Suzhou Hushuguan.

Not far to the southwest of Guanzhen, there is a stretch of mountains, at the foot of which are many dilapidated bamboo huts, which the locals call "Qiaziwo".

The so-called "辉子" is a mocking name for people from Shandong...well, it's just a derogatory term.

Of course, regional discrimination is widespread, and similar derogatory terms exist in every province of the Ming Dynasty.

For example, Beijing Zhili called it "bandit horse", Shaanxi called it "leopard". Shanxi called it "melon". Henan called it "donkey". Jiangnan called it "water crab". Zhejiang and Huizhou called it "salt bean". Zhejiang also called it "stupid". Jiangxi called it "cured chicken". During the Yuan Dynasty, Jiangnan was also called "cured chicken". Fujian called it "leprosy". Sichuan called it "rat". Huguang called it "dried fish". Guangdong and Guangxi called it "snake". Yunnan and Guizhou called it "elephant"... In short, no one can escape the regional attack.

As the name suggests, Qiaziwo is the place where refugees from Shandong gather. Shandong has a large population, a small amount of land, and many vassal kings, so it has always been a place with a large population exodus.

Because the cities along the canal were relatively wealthy, the refugees traveled south along the canal from Shandong, begging for food all the way. If they were lucky enough to find work, they would settle down there.

If they couldn’t find work, they continued to head south, but they stopped at Suzhou. If they couldn’t find work in the most prosperous city in the south of the Yangtze River, they had no hope elsewhere…

However, Suzhou had too many people, and the governor paid great attention to the suffering of the people. He asked his officials to actively help the people get out of poverty, hoping that there would be no extremely poor people in his jurisdiction.

So the officials demolished all the shacks and bamboo houses along the street and drove the refugees and the poor ten miles outside the city. Now, wherever Cai Guoxi looked, he could no longer see the poor people...

The refugees had no choice but to find vacant land outside Suzhou to settle down. The Shandong old men built a large area of ​​shacks at the foot of Dayang Mountain, housing several hundred households. They looked after each other, shared what they had, and lived a hard life here.

Wang Liu’s family is one of them, a family that couldn’t be more ordinary.

Their family had fled from Anqiu County, Qingzhou Prefecture. The land in Anqiu was actually quite fertile, and the green onions that grew there were as tall as a person. But unfortunately, there was an Anqiu King in the county.

The King of Anqiu was a descendant of the King of Lu, and was granted the title of Anqiu County in the 10th year of Xuande. After the death of the old King of Anqiu, one of his sons inherited the title of Prince of a County, and the rest of his sons were granted the title of Generals Guarding the Country.

The sons of a general guarding the country will be demoted one rank and will be given the title of a general supporting the country; all the sons of a general supporting the country will be demoted one rank and will be given the title of a general serving the country; all the sons of a general serving the country will be demoted one rank and will be given the title of lieutenant guarding the country; all the sons of a lieutenant guarding the country will be demoted one rank and will be given the title of lieutenant supporting the country.

All the sons of the Lieutenant of Fuguo were given the title of Lieutenant of Fengguo, and all the descendants of the Lieutenant of Fengguo were given the title of Lieutenant of Fengguo...

Over the past 140 years, the number of generals and lieutenants in Anqiu County has exceeded 1,000. These royal family members not only received annual salaries from the court, but also wantonly occupied the people's land. In such a small Anqiu County, the poor had no place to live, and had to bear the taxes and labor service of the court and the oppression of the royal family. Wang Liu's family was able to survive until three years ago before fleeing, which was definitely the best of the best.

Three years ago, there was a locust plague in Shandong, and Wang Liu and his father were conscripted by the King of Anqiu to repair the royal mausoleum. Seeing that the grain jar at home was cleaner than his wife's face, if the father and his father left, the old and young in the family would starve to death.

The two of them decided that it was really no use, so they should just run away. They packed up their things and fled Anqiu and Qingzhou overnight.

Life on the road was so miserable that his mother begged for food and ate it reluctantly in order to save food for her child. As a result, she fell ill from hunger and died soon after, without a burial place.

Wang Liu and his father had no choice but to find a charity cemetery and beg for help. They also asked for permission to help collect the dead for a month. They finally managed to find a piece of land for his mother in a mass grave.

After working for a month, the family cried in front of his mother's grave and continued on their journey, arriving in Suzhou after untold hardships. Although they had to leave their hometown and face discrimination, there were many jobs here, and they did not have to pay taxes to the government or perform corvée labor, so life was much better than before.

In the past few years, Wang Liu and his father have been carrying heavy bags in Hushuguan. His wife and his two younger brothers and sisters have been doing odd jobs in Suzhou. They reel silk in the spring, harvest rice in the summer, and pick cotton in the fall... The family works hard, but at least they can get enough food and clothing.

But last year, his father broke his waist while carrying a bag, and he had to lie down for half a year before he could go out to work. He could no longer carry a sack weighing one or two hundred kilograms. So he reclaimed land on the mountain and planted vegetables, and sent vegetables to the customs to supplement the family income, which was better than nothing.

Moreover, the whole Suzhou market was in a recession, and many weavers and strong laborers began to do odd jobs that they used to disdain in order to make a living. Wang Liu's wife was a woman, and his brothers and sisters were young, so how could they compete with those strong laborers?

Even if they were hired, they would only pay them half or even one-third of their previous wages, and yet they still couldn't find work for the entire winter.

It was not even the end of the first month of the lunar year, and no one was hiring temporary workers. The family depended entirely on the little money Wang Liu earned from carrying sacks, and there were three hungry mouths to feed.

The family started to have no food to eat again, and they couldn’t eat a grain of rice for several days...

~~

It was getting dark now and smoke was rising from every house. It was time for dinner.

What Wang Liu's wife brought over was a large pot of vegetable leaf soup... It was made from the rotten vegetable leaves and stems that Wang Lao Han had brought back, and some rice bran that the host had given Wang Liu when he was carrying the sack. The two things were boiled together with water, and it became dinner for the whole family.

The adults and children were already numb, or they didn't even have the strength to speak. They all silently lowered their heads and ate the porridge in the coarse porcelain bowls. The atmosphere was so depressing that it made people despair.

Only his three-year-old son, with a big head on his slender neck, kept mumbling, "I want to eat steamed bread, I want to eat steamed bread."

There were indeed a few small steamed buns in the pot, which Wang Liu's wife made for him with rice bran for tomorrow's lunch. The whole family depended on him as a strong laborer, so how could he carry the sacks without food in his stomach?

Wang Liu couldn't stand it any longer, so he asked his wife to get one for his son, and the boy finally quieted down.

"Brother, let me go with you to do the work!" said his fourteen-year-old brother Wang Qi, putting down the bare rough porcelain bowl.

"No, your body is not fully grown and it will cost you your life." Old Man Wang stopped him for Wang Liu.

"How can you grow without food?" Wang Qi muttered softly.

Seeing that her father was about to get angry, the eighth sister on the side secretly kicked the little brother, and he lowered his head reluctantly.

The house fell into silence again until someone pushed open the half-open door.

"Wang Liu, have you thought it over? The boat will come to pick people up tomorrow! Give me a definite answer whether you are going or not!" Before the man even entered the door, the loud voice unique to Shandong people rang out.

Then I saw a dark and thin man in his thirties walking in. Although he was thin... well, in this era, there were no fat people except the rich... but he looked much more energetic than Wang Liu's family. Not only did he speak loudly, but his steps were also not at all frivolous.

This is what a living person looks like.

ps. I slept all day and felt much better at night. I got up and wrote two chapters. I took some medicine and went back to sleep. I hope I will feel better tomorrow.