Upon hearing that no one was planting it, and even less dared anyone to plant it, Liu Fu knew that something was amiss.
"Old man, what exactly happened? Isn't farming a natural thing to do? How did it involve a life?"
Xiao Ying'er chimed in from the side:
"Yes, Grandma, could you tell us more about it?"
Before the old lady could even open her mouth, the child who was steaming buns inside hurriedly got off the small stool, ran out, and made a gesture to his grandmother to shut up.
The old man inside the house was deaf and couldn't hear, but he kept the fire burning, and at the same time turned his face to look at Liu Fu and the others outside.
When the old woman saw her grandson stopping her, she suddenly seemed to recall something terrible, and hurriedly waved her hand, saying:
"It's nothing, it's nothing."
"Young master and young lady, the water will be boiling soon. After you have drunk the hot water, I will pack some more for you to drink on the way."
"Don't ask about what's going on here, and don't ask any more questions."
A short while later, the water was served. Liu Fu took a few sips, and seeing that he couldn't get any more information out of the old man, he left a silver ingot on top of the pickled vegetables and then quietly left.
They inquired around among the old man's neighbors.
Unexpectedly, the neighbors became even more indifferent. At first, they were quite hospitable when they heard that the guests had come from afar.
However, as soon as Liu Fu started asking about the land, he immediately turned cold and said he knew nothing about it.
Liu Fu asked each of the people in these farmhouses one by one, but all of them were turned away.
Having no other option, Liu Fu had to go to a slightly more distant place to continue trying to find a way to ask.
But after contacting several other companies, I still didn't get a response.
As they walked further, they finally saw a slightly more impressive house. Just as Liu Fu was about to go and ask, an old man suddenly jumped out from behind him and grabbed his shoulder.
"Young man, come back with me!"
Liu Fu and Xiao Ying'er turned around and saw that it was the old man sitting on the stove and tending the fire in the old man's house they had met at the beginning.
The old man was covered in sweat, clearly having run a long way, and was panting heavily.
The deaf old man pulled Liu Fu and the others back to the farmyard, where the mute children stared at them from afar.
As soon as the old woman saw them return, she quickly put her hands together and began to chant:
"Thank God, thank God, thank God, they didn't cause any trouble at all."
Xiao Ying'er asked the old man with a puzzled look:
"Grandma, why did you send people to bring us back again?"
It turned out that when Liu Fu and his group first came here asking for water, they started inquiring about the land, which made the old man wary.
In the past, many bloody incidents occurred in the area because of these land disputes, and many people lost their lives in the process.
There were even local bullies and gentry who disguised themselves as passing merchants, taking advantage of the honesty and simplicity of ordinary people to extract the truth from them, and then sending people to deal with these common folk.
Over the years, everyone has been taken advantage of, and even now when they see someone like Liu Fu coming over, they are very wary and dare not tell the truth.
It was Liu Fu and Xiao Ying'er's kindness that helped them. Before leaving, seeing that the family was poor, they left ten taels of silver on the pickled vegetables.
The old woman realized she had wronged the good man. When she saw Liu Fu and his men leading their horses straight to the house of a local tyrant, she realized they were walking into a trap.
That's why his deaf old man ran desperately, managing to drag Liu Fu and the others back before they lost their lives at the hands of the local tyrant.
So that's what happened after all.
Seeing that the elderly couple were good people, and now that things had been laid bare, Liu Fu immediately said:
"Grandma, you should be able to tell that we are all good people. Why don't you tell us about what's going on in the area? Maybe we can help you resolve it?"
The old couple had figured it out: the local thugs and bullies were eager to rob the people of their money; they were so greedy they'd scrape the land up to five meters deep. How could they possibly be kind enough to give them money?
Moreover, it was ten taels of silver, which shows that the two people in front of him were not bad people.
At that moment, the elderly couple gritted their teeth and decided not to hide it from Liu Fu anymore.
“Young man, we don’t expect you to solve our problems. So many things have happened in these decades. When King Huai came, he said he would stand up for us common people and let us seek justice and file complaints. But in the end, those powerful and corrupt officials got away scot-free. Instead, they turned around and made us common people suffer!”
"King Huai was driven away by King Liaodong. King Liaodong said he would stand up for us and shouted slogans that shook the heavens. In the end, when the people filed a complaint, those rich and powerful people got away with it. The next day, they locked the doors of more than a dozen villagers who had filed complaints, set fire to their houses, and burned them all to death!"
"The King of Liaodong is dead and the King of Jin has come, but it's still the same... Everyone has given up on hoping for any chance to seek justice. If you want to know these things, we can just tell you once."
After speaking with the elderly couple, we learned that Liu Fu was furious, his hands clenched into fists with veins bulging!
Originally, these lands belonged to local farmers.
Those corrupt gentry and wealthy landowners cut off the irrigation water supply to these lands directly from upstream, causing the crops in the people's fields to wither and die!
In order to keep their crops alive, the people had no choice but to fetch water to irrigate them. However, other nearby water sources had been seized by local gentry and wealthy families, and people had to pay money to fetch water, and the prices were outrageously high.
The people went to the government office to file a complaint, but who knew that these officials and gentry were in cahoots? The house that Liu Fu and his group had almost entered was the home of a local tyrant who had long oppressed the local people. Moreover, he was the brother-in-law of the local magistrate. With the magistrate as his brother-in-law, the people had just finished filing their complaint when the tyrant returned without any trouble and immediately began to retaliate against the people.
Left with no other option, the common people were forced to sell their land at low prices to local gentry, becoming their tenants. They would then pay rent to grow their own farmland and hand over half of their harvest to the gentry as rent.
It was clearly their own land, but they had to pay to rent it out to farm, and then give half of the harvest to the local gentry.
After calculating the costs, the gentry would receive 70% of the harvest from the land, while the common people would receive 30%.
However, 30% of the grain was not enough to feed them, and they could not survive a year. These people had to eat wild vegetables and tree roots with their grain to barely get through the year and wait for the next harvest.
This was barely enough to survive, but these bigwigs are starting to cause trouble again.
Originally, the rent for one mu of land was three hundred copper coins, and half of the harvested grain would be distributed to the gentry.
Now the rules for these gentry and wealthy families have changed. They must pay five years' rent upfront. In the past, when renting an acre of land, they would pay for each year's rent, which was 300 copper coins per year.
Now, to rent an acre of land, you have to pay five years' rent in advance, which is 1,500 copper coins.
How can ordinary people afford to pay these fees?
Some people gritted their teeth and sold everything they owned to scrape together the money to pay.
The idea was to pay for five years at once, so that if I paid this time, I wouldn't have to pay for the remaining four years.
The following year, things changed again, and you had to pay for another five years in advance!
In effect, the farmers have already paid ten years' rent for this acre of land in advance in the second year of renting!
Now nobody's paying anymore. One reason is that they really don't have the money, and the other is that the gentry don't keep their word. If you pay this year, what will you do if they ask you to pay five years' worth of money in advance next year?
If the common people didn't pay, the gentry wouldn't let them farm, but if they weren't allowed to farm, the rent they had paid in advance wouldn't be refunded.
In the words of the gentry:
"You paid the rent for the land in advance, the land is there, it's your own fault for not farming it, what does it have to do with me?"
"What? You've already paid ten years' rent in advance, why do you need to pay again? That's right, that's the rule here. You have to pay five more years' rent in advance before you can farm this year. You don't like it? The county magistrate is my brother-in-law, go ahead and sue me!"
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