jdhmnovel Chapter 9 The Lord's Legacy
Chapter 9 The Lord's Legacy
Because the arrangements had been made in advance, the villagers of Liumiao Village did not engage in the tense atmosphere that occurred when land was allocated in Chengxi. Instead, they smoothly "claimed" their land and planted some saplings from elsewhere to mark the boundaries.
Seeing the bustling activity of the villagers in Liumiao Village, Yang Shaofeng simply found a cart, sat on the side of it and watched, and then pulled Limpy Five and Liu Thirty-Two over to talk.
Yang Shaofeng pointed to the wasteland in the distance and asked with a smile, "Besides farming, do the people of Liu Miao Village have any other livelihoods?"
With a fawning smile, Liu Thirty-Two bowed and answered, "Reporting to the master, Liu Family Village has thirty-five households with a total of ninety people. They are all honest and hardworking farmers who have no other livelihood."
Yang Shaofeng glanced at Liu Sanshier and thought to himself, "If I hadn't been from Shandong in my past life, I really would have believed your nonsense!"
If you really don't have any other source of income, why the hell are you so nervous? You can't even lie properly!
Of course, Yang Shaofeng didn't expect Liu Thirty-Two to give an honest answer.
After all, it was the transition between the Yuan and Ming dynasties. The government and Yuan soldiers had fled long before the Ming army arrived, leaving a period of time in a vacuum where no one was in charge. Even if the people of Liu Miao Village took on other jobs, their main targets were landlords or Semu people. Now, no one knows where those victims are buried, so Yang Shaofeng naturally has no need to pursue the matter.
Shaking his head slightly, Yang Shaofeng changed the subject: "Are these wastelands easy to cultivate?"
Liu Thirty-Two replied, "Although these lands have been abandoned for many years, they were cultivated before. They can only be considered semi-abandoned land. As long as the weeds are cleared away, they can be cultivated again. However, after sowing the seeds, we must take good care of them, otherwise weeds will grow back if we are not careful."
Yang Shaofeng hummed in agreement, then asked, "What if it's uncultivated wasteland? Is clearing it a hassle?"
Liu Thirty-Two frowned and replied, "If it's uncultivated wasteland, clearing it won't be as easy as clearing these semi-wastelands."
Seeing that Yang Shaofeng still looked curious, Liu Sanshier said, "Master, let me tell you about my family's ancestors' land reclamation. My great-great-grandfather and my great-great-grandfather spent thirty years reclaiming fifteen acres of wasteland. The price was that my great-great-grandfather died vomiting blood, and my great-great-grandfather's back was bent for the rest of his life."
Yang Shaofeng glanced at Liu Sanshier, then at the young men and women not far away who were busy planting saplings and marking field boundaries.
Some of the able-bodied young people who "adopted" the land earlier have already started weeding. Judging from their appearance, it will probably take them ten days to half a month to cultivate the seventeen acres of land.
According to Liu Sanshier, his great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather spent thirty years but only managed to cultivate fifteen acres of wasteland.
Although one is wasteland and the other is semi-wasteland, the difference between the two is too great, isn't it?
Liu Thirty-Two continued, "My grandfather told me that my great-great-grandfather found my great-great-grandmother on the way to escape famine. After they fled to Liu Temple Village, they first worked as long-term laborers for the village landlord to save money and food..."
According to Liu Sanshier's description, the elderly couple spent five years saving up some money and grain, then asked a landlord to act as guarantor to buy a piece of wasteland that no one had ever cultivated. They then spent another five years saving money and grain, starting when they were in their twenties and saving until they were almost forty years old before they officially began to cultivate the wasteland.
By this time, Liu Sanshier's great-grandfather was already several years old.
There is a specific time for land reclamation, because spring is for sowing, summer for weeding and watering, and autumn for harvesting. Therefore, the time for land reclamation can only be chosen between the autumn harvest and the beginning of spring. Taking advantage of the off-season, when snakes, insects, rodents and ants have disappeared, and when weeds and shrubs have withered, one should seize the time to reclaim land.
However, while clearing land, another problem arises.
food.
If you work as a long-term laborer for a landlord, the landlord will provide you with food. But if you clear land for yourself, will the landlord still provide you with food?
They could only eat the food stored up by their own family.
However, clearing land is physically demanding. It requires weeding, cutting down shrubs, collecting clean stones, turning the soil, breaking up large clumps of hard soil, and then carrying manure to spread it evenly and compact it. After that, you also have to build fences to prevent wild pheasants and small animals from bringing grass seeds over. No step can be omitted, so the laborers who clear land must be well-fed.
Liu Sanshier's great-grandfather was a long-term laborer for a landlord, so where did his family get so much stored grain?
They could only save little by little, and it might take three years to save enough food for the whole family to eat for half a year—that is, a jar of land reclamation grain.
Therefore, land reclamation can only be done little by little. One mu can be reclaimed this year, and another mu can be reclaimed next year. If there is continuous rain in the autumn, land reclamation cannot be carried out.
Newly cleared wasteland cannot be planted with grains directly; only beans can be planted. Whether there is a harvest or not is not important; what is important is to fertilize the land so that there will be a good harvest next year.
In other words, the reclamation project of a wasteland was not considered to be completely completed until the first batch of beans was harvested. Only then did Liu Sanshier's great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather have their own land and truly settle down in Liumiao Village. Only then did the people of Liumiao Village slowly begin to associate with Liu Sanshier's great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather, and only then did matchmakers come to propose marriage to Liu Sanshier's great-great-grandfather.
Land is the pledge of allegiance that outsiders pay when they come to a local area.
As for not being willing to reclaim wasteland... if you're not willing to reclaim wasteland, you won't have your own land, and without your own land, you can only be considered a vagrant, and nobody wants to deal with vagrants.
Liu Thirty-Two stretched out his chapped hands and rubbed his face: "By my father's generation, a drought had driven the family to the brink of collapse. They had no choice but to sell the land. The fifteen mu of land that my great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather had given their lives for was reduced to only five mu by the time it came to me. My father died with his eyes closed in peace."
Yang Shaofeng felt a tightness in his chest and remained silent for a while before reaching out to pat Liu Sanshier on the shoulder: "It's all in the past, it's all in the past. The Tartars have been driven away, and you have all reclaimed your land. There is still hope for the future."
Liu Thirty-Two raised his head, wiped his face heavily with his sleeve, and smiled like a child: "There is hope, there is hope! You are the God of Literature descended from heaven, so if you say there is hope, then there must be hope."
Am I an old man?
Yang Shaofeng suppressed the urge to curse and said, "Let's reclaim your land first, and then I'll come back to process your land deeds. If the harvest is good this year, I'll try to get you some chicks and piglets. Things will gradually get better."
Looking again at the busy young men, Yang Shaofeng suddenly smiled, and the gloom in his heart dissipated.
Yang Shaofeng stood up and said with a smile, "Alright, you all go ahead with your work. While it's still early, I'll make another trip to Heshan."
As soon as Yang Shaofeng finished speaking, Liu Thirty-Two became anxious. He reached out to stop Yang Shaofeng and shouted to the young men working in the fields, "Come here! Come here quickly!"
After the able-bodied men had all run over to surround him, Liu Thirty-Two was the first to kneel down and shout loudly, "May your lord live long and prosper!"
Just as Yang Shaofeng reached out to help Liu Sanshier up, the other young men also knelt down, kowtowing to Yang Shaofeng and shouting, "Your Excellency, may your descendants be as numerous as your ancestors!"
Yang Shaofeng sniffed and muttered under his breath, "Damn it, a bunch of troublemakers."