind of short-lived fantasy in "Three or Five Dou More Harvest", harvesting more rice can always make the farmer's family feel better.

In the past, Xiao Pingtai also paid annual tribute. The rice after shelling was called brown rice, which was really just the coarse rice after the shell was beaten off with a flail. What is left is bran, which is what many farmers often eat. Then these black rice can be used to pay annual tribute, which already belongs to the top level of current food.

As for grinding or pounding the black rice, and peeling off the hardest rough parts on the outside, the rice becomes white rice, also called polished rice. It is actually the core of the rice, so it is softer and easier to use. Entrance.

Of course, there are very few people who can eat white rice every day. Many famous people are half-refined and half-coarse. How can anyone be willing to grind the rice so much just to eat the core? [Note 1] After all, from rice to white rice, the size of rice has almost shrunk by half, which is so wasteful.

The last time Koheita just sent all the rice that she had worked hard to grow for a year to the barns of Yamauchi Yoshinori and Tsunara's uncles, and then caught up with the war after delivering it, she never saw with her own eyes the hundreds of thousands of people in the world who paid tribute to the new year. state.

But this time it was different. As the Ejiri Castle Dai who was in charge of the military, civilian and civilian affairs of Ejiri, a country far away from the river, Koheta almost fell into endless pain. Collecting annual tribute is too difficult to do, it is really too difficult.

The land in each village serves as both the owner of a small piece of real estate and the contractor of the entire village's real estate. Every penny of food given to Xiao Pingtai meant that they themselves lost one penny of food. For such a yearly tribute, they broke their fingers with Xiao Pingtai one penny at a time, paying seven out of ten for Song money, ten for ten for clear money, and two for ten for bad money. Shine the money in front of the sun and determine the copper content, size and weight of each coin.

There is no one under the Mi Tu who is not trying to mix some rice bran and tares, mixed with the rice in an attempt to get away with it. For fear of putting too many grains of rice in the wooden sheng, he raises his orchid fingers when filling the rice, and his movements cannot be more gentle.

In addition, these fields and farmers either vomited their bitterness, knelt down and wailed, or simply pretended to be dead. In short, no one willingly and smoothly paid the annual tribute according to the amount.

What's more, at the beginning of the year, the Yamauchi family was mobilized to fight against Tahara, and the Ejiri people, under the command of Isshiki Miyauchi and Hosokawa Saime, attacked the Takeda army from the side. Hosokawa Saime was at the forefront of the conflict, and the one in front of her was the armor. Fanfu Huchang in the army was under his command, so the losses were considerable.

So an older man with white hair and a dozen or so people, old and young, knelt at the door of Ejiri's warehouse. Three Ashigaru Jinmen died in their village. It's not just three strong laborers who died, but so many. The backbone of Kouzi's family is gone. Those who heard the tragic scene shed tears and those who listened were sad.

After the war, Yamauchi Yoshiharu did open a large treasury to reward the three armies. Of course, he also paid some pensions to the dead in the war, but if it was not enough, they naturally did not need to pay the annual tribute this year. But after the fall, land tax is not just collected. Property tax, population tax, and housing tax all have to be suppressed. Then the strong laborers died, and there was no one to go to work and they had to pay for the labor.

Now that all the men in their family are dead, how can they still pay the money? Xiaoping was born as a tenant farmer, so he sympathized with them very much, but he did not dare to open the door. Hundreds of people crowded outside the granary, old and young, all from each village and village paying annual tribute according to their days. If the three of them were spared, the others would all kneel down immediately. After so many years of bad fighting, there is no village where a few people have not died. I can save one or two people, but I can't save hundreds or thousands.

The taxes that should be collected must not be less. Several Tongxin who directly calculated the annual tribute of Jiangjiri this year were obviously used to this situation, and they confronted them with the books.

Any family that had accumulated debts over the years would be arrested if they went up to the house. All the farmers including the farmers would have their hands tied and locked at the door. Then it is not difficult for those who know how to exchange money with each other. The rice in the field is worth twenty qian for a young man, 12 qian for a woman, seven qian for children and elders, and 32 qian for a family worth a thousand yuan.

In the past five or six years, Yamauchi Yoshiharu did not check the land or calculate the debt at all. All he took were old books from before the demise of the Shirakawa family. Coupled with the implementation of the peaceful government of five public officials and five citizens, according to Xiao Pingtai's estimation, this year is a normal year, and there should be no problem paying annual tribute. I really can’t understand why all the villages are complaining and crying about poverty.

When Xiao Pingtai appeared from the city, everyone, whether they were locked up or those who had paid their annual tribute, fell to their knees, mourning and wailing. I prayed that Xiao Ping Tai would be relieved a little bit, and a fellow next to him laughed with a mocking look on his face.

"We cry about poverty every year, and we never see the bottom of poverty every year." Xiao Pingtai heard it very clearly in the noisy voices.

Looking at the other Tongxin, they all looked like they were watching a show quietly. It was clearly like watching a lively comedy, enjoying it with relish.

Xiaopingtai finally realized that they were just pretending!

If they really couldn't survive, they would have launched an attack! Seeing that everyone still has the strength to howl here, they clearly had enough to eat when they set out in the morning.

They bullied Xiao Pingtai to experience the annual tribute collection for the first time, thinking of cheating. Maybe Xiao Pingtai would relent and reduce or reduce a few casually, and they would be able to relax a lot.

"Was it the same last year? Was it the year before last?" Xiao Pingtai greeted the smiling Tongxin.

"Don't say it was like this last year, it was like this when the Shirakawa clan was in charge of the country, it was still like this when the Shiba clan was in charge of the country, and it is like this every year." The Tongxin said it straightforwardly.

Fine!

[Note 1]: Why did many people get sick from eating white rice during the Edo period? It was because the rough rice husk was peeled off. At the same time, the vitamin B1 in it was also stripped away. After lacking vitamin B1, everyone from the shogun to the samurai minister got beriberi, and finally died.

This is actually a type of heart disease, heart failure. In the end, the person's feet begin to ulcerate and he dies in a state of weakness and extreme pain.

As for why people don’t get beriberi nowadays, it’s not because there are so many non-staple foods and you can get enough vitamin B1 in other places.