Chapter 1633 Pu Village
Manbao and his companions ran too fast, so it was impossible for them to wait for Lao Zhoutou and the others. It would be so boring to wait on the road with the sun hanging so brightly.
So they asked along the way and arrived at the place first.
It was a fairly large village, almost the same size as Dali Village, except that the houses were not arranged in a very neat arrangement. In the vast wilderness, there were a few scattered houses.
Manbao reined in Chiji and circled twice, looking around. Then he pointed at the large village and said, "That should be it. Let's go and take a look."
The three of them rode over, and Daji followed behind with two guards.
As soon as the horses ran to the village entrance, the children who were watching the millet there jumped up immediately. Half of them stood under the trees or eaves from a distance and watched them, while the other half turned around and ran back to the village.
This village looked similar to theirs. Manbao rode his horse up to it, exchanged glances with Baishan, and then jumped off his horse.
Manbao took off the purse from her body and poured out two pieces of snacks from it. Seeing so many children, she felt a little embarrassed to take out the snacks.
Bai Shan felt around and only found a few snacks.
Bai Erlang looked at them with contempt, took out his purse, and poured out more than a dozen candies.
The children's eyes lit up immediately.
The three of them distributed the candies and snacks to them and asked, "Is this Pu Village in Qiyang County?"
Even a child would know the name of the county village, so he nodded and said, "Yes, who are you looking for?"
Manbao smiled and said, "I want to find your village head."
As we were talking, several adults came over with a group of children.
The leader was an old man wearing wide-sleeved clothes, and he was obviously the head of a village.
In the countryside, apart from landlords and village heads, who would wear wide sleeves?
I heard that most of the people in Putian Village are tenant farmers, and there are no landlords like Mr. Bai who are rich and own land.
So Manbao stepped forward with a smile and bowed to the elders first. The other party quickly glanced at their clothes and the horses behind them, and naturally saw the three tall and strong guards of Daji.
The village head also smiled and returned the greeting before asking, "What are you ladies and gentlemen like?"
Manbao quickly took out her official seal and the document given by the Ministry of Revenue from her sleeve pocket. It was actually just a thin piece of paper with the seal of the Ministry of Revenue on it, which stated the scope of her official land, as well as the location and so on.
"It's next week, and I came to see the land under my name."
The village head looked at Zhou Man in surprise. He knew that the official in charge of the fields under his jurisdiction had been replaced again. He also heard that it was an editor and an imperial physician. He felt a little relieved at this point. However, he did not expect that the other party was actually a little girl.
He glanced at the paper in his hand and asked hesitantly, "Sir, do you want to manage your official land yourself?"
Manbao smiled and said, "I want my family to take care of it. Of course, I'll need the village head to take care of it in the future."
Manbao grew up in the village and knows how important the support of a village head is.
The village head just smiled and said, "You are joking, sir. What can I do for you?"
He immediately came to his senses, folded up the document he had read and handed it to Zhou Man. He took the bamboo hat from his son's hand behind him, put it on and said, "Since you are here, how about I take you to see your official land?"
Manbao readily agreed.
So everyone turned and walked out of the village.
The people in the village soon realized that it was the adult in charge of the fields who came to see their fields. This was related to everyone's livelihood, so many people followed behind to see it.
The head of the village quietly looked at Zhou Man and the others, and seeing that they looked calm and didn't seem to mind, he didn't drive the villagers away.
Manbao's thousand acres of official land are not all here, but most of it is here, and some of it is in the other two villages. It's just that the land in those two places is smaller, so Manbao came here first.
At this time, all the crops in the fields have been harvested, and the fields are either empty or overgrown with weeds.
Manbao and his friends have all farmed before, and they grew up in the village. They have seen people sowing in spring and harvesting in autumn. They can guess how the tenant farmers are working just by looking at the situation in the fields.
At this time, the fields that had just been harvested were full of weeds.
Manbao walked to the field, kicked the weeds with his toes, then squatted down and pulled them out, but he couldn't move them despite a lot of effort.
Bai Shanze squatted down and dug a handful of soil. After squeezing it with his hands, he said to Manbao, "It's all cultivated soil. It's just not turned over very often, so the soil quality is a bit bad."
The village head standing nearby frowned slightly and turned to look at Bai Shan. He saw that Bai Shan was wearing the most luxurious clothes. The silk on his body had dark patterns, and only a half-hidden crane was embroidered on his cuffs. He looked the most noble among the group.
He didn't expect that he also knew how to farm.
Manbao nodded, looked up into the distance, and found that everywhere she looked was weeds. She felt a little headache. Even so, her father wanted to turn over the soil and bury the weeds for the winter. She felt that her eldest brother and the others would probably have a lot of pain in their waists.
Manbao shook his head and asked the village head, "Where does this official land start and end?"
It would be impossible to walk all the way across such a large area, but the village head could point and tell her roughly where to go, and which parts were missing and belonged to good citizens.
Although there were occasionally other people's lands in between, basically all of her official lands could be connected.
The imperial court was able to connect such a large piece of land, it seems that it must have bought a lot of land from others.
Manbao had questions in his mind and would not be happy if he did not get to the bottom of it. He asked, "I heard that the court would buy back the land from the people. These were the villagers' lands before?"
The village head was stunned for a moment before he smiled and said, "That's not the case. This area used to belong to a general named Liu during the previous dynasty. It's even harder to trace back further. During my grandfather's time, I heard that every two years, a new refugee leader would appear in this area. Today it's this general, tomorrow it's that master. After the establishment of this dynasty, the court directly took back this large area and later distributed it to officials as official farmland."
The village head said, "We all moved here from other places after losing our land, and we have only been here for more than ten years."
Manbao was curious, "Where is your hometown?"
The village head said, "It's not far. It's also in Qiyang County, but on the other side."
Bai Shan asked, "Why did you lose the land?"
The village head was silent for a moment, then forced a smile and said, "The emperor's grace is immense. Our land was redeemed by the court."
Manbao and the other two: ...
Manbao nodded and walked down along the large piece of dry land. When he reached the field, he saw that the ground in the field was cracked in large pieces. The cracks were very large, so he knew that the drought in this place was quite serious.
She asked, "Will there be a locust plague this year?"
"Yes, but not big." The village head also took a look at the cracks in the ground. Knowing that these young masters and young adults were all experienced farmers, he did not hide it. "Don't be fooled by the fact that there are only a few locusts now. Let the children run into the grass and they will all fly away."
See you at 4 p.m.
(End of this chapter)
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