I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 168 The Coldness of March

In addition, Zhu Houxuan also invited famous doctors to accompany him, and ordered the relevant personnel of the Prince of Jing's Mansion to provide more assistance to Concubine Shao on her journey south, which made Concubine Shao very grateful to Zhu Houxuan.

Zhu Houxuan did all this in a low-key manner, but it was still easy for someone to notice it.

Everything Zhu Houxuan did was actually done for the other princes to see - I, Zhu Houxuan, can really get things done!
After seeing off Concubine Shao, Zhu Houxuan also said goodbye to Zhu Houzhao and set off for Yongping Prefecture. All conditions were ready, and a vigorous construction was about to begin.
Yongping Prefecture, Leting County, Zhoujia Village.

Zhou Laosan brought his son Zhou Abao back to the village from the fields. Smoke was already rising from the village, and Zhou Laosan kept greeting the villagers.

They returned home quickly. His home consisted of three simple thatched-roof houses and a small independent kitchen, surrounded by a wall made of branches. Zhou Laosan pushed open the wooden door and went to carefully check the hoe.

A middle-aged woman in simple clothes came out of the low kitchen, looked at Zhou Laosan with a gloomy face, pulled Zhou Abao and asked, "Da Lang, what happened to your father?"

"The hoe is broken." Zhou Abao said in a muffled voice.

A trace of gloom flashed across the middle-aged woman's eyes. She glanced at Zhou Laosan who was fiddling with the hoe, sighed, and returned to the kitchen.

After a while, Zhou's mother announced that it was time for dinner. Zhou Abao and his two siblings sat around the simple dining table, eagerly waiting for their mother to serve them the food.

The staple food of this meal was multi-grain and wild vegetable porridge and a few multi-grain cakes. The side dishes were a plate of pickled vegetables and a plate of unknown vegetables, with little oil on them.

Zhou's mother carefully scooped the porridge from the pot, put the two thickest spoonfuls into a chipped coarse porcelain bowl, and placed it on the main seat. Then she poured another bowl of porridge for Zhou Abao, and then served porridge to Zhou Abao's brother and two sisters. At this time, the porridge in the pot was getting thinner and thinner. When Zhou's mother served herself, there was not much grain left.
Then it was time to share the pancakes. Zhou Laosan and Zhou Abao, who were strong laborers, each got one, while the remaining four could only get half a pancake each.

After the food was divided, the family didn't start eating. Instead, they waited for Zhou Laosan, who had a sad look on his face, to come in, sit at the main seat, pick up the chopsticks, and then the children began to eat quickly.

They only eat two meals a day, and they are in the growing period. The little food they eat in the morning has long been digested, and they are already starving.

Zhou Laosan looked at the children wolfing down their food, his frown relaxed a little, he ate a piece of pancake and drank a mouthful of porridge and said, "It's past the spring ploughing season, the porridge doesn't need to be so thick."

"Oh, I see," Zhou's mother said simply.

"Give me thirty cents after dinner. I need to go to town to buy a hoe," Zhou Laosan said slowly.

"Hmm," Zhou's mother responded sullenly.

Zhou Laosan looked at the children. Except for the eldest child, Zhou Abao, the other three children had already finished their meals. They licked the bowls in front of them so clean that you could see a person's reflection in them. Now they were all looking at his bowl eagerly.

He laughed, picked up the porridge bowl and shared his porridge with the three children, then ate the bread with pickled vegetables himself. They were close to the sea and had no shortage of salt.

Mother Zhou glared at the three children and said nothing.

After dinner, Zhou Laosan lay on the bed, carefully placed thirty cents on the bedside, and prepared to go to the town to buy a hoe early the next morning.

At this moment, there was a sudden sound of gong outside, and he sat up with a start.
"Each household should send one person to gather at the gate of the ancestral hall!" "Each household should send one person to gather at the gate of the ancestral hall!" The sound of the gong was accompanied by noisy shouts.

Zhou Laosan hurried out of the house. He saw Zhou's mother and Zhou Abao both came out with horrified looks on their faces.
"The spring plowing season has just ended, so why is the government already imposing corvee labor?" Zhou's mother said anxiously.

"I'll go take a look!" Zhou Laosan sighed and frowned even deeper. He tidied up his patched clothes and was about to go out. He seemed to have thought of something again. He went back to the room, put the thirty coins on the bedside table into his arms, and then walked towards the village ancestral hall.
Zhou's mother was waiting anxiously at home, looking up from time to time. After a while, she finally saw Zhou Laosan's distraught figure.

"What's the matter? The child's father?" Zhou's mother asked nervously.

The children of the Zhou family also looked at Zhou Laosan anxiously.

Zhou Laosan walked into the house without saying a word, sat down at the dining table with a pale face, and Zhou's mother quickly poured a bowl of water and handed it to him.

Zhou Laosan drank it all in one gulp, then said with difficulty: "Two! Our family will send two people this time."

"Two people? How could there be two people? Father, have you made a mistake?" Zhou's mother asked anxiously.

Zhou Abao's face also turned pale.

"That's right, it's two people?" Zhou Laosan said affirmatively.

"This is against the rules. Why does one household have to send two people? The Mongols are also heading south at this time?" Zhou's mother said in a panic.

"What rules are you talking about with officials?" Zhou Laosan said hatefully.

"Each household has to provide two male adults, and the spring plowing has just been completed. I haven't seen such heavy and urgent corvee labor in many years. This must be a heavy duty!" Zhou's mother's voice trembled a little.

"What can I do?" Zhou Laosan lowered his head and said, "I gave the yamen runner thirty cents, and he told me that I was working for the royal family, and that I would be paid for my meals." Zhou Laosan's voice became a little strange.

"It's a royal project! If the government continues to push for more construction, I don't know how many people will be exhausted to death." Zhou's mother's face became even uglier.

"What do you mean by free meals and wages? That's all lies! For more than a hundred years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, only the common people paid exemption fees to the government, but I have never seen the government provide meals or pay wages to the people who perform corvee labor." Zhou Abao said indignantly.

Zhou Laosan and his mother were silent, their brows furrowed even more tightly. The other three children also felt the change in the family atmosphere and hid aside, not daring to make a sound.
An ordinary peasant family in the Ming Dynasty was thus forced into a desperate situation.
"No! We can't all go." Zhou's mother raised her head suddenly, "If anything happens to you two, our Zhou family will be finished."

"Let's pay the exemption fee." Zhou's mother made up her mind.
"Are you crazy? How can our family afford the money for exemption from military service?" Zhou Laosan looked at Zhou's mother with an incredulous look.

Mother Zhou didn't say anything. She looked at her three children, who were not yet adults, as if they were looking at merchandise.
All this is beyond words.
The three children looked at Zhou's mother in horror like frightened little animals.
Zhou's mother's eyes stayed on her eldest daughter. She was only eleven or twelve years old. She was very thin due to malnutrition, with dry and yellow hair. Her eyes looked big because of her thinness. Now her big eyes were filled with fear.
"Mom," Zhou Abao said tremblingly. He felt as if something was blocking his throat. He looked at his brothers and sisters and wanted to say something, but nothing came out.
"No! Our family hasn't reached this point yet, how can we sell Auntie off?" Zhou Laosan said with great sorrow.

"I won't sell you, Auntie. If anything happens to you two, she will suffer the same fate. This is her fate. You have to accept it." Zhou's mother closed her eyes in pain, not daring to look into her eldest daughter's eyes.
Zhou Laosan didn't say anything for a long time. Tears kept welling up in Zhou's eldest daughter's eyes, but she didn't cry out. Her eyes became empty.
"Not enough. Not enough." Zhou Laosan said in a trembling voice, "There have been many refugees in recent years. A girl of your age can only be sold for four taels of silver."

Four ounces of silver was not even enough to exempt one person from military service.
Two days later, in the morning, the women of Zhoujia Village stood at the entrance of the village to bid farewell to the men in their families. They tied up large and small bags for them and silently watched the men follow the yamen runners farther and farther away until they disappeared in the distance.
Mother Zhou was in the procession. The warm March sun shone on her frail body, but she felt extremely cold.
(End of this chapter)