Infrastructure masters in the red building

In a blink of an eye, Lai Da was taken away and locked up by the villagers in the firewood house at the entrance of the village.In Jia Fang's hand, he got the brochure of the lifeblood of Taoyuan Village.

He flipped through it roughly, and saw that it was indeed a land and population register that combined the "Yellow Book" and "Fish Scale Book".

This booklet was originally controlled by the steward of the Rong Mansion, and it was able to restrain more than a thousand people in Taoyuan Village.Jia Fang opened it and saw that it was stamped with the private seal of Rong Guogong Jia Daishan and the official seal, once a year.He consulted the old village head, and learned that the steward of Rongguo Mansion came once a year to count the population changes in the village, register them one by one, and then submit them to the local government for record.There is another copy of this book in the government.

The existence of this booklet is equivalent to acknowledging the legal status of these villagers and promising to protect them.

That's why these villagers are so respectful to the people from Rongguo Mansion, and even make every effort to compromise.

In Jia Fang's view, the identities of the villagers in Taoyuan Village are between slaves and tenant farmers. On the one hand, they have no independent personal rights. People living in this village belong to the Rongguo Mansion for generations, and there is no Rongguo If the Lord nods, they cannot become freemen.

But the Rongguo Mansion did not impose any special restrictions on them, allowing them to live on this land.It's just that the stewards of Rongfu who are ordered to come here every year will scrape some land more or less, and the amount of land scraped depends on the level of personal ideological consciousness.Speaking of this, the old village chief cried to Jia Fang about being poor.

"Third Master, can you intercede with the Duke of the country for us? The village is really not well-off, and many farm tools need to be repaired. When the baby grows up, he can't be naked, and he always has to tear cloth to make clothes... It costs money. There are too many places, if you only give such a small amount of copper coins, it will be too difficult for the village this year."

It turned out that every year when the Rongfu stewards came to Taoyuan Village, in addition to registering and filing population changes, they would also send some copper coins to Taoyuan Village.In the past, the village would receive about 20 taels of money every year, but this time when Lai Dayi came, he only gave him [-] taels, which is equivalent to [-] taels of silver.

What is the concept of the purchasing power of twenty hanging coins/20 taels of silver?

Jia Fang remembered that Grandma Liu said: 20 taels of silver is enough for their farmers to eat for a year-that is in the suburbs of Beijing.It's a long way from the capital here, so even with a [-]% discount, the village households would have to pay two tangs a year to roughly survive.

And in this Taoyuan Village, according to what the old village head said: They have nearly 200 people in more than [-] households, and they only live on dozens of hanging money sent by Rongguo Mansion every year?

Jia Fang immediately coughed twice, called a villager, and asked him to ask Lai Da: "Just tell me what I said. At the beginning, it was clear that he paid 50 taels of silver from the account, why did he only bring [-] taels?"

The villager responded and went to interrogate, and came back after a while, saying that what Lai Da said, the Duke of the country promised to allocate forty taels to the village, and the remaining ten taels were Lai Da's travel expenses and rewards.

"It's more or less the same!" Jia Fang casually cheated out the truth of Lai Da's heart again, angrily and funny, "This Lai Da is also ruthless enough, if you touch him, you will be divided in half."

But he still didn't understand: "Old man, I see that there are so many acres in the village, but is it so difficult to make a living?" The whole village lived on the few pennies sent by the Rongguo Mansion, and even endured humiliation for it.

The old village chief coughed, stomped his feet and said, "Third Master, you don't know something! Our village has nothing—so poor that only food is left."

The two returned to the stilted building, and Jia Fang slowly asked the old village chief about the situation while drinking tea.

"Champa rice? You mean, all the village grows Champa rice?" Jia Fang was surprised and delighted.

Zhancheng rice is a high-quality rice variety introduced from "Champa" (now Vietnam) in the Northern Song Dynasty. It is a drought-tolerant early-maturing rice with strong adaptability and low requirements on the field. It is a high-quality rice suitable for planting in the south. rice seed.

Unexpectedly, the village grows more than just Champa rice. After the Champa rice is harvested, the village will plant another crop of late rice—the harvest of two crops of rice this year makes Taoyuan Village a veritable "Daoxiang Village" ".

"But why does the village always count on this little copper money every year to live?" Jia Fang asked the question in his heart.

"Third Master, you don't know something." The old village head pulled Jia Dang to pour out his bitterness.

It turned out that this Taoyuan village does produce a large amount of rice every year, and besides food for the villagers, there is still a lot of savings.But the problem is that Taoyuan Village is located in a mountain depression, and the land transportation with the outside world is very difficult, and the way out of the mountain is full of small trails.The rice produced in Taoyuan Village is difficult to transport, and no one comes to Taoyuan Village to buy rice.

But Taoyuan Village has to buy necessities from the outside world.As the old village chief once mentioned, if farm tools break down, you need to buy ironware, and if an older girl wants to marry into a neighboring village, she has to cut two new clothes.There is a market every ten days in the town closest to Taoyuan Village, and all the purchases in Taoyuan Village come from there.

In addition, there is the most important thing, that is, table salt.People who do not eat salt are more than just tasteless in the mouth. Without salt in the diet, the body has no strength and cannot do heavy physical work, which is unacceptable to farmers.

This year was like this. Lai Da, the manager of the Rong Mansion, came to Taoyuan Village and said that he would only give him [-] taels of money as soon as he opened his mouth. In addition, the salt price rose slightly this year, and the whole village was immediately anxious.

"Could it be that there is no other production in the village, and can I get it in exchange for money?" Jia Fang was still curious, and he asked casually, "It seems to me that the village...doesn't lack silver taels?"

The "no shortage of silver" he said naturally means that most women in the village wear shiny silver ornaments.

"Third Lord, you don't know something." The old village head still said the same thing, "We really don't lack silver here, but this silver, it doesn't work well!"

Jia Fang suddenly realized: just now when Lai Da was negotiating with the villagers, everyone kept saying how much money they would hang for money.

Jia Fang's speculation is not wrong. Near Taoyuan Village, local residents and merchants prefer to use copper coins when trading.Firstly, most of the transactions are small transactions, and the money is not needed at all.To a certain extent, silver also has many problems such as inconvenient division, difference in fineness, and possible cost.In the area of ​​Taoyuan Village, the ratio of copper coins to silver is also far from that in Beijing. One tael of silver can be exchanged for much less copper coins than in Beijing.

In this way, Taoyuan Village neither produces copper nor exchanges other products with the outside world, so can they expect the Rongguo Mansion to support them with copper coins every year?

It's no wonder that the villagers of Taoyuan Village are subject to slaves like Lai Da for a mere [-] cents—after all, that's what they need most.

For this reason, a steward from Rongguo Mansion comes to Taoyuan Village every year and brings some copper coins to the villagers that they urgently need.In the past, it was 40 hangs, but this time Lai Dayoumo took the [-] hangs.If Jia Fang hadn't sent someone to ask this time, who would have known that Rong Guogong gave [-] taels of silver?

Jia Fang had a long talk with the old village head, and he knew that the biggest bottleneck in Taoyuan Village's current development is the single-type economy, coupled with inconvenient transportation and blocked information, resulting in a lack of economic and trade exchanges between the village and the outside world-so poor that only food is left .

Dare to love this is the truth in the world!

Tao Yuanming's idyllic Peach Blossom Spring is just an imaginary utopia, but in the real world, Peach Blossom Village has all kinds of troubles——

"However," Jia Fang still couldn't fully figure it out, "you have food in your hands, if you are really short of copper money, can't you carry all this food to the market and sell it, or even exchange it for salt, farm tools, etc. without using copper coins? Exchange what you need?"

Before the emergence of all monetary means, didn't the ancestors still have the trick of bartering?

Unexpectedly, the old village chief shook his head resolutely, and said solemnly: "No, the fields here belong to Mr. Rong Guogong's old man's field, and the grain collected is also his old man's grain..."

Halfway through the talk, the old village head remembered that these fields had now been changed to Jia Fang's name, and quickly slowed down his tone, saying, "Of course, they are all yours now!"

Jia Fang, who was forced to become an "old man", was dumbfounded when he heard the old village chief continue to say solemnly: "We take care of the fields for you. In addition to giving us rations, you also order people to send us money every year... Where are we?" Can you still use your food?"

Jia Fang thought for a while, and then asked: "So, there should be a lot of surplus food in the village?"

The old village chief nodded solemnly, and then invited Jia Fang to go to the third floor of the stilted building together.

Originally, Jia Fang always thought that the third floor of the stilted building here was the bedroom of each household, who knew it was not.The third floor with the best ventilation and the best drying conditions was actually used as a granary by the villagers of Taoyuan Village, where all the rice was stored.

"Third Master, besides the houses of each family, there are several granaries at the entrance of the village, which are also stilted buildings, and they are all full of rice." The old village chief said proudly, "The Lord of the country did not let us move, so we all have a good time." keep it."

The villagers of Taoyuan Village, in addition to being simple in nature, actually have a sense of loyalty to keep their promises.Otherwise, they can use most of the production as their own rations, leaving only a small part for the Rongguo Mansion.But now Jia Fang looks at the piles of rice on the third floor of Diaojiaolou, and his heart is full of admiration.

Jia Fang: "Then, the village has been planting double-cropping rice for so long, so there should be a lot of rice left?"

The old village head nodded proudly: "That's - at least one hundred thousand shi!"

When Jia Fang heard the number "one hundred thousand stones", he staggered and almost fell down, sitting directly on the floor of the stilted building.

He thought that Taoyuan Village had food, but he never expected that Taoyuan Village would have so much food.

He was really expecting a surprise to hit him, but the surprise was so big that it almost turned into a fright.

There are [-] shi of grain in such a small village?

Jia Fang hurriedly asked the old village chief: "Did my father... Rong Guogong never mention that he wanted to transport these grains to Beijing?"

The old village chief scratched his head and said, "In the early years, a senior manager seemed to mention it... But it seems that it was because of some road tax, so he let it go."

Road Tax? ——Jia Fang has heard of this type of tax, and generally knows that it is a kind of "passing tax", which may be charged according to the value of the goods when passing by.

"I see... Thank you, old man!" Jia Fang seemed to suddenly remember something, turned around and rushed downstairs along the wooden steps of the stilted building.

"Village chief, I'm temporarily staying near the Xianliang Temple. I need to rest at night, please don't let people disturb me, and you don't have to worry about meals..." Jia Fang ordered as he walked.

The old village chief hurriedly chased him down, but Jia Fang had already disappeared.The old village chief had no choice but to stomp his feet and muttered repeatedly in frustration: "Master, this grain..."

Regarding the grain storage in Taoyuan Village, there is a very serious problem that he hasn't had time to explain to Jia Fang yet!