NOVEL WEB Chapter 12: The Nobility of the Village Party
It is not that the quota of registered men cannot be changed. The officers will screen the disabled and clear out the patients with epidemic diseases.
There is room for tolerance for the disabled, but epidemic diseases are intolerable.
The officers of the county yamen will never let the patients with epidemic diseases mix into the team of able-bodied men. This is a capital crime of spreading plague in the army in the Wei Dynasty.
Therefore, the rich children who dare not cut off their hands and feet will mostly report epidemic diseases and escape military service.
Of course, there is a price to pay for this. The families who need to report epidemic diseases on behalf of the soldiers will solve it themselves, which requires a lot of money.
Zhou Yuan never thought that Ergou's father would take out the heirloom land and find someone to replace Ergou's military service quota.
In this way, Ergou's family has no way out except to go to the city to make a living.
At this moment, their family is not even a farmer. At best, they are refugees. Their social status has plummeted, from the bottom to the bottom.
Perhaps this serious illness changed the minds of Ergou's family. Now they would rather take some risks to keep the only male offspring in the family.
However, going to the city without anyone to rely on is not sure whether it is good or bad, and whether they can live in peace.
"Ergou doesn't show off his wealth. No matter where he goes, it's better to live a poor life when he is unfamiliar with the place."
"I know Brother Shitou. My father told me to go to the city as an apprentice. Uncle Luo from Dongcun introduced me to a carpenter master.
I can endure hardships. As long as the master doesn't beat me to death and teaches me how to make a living, I will take care of him until the end of his life."
"Okay, if I make a name for myself, you can report my name if you are bullied."
Zhou Yuan was still a little touched by Ergou's courage to give him a pearl in good condition.
After all, Ergou's gift is risky.
If he is a vicious person, the lives of Ergou's family will be in danger.
"Brother Shitou, can you get your land back?
Or you can also use the land to pay the labor service, and we two brothers can go to the city to make a living together, so that we can have someone to look after each other."
"I can't do this. You know it's written in black and white on the land deed that I can only get the land back after I get married."
Before his father joined the army, he was afraid that he would not be able to come back, so the village took the opportunity to kill Zhou Yuan and exterminate the family, and then left the private land to the head of the village.
This left the land, but my previous life grew up safely, and I could get a portion of food from the head of the village every year.
But it would be difficult to get it back.
After all, he was known for being stupid in his previous life, and both decent and undecent families looked down on him, a simpleton who lived alone.
"Yes, it's harder for you to find a wife than it is for me. Your land has probably been regarded as private property by the village head.
He won't agree to anything he says. You can use his land to pay the service."
"Ahem... By the way, Brother Shitou, just pretend I didn't say anything about what happened a few days ago. I want to try my best to have a baby."
After a simple farewell, Ergou's family left in a hurry and went to the city two days before the county officials entered the village.
The man who replaced Ergou in the service was called Li Dazhuang. There were five males in his family, a typical example of a large population with little land.
Zhou Yuan saw clearly that when the officials called other strong men, they drew a circle, but when they called him, they drew a horizontal line.
This meant that his family was extinct. As long as he didn't come back, the tax payment for the service in Qiaoxi Village would be counted as 66 households.
Although Ergou's family had no land and went to the city to make a living, their household registration was still in Qiaoxi Village, and they would still be counted as candidates for the service in the future.
"Young and old, please be quiet. I have something to say.
This military service is a decree of the court. We brothers are not deliberately blaming you."
"Look at these men serving, some are young and some are old. We brothers will just pretend that there are no strong men in your family and fool you.
We brothers value friendship, and I hope you will value morality. Don't run away or make trouble after leaving this village, otherwise the county government will investigate and your family will be implicated."
"I won't say much else. You can choose a man who is in charge to lead the team.
We will pass through more than a dozen post stations, but we will not enter the county town. We will go straight to Jing'an City, the county government."
It is reasonable for the conscripts not to enter the county town. They are all villagers and are just passing through the county town. Once they have bad intentions, they will inevitably harm the people in the county.
Interestingly, the officers also approve of the behavior of the elderly replacing the strong men.
I think there are not many wars in the Wei Dynasty. The usual recruitment of soldiers is to maintain the system, not to replenish soldiers in an emergency.
"Why don't you choose? If you don't choose, I'll just pick one."
If it was corvée labor, the villagers would definitely rush to be the team leader, but this is military service, and the team leader will most likely be selected as a regular soldier. The villagers don't want to take on this hard job.
"I'll do it."
Under the gaze of the villagers and the officers, Zhou Yuan, with a hatchet hanging on his waist and a whistle stick in his hand, stood up.
"Good man, young people are still more motivated. OK, you will be the team leader of Qiaoxi Dingyi."
Zhou Yuan's demands are different from those of the villagers. Most of the villagers want to return to their hometown to farm as soon as possible, but Zhou Yuan wants to practice martial arts and strengthen himself.
For this reason, the team leader status that the villagers avoid is a starting point worth striving for for him.
But what Zhou Yuan didn't expect was that he still had to prepare his own dry food on the way to the army.
The head of the village, Old Li, took Zhou Yuan's hand and told him to take good care of the several wheelbarrows in the village, and not to lose anything but food.
In this way, under the leadership of the officers, the villagers set off pushing wheelbarrows loaded with machetes, pottery jars, straw mats and other sundries.
As the team leader, Zhou Yuan did not have to take turns pushing the cart. Instead, he was arranged by the officers to the middle of the team to manage the twenty-three villagers.
The group walked and stopped, first went to Qiaodong Village to join another team of strong men, and then went to Shashi Village and Dalin Village to gather a team of 100 people before heading towards Jing'an City.
Led by a familiar officer, the strong men arrived at the post station before nightfall.
There is a place to stay here, a large bunk bed, no quilt, but at least it can shelter from the wind and rain, and the strong men are not charged.
However, if you want to eat here, you have to pay. Even the leading officers only asked for hot soup and took out the cakes from the cloth bag to eat.
The old people who had service experience were important at this time. Under their shouting, several young men ran out to collect firewood and hay and boiled water outside the post station.
Zhou Yuanchu looked at all this and felt like a group adventure picnic.
When Zhao Dahuang handed him the cold cake, he left the romantic fantasy and returned to the reality of sleeping in the open.
"Sweet, sure, Uncle Dahuang, you can also make sugar."
"What nonsense, this is jujube paste cake, a dry food made by steaming red dates and rhubarb rice together.
In previous years, we didn't get this treatment when we served corvée labor, we just had to go to the place half-dead.
But this military service is not possible. If the condition is too bad and we are sent back to the barracks, we have to replenish strong men."
"You are lucky, kid, eat this jujube paste cake, I guarantee you will go to the barracks alive and well."
After a noisy dinner, the villagers didn't need Zhou Yuan's command at all, they took the initiative to give up the big bunk to the old and weak, spread the straw mat on the ground and fell asleep.
At this moment, Zhou Yuan really felt the hardship of serving in the army and the value of the villagers.
"Shitou, pick a few men to watch the grain cart, don't dare to make mistakes."
"No mistakes, don't worry."