Late Ming Dynasty: So what if Emperor Chongzhen was inactive?!

Chapter 215 The Lone Testicle Warrior, Dockworkers, Sharecroppers
In late February of the third year of the Chongzhen reign (1644), in Xianghe County.

Li Yatou was carrying a hoe when he passed by the cemetery on the outskirts of the city. Although the people buried there had nothing to do with him, he thought about it and decided to stop and pay his respects in front of the blank tombstone.

Although they were complete strangers, the eighteen acres of land he was cultivating might have originally belonged to someone else.

Li Yatou wasn't a maid; he had a formal name, given to him by a private tutor at his father's expense of thirty coins. His formal name was Li Wen. He liked his name very much, but unfortunately, he couldn't recognize a single character, though fortunately, his name had few strokes, so he could still manage to trace it.

"Girl" is already the nicest of his many nicknames, because he was born with only one egg, and unfortunately, the whole village knows about it!

This resulted in him reaching a certain age, yet no girl was ever willing to marry him. When matchmakers went to a girl's house, the moment they heard it was him, the girl's parents would immediately beat them out with brooms. Over time, even matchmakers stopped wanting to take on his business.

He waited until his father passed away, but he still hadn't been able to get married. Before his death, his father gave him a strict order: "Son, we won't be picky anymore. Even if she's older or not so handsome, that's fine! You're our only son, and we're hoping you'll carry on the family line!"

Therefore, Li Wen's lifelong desires have changed from one to two: "to have enough to eat" and "to get married".

"Don't blame me, don't blame me. I'll borrow your land to plant two crops of grain, so that the fields won't be abandoned when you're not here. After I harvest the wheat, I'll definitely exchange it for incense, candles, wine, and meat to worship you," Li Yatou muttered to herself.

After reading it aloud, he thought for a moment, then poured a handful of water from the earthenware jar he carried with him and sprinkled it on the ground. After doing all this, Li Yatou felt much more at ease.

Xianghe County is deserted! I heard it used to be a very large county with more than 10,000 households, but those damned Tartars killed them all, leaving the land empty.

Even if this land were vacant, it wouldn't be for someone like him to cultivate. These days, it's so competitive to become a tenant farmer that you have to fight tooth and nail to get a place without paying the steward of a wealthy family!

His family originally worked at the Tongzhou docks, but they couldn't save any money all year round. When there was work, they could eat half full, but when there was no work, it was very difficult to survive. When the Tartars attacked Tongzhou, they locked down the city for several months, and the family went hungry for several months.

Fortunately, Tongzhou was a major granary, and the governor was a kind-hearted man who was willing to provide them with some porridge; otherwise, he wouldn't be alive today. Of course, this porridge wasn't given away for free; they had to carry things onto the city walls to receive it.

His father was old and strained his back while moving stones. His legs wouldn't obey him, and he ended up lying in bed for more than half a month before passing away.

The neighbors all said that the old man shouldn't have died; he just didn't want to be a burden, so he secretly swallowed rat poison and died. But no matter what, since no one reported it to the authorities, no one cared. Many people died back then; one more old man wouldn't make a difference.

Li Yatou had no money to bury the old man. She tried every means to pawn some things and managed to scrape together a coffin, but they had nowhere to be buried. Only people with land could be buried in the fields, but they had nothing.

Finally, the old man was taken away by the government officials. All he knew was that he was buried with many others in a public cemetery outside the city, but he had no idea exactly which mound he was buried under.

It is said that after the Tartars were driven away, many people came to claim the land in Xianghe County, some even bringing cartloads of silver to buy it. However, most of them were driven away by the government. It is said that this is a new law of the imperial court, and all the unclaimed land will henceforth belong to the court. Those officials in the court are all about writing and painting, not farming, so they plan to rent the land to the people to cultivate, allowing the court to pocket the rent – ​​a truly lucrative business.

Li Yatou also heard the storyteller say that in the future, the imperial court would stop paying salaries to officials and instead use this land to compensate them. It seemed to be called "official land" or something like that. The imperial court did this many years ago.

Li Yatou felt that if he stayed in Tongzhou as a laborer, he would never be able to get married, so he decided to come to Xianghe to farm and try his luck. The boatmen who came and went sometimes saw him and said that he was a good man, with the physique of a skilled farmer.

He had no connections and was worried that he wouldn't be able to rent a place, so he prepared more than three thousand coins to bribe officials so that they would make things easier for him.

Unexpectedly, the money was sent out, but it was returned by the government within two days. The minor official who accepted the money was hung on the city wall of Xianghe County for three whole days, and he almost died.

Li Ya was also scared; giving money seemed to be illegal. He endured it for three days, but couldn't take it anymore, so he voluntarily went to the government office to turn himself in. The county magistrate said, "Ignorance is no excuse," and didn't punish him, but told him not to do it again, or he wouldn't be allowed to rent the land.

Each person could rent a maximum of twenty mu of land. Because he had never farmed before, the government officials said they were afraid he wouldn't know how to farm and would miss the farming season, so at first they were only willing to let him rent ten mu of land.

He pleaded and begged, even taking off his clothes to show people his large frame, before the officials finally relented and reluctantly agreed to rent him eighteen acres of land.

Whether the people who rented the land could farm or not was irrelevant to the imperial court. The amount of land tax and rent collected was fixed, and the people had to pay it no matter what.

But that's the rule set by the higher-ups. Although they didn't know why, they just had to follow it. The affairs of the imperial court were beyond the comprehension of ordinary people like them.

The harsh winter was finally over. The ice and snow had melted, and the fields were moist but not too muddy—perfect time for plowing. Arriving at his rented plot, Li Yatou put down his bamboo basket, picked up his hoe, and began to work. He had brought water and a lunch of beans; he didn't plan to go back before sunset.

He worked for about half an hour before his tenant farmer, who owned another plot of land next to his, arrived with a lame old horse. The horse was a lame old horse, and the man was also a lame old man.

Li Yatou remembered what her father had taught her: to be kind to her neighbors, so that they could help her out in case of emergency. Although she didn't know where Uncle Fu lived, their fields were next to each other, so they were neighbors, right? So she put down her hoe, wiped her sweat, and politely greeted Uncle Fu: "Uncle Fu, have you had breakfast yet?"

Uncle Fu rolled his eyes and said irritably, "Eating three meals a day is a privilege only wealthy families have. What are people like us supposed to eat for breakfast?"

Li Yatou was speechless for a moment, feeling that she had messed things up, so she lowered her head in disappointment and stopped talking.

(End of this chapter)