The end of natural disasters: the daily life of child brides in ancient times

In the afternoon, villagers began to line up to be weighed.

When Lu Qingqing and Qin Lang pushed the food over, there were already quite a few families queuing up in front of them.

The weather was still hot at this time, and most people queuing were hiding in the shade of trees on the roadside.

When Lu Qingqing was queuing, she suddenly heard the village chief in front of her curse, "Bastard."

Looking ahead, I found that Lu Tianfu, the famous ruffian in the village, and his mother were arguing with the village chief.

Lu Tianfu leaned over, holding the grain bag with one hand, and said to the village chief with a nonchalant look:

"Brother, when uncle was the village chief, we all paid our grain this way. It worked then, but why doesn't it work for you?"

When the village chief heard this, he became even more angry and pointed at Lu Tianfu's nose and cursed:

"You are so blind, Lu Laowai, how dare you bully me? In the past, my uncle was willing to give in to you and even provided you with food. Now you think everyone should give in to you."

As he spoke, he grabbed a handful of food from a bag and said to the villagers nearby:

"Everyone, come and see! This Lu Laowai is using this undried grain to pay taxes. He's deliberately trying to harm us. If the government sees this kind of grain, they're definitely not going to collect grain taxes from our village."

The villagers nearby also came forward one after another, grabbed some food and touched it, and accused Lu Tianfu of being unkind.

He could pay much less for the undried grain, but if the government refused to accept it, he would have to pay much more next time.

Lu Tianfu was a man who was not afraid of anything. Seeing the people around him accusing him, he did not seem anxious and said slowly:

"My family's food is like this, why don't you do it? Take it or leave it."

The village chief's hands were shaking with anger.

"You want to refuse to pay the grain tax? Fine, tomorrow when we get to the county I'll tie you up and hand you over to the government, so you don't become a burden to the whole village."

"How dare you? My father died in labor service because of your uncle and your father. You promised grandpa and grandma to take care of me and mom, but that doesn't count!"

Lu Tianfu shouted with his neck stretched out. The village chief looked at Lu Tianfu like this and curled his lips in disdain.

"When grandpa and grandma were alive, they always asked us to take care of you. But now you are over 30 years old, and my father passed away last year. You still want us to take care of you. Look at you, you are such a hopeless loser."

Seeing that her son was about to suffer, Lu Tianfu's mother sat down and started howling at the top of her lungs:

"How heartless! I, the head of the family, gave up everything for them. When my parents passed away, they promised to take care of us, an orphan and a widow, but now you're going against your promise."

As more and more people gathered around to watch, the village chief felt even more embarrassed.

This is his first year in office, and the grain tax collection has been messed up like this.

If he just lets it go so easily, he will have no prestige in the village in the future.

Thinking of this, he directly asked the villagers to tie up Lu Tianfu.

Lu Tianfu and his mother were not popular in the village on a daily basis, and this time they almost brought disaster to the village because of the grain tax.

When they heard the village chief ordering someone to be tied up, several men nearby immediately stepped forward, pressed Lu Tianfu to the ground, and tied him up tightly with a hemp rope.

When Lu Tianfu's mother saw her beloved son being tied up, she was anxious to go forward to save him, but was stopped by the women in the village.

Seeing her son being tied up like a dumpling, Lu Tianfu's mother was so anxious that she sat down on the ground and started screaming at the top of her lungs again.

The village chief was annoyed by what he heard, but he didn't dare to take action against Mrs. Lu.

After all, she was his aunt, so he asked the women in the village to take her aside so as not to interfere with the payment of grain taxes.

The grain harvesting work began again accompanied by Lu Lao Niang's howling.

The weather was extremely hot and Old Lady Lu didn't bring any water with her when she came out, so she couldn't howl anymore after a while.

When it was Lu Qingqing's turn, the village chief grabbed a handful of millet and touched it, and found it was very dry.

The millet was then poured into bags prepared by the villagers, without any impurities.

He was very satisfied with the millet in his family, and Lu Qingqing passed the test smoothly.

Before I could even walk away, I saw Old Man Lu and his sons pushing food towards me not far away.

Old Man Lu walked in front with a sullen look on his face, and his sons behind him all looked dejected.

During the Lu family's autumn harvest, Lu Qingqing followed the whole process and she knew very well how much grain the Lu family had harvested this year.

Even if all the food is replaced with coarse grains, the whole family will still have to tighten their belts.

Not to mention that she lost all her family assets some time ago. Even if she sold all the grain in exchange for coarse grains, she wouldn't be able to eat it until next year's harvest.

This time the grain tax has increased, and the gap left by the increase will most likely be made up by using next year's grain.

However, the Lu family had nothing to do with Lu Qingqing anymore. After all, she had been sold to the Qin family as a child bride.

The Lu family members were at the end of the line. When Boss Lu saw Lu Qingqing, his eyes lit up and he took two steps forward to come over.

Lu Qingqing knew that he came for no good reason, either to borrow food or water.

Eager to avoid big trouble, Lu Qingqing quickly grabbed Qin Lang, turned around and walked away quickly in the direction of Qin's house.

Boss Lu was left staring blankly at the dust raised by their quick departure.

Old Man Lu felt ashamed when he saw his eldest son standing stupidly at the edge of the team, so he pulled him back to the team.

After returning home, Lu Qingqing no longer had time to care about what happened to the Lu family.

Her attention was drawn to the items on the table, on which was a large piece of reddish-brown bacon and half a cloth bag of white flour.

Smelling the bacon with its unique smoky aroma, she felt her mouth watering.

Qin Lang next to him was even more exaggerated. He lay beside the table, wishing he could take a bite of the bacon right now.

It turned out that Grandma Qin knew that the two of them had to go to the county to pay grain taxes tomorrow.

Thinking that it would take a whole day to go to the county and wait for the grain to be delivered, I was worried that they wouldn't be able to bear it, so I took out some bacon to nourish them.

Qin Lang jumped up happily and pulled Lu Qingqing to wash the bacon.

Lu Qingqing coaxed him to wash the bacon and watched him carefully scoop out some water to wash it.

She didn't care about it anymore. Seeing that it was still early, she planned to steam white flour buns first.

After a while, Qin Lang finished washing and came to sit next to Lu Qingqing obediently.

Lu Qingqing asked Qin Lang to go to the cellar and get some snow peas and peppers so that she could make fried snow peas with bacon and fried snow peas with peppers in the evening.

When the steamed buns came out of the pot, the sweet aroma of the white flour steamed buns hit the face, and Lu Qingqing handed a steamed bun to Qin Lang.

Qin Lang took the steamed bun, broke off half and gave it to Grandma Qin, and shared the rest with Lu Qingqing.

The steamed buns just out of the pot are soft and exude the natural aroma of wheat.

Each person took a bite of the steamed bun and finished it in a short while.

When the food was being cooked, Qin Lang smelled the aroma of bacon and kept circling around the stove, greedily eating it.

Lu Qingqing found it funny and fed it a few times unconsciously.

At dinner, Qin Lang ate big white flour buns with delicious stir-fried dishes. He kept giving Lu Qingqing thumbs up, and Grandma Qin also ate a lot more.

As expected, all three of them ate too much.

This was the best meal Lu Qingqing had ever had since she traveled through time.

The rice is no longer a paste of coarse noodles and wild vegetables, and the dishes are no longer boiled in plain water without salt.

After eating too much, I touched my bloated belly and sighed in my heart, this is how people live.

The next day, the three members of the Qin family got up early.

Today, the young and strong people in the village will collectively escort grain to the county to pay grain taxes.

Grandma Qin had already prepared the dry food, clean water, and hatchets and hoes for self-defense for the two of them.

Before leaving, he forced Lu Qingqing to pay a tael of silver and asked her to go to the county to buy some cloth and some needle and thread, and come back to make her a dress.

Lu Qingqing waved her hands to refuse, but she couldn't refuse.