amaotonovel Chapter 1226 A single spark can start a prairie fire
Chapter 1226 A single spark can start a prairie fire
Chapter 1226 A single spark can start a prairie fire
Tian Fuxian's promise made Lu Zilin very excited. He dreamed of becoming the chief of Bailu Village. Just as he was about to agree, Lu Taiheng winked at him.
"Tai Hengda, there are no outsiders here. If you have any concerns, just tell me directly." Tian Fuxian keenly caught the little movements of the two.
Lu Taiheng didn't want to tear his face with the other party, so he had to say: "Don't worry, our family is easy to talk to. The main thing is that the Bai family is still the head of the clan now..."
Lu Zilin was unhappy when he heard this: "How did the Bai family get this patriarch? He is elected by each family, so he is not an official at all. Only those who are appointed by the county can be called officials."
This touched Tian Fuxian's heart, and he said to Lu Zilin: "Brother Zilin, what you said is to my liking. Who is in charge now? The revolutionary government is not the same as the Qing Dynasty."
Now Lu Zilin and Tian Fuxian were on the same page. They chatted back and forth, and after a few drinks, they were almost about to kowtow to each other and become sworn brothers.
Tian Fuxian finally staggered away drunk, and Lu Taiheng then called his drunken son.
Lu Zilin's hands were shaking as he held the wine bowl. The oil lamp made his cheeks flush. Even his voice became three degrees higher: "Da! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! That old fellow Bai Bingde has been the head of the clan for more than 20 years. It's time for our Lu family to take over."
"Stupid!" Lu Taiheng knocked his pipe heavily on the table, causing ripples in the sauerkraut basin. "Do you think Bai Bingde became the patriarch for no reason? The Bai family has built bridges and roads for the village for three generations. Can Tian Fuxian just wipe it out with a word?"
Lu Zilin argued with his neck stiff, "That was all long ago. Tian Fuxian said that the Revolutionary Party is in power now, so the county magistrate's letter of appointment is more legitimate than anything else."
"Stupid!" Lu Taiheng suddenly started coughing violently, and the cigarette oil choked him and made him burst into tears. "Have you forgotten how Lu San looked like, covered in blood?" The old man's shaking fingers almost poked his son's nose. "Besides, this is taking food from the mouths of the whole clan, young and old. If you take this job, you will become the enemy of the whole clan!"
But Lu Zilin only had eyes for Tian Fuxian's neat and imposing Zhongshan suit, and didn't take his father's words to heart at all. After a while, he got drunk and fell asleep on the table.
"Oh, how could I have such an idiot!" Lu Taiheng couldn't do anything about his son. At the same time, he became more determined to send his grandson to a new-style school. Since his son was not a good person, he had to train his grandson well.
The next morning, the sound of gongs pierced the mist. Lu Zilin knocked on doors in the dew, his new blue cloth gown covered with mud spots: "The county is asking for tax payment! Young and old, please be more active. The revolution has not yet succeeded, so everyone should tighten their belts and it will pass..."
He deliberately knocked three more times in front of the Bai family ancestral hall, startling the swifts that were building nests under the eaves.
As a result, all the villagers along the way looked as if they had seen a ghost when they saw him. They hid away from him, and some even hid in the fields to take a detour. No one responded to him.
“This is outrageous!”
Lu Zilin shouted until his mouth was dry and he stood on the empty stage, stamping his feet in anger.
The sound of the gong echoed over Bailuyuan for three whole days. Lu Zilin, wearing his muddy blue cloth gown, shouted until his voice was hoarse, but the grain in the granary did not increase. Tian Fuxian sent people to urge him twice, and his words were full of threats.
"Since you can't collect taxes, do you still want to be the clan leader?" Tian Fuxian said this and turned away, leaving Lu Zilin standing at the entrance of the village in a daze.
Lu Zilin gritted his teeth and took his men to knock on doors from house to house to demand food in order to become the clan leader.
"Bai Xing'er, your family should pay the tax this year..."
As a result, before he could finish his words, Bai Xinger closed the door and almost broke Lu Zilin's nose.
"Hide, I wonder how long you can hide. One day the county will send soldiers to rob you and you will be quiet!"
Lu Zilin shouted angrily.
……
The threshing ground in Bailu Village.
A group of villagers gathered together, all looking worried.
Bai Xing'er's wife cried, "We can't live like this anymore. The taxes were already heavy, and now they've doubled. Even in a bumper year, the little grain we produce from our fields is not enough to pay the taxes."
"That's right! These bastards don't want us to live!" Shi Tou cursed.
Bai Xinger slapped his thigh and said, "If you stick your head out, you'll get a knife. If you hide your head, you'll get a knife too. In my opinion, we should just start a rebellion against Nong and make him a bastard."
An elderly man squatted on a millstone, banging his pipe loudly: "It's easy to say, but if the peasants start an uprising, the government will be afraid only if people from all over the country gather together. Otherwise, with just a few of us, the government will lock us all up in jail, and a beating would be the least of our punishment. If things go wrong, our families will be destroyed and our families and our families will be wiped out."
"But if the clan leader doesn't take the lead, who will listen to us farmers?"
Everyone fell silent, and suddenly someone shouted, "Let's go and ask the chief for help. He is the chief, he can't just watch us die, right?"
"Yes, go to Bai's house!"
In this way, dozens of villagers walked towards the Bai family in a mighty manner.
The Bai family's yard was densely packed with villagers from Bailu Village.
Bai Jiaxuan was originally repairing farm tools and was a little overwhelmed by this scene.
"This is."
“Jiaxuan,” Old Zhang knelt down with a plop, “you have to save us!”
This kneeling was like opening a floodgate, and the villagers knelt down one after another.
Bai Jiaxuan tried frantically to help, but no one was willing to stand up.
"Jiaxuanda, you know the situation of our family. Last year, two plots of land were infested with insects, and we didn't harvest much grain! Now the government requires us to pay double the amount of grain..."
"If we hand over the grain, our whole family will starve to death!"
"Jiaxuan, you have to make the decision for us!"
Bai Jiaxuan secretly clenched his fists. He was already angry, and now looking at the desperate eyes of the villagers, the blood rushed to his head.
"Don't worry, folks!" He gritted his teeth and said, "I, Bai Jiaxuan, will take care of this matter..."
Before he could finish his words, he was interrupted by a violent cough. Bai Bingde walked out, supported by Qin Hao. His face was sallow and he looked like he had aged ten years.
Bai Bingde bowed to the villagers and said, "Fellow villagers, I am grateful for your kindness. I, Bai Bingde, have been the clan leader for more than 20 years. Now my old bones are really useless. I will let the young people take over the position of clan leader in the future. I will open the ancestral hall tomorrow, and you can choose a leader..."
There was another heart-wrenching cough, and the whole person looked shaky.
"Da, what's wrong with you? You were fine yesterday, why today..." Bai Jiaxuan was shocked and hurried forward to check.
Before he could finish his words, Qin Hao immediately shouted, "My illness has worsened! I'll go get Mr. Leng!" Then he ran out.
The villagers looked at each other, not knowing what to do for a moment, and gradually, they all left the Bai family.
After about a quarter of an hour, when all the villagers had walked out of the courtyard, Qin Hao quietly came back through the back door.
"Where is Mr. Leng?" Bai Jiaxuan was stunned when he saw that there was no one behind him.
Qin Hao did not answer, but walked quickly behind Bai Bingde. To Bai Jiaxuan's surprise, his father's coughing stopped abruptly and his back straightened a little.
"Da, what are you doing?" Bai Jiaxuan widened his eyes.
Bai Bingde sighed and sat down with the help of Qin Hao: "Jiaxuan, you are almost 40 this year, right? Why are you still so impulsive?"
Qin Hao poured Bai Bingde a cup of tea and took over the conversation: "Da, don't you see? These people don't dare to take the lead, so they want us to be the scapegoat."
"Hao'er, how can you think like that? Everyone trusts us."
"Trust? Da, if you really become the first to do this, they will benefit, but you will be the one to go to jail or be beheaded. If things go wrong, our whole family will be implicated."
Bai Bingde took a sip of tea and said slowly, "Haowazi is right. If this succeeds, the credit will go to everyone. If it fails, the first person to lose his head will be you, a fool."
Bai Jiaxuan was not convinced: "But I really can't swallow this..."
Qin Hao's tone softened a bit: "Da, I didn't say I won't help. We can give money, we can give food, we can even use our connections to save people afterwards, but we absolutely cannot confront the government directly. They always say that they can't make ends meet, so why not just risk your life and give it a try? Maybe there's still a glimmer of hope."
"We are not the Bodhisattvas in the temple. We don't have such great magical powers to save all living beings. It is already very difficult to protect ourselves and our families in this world."
Bai Bingde looked at his grandson with eyes full of admiration.
Bai Jiaxuan could only sigh when he heard this: "Then what do you think we should do?"
The night was as dark as ink, but two rows of dim oil lamps were lit in the ancestral hall of Bailu Village. Bai Jiaxuan stood in front of the altar, looking at the villagers who came in one after another - Bai Xinger, Shitou and others, all of whom had sallow faces and despair and resentment in their eyes.
"Jiaxuan, you called us here, what's the solution?" Bai Xing's daughter-in-law wiped her tears, her voice trembling, "If this continues, our whole family will starve to death..."
Bai Jiaxuan took a deep breath, glanced at everyone, and lowered his voice and said, "Fellow villagers, I called you here tonight to ask you - do you really want to make trouble, or do you just want to get through it?"
Shitou slammed the table and gritted his teeth, "Endure? How? We have handed over all the grain, what do we eat? Chew tree bark? Drink Guanyin soil? Jiaxuan, you have seen the world, you are not afraid of 100,000 Qing soldiers, give us an idea!"
Bai Jiaxuan was silent for a moment, then took out a few letters sealed with chicken feathers from under the altar, and whispered, "The Bai family is being watched too closely by Tian Fuxian right now, so we can't make a move openly. But if you really want to make trouble, you can use these chicken feather letters to contact other villages on the plain..."
Bai Xing'er shuddered: "If this...if this gets out of hand, will the government..."
"There are definitely risks. You have to think about this carefully. Of course, if you don't dare to make trouble, just pretend I never said anything. If you are really too poor to eat after paying the tax, you can come to the Bai family to work. I can't say anything else, but at least you won't starve to death."
A hint of cruelty flashed in Shitou's eyes, and he grabbed the chicken feather letter and said, "It's okay for me to be hungry, but I can't let the child starve. Jiaxuan, don't worry, I will take care of it if anything goes wrong!"
Bai Xing'er also gritted his teeth and nodded: "Yes! Damn it!"
……
Three days later, in the early morning, the sound of a gong pierced through the mist. Lu Zilin, wearing his long blue cloth gown, went door to door to collect grain, but this time when the villagers saw him, no one hid, but instead stared at him with an inexplicable look.
"Damn it, what's the matter? What are you doing?" Lu Zilin felt his whole body go numb when he was stared at.
But no one from the villagers answered him.
As Lu Zilin ran towards Tian Fuxian's house in the dew, his trouser legs were covered in mud.
He always felt that the villagers' eyes this morning were like knives, cutting his spine and making it cold.
Tian Fuxian was adjusting the collar of his Zhongshan suit in front of the mirror; the copper buttons gleamed coldly in the morning light.
"Fuxian..." Lu Zilin panted and pushed open the door: "Something big is going to happen in Bailu Village!"
Tian Fuxian's eyebrows were twisted into knots, and he said impatiently: "Why are you so hysterical so early in the morning?"
"Mr. Tian, please believe me. The Bai family must be doing something behind our backs."
Tian Fuxian saw that Lu Zilin didn't seem to be joking, so he became cautious. After all, it was related to his official position.
"follow me!"
Tian Fuxian brought Lu Zilin to the security station: "Bring your weapons and follow me!"
A dozen men, carrying rifles on their backs, followed Tian Fuxian.
This scene made Lu Zilin stunned, drooling with envy: "Damn it, when can I have a day like this? My life will not be lived in vain."
The group arrived at Bailu Village in a mighty procession.
Tian Fuxian pulled the reins: "Damn, something is wrong."
Now it was Lu Zilin's turn to be confused: "What's going on?"
"Didn't you notice that all along the way here, there were only old men and kids working in the fields?"
Lu Zilin had no impression at all. Along the way, he was just envious of Tian Fuxian's pomp and circumstance.
When Tian Fuxian saw Lu Zilin's stupid look, he cursed inwardly. If there was really no one else who could use him, he would not bother to bother with this guy.
"Let's go and check out the Bai family!"
When they arrived at the Bai family, they found that Bai Jiaxuan was not at home. Tian Fuxian and Lu Zilin were both startled.
However, Qin Hao came out from the inner room at this time.
"I'm going to the fields now. If you need to see him urgently, I'll take you there right away."
Tian Fuxian said quickly: "It's urgent. It's extremely urgent."
Qin Hao took the two of them to the field without saying a word, and found Bai Jiaxuan was still plowing the field.
Tian Fuxian was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when he heard three loud thunderclaps from afar: Boom, boom, boom!
"Why is there thunder in this weather?" Lu Zilin looked up at the sky.
Tian Fuxian seemed to have his tail poked by someone and jumped up from the ground.
"Idiot, that's the signal for the Jiao Nong to start a rebellion!"
At the same time, with the sound of three gunshots, villagers from various villages on Bailuyuan poured out from various forks in the road, and soon gathered into a torrent, rushing straight towards the county town.
Lu San rushed to the front holding a spiked rake, and his straw sandals made the loess road thudding loudly. Behind him followed a dark crowd, their sickles and hoes glinting coldly in the sun.
The county magistrate lay on the city wall, looking at the peasants swarming like ants below, his calves cramping.
"Reduce taxes!" Shitou smashed the grindstone against the tower, "or I'll burn down your damn office!"
Lu San's spiked rake slammed on the city gate with a bang, shaking off a cloud of dust.