Chapter 1647 In-laws
Because they played late on the 15th, they both slept late the next day.
When they got up, it was bustling outside again. They were not in a hurry to go back to the farm. A group of friends called their friends and went out in several groups to stroll around Yongzhou City. They bought some inexpensive but miscellaneous things.
In the afternoon, the sun wasn't as strong anymore and it looked a little cooler, so everyone checked out of their rooms and left.
Yin Huo and Liu Huan did not want to return to the capital immediately. Since they were already out, they might as well play for two more days.
The servants of the Yin family did not urge Yin Huo, but the servants of the Liu family could not help but urge Liu Huan.
But Liu Huan turned a deaf ear to them. He whispered to his friends, "I'm going to get a beating when I get home anyway, so I'll have to have fun until I'm done. It's better to wait a couple of days before getting beaten."
Bai Shan and the others agreed with this, so they took the two of them back to the manor together, and even helped Liu Huan persuade the Liu family's servants, "Since we are here, we should make the best of it. When we return, you can just blame all these things on Liu Huan."
Liu family servants: …………
Arriving at the Bai family's farm, Liu Huan and Yin Huo followed them to the orchard before dark to pick some fruit, then walked half a circle around the farm and said, "Your farm isn't that big."
Bai Shan said, "It's quite a good deal to be able to buy this farm between the capital and Yongzhou. My grandmother has been waiting a long time for this opportunity. The land between these two cities is usually snapped up as soon as it becomes available, so it's easy to sell."
Liu Huan said, "My family has a farm in the suburbs of Beijing."
Bai Shan smiled and said, "I know. My family can't compare with yours in this regard."
Yin Huo asked, "Your ancestral home is Longzhou, which isn't very far from here. Doesn't your family have any land there?"
"Yes, most of my family's land is still in Longzhou," Bai Shan said, "but Longzhou is still a bit far from the capital. This farm mainly grows vegetables, fruits, and common melons and beans, which can be sent to the capital in season. Although we also grow grain, it's secondary."
Yin Huo nodded and couldn't help asking, "What does Manbao mainly grow on his farm? Are they fruits, vegetables, and melons?"
Bai Shan: "... With a thousand acres of official land, how can we mainly grow this? We should grow food naturally."
Bai Shan told them the main plan. Liu Huan was not very interested in it, but Yin Huo listened with great interest.
Bai Shan said, "Liu Gui went to Longzhou to get wheat seeds. He should be on his way back by now and will be back in two days at most. It's just after the Mid-Autumn Festival, so everyone can start farming now."
Farming is something that sounds simple, but it is not easy. Of course, you can't just plant it when they say you can.
The next day was the seventeenth. Old Zhou got up before dawn, woke up his eldest son, changed into work clothes, and took his daughters-in-law and grandchildren to visit Putian Village.
Mr. Zhuang also changed his clothes and wanted to go with us.
Manbao and the others, who had originally wanted to stay in bed using the excuse of reading and practicing calligraphy, had no choice but to get up from the bed, change their clothes silently, and go together.
Old Madam Liu and the others decided not to go and decided to take care of their household affairs at the farm.
When they arrived at Putian Village, Manbao and his friends had basically no say, because each family had already decided on the amount of land to rent and even divided the land.
The official land of the imperial court was planned in a very square manner, with one acre being one acre. In this way, every time an official needed to be replaced, it would be much easier to redistribute the official land. Just count the blocks. Where would you get so much manpower and resources to remeasure it?
Of course, this is quite fast, but the disadvantages are also visible to the naked eye. The official fields can be easily encroached upon. Some official fields are gone while they are being cultivated. This is because some high-ranking officials will spend money to buy private fields distributed in the middle or around the official fields after being allocated official fields. Then, as they cultivate them, their private fields will increase and their official fields will decrease.
After a few years or even more than ten years, the official was sent to a distant place, retired, or for other reasons no longer had this official land. When the Ministry of Revenue came to take it back, they found that the official land had shrunk by half or was completely gone.
At this point, the Ministry of Revenue had two options. One was to be resolute and take the next few years to recover the official land at the cost of holding a large number of Ministry of Revenue officials accountable, which would then lead to more problems.
Another is to turn a blind eye and report that due to various natural and man-made disasters, the official land has been destroyed and new land needs to be re-surveyed and selected.
The naive and romantic Manbao, Baishan and others sat on chairs brought out from the village, stamping the tenancy contract while listening to the villagers talk about why they moved here more than ten years ago.
It was because their land was next to a large piece of official land, which later became the private land of a Mr. Cui. Then their land was redeemed by the court and used as official land. However, after the government bought their land as official land, it was unwilling to let them rent it out.
An old man whispered, "The village head said that the officials didn't allow us to farm because they were afraid we would cause trouble there, so they moved us here."
Manbao and Baishan Bai Erlang looked at each other and finally understood why some books directly pointed out that wars were always caused by serious land annexation and peasants rebelled when they could no longer survive.
This is only the second generation of this dynasty, and some people have already occupied a large amount of official land. If this continues, won’t they blatantly occupy the land of innocent citizens?
Bai Shan frowned.
Yin Huo and Liu Huan had obviously not read those books, and did not understand the tacit understanding between the three of them. They were just shocked.
Yin Huo asked, "This is against the law, isn't it, Liu Huan? Your grandfather doesn't even care?"
His grandfather was the Minister of Revenue.
Liu Huan blushed and asked, "Surname Cui? Could it be the Cui family?"
Yin Huo remained silent. The Cui family was a prominent and famous family. Most importantly, their relatives were spread throughout the government and the country. Not to mention those far away, Liu Huan, who was sitting in front of him, had a cousin who married a daughter of the Cui family.
Lord Wei Zhiwei in the court, his eldest daughter-in-law is also from the Cui family. Brother Yang’s wife, Minister Han and Duke Chen all have a daughter-in-law from the Cui family. These are still the young and middle-aged generation, not to mention the older generation.
The complicated relationships between the families are even more difficult to describe. Yin Huo's grandmother and her sister-in-law on her mother's side were also from the Cui family.
Therefore, even if it was Yin Huo himself, when he met someone from the Cui family, he had to call them cousin or uncle according to their relationship.
It can be said that the Cui family truly relied on their marriages to connect the entire court.
Yin Huo was too weak to memorize the clan history, but he had read it. With six older sisters in his family, it was hard for him not to know about these relationships in the capital.
Not to mention Bai Shan, he memorized the entire clan history and the Bai family genealogy.
By the way, the Bai family is also related to the Cui family.
Thinking of this, Bai Shan was shocked.
Manbao was amazed when he heard this and said, "The Cui family is even more powerful than the Ma family in our town."
See you at 4 p.m.
(End of this chapter)
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