Reclaiming Wasteland: Carefree Mountain Farmer

Chapter 174 Centennial Log
On the main street of Luoyang, Si Jiuba and five other men were working at the street corner, setting up a tent.

While I was helping the carpenter move wood, my younger sister, Xiaoya, who was cooking at home, came over with two other girls.

"Sis, your friend is looking for you."

When Si Jiu Ba heard his younger sister Xiao Ya calling out, he turned around and saw Tong Bao Er and Dou Yu Men.

"It's Sister Bao'er and Sister Yumen. What are you doing here?"

Tong Bao'er laughed and said, "What did I come here for? Of course, I came to see you. Why don't you look happy at all?"

498 wasn't really that happy. He laughed and said, "I'm busy building a house. His Majesty said he'd give us newspaper clerks a shelter from the rain and wind. This is called a newsstand. We can sell newspapers even on rainy days!"

The carpenter said, "Go and have some fun. It'll be finished this afternoon."

498 resolutely refused, "No way, I have to keep an eye on it! I'm going to sell newspapers here for the rest of my life! What if it breaks?"

Compared to familiar but not very close friends like Tong Bao'er and Dou Yumen, Si Jiuba is more concerned about lifelong matters.

They clearly distinguish between primary and secondary people and don't treat outsiders as one of their own.

Those on the same team are your own people. I have many friends in 498, and my closest friends are definitely the girls on my team.

There were both men and women selling newspapers, and quite a few girls like those at 498.

Some male households definitely have young women in their homes, and they often work together, so they don't lack girlfriends at all.

Nowadays, everyone is busy with their own newsstand. After finishing their own, they can help others. However, everyone is thinking about moving into the newsstand to sell newspapers as soon as possible.

Tong Bao'er and Dou Yumen looked closer.

Dou Yumen looked at the small house that had already been built and asked, "You're going to live in this place for the rest of your life? How big is this place anyway?"

498 said unhappily, "This is where I work. I have a place to live. Small has its advantages. In the future, I can put a long plank and bedding in the room and sell newspapers while sitting in bed."

"His Majesty said that as long as we don't light fires and it doesn't affect newspaper sales, we can sit in bed to warm our feet in winter."

Dou Yumen laughed and said, "Look at you, so smug. You'd better find a man to warm your bed soon!"

498 immediately refused, "I will not get married. If I get married, my household registration will be given to the man. I can earn three or four taels of silver a month now. His Majesty said that next year he will increase our income by one-third, or at least one tael of silver."

"I can keep selling newspapers until I'm old, I don't care about getting married!"

Dou Yumen and Tong Bao'er suddenly felt envious of this seemingly poor little girl.

Not only do they earn more than them, but they also have freedom and don't need to serve anyone, plus a respectable job that they can do for a lifetime.

Although they were in the public eye, no one bullied them, and they could go wherever they wanted. The work wasn't hard, and they didn't need to stay up all night to serve their masters or be bossed around by them.

Tong Bao'er laughed and said, "You little girl, you're really lucky."

When Dou Yumen and the people working nearby heard this, they all felt that what he said made a lot of sense.

Si Jiuba's mind was entirely focused on building the pavilion. Fortunately, Tong Bao'er and Dou Yumen were both quick-witted and perceptive, and they promptly shifted their focus to getting to know Xiao Ya.

I learned a general idea of ​​what had happened recently from Xiaoya's incessant chatter.

In particular, they learned that King Wu's family and children had arrived in the capital, and that King Wu had not selected any concubines or chosen any ladies, and had stayed in the city without going out.

There's also the matter of fighting the Khitans.

This intelligence is somewhat useful.

***
Inside the palace, Beijiwu received a report from the army.

"Your Majesty, the bandits and pirates in the south have been basically quelled. Of the nine thousand people, fewer than two hundred were killed or wounded. More than twenty thousand bandits were killed, and more than sixty thousand refugees were rescued."

The Arctic Army dispatched troops to wipe out bandits and pirates south of the Yellow River and north of the Yangtze River, especially external forces entrenched in the four mountains and four lakes.

The requirement is to kill as many as possible, leaving no future troubles, so as to avoid repeated unrest.

Since they're not from our own country, I wouldn't feel any pressure killing a bunch of bandits and robbers.

However, his subordinates were incompetent and actually surrendered.

If you recruit them and then kill them, it will be much harder to kill them. Arctic Martial doesn't really want these people.

"These captives and refugees have long mingled with bandits, and their consciences are hard to fathom. Some of them are different from the mountain farmers in terms of habits and perceptions." "If there are any Wenchao people, send them to Wenchao. The rest who are willing to stay can be settled in the Lianghu region to farm."

"Let the nine generals each select one hundred households to set up Yicheng, seventy miles south of Xiangyang County, for farming. Later, they will be incorporated into the Xiangyang Navy. They can bring their families and friends over, and they will be under the common household. The number of households should be controlled below one hundred thousand. It doesn't matter how many households there are."

"Those 60,000 people were also settled here, managed according to the free household registration system, each household was given ten mu of land, no taxes were levied, and they were left to fend for themselves."

Arctic militias only provide protection to their own people and those who pay taxes; they do not care about the lives of those who do not pay taxes or do not want to be protected.

The mountain farmers owe nothing to anyone in the world, nor does the Arctic martial arts. There's no need for everyone to interfere and treat outsiders like ancestors.

There's no need to be so friendly to outsiders; Arctic military's attitude towards several regions has been very clear from the beginning.

They are either unwanted, rotten lands, regions that they only want to seize by force, or forces like those in Jiangnan that are too troublesome to manage.

After his subordinate who was reporting on the military situation left, Beijiwu summoned the Grand Secretary.

"I have compiled statistics on natural and man-made disasters in the last hundred years. There have been 257 floods, 49 droughts, 60 locust plagues, 16 snow disasters, 8 earthquakes, 34 plagues, and more than 600 wars and conflicts. The records of typhoons are not detailed, but there are 25 typhoons that have killed tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. I would conservatively estimate that there have been one or two hundred typhoons in the last hundred years."

"Each death toll ranges from hundreds of thousands to thousands. Over the past century, the number of deaths recorded in historical books alone is close to 40 million, and in reality, it is probably more."

“A natural disaster is a natural disaster. I don’t like the Han people’s attitude of always saying that natural disasters are the will of Heaven. Mountain farmers should find ways to cope with disasters, instead of passively dealing with them and blaming everything on the will of Heaven and waiting to die.”

"The newspapers tomorrow or the day after will publish, in chronological order, all the disasters that occurred in various places over the past century, in detail so that people can understand why there have been so many wars over the years, and also so that people can understand how difficult it is to have enough to eat."

"Natural disasters are normal. We live in a place like this. They have happened before, they happen now, and they will continue to happen in the future. It's as normal as rain and snow."

"There's no need to demonize or panic. Just follow my instructions."

"I will not start another war unless necessary, but if I think it is necessary to fight, I will make sure to eliminate future troubles and give future generations a peaceful environment to recuperate."

Beijiwu handed over a century-long log and evaluation summary he had compiled to Zang Zizhao, and asked him to check it again to make up for any omissions, since he was doing things intermittently and it was inevitable that he would forget some things.

Zang Zizhao had never calculated how serious the century of chaos was. As a Han Chinese who had suffered greatly from it, he only realized how dark the past century had been after being reminded by Beijiwu.

"I obey the decree!!"

Zang Zizhao bowed to accept the order. If it weren't for Beijiwu's request to keep things brief and to waive formalities and titles when reporting work, he would have definitely knelt down to express his gratitude.

***
"Shan Nong Daily! Shan Nong Daily! A century of natural disasters and a century of man-made calamities, all are on your list!"

"I often travel far from home in autumn, feeling melancholy; I am a sick man for a hundred years, and I climb the stage alone."

An extra 30,000 copies of the newspaper were distributed that day, and the same page was reprinted for ten consecutive days.

The 300,000 newspaper pages are filled with detailed records of the major and minor disasters that have occurred over the past century.

Severe drought, thousands of miles of bare land, people eat each other

Severe flooding submerged houses and farmland, leaving disaster victims living in shelters and boats.
Locusts swarmed, darkening the sky and destroying the crops.
The earth cracked, six or seven out of ten people were displaced, and bones littered the fields.
A major epidemic, everyone who stayed home perished.
No harvest, people eat each other.
Defend the city and do not venture out; when food supplies run out, use people as rations.

The city fell, and the city was massacred for ten days.

……

The dense text, with very brief descriptions, assessments, and records of the death toll at the time, is presented in great detail.

Behind every simple word lies a painful past.

The dark history of the last three or five decades, in particular, has brought tears to the eyes of countless elderly people.

At this point, it would be unpopular to continue to exclude King Wu's rule based on the distinction between mountain farmers and Han people.

The desire of the people is for the Shan Nong Kingdom to rule the world.

Once the century-old log was published, the mountain farmers were no longer considered northern barbarians, and the Southern Dynasty was no longer the orthodox Chinese dynasty.

This century-old log, combined with the Shan Nong people's agricultural-based philosophy, is a slap in the face to the literati of the Wen Dynasty more than anything else.

Most people in the Wen Dynasty did not have a strong sense of resistance to the Wu Dynasty. The Wu Dynasty was not a tyrannical regime, and it also exempted people from taxes.

When many businessmen brought the year's newspaper back to the Jiangnan region, it quickly gained recognition and resonance from countless people.

(End of this chapter)