Autumn had arrived, and the sun was still very strong.
Yan Furong sat under the shade of a tree wearing a straw hat,
She was covered in sweat,
She was so tired that she almost fainted.
Not far away, the farmers of the Yan family village were busy harvesting. But since the land they received was much more than their own few acres of pitiful land in the past, many of the farmers' families had long starved to death or fled to other places in the past.
But the allotment of land — those who fled,
Their families..,
Still received the "allotment certificate" from the fugitives. These families..,
With the strength of the existing individual families, it was impossible to snatch so many acres of land. Despite their enthusiasm..,
Compared to when they worked for the ancestral hall of the clan and the landlord..,
It was much higher.
The farmers spontaneously — this was also the traditional "mutual aid" in the countryside. This tradition..,
Since when..,
The old people could talk for three days and three nights..,
They couldn't even count the eighteen generations of their ancestors. In short..,
It had been around for a long time.
Every year during the busy season, the farmers would form a few families to help each other. They would help each other farm, transplant seedlings, and harvest.
This simple and traditional practice of helping each other reached its peak after the arrival of the volunteer army and the distribution of cattle on the basis of three families. After all..,
The cattle and farm tools were distributed on the basis of three families. There were several families working together everywhere.
But there were always some families in the village, such as some disabled, seriously ill, and orphans and widows,
Even single widows. Manpower was limited. There was no way to participate in labor,
The other families helped each other,
They wouldn't look for these families who couldn't participate in labor at all.
After some discussion, the new "linen clothes" in charge of the village applied to the higher-ups to transfer many peasant volunteers to help these families harvest.
Yan Furong was also one of them who was helped to harvest.
How could a delicate young lady like her know what "Harvest" was. She had never even worked on the ground, and her hands had never been stained with a grain of mud. In the past, she had only read, embroidered, and played in the boudoir.
Even when she came to her uncle's house, she felt that her life was not as good as before. She even had to endure the sarcasm and ridicule of her cousins, but she never had to do any rough work. Including working on the ground, fetching water, and cooking for herself.
But now, her cousins couldn't even protect themselves. Apart from their personal daily necessities, their family property had been confiscated. Together with their maids and servants, they were given land and floating wealth.
Her cousins could only pick up their own hoes, sign their own cows, and go to work helplessly. In the old days, the land was cultivated by the hired farmers and tenant farmers, and the maids and servants took care of their daily needs. All they had to do was manage the debts, busy themselves with their clans, work with the gods and ghosts, or gamble and play.
But now, there was no ancestral temple land rent for them to lie down and enjoy. The maidservants and servants, on the other hand, were deeply grateful to the volunteer army. As soon as they received the land and money, they immediately left her uncle's house to reunite with her family.
Her cousins were already like this, let alone Yan Furong, an orphan who was living in a foreign land.
If there was no one to harvest her four mu of land, then she would have to spend twenty taels of silver and wait for starvation.
Yan Furong rested for a while under the shade of a tree and stared at the back of her hands, which were red and peeling from the sun after harvesting the rice for a few hours.
But if she was asked to go back to her "new home", which was worse than a pigsty, she would rather stay here! At least there were no fleas!
After the volunteer army finished distributing the land and money, they followed their usual practice in other villages and distributed houses to the homeless poor who lived in the landlord's stables and straw piles.
Yan Furong's family's manor had long been confiscated by the volunteer army. Her uncle's house was also confiscated because of the blood debt. It was used by the short-haired thief to house orphans, wanderers, beggars, and wounded soldiers.
Therefore, she and her cousins had become "homeless" who needed to wait for the volunteer army to distribute their houses.
She remembered the fear when she was led to her new house after distributing the land yesterday and almost fainted. What a bleak and dark mud house it was!
There was almost nothing in the mud house. There was only a cabinet against the wall, a low kang, and a stove made of mud bricks.
There were only a large vat, two broken bowls, and an iron pot in the house.
The paper on the only window had been burnt brown and was torn in two or three places.
There was only a ball of cotton wool on the kang, which was said to be a "quilt".
There was also an unpleasant smell, which seemed to be the smell of feces from the animals that used to live in the house. Many farmers didn't have the means to build a pigsty, so they kept their animals in the house.
Was this a place for people to live?
Yan Furong was given such an earthen hut and a few paupers. (She had learned this derogatory term for the filthy poor from her cousin's mouth. Yan Furong thought it was an appropriate humorous term that even a crude person like her cousin could understand.) They became neighbors.
The volunteer army saw that she was a lone woman, so they sent people to help her clean the house. They replaced the ball of cotton wool full of fleas with a somewhat old but clean quilt. They also sent some new utensils, such as cups, and piled firewood outside the house.
But when the mother and daughter next door — this pair of mother and daughter who were dressed in rags didn't have a house to live in and had to beg for a living, they didn't freeze to death in the winter by hiding in piles of straw full of insects. They were also given a mud house with similar conditions next to Yan Furong's.
The volunteer army also sent new quilts, new clothes, and new utensils to this pair of mother and daughter.
The old mother laughed until her gray and messy hair swayed, and her toothless mouth opened. Every wrinkle on the daughter's wrinkled and distressed face relaxed, and her eyes were filled with tears. They held the hand of the "short-haired thief" and kept shouting "Bodhisattva".
Yan Furong recognized at a glance that many of the utensils used by this pair of mother and daughter were actually copied from her uncle's house.
"Damn it!" She thought.
Finally, the sky turned yellow and the sun set, but she still refused to go to the field. A "short-haired" woman came up from the field and lectured her with an ugly expression, "We can't help you do work every day. Brothers and sisters are also responsible for farming the most barren land in the east of the village. You have to learn how to do your own work. "
This short-haired woman had a special identity — she was a servant girl who had been severely beaten and rescued by the volunteer army from the Yan Family's village. This servant girl's whole family was extorted by the landlord and starved to death during the famine. Later, they joined the volunteer army.
Yan Furong forced a smile with tears in her eyes and nodded, meekly acknowledging the lesson of this servant girl who could only look up to her in the past. ,
After the difficult day finally passed, she reluctantly returned to her mud house. She habitually wanted to call for a servant to change her clothes, but she suddenly remembered that her family had already "declined".
At this time, the mother and daughter outside were privately thanking the short-haired thief — they boasted that they had land, a house, and 20 taels of silver. How lucky they were.
Yan Furong thought, "Ha, 20 taels of silver? That was only her pocket money for the past month. "
Thinking of this, she almost shed tears and took out her writing brush, ink, paper, and inkstone — the short-haired thief pretended not to touch her personal belongings.
In the dim light of a bean oil lamp, the young lady of the past wrote in her notebook:
"There are no more screens with pictures of Toad Hall. There were no more poetic and picturesque poetry books. There are no more mothers' love, no more maids' fragrance. There's only … "She looked back at the desolate hut and couldn't help but write with tears in her eyes," There's only that dark hut. The desolate moonlight shines through the desolate willow walls on my table with a missing leg. There is only the rude shouting in place of the poet's writing in the long river of history. "
"Ah, from prosperity to failure, if a hundred years later, I am like those people who have slept in stables and only know how to cheer violence, and spend my whole life in this mud house, talking and acting only with the sweat of the fields, then, who will worship the beautiful autumn moon and the palace lanterns under the red candles and sing?"
Writing to this point, Yan Furong bowed her head and cried bitterly. With great difficulty, she wiped away her tears and continued to write angrily:
"They are so unfair to me. Yes, my father and uncle may have received a few rent from them in the past. Perhaps because they couldn't pay the rent, they questioned them a few times. However, my father and uncle had once offered up so many scholars for the Yan family. Ha! My father even wrote a beautiful travel note for the mountains and rivers of the Yan family, so that this place could leave its mark in history.
I, I am the most useless person, but I have helped a few maids who were sold to my family to avoid being bullied by my brothers. However, that servant girl, when she saw me today, her malicious smile, her bossy tone, she completely forgot the tears I shed for her when I saved her all those years ago.
Her father starved to death during the disaster year, but she survived in my family. How can people be so ungrateful? This is probably the nature of people who haven't been influenced by poetry. "
Writing to this point, Yan Furong finally stopped and signed: Concubine Furong.
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