Traveling through 1942 with space

Hou Xiaoge, who was standing behind, heard the conversation between the old man and his eldest cousin clearly. At this moment, he suddenly understood what the old man said.

In Hou Xiaoge's mind, soldiers have always been a great image, but the soldiers at this time are not actually called "soldiers", it would be most appropriate to call them "ruffians".

In his previous life, whether Hou Xiaoge watched movies or TV dramas or listened to stories from the elders in the village, he thought he had a certain understanding of the Republic of China period.

But it was not until he listened to the old man and experienced it personally that he completely understood the ruling class of the Republic of China.

During the Republic of China period, the government did not go to the countryside. In order to govern the towns and villages well, the government always used the landlords and wealthy classes to rule.

These wealthy landlords used their money to buy guns and sent out the ruffians who were affiliated with them to join the militia organized by several wealthy landlords.

In this way, the role of these so-called militias is self-evident. They can assist the government in consolidating the region and can be used to keep civilians under control.

They control military force, cultural opinion, and people's livelihood. These are the shackles that the feudal class has put on the necks of the common people. They can take people's lives at any time.

These grassroots classes are two of the three mountains that weighed on ordinary people as summarized by later generations: the bureaucracy and the feudal class.

This class evolved in later generations and also had a fashionable term, that is, "Brahmin" in the county town.

However, the term "Brahmins" for county nobles in later generations was just a joke. Although they had certain priorities in certain areas, their rights were very limited and most of them were kept in cages.

This is because in the future, the new country will truly break the pattern of imperial power not extending to the countryside for thousands of years, allowing ordinary people to have relative freedom.

Let’s look at the landlord class of that era. They were real “Brahmins”. First was Wangjiazhuang, whom Hou Xiaoge met when he was fleeing.

During the disaster, the big landlords in Wangjiazhuang did not worry and simply hoarded food. Under the authority of the "Brahmin", the whole village centered around the landlords, gathered in the fortress and watched the outside world.

The Fan family, a large landlord in Luoning County that Hou Xiaoge had just visited, had huge assets and was known as the Fan Millionaire in Luoning.

When disaster strikes, these larger landlords simply stay in the city and don't leave. They have plenty of money and food inside and the protection of their running dog militia outside, so they can sleep soundly.

Take today's small incident of lost livestock for example, but they actually directly ordered a blockade of the county. What kind of power and authority is this?

In fact, all these are visible, and what is invisible is even more terrifying. After fleeing for the past few days, Hou Xiaoge has gained a deep understanding of the landlords of this era.

These big landlords will show a little kindness towards ordinary people, but most of the time they are wolves in sheep's clothing.

They took the opportunity to exploit ordinary people, first by plundering their liquid wealth, then by buying land at a low price, and finally by forcing the people to sell their children, until the last bit of surplus value of ordinary people was squeezing out.

Take his own family for example. If Hou Xiaoge didn't have the golden finger and made an unexpected fortune, just imagine, if the ransom was increased dozens of times, how could the Hou family redeem their family members?

These landlords and wealthy people actually have this idea in mind. If your family can raise the money to redeem your family, they will not stop you and they can even make a fortune. If your family does not have the ability, then forget it, as your children will be slaves for them all their lives.

Even so, when the time came to redeem the second sister, the Hou family returned empty-handed. The Fan family didn't even look down on Hou Xiaoge's little money.

"No wonder the new country in the future has to create these classes. These people deserve it!" Hou Xiaoge muttered softly while standing behind.

"Yangmin, since your family has no one sent out and no one is trapped in the city, I will return some of the extra food that your family donated just now to you!" The fifth elder of the clan said with a smile as he looked at Hou Yangmin carrying a heavy basket on his back.

"Fifth Uncle, how much grain did our family donate just now?" asked eldest uncle Hou Yangmin puzzled.

Originally, the uncle wanted to say no, but then he changed his mind and thought, it would be bad if the second uncle's wife and younger sister saw that he and others did not come back and donated all the family assets.

"I donated ten kilograms of bark powder, half a basket of wild vegetables, and two kilograms of bran." After the old man said this, he looked at the uncle expectantly, hoping that the uncle would say no.

"Alas! Fifth Uncle, forget about these grains. Consider them as the return of our daughters and the blessings accumulated by our clan.

Uncle Wu, let's not talk about it for now. Let's go back first. My family must be very worried." Hou Yangmin looked at the elders, and finally sighed, waved his hand, and left with Hou Xiaoge and his group.

"Yangmin is a good kid. I don't know how he got lucky recently. He redeemed all the girls in the family. He is really capable.

Old man, I and Old Seven don’t know if we can make it to Qin Province. When Old Seven comes back, I will talk to him about electing the next clan elder!"

The old man bent over, stroked his gray beard, and talked to himself with a gleam in his eyes.

After saying goodbye to the donation team, Hou Xiaoge and his family hurried back to their own camp.

At this time, there were only two women and a group of half-grown children left in Hou Xiaoge's camp, so although it was lively outside the camp, no one went out to join in the fun, but stayed in the camp to guard their belongings.

After all, there are always people who like to take advantage of the situation to bully orphans and widows. Now that the men in the Hou family are not at home and the Hou family has just redeemed several daughters, it is natural that some people are jealous.

Second Aunt and Younger Sister, who were holding sickles and scissors in their hands, breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Hou Xiaoge and his group coming back, and they all collapsed to the ground.

"Heidan's mother, Kangzhan's mother, little sister, what happened to you?" Seeing the second aunt and the younger sister collapsed on the ground, the uncle and his friends were shocked.

"We were so scared when we heard the gunshots and the begging just now. We thought you were locked up in the city." After calming down for a while, the younger aunt and the second aunt burst into tears.

As my second aunt and my aunt started crying, the other children in the camp also started crying.

"Oh! It's all my fault. In order to keep it secret, I forgot to tell you when I left. We picked up Heiwa outside the city. It costs money to enter the city, so we didn't go in." The uncle slapped his head and said in annoyance.

"It's better to be outside the city, it's better to be outside the city. If something happens to the pillars of your families, how will we orphans and widows survive?" Second Aunt howled, slapping her thigh.

"Okay, second sister-in-law, everyone is watching. They wonder what happened in our family! There's a lot of crying." After wiping away her tears, the younger sister-in-law stood up with a smile in her eyes when she saw that the pillars of the family had returned home safely, and persuaded her second sister-in-law beside her.

After all the children had quieted down, Hou Xiaoge briefly told everyone about the situation near the city wall.

"Our Heiwa is blessed by our ancestors! He is so lucky." Second Aunt said with a smile, no sign of the crying look just now.

"By the way, brother, my second sister-in-law and I thought you were trapped in the city, so we donated a lot of food. I have to come back quickly." The aunt-in-law reacted and said.

"Yes, yes, yes, we have to come back quickly. This is food for our family for a few days!" Second Aunt also stood up suddenly and was about to rush out of the camp.

"Little sister, sister-in-law, forget it." Uncle Hou Yangmin stood up and hurriedly called the two back.