It was just a temporary solution to the family's food problem that made him feel so comfortable.

What would it feel like if countless people across the land were able to solve their food problem for a long time?

After the family of four had finished eating and drinking, Zhu Yunwen finally asked:

"It seems your rice and flour bins are empty. How are you going to get through the whole winter?"

When this question was raised, the man sighed and said:

“Every day I go to Master Zhang’s house to do some work. After working for a few days, I can get a pound of rice or flour. A pound of rice or flour is enough for my family to last for a few days. As long as Master Zhang needs me to work for him, we can at least get through this winter.”

Zhu Yunwen frowned slightly and said:

"How many days of work would it take to earn one pound of rice or flour?"

In his memory, when he went to the west to provide disaster relief, one tael of silver could buy more than 100 jin of rice.

An ordinary person could earn at least one tael of silver per month.

In other words, working for a month can earn you over 100 kilograms of rice.

More than 100 kilograms of rice should be enough to feed a family for two or three months.

However, the man in front of them said that he would work for Master Zhang and would only get a pound of rice or flour after working for several days.

Even if you go every day for a month, wouldn't you only get ten catties of rice and flour?

By this calculation, the labor force difference is ten times or more, which is obviously extremely unreasonable.

The man nodded and said:

"That's right, even with this many men, there are still quite a few men in the village vying to go. If one day Master Zhang doesn't need so many people, then some of them will go hungry."

Zhu Yunwen asked, "What kind of work will you be doing when you go to work for Master Zhang?"

The man said, "Go and tend to his crops in his fields, or let him graze the cattle, or feed the pigs and sheep, and so on."

Zhu Yunwen then asked, "Then you can grow grain in your own fields. You don't need to work for Master Zhang in exchange for food."

Upon hearing this, the rough-looking man sighed helplessly and said:

"Who wouldn't want to own a piece of land to grow food and be self-sufficient? Unfortunately, it's not an easy thing to do."

Zhu Yunwen frowned: "What do you mean by that? Logically speaking, ordinary people should all own their own land. Why does it sound like a luxury coming from your mouth?"

The man shook his head and said, "At first, we did have our own land, but those rich and powerful people had countless ways to take it away from us."

We have no way to resist, and sometimes we even have to give the land to them. Because the land is in our hands, we have no ability to protect it, and once we give it to them, it becomes their property.

Without our land, we have nowhere to sow our grain, and thus no source of food. Therefore, we are left only to serve as laborers for these wealthy landowners, receiving their charity to feed our families.

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yunwen realized that the problems among the people were quite serious.

And in an instant, four words popped into his mind: land annexation.

So-called land annexation, in essence, means that people with power, influence, and money seize the land of many ordinary people through various means and turn it into their private property.

This left ordinary people without land.

Without land, people cannot grow crops and cannot feed themselves.

In this situation, these ordinary people had no choice but to work for these powerful and influential people again in exchange for meager food and income.

To put it bluntly, these people were tenants. They originally owned the land, but for various reasons, the land became the property of those with power and influence.

If these people wanted to get food and survive, they had no choice but to work for these powerful people and manage the land that originally belonged to them.

The reward they ultimately received was extremely small.

This kind of thing was very obvious among the regional princes and some imperial relatives.

Because these vassal kings usually had fiefdoms, and the land and water within those fiefdoms belonged to them.

And the original owners of these fields lost them.

To survive, the only option is to work for these powerful people.

This led to the formation of a pressing system.

If this trend continues, it will have a serious consequence: 80-90 percent of the land will be controlled by 10 percent of the population.

And 80% to 90% of the population can only own 10% of the land.

This huge gap directly led to those in power and influence becoming incredibly wealthy.

Ordinary people were starving.

Zhu Yunwen was well aware that if things continued this way, the Ming Dynasty would inevitably perish due to land annexation.

He had previously analyzed many reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty in its later years, but he overlooked the factor of land annexation.

The reason why there were so many peasant uprisings in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty was simply that the people could no longer endure the oppression.

As the saying goes, where there is oppression, there will be resistance.

If the people were not truly left with no other choice, who would be willing to rebel and risk their lives?

From the very beginning, the Ming Dynasty implemented a system of fiefdoms for princes, frequently bestowed fertile land as rewards, and tolerated the imperial relatives and nobles seizing land from the common people in various places through various means.

This directly impacted the scholar-official class and the wealthy, leading them to exploit the common people even more recklessly.

Although, in a sense, the imperial power's tolerance of the exploitation of the common people by the scholar-officials and the wealthy class could help the imperial power to effectively manage the local population.

But the unscrupulous exploitation by these scholar-officials and the wealthy will only push the common people to the brink of madness, leading to their collapse.

These scholars and wealthy people will then become the vampires and cancer of this country.

They don't consider the destruction of the country, nor the life and death of the people.

Therefore, for the scholar-officials and the wealthy, even if the Ming Dynasty fell, there were other dynasties to follow. As long as their interests were not affected, they didn't care.

For them, even if the people are exploited to death, there will be a next generation to continue exploiting them.

When a slave dies, there is a slave's son; when a slave's son dies, there is a son of his son.

As long as humans continue to reproduce and pass on their lineage, these scholar-officials and wealthy individuals will never have to worry about being unattended.

This rule applies to any dynasty, any period, any place, and any environment.