Chapter 487: The Zhou people did not know the sorrow of losing their country

Bashan.

The mountains and forests are lush and green.

I saw a hunchbacked old man, holding a bamboo stick, walking carefully on the mountain road.

It had just rained, making the road more difficult to travel.

The thorns along the road have always been cruel to the poor. Every few steps forward, they would whip them. The old man walked very carefully and slowly. After walking for a distance, he found a stone to sit down and gasped for breath.

It was gloomy in the dense forest and the sunlight was blocked.

Suddenly, a bird was startled in the distance, and the roar of an unknown wild beast could be heard faintly, which was frightening.

But there wasn’t much fear on the old man’s face.

He calmly took out a dry biscuit from his arms and ate it slowly. After finishing his meal, he set off again.

As he continued to walk up, the mountain road gradually became wider. The trees were no longer as dense as before, and they had obviously been cut down. The road also seemed to have been treated. The old man was moving forward when suddenly a few people poked their heads out from the bushes not far away.

The leader was a young man, and when he saw the old man, a look of surprise suddenly appeared on his face.

“Third uncle!”

The old man finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw him.

The young men hurried forward and the young man asked, “Why are you here? This mountain road is so difficult to walk on, this…”

“Okay, take me there first!”

The young man didn’t say much, he just carried the old man on his back, and the few of them quickly disappeared into the bushes.

The scenes on both sides kept jumping, and the trees and weeds kept moving backwards. The group walked a long way, passed a simple fence, and finally came to a camp.

This campsite is quite simple. The houses are all makeshift huts. There are basically no women and children. Most of the people are men. Some are dealing with the carcasses of wild animals, and some are taking a nap. There are quite a few people. There are more than a hundred men in this campsite. Looking at the empty huts in the distance, there should be many who have not stayed here.

The old man being carried here immediately caused everyone’s surprise, and the young men stood up and came forward to greet him.

The old man talked to them one by one, and soon the old man’s son learned the news and hurried back.

The old man’s son was tall, with strong hands and dark skin. When the father and son got together, everyone found a flat place for the old man to sit down.

“How’s the situation back home?”

“Are the Eastern bandits good at robbing?”

There are many questions for everyone.

These people in the mountains all came from a large village at the foot of the mountain. During the Han-Zhou War, local officials of the Zhou Kingdom began their final plunder and sent people to various places to forcibly conscript able-bodied men. These people living at the foot of the mountain were a little impatient and accidentally had an intimate exchange with the officials who came to conscript. They exchanged punches and kicks with each other, and then hid in the mountains.

As for women, children, the elderly and the weak, on the one hand, they were not included in the conscription, and on the other hand, it was difficult for the elderly and the weak to survive in the mountains and forests, so they stayed in their hometowns.

Therefore, when they saw the elderly people from their hometown, they were so excited.

The old man calmly told them about the situation in the village.

“The situation in the village is very good, there is no need to worry.”

“After the Han army occupied the city, they sent several officials to take charge of the affairs. The leader was a young man, not very old, but he was reliable. He did not forcibly collect money and grain, nor did he ask about your whereabouts.”

“Li Sanlang and his men who were repairing the pass in Qiantou Village have all been sent back. They said that after the civilians over there were taken over, they were quickly sent back. The new court does not impose corvée labor on them.”

“What? No corvée?”

Everyone was shocked and started talking.

It was obvious that everyone didn’t quite believe it. The old man stroked his beard and said slowly, “I don’t know if we’ll send more people there in the future, but now it’s all stopped. Those who should have returned have all returned, even those who went to fight have been released.”

“He said he wanted to grant land”

The crowd was shocked again, and many people had begun to feel traumatized by the equal-field system.

In theory, this is a system that is quite friendly to the people. However, due to the collusion between officials and local dignitaries, it has been turned into a harsh policy that everyone fears.

The old man explained: “It’s true. Anyway, I don’t see anything wrong with the land distribution in the village.”

“anything else?”

“There was nothing else to do. The land was distributed, the households were checked, and officials would preach the law from time to time. Apart from that, there was nothing else to do. Everyone did their own thing.”

Everyone looked at each other, and then looked at the old man’s son.

The old man was a very famous blacksmith, and his son was also a blacksmith by trade. He was fond of standing up for the weak and had a certain reputation in the village, so after going up the mountain, everyone regarded him as their leader.

The sturdy man hesitated, “Then why did my father come this time?”

“I want to persuade you to go down the mountain.”

“Those who took weapons to fight the Han Kingdom were not punished and were sent back home. What do you think of this? And I heard from the official that the laws of the Han Kingdom are different from those of the Zhou Kingdom. If there are refugees returning to their hometowns, they can be resettled. When the new emperor ascended the throne, he pardoned the refugees who had fled to various places.”

“Father, I’m afraid they won’t obey the law, and once we get down the mountain, they’ll take revenge on us.”

The chief said with a stern face, “Seven years ago, wasn’t it the same? They said they would pardon the dead, but within a few months of the people coming down from the mountains, they were arrested and interrogated, sent to serve in the frontier, and never came back.”

The old man nodded and said, “You are right, but it has been a long time since the Han army came in.”

“Many of the deceased from the neighboring villages have returned. I have asked around and they say no one is being arrested anymore.”

“I think this new government is different. If they wanted to arrest you, they would have done it long ago. Why wait until now? Besides, they haven’t asked about your whereabouts. I don’t think they are trying to trick you into coming here.”

The old man said, “Every household has been allocated a lot of land, but the village is full of old and weak people, and there are no men to farm. I just feel it’s a pity.”

“How about this, if you want to go down the mountain, follow me now and take a look at the situation first.”

“You have been away from your hometown for a long time. Your family is separated and it is not easy for you to live here.”

In fact, this is a rather cruel proposal, which is to use some people as experimental subjects to see if they will die.

However, it is not easy for poor people to survive, and they always have to make some cruel choices, especially in troubled times. They have to choose between drowning their youngest son who is unlikely to survive or exchanging food with others, eating their own corpse first or picking up corpses outside. In comparison, this choice is not so cruel.

After a long discussion, more than thirty people decided to follow the old man down the mountain to see the situation.

They soon set out on their journey home.

The way down the mountain was easier to walk than the way up, but there was no sign of joy at returning home on their faces.

Everyone was nervous, not knowing what they were about to face.

When we reached the foot of the mountain, it was already dark.

They could only rest on the spot, and only returned to their hometown at noon the next day.

This is an ordinary village with weeds growing on both sides of the road. If you look through the weeds, you might see broken skulls.

The farmland in the distance was abandoned, and a few charred ruins awaited the people returning home.

Someone discovered their tracks.

Then, screams and cries were heard, and those who had lost contact with their lovers, fathers, and sons for a long time rushed over.

Some found their loved ones, hugged each other and cried, while others looked around in confusion but could not see any familiar figures.

The old man told them to go back first, and only took his nephew with him, asking him to lead him to the township government office. Although the township is no longer worthy of its name, it is still a township after all. According to local standards, the local government has established corresponding official positions here.

For a population of 500 or more, one township is set up; for a population of 3,000 or more, two townships are set up; for a population of 5,000 or more, three townships are set up; and for a population of 10,000 or more, four townships are set up.

In each township, there is one treasurer, and if the population is less than a thousand, there is one clerk to manage the affairs.

The person who came out to question him was an ordinary official. The old farmer trembled as he told the story of how he went into the mountains to collect herbs, found the dead in the village, and brought them down.

“I heard from my superiors that the government pardoned the dead, so I invited them back. These people were very happy to hear that and followed me back. They are all farmers in the countryside and have never been in trouble before. It was only because the government was too harsh in forcing them back then that they came back.”

“Uh-huh.”

The official nodded helplessly.

This official is a local.

Officials can be sent from the east, but the same cannot be done with clerks. Clerks do not belong to the imperial court but to the local areas. Officials have the power to dispose of them, and they are all recruited from the local areas.

From the Qin Dynasty to the present, the method of recruiting officials has undergone many changes, and now there are three methods.

The first one is the simplest, Zheng.

When local government offices were short of clerks, they would directly recruit local people who could read and write to serve as clerks. This was similar to corvée labor and could not be refused. One had to go, or else he would be held accountable.

The second type is succession. Generally speaking, the position of an official can be inherited. When the father dies, the son will take his place. This is still the custom of corvée labor. When a person doing corvée labor dies, his relatives will take his place and continue to work.

The third way is to take an examination. The earliest record of civil service examinations can be found in the Warring States Period. Some officials with power were relatively creative and could take examinations if they passed the examinations. It is said that Liu Bang’s village chief was selected through the third method.

Like this clerk, he was born a local but was just a clerk. It was obvious that he took the first path. He was conscripted as a clerk because he could read. He had a low status and basically had no power. He did some miscellaneous work like running errands.

However, the salary is not bad and it is much easier than farming. It also has a certain status compared to ordinary people.

The official listened to what the old man said and said helplessly, “Mr. Xu, I really don’t know how to tell you.”

“It would be fine if you said these words to those foreign officials, but you said them to me.”

“Don’t I know those people in the mountains?”

The old man’s expression changed, and he quickly warned: “Don’t betray the villagers!”

“Ugh”

Sanli pulled them aside and said seriously, “Old man, think about it carefully. How could the senior officials not know about this?”

“They just don’t say anything, just wait for them to come down on their own!”

“Now they are just hunting in the mountains, picking some things and being self-sufficient. The superiors didn’t say much, but think about it, there are more than 200 people in the mountains. As long as one person has evil intentions and robs a passerby or steals something from the mountain, then this is not just a death, this is a gang of bandits!”

“Two hundred bandits, the officers in the city are dreaming of making meritorious deeds! How can they just sit there and do nothing?”

“What if you stay in the mountains?”

“Do you know who’s in that military camp outside the city? They’re all veteran soldiers who kill without blinking an eye. Do you think that if you hide in the mountains, people won’t be able to catch you?”

The official sighed and looked at the young man again.

“Logically, I shouldn’t say these things, but we are from the same hometown, and you watched me grow up, so I don’t want to lie.”

“If the imperial court wanted to kill the dead, they would not need to spend such energy. All they need is an order. The soldiers inside and outside the city are looking forward to military merit. Once the order comes, they will immediately go into the mountains and no one will survive.”

“Look at other places. It’s been more than two months since the dead came down from the mountain. Have any of them been caught and killed?”

“Stop pretending and send someone to call those people down from the mountain.”

The official said a few words and then reminded: “As for those who have returned, let them report to me as soon as possible and re-register their household registration.”

After the official finished speaking, he sent the guest away without waiting for the old man to say anything more.

The old man walked out of here with the young men who accompanied him, and his expression was still a little confused.

He looked at the two people on his left and right, “What do you think?”

“What you said makes some sense. Now that the emperor has ascended the throne, he will pardon the dead. If you hesitate any longer, will he not pardon you? Will he just treat you as a gang of bandits?”

“Um”

The old man hesitated for a moment before saying, “How about this? I can no longer walk on the mountain road. This time you go over and tell Ah Cong and the others the truth about what happened here, and ask them to come down.”

A few days passed like this, and the old man came again with his men to report.

The official brought him to the historian.

The old man told the other party sincerely that he had brought back all the people who could still be contacted on the mountain, a total of more than one hundred people, and hoped that they could be pardoned.

The historian naturally did not say much. He gave some guarantees and asked the officials to help these people resettle as soon as possible.

The old man thanked him again and again before leaving.

After he left, Sanli was filled with anger.

“These people simply don’t know what’s good for them!”

“I told them clearly last time, but they still lied. There were clearly more than 200 people on the mountain, but they lied and said there were only 100. They brought back half of them, and the other half are still on the mountain!”

He cursed a few times first, then looked at Zhishushi, “Sir, the country folk don’t know etiquette. In the past, during the Zhou Dynasty, the government often cheated and didn’t convince people, so the people were treacherous. Otherwise, I will go and talk to them, and they will definitely not dare to hide it anymore.”

Zhishushi looked at the young man and couldn’t help laughing.

“Don’t be afraid.”

“I don’t want to arrest these people and hold them accountable.”

The official was a little embarrassed and laughed a few times, “I know you are kind and righteous.”

“No need to interfere too much. In the past, officials were fickle, so it is understandable that they are afraid. Now that the imperial court has lightened taxes and levies and is giving the people a rest, they will come down sooner or later. It’s okay. We just need to do our job well and don’t worry. However, you can also give them a subtle reminder that if they hide in the mountains, they will be able to come down one day. But if they engage in plundering, no one can save them.”

“only!!”

A large number of laborers returned to the village, but the situation has changed a lot.

The amount of arable land granted increased, and men carried farm tools to the fields. Women, children, the elderly and the weak had someone to rely on, and the whole village became more lively, with more people coming and going.

I don’t know who cleared the weeds on both sides of the road, and the local elders led the young and strong people in the tribe to clear away the ruins that blocked the road.

Although the clan-based rural society based on blood ties has many flaws, it also has a certain stability. Without interference, it can even perform some of the functions of officials and maintain and recover itself. It has both advantages and disadvantages.

During the post-war recovery, some benefits began to emerge. For example, the widows and orphans could receive some relief, those without strong labor could receive some help, and clan leaders could lead the rest of the people in carrying out some small-scale construction activities.

After more than a month, the strong laborers in the mountains finally walked out of the mountains and returned home.

The size of the village has been reduced a lot compared to before, but the land has been cultivated again, pedestrians have appeared on the small roads again, and vitality has sprouted from these inconspicuous little places and then spread to the surrounding areas.

Qualified young people in the village took their money to go to school, those with ambition and courage prepared to become full-time soldiers, and melon and fruit farmers pushed their carts to the county town to sell their fruits.

Even without interference, restoration was still carried out in an orderly manner in various places. Because of the war, a large amount of unowned land appeared, and many tenants, dead people, slaves, etc. regained their freedom. The annexation problem returned to its original state.

The brand new empire lay leisurely on the land, breathing slowly, waiting for the wounds on its body to heal bit by bit and then recover.

On the other side of the river, the State of Chen suddenly became impatient and started many reforms to strengthen itself. The whole country was in a state of turmoil, preparing for a final attempt to save itself.

(End of this chapter)