Quick travel: the life of smuggling is so exciting

Everyone came to a shop that specializes in selling water tanks and buckets.

When the Qi family saw Lin Xia wanted to buy a large water tank, they thought that their family also needed one, so they also bought one from the store.

This kind of heavy items can be delivered to your door free of charge within the county, but you have to pay for shipping outside the county. It cannot be delivered if it is too far away. Wuliao is not far away and is within the delivery range where you can pay.

The two families just split the cost, and took the delivery waiter and the donkey cart to the grain store to buy grain.

The eldest and second daughters-in-law of Qi took advantage of the time when they were buying food to buy other things, which made things easier with a car.

Lin Xia bought 100 kilograms of food this time, which can probably last for more than three months.

When they finally went back, the donkey cart couldn't carry so many people, so only Lin Xia, Qi Xiu'er and Qi's second wife went home together.

It’s true, a two-hour journey only took half an hour to get there, which made Lin Xia want to buy a donkey.

I gave up this idea after a moment. It was unnecessary and too extravagant.

*

The days that followed were peaceful but busy.

Lin Xia spent a month and finally started planting rice, which is a cause for celebration.

The whole process was so chaotic that I had no time to pay attention to the disturbances outside.

One day, Qi Xiuer came over, approached Lin Xia with a mysterious look on her face, covered her mouth with her hand, and whispered gossip to Lin Xia, "Sister Lin, do you know? There's a fight going on in Xiangzhou!"

Ok? ? ?

Lin Xia was puzzled, "Where did you get the information?"

"Sister, didn't you tell me earlier that there were more refugees passing by on the other side? I went to ask Hutou what was going on, but he didn't know. Then I asked his grandfather, and he said that a prince was fighting with the Yi'an Army."

Hutou is the grandson of Village Chief Wan, and is only five or six years old.

"After the fighting started, no one was in charge of the area from Xiangzhou to Lingzhou. Lingzhou has received so many people. Didn't we come here secretly? Now there's no need to come here secretly.

"Qi Xiu'er felt a little gloating, thinking about the difficulties and dangers they had encountered along the way, and how Xiangzhou wouldn't let them cross the river. Now they couldn't even protect themselves.

Lin Xia gave a thumbs up and praised Qi Xiuer. Look at how sociable and well-informed she is!

"Xiu'er, you are really Xiu'er! You know everything. Keep it up! If you have any more news, please tell me. I welcome you to come here anytime."

Qi Xiuer didn't recognize Lin Xiabi's gestures, but she knew at a glance that Sister Lin was praising her. She enjoyed this praise and also liked the feeling of Sister Lin treating her like an adult.

"Okay, then I'll go ask Hu Tou if there is any other news." After saying that, he ran away in a hurry.

Time passed quickly, and Qi Xiuer came to tell Lin Xia all kinds of news every day, from big things like the county hiring workers for building a house on a hill to small things like how many piglets the old sow in the village had given birth to. Lin Xia knew it all clearly.

She is an invisible person who has never been active in the village, but because of Xiu'er, she knows everything about the village.

One afternoon, she walked slowly out of the mountains, holding a pheasant with a broken neck in her hand. As she reached the gate of the yard, she saw Qi Xiuer squatting on the ground counting ants.

"What are you doing at the door?" Lin Xia walked straight past Qi Xiuer and took out the key to open the door.

"Sister Lin, you're back! I have something important to tell you... Hey~ you went up the mountain to hunt again!" As he said this, he stared at the pheasant, swallowed his saliva, and with difficulty moved his eyes away from it.

"Don't look at it, you have your share. Tell me quickly, what big thing happened?" Xiu'er's mouth is deceiving people. The last big thing she talked about was that the bird that built a nest in front of the village chief's door flew away and never came back.

Qi Xiuer chuckled and acted as if she was whispering something.

"I heard that several distinguished people came to the county yesterday."

"Don't nobles often come to the county?"

"This time it's different. I heard the magistrate came out to greet us personally."

Lin Xia seemed to be speculating, "Is there a young lady leading the group?"

"I haven't found out about it, but it seems like there is." Qi Xiuer scratched her head and thought carefully.

Maybe it was because the heroine Zhou Hean came, Lin Xia was a little interested but not much. Now she was a real farmer who only cared about farming and didn't care about anything else. Look, the rice she planted will be ripe in two months.

"These things are far away from us. Okay, don't worry about it. Come in and help me pluck the chicken feathers." Qi Xiuer, who wanted to say something, instantly forgot all her thoughts and followed Lin Xia into the house.

Since settling down, Lin Xia was so busy that she didn't even want to cook, except for the two months of clearing the land and farming. Later, when she had free time, she went to the mountains to hunt pheasants and rabbits every day, which fully exercised her stone-throwing skills and she had no shortage of meat.

There was no shortage of food, and Lin Xia was not stingy. She gave the meat as a reward for bringing news to Qi Xiuer to cheer her up. This helped her grow a lot taller in the past month, and she was no longer the pitiful refugee she was before.

For this reason, Aunt Qi came to apologize at night, and after much persuasion, they blushed and agreed. For this reason, Aunt Qi also took on the work of weeding and watering in Lin Xia's fields.

*

The days were not peaceful for a few days.

The village was in an uproar because of a major event that happened that was closely related to them.

Lingzhou rebelled!

Everyone was discussing heatedly, never expecting such a big thing to happen to them. There was a fight outside, but Lingzhou had been living in peace. Who would have thought that something big would suddenly happen!

clang clang clang......

Village chief Wan called the villagers together and had something to announce.

"Sister Lin, hurry up, something big happened!" Qi Xiuer ran over, took Lin Xia's hand and ran away.

Lin Xia and Qi Xiuer came to the open space in front of the village chief's door together.

At this time, the open space was full of villagers that Lin Xia did not know. The two of them walked through the crowd and came to Qi's house.

"Everyone, be quiet! I'm sure you've already heard about this. I won't say much. This isn't something you or I can decide."

The crowd was in an uproar and was about to ask something, but Village Chief Wan silenced them with a gesture.

The village chief continued, "Be quiet. You can ask questions after I finish. Now let's talk about something that concerns us."

"It's good for us that the capital has announced some new policies."

"Village chief, what's the good news?"

Village Chief Wan glared at the other person and said, "I told you to wait until I finish speaking before asking any more questions. Now shut up!"

The person being scolded subconsciously shrank his neck and covered his mouth tightly with his hands.

"First, the taxation has changed. First, the land tax has been reduced from 15% to 10%."

"Then the poll tax was changed to a Ding tax. This meant that instead of the previous annual payment by every individual, only adult males would be required to pay two dan of rice per year and perform twenty days of unpaid corvee labor."

After these words were spoken, everyone could no longer keep quiet and kept making noise for most of the day. Village Chief Wan did not stop them or answer them, but just watched quietly.

This matter was very clear to Lin Xia. There were only benefits. He didn't have to pay any money, and only had to pay 10% of the rent after three years.

"Let's move on to the second thing. Recruiting soldiers. No, that's wrong. It's recruiting soldiers."

Everyone held their breath and waited nervously for the verdict.

"That means there will be no forced conscription. It will be voluntary. Anyone who joins the army will receive a resettlement fee of five taels of silver, which you can receive on the spot. If you want to make a name for yourself, you can go to the city gate and ask."

Everyone quickly let out a sigh of relief and started whispering to each other.

"Third, it's about the academy's enrollment. There's an academy opening in the county town, divided into a dedicated school and a boys' and girls' school. The academy accepts children aged 6 to 12, and there's no tuition fee!"

"As for the boys' and girls' academies, they only accept students over 10 years old. They teach everything, like carpentry, handicrafts, needlework, etc. You can go to the county town to find out the specific details."

All the women and men present widened their eyes. This incident refreshed their worldview, and a path to heaven seemed to appear before their eyes.