"Oh my god! Why is it so cold?"
"I'm freezing to death. I'm freezing to death."
The prisoners kept rubbing their hands and arms, their faces turning purple from the cold.
Zhang Hu handed them over to the officers and soldiers in the exile area.
"Oh, it seems that you didn't suffer much during this exile. Your face looks good!" Zhao Junyi said with a smile: "I remember that when you came here last time, your face looked not much better than that of the prisoners."
Zhang Hu nodded. Not only did they live a good life, but the number of prisoners who survived was also the highest. In the past, more than half of them survived, and this time more than eighty percent survived, all thanks to Shang Ruoyi.
"Where are the people from Dingguo Palace?"
Zhang Hu pointed in the direction of Shang Ruoyi. Zhao Junyi narrowed his eyes slightly, thinking about the continuous orders from above, he couldn't help but feel a headache.
"Since our relationship is not good, I will give you a piece of advice," Zhang Hu said in a low voice, "In the Dingguo Palace, you should not offend anyone except the concubine."
"Oh? Why is that?" Zhao Junyi was worried about how to deal with this group of people and which order he should obey.
"It goes without saying how brave and good at fighting the prince of Ding is. In the whole Tianshun, even a three-year-old child knows about this general."
"Of course." Zhao Junyi sighed: "If you want to be a boss, you should be a boss. Although it was only for a month, you can still be considered an old friend of yours."
Zhang Hu heard this and said quickly: "It was a 덿 before, and it must be worshipped as a 덿 now."
After hearing what he said, Zhao Junyi had an idea in mind.
"And Shang Ruoyi, even though she is a concubine's daughter of the prime minister's mansion, she has more than the legitimate daughter." He gestured with a silver coin and whispered, "She looks like a useless chess piece of Shang Xiangye. On the day of exile, Shang Xiangye even went to the city gate in person."
Zhao Junyi was slightly surprised. How come this was the same news he had received?
But thinking of what the prince's confidant said about Shang Ruoyi, he said in a deep voice: "It seems that no one can move!"
"Don't worry about the things in the house. They have been separated from the He family."
Zhao Junyi looked at the room that was about to shrink into a ball due to the cold, and then looked at the He family members who were all wearing cotton-padded clothes. Even a fool could see the difference.
Everyone felt very troubled when looking at the extremely desolate exile place.
"Oh my, with this kind of soil, what can grow? Even thorn balls can survive."
There were few farmers with rich farming experience among the exiled prisoners, and when they said so, people became even more discouraged.
By chance, two men in extremely ragged clothes walked by, holding an old pickaxe in one hand and two particularly delicious potatoes in the other. They sighed and said, "We're lucky today. We still found two potatoes. We have to be frugal. They can still last for a few days."
Another person nodded and said, "Well, if I pay the tax, I'm afraid I'll get beaten up again."
Do we have to pay taxes on this piece of land? What can I pay with?
Is it the wind and sand here?
At this time, Zhao Junyi came over and said in a deep voice: "I believe you should also know that after this exile, people who come here want to go back, that's absolutely impossible!" He paused, looked at He Jingheng, and said in a slow tone: "There is probably nothing else to do, so just serve your sentence and work here honestly. If you pay the taxes, you will suffer the consequences!"
People looked at the whip in his hand and were too scared to say a word. But the man just now said it and was severely beaten!
The next step is to assign residences.
There are some earthen buildings here, some of them are about to collapse, and the rest are houses that have already collapsed.
"Oh my god, how can people live here! The most popular people in the mansion live better than this!" Zhang pinched her nose and her eyes widened.
She never expected that the residence in this exile place would be so shabby.
It's just her, and everyone else feels that the future is bleak.
No food, no water, no place to live, what’s the difference between this and dying?
Zhao Junyi pointed at the houses that were about to collapse and said, "You can choose from these houses. They are all the same."
Seeing this, Zhang decisively ran towards one of the houses, and He Jinghe followed closely behind.
After all, it hasn’t collapsed yet, right? Just make do with this for now.
The houses were separated by fences, and the yards were empty, with only a few vegetables grown.
But the soil here is poor. Not to mention vegetables, which have extremely high requirements for soil quality, even sweet potatoes are difficult to grow, so the courtyard is of no importance.
But these houses are too small for the He family.
Zhao Junyi thought for a while and said, "Either you can separate into several families, or you can go to the east end of the village, where there is a very spacious yard. But the houses there are all thatched houses, even earthen houses. Now the weather is getting colder, you have to think carefully."
"Master, how big is that house? Take us to have a look!" She took out a silver ingot and quietly put it in his hand: "Thank you for your help, Master."
Zhao Junyi had to dig up at least ten taels of silver.
He smiled with satisfaction: "Let's go!"
When she arrived at the yard, Shang Ruoyi was shocked. How could this be a yard? This is clearly Zhuangzi, there is actually a hillside in the courtyard.
This suits her taste.
Shang Ruoyi smiled and said, "That's it!"
The He family looked at the thatched house swaying in the wind, and a chill ran through their hearts.
The so-called exile means coming here to be farmers, but they are different from ordinary farmers and have a lower status than farmers.
Farmers could take part in the imperial examinations, and many children from poor families changed their social status through the examinations. However, exiles could not do so. They were criminals, and criminals were not eligible to take the examinations. If they were pardoned, their ancestors had been criminals for generations, and they would not even have the chance to become servants of wealthy families and could only work as farmers.
In addition, they could leave the place of exile without permission. The place of exile was a village in a border town in Qingzhou, which was basically full of exiled criminals.
Moreover, they had no land and had to reclaim wasteland themselves. In the autumn of the next year, they had to pay taxes. Shang Ruoyi specifically asked what they had to pay.
"We usually grow some potatoes here, and if the weather is good, we can also grow some corn."
Zhao Junyi told her to grow vegetables as much as possible, because they were basically useless.
"People, can you hire someone to build a house?" Shang Ruoyi's words gave everyone in Dingguo Palace a glimmer of hope. Yes! Why not just find someone to build a house? Why live in a thatched house?
"Of course you can, but if you want to build a house, you'll need a lot of money." But seeing how generous they were, they must have a lot of money on them.
When it comes to money, they become like deflated balls.
Where did they get the money to carry out such a hasty search?
"Man, as long as you leave Qingzhou, you can go to the town, right?"
Zhao Junyi nodded: "Generally speaking, only one person from each household can go to town in a day. Your family has more people, so the maximum number is no more than four."
"Thank you very much."
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