Chapter 165: Drawing Lots (Additional update after 125,000 Yunqi recommendation votes)
Mr. Zhuang twitched his lips and said, "I already said it's a storybook. Since it's a storybook, the content is naturally false. That's why I said it's useless to read and may even corrupt you children. Okay, I'm confiscating this book."
Manbao was stunned. He never expected that his book would be confiscated one day.
After dealing with his beloved disciple, Mr. Zhuang looked at Bai Shanbao and said seriously, "If you want to wipe out all the bandits in the world, you must do two things."
Bai Shanbao's eyes sparkled as he asked, "What's the matter?"
"First, you must study hard and pass the imperial examinations, or take the Mingjing exam. Only by passing the imperial examinations can you quickly gain power and have the opportunity to plan and suppress bandits. Second, you must learn martial arts. How can you fight on the battlefield without martial arts? If you are not in good health, can you go to the battlefield and kill the enemy without caring about your family and friends?"
Bai Shanbao thought what the teacher said made sense, and asked quickly, "Then, sir, do you think I can pass the imperial examination? My father was a jinshi, and my mother said it's very difficult to pass the imperial examination."
"With your talent, as long as you study hard, it shouldn't be difficult to pass the imperial examination." Even if it was difficult, Mr. Zhuang would say it was not difficult. He encouraged him, saying, "Old people say that the disciple surpasses the master. Maybe you can be even better than your father."
Bai Shanbao felt the same way. He was very excited and asked, "What about learning martial arts?"
"You'll need to discuss this with your grandmother," Mr. Zhuang said. "You can hire a security coach, or hire a bodyguard from the escort agency. It's not very expensive."
At least for the Bai family, this amount of money is nothing.
As Manbao followed Bai Shanbao out, he kept urging him, "You must ask your guards if they can fly. If not, go to the escort agency and ask again. Since we want to learn, we must learn the best skills."
Bai Shanbao thought what she said made sense and said, "I'll teach you when I learn it."
"Okay!" Adhering to the principle of reciprocity, Manbao said, "I'll share my candied haws with you when the time comes."
Bai Shanbao nodded with drool, and then the two of them said goodbye to each other at the intersection.
Bai Shanbao also invited her, "Why don't you come to my house to do your homework, so we can talk together."
Manbao said, "Let's do it tomorrow. My fourth brother is dividing the land today, and I want to go back and watch the fun."
When Bai Shanbao heard there was something exciting to watch, he immediately became excited and asked, "What kind of land is being divided?"
"Divide the permanent land and the family land. My fourth brother will be a man tomorrow, and my nephew Daliang also became a man a while ago, so they will divide the land together.
Many people in the village ran to watch the fun, because land division was a big event.
The world had just been at peace for twenty years, and in the past few years there were still people fleeing famine. The fields of those who fled became idle, and if no one cultivated the land for more than three years, the land would be taken back and nationalized.
The ownership of this part of the land will be temporarily kept by the village head, or if it looks like wasteland that is relatively fertile and has good soil and water, the county government will also enclose it and hand it over to the village head in the jurisdiction for management.
Some village heads would secretly plant crops on the wasteland under their jurisdiction, but some people were unable to cultivate the land and just let it go to waste.
The head of Qili Village belongs to the latter category. The land they have is enough for farming, and that's even with one cow. They can't farm with more land.
Every time a child came of age in the jurisdiction, the village head would go and allocate land.
For the designated fields, every family in the village must send one person to help open up the wasteland. This is a customary practice.
There are still a lot of good wasteland within Qili Village. Each person is entitled to 20 mu of permanent land, which cannot be bought or sold but can be inherited.
Of course, special circumstances also allow for buying and selling, but they need to be registered at the county office. For example, if someone in the family needs to raise money for burial, or if someone needs medical treatment, the permanent land can be sold after reporting to the county office for verification.
Each person was given 40 mu of land, which would be confiscated by the state after his death.
Qili Village has many low hillsides, so the village head simply divided the hillsides into farmlands according to the old custom.
The land allocated to Old Man Zhou, Dalang Zhou, Zhou Erlang and Zhou Sanlang were all on the hillsides, including the uncultivated land at the foot of the mountain. They didn't pay much attention to measuring it, but just made an estimate, drew a circle and divided it up.
In fact, this piece of land is not very useful. It is said that everyone is allowed to grow mulberry trees and raise silkworms, but the villagers of Qili Village do not raise silkworms. Most of them open a circle of land at the foot of the mountain to grow hemp. The hemp bags they use and the hemp clothes they wear are all made of hemp.
As for the mountains, most of them are used for planting trees.
No, most of the time we won’t encounter wild trees on the mountain. They grow however they want. If there happen to be tree species that can be used to build houses, furniture, etc., that would be even better.
They don't have to plant trees to harvest a wave.
Of course, if there are no such trees on the mountain, Old Zhou will take his sons to look for those tree species all over the mountain, transplant them back and plant them on his own mountain. At the beginning, he will water them for a period of time, loosen the soil, and add some farmyard manure. Once they survive, he can leave them alone, as long as he controls the wild trees nearby so as not to hinder their growth.
They plant it when they are adults, and when their children grow up, they can basically cut it down to build houses or furniture.
When Manbao was one year old, Old Zhoutou planted a few trees for her on the mountain. Datou and the others also had some, but Manbao felt that they would not be enough when they grew up.
Because her father's trees were not enough, perhaps he didn't expect he would have so many children, so he didn't plant too many trees when he planted them, so now he has to buy trees from others.
In addition to planting trees, you can also plant bamboo. For example, Zhou Erlang and Zhou Sanlang planted a lot of bamboo on their own land. Every year, the bamboo used by Zhou Erlang for bamboo weaving, in addition to some cut from the ownerless mountains, the rest all came from their own land.
The fields in the village all seemed to be similar, but through the discussions at home over the past few days, Manbao knew that there were still huge differences between them. She also wondered if her fourth brother would be luckier and pick a better piece of land.
By the time Manbao and Bai Shanbao ran to the edge of the field hand in hand, the village head had already brought people to check all the fields.
Then he said to the two men who had just grown up, "As you all have just seen, we plan to divide the land we are looking at into two lots, each of 20 mu. Zhou Liang, Zhou Daliang, you two come over and draw lots."
Zhou Silang and Zhou Daliang looked at each other and stepped forward.
The village chief took out a lottery box with two signatures in it and said, "Whoever draws the signature with the red bottom will take plot number one. If not, then they will take plot number two."
The Zhou family carefully thought about the difference between the two plots of land, and then found that the difference was not that big, except that Land No. 1 was closer to the water.
Thinking of this, everyone stared at the lottery box with bright eyes.
Zhou Silang became nervous and looked at Zhou Daliang, "You go first?"
Zhou Daliang politely declined, "You should go first."
"Okay," Zhou Silang responded without any hesitation, "Then I'll go first."
(End of this chapter)
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