amaotonovel Chapter 1202 Believing landlords have a conscience? You might as well believe pigs can fly!
Chapter 1202 Believing landlords have a conscience? You might as well believe pigs can fly!
Liu Zhong continued rambling on, "Take Yunhai's family, for example. They have two sons and two daughters. It goes without saying that the daughters are married off. The key issue is that the two sons are no good. The older one beats his father and curses his mother, and the younger one is a good-for-nothing. Yunhai has really gotten his comeuppance."
Emperor Zhu astutely grasped the word "retribution" and asked, "Retribution? Does that mean that Yunhai wasn't a good person either?"
Liu Zhong chuckled and said, "Yunhai? He was a beast who beat his father and cursed his mother when he was young. The woman he married wasn't any better. She always called her mother-in-law pigs, dogs, cattle, and sheep."
"Now that the couple has two sons, it's like they've been punished for it."
Emperor Zhu gave an "oh," pondered for a moment, and then asked, "Then tell me, are the many changes in the court a good thing or a bad thing for us ordinary people?"
Liu Zhong shook his head and said, "It's hard to say."
"The Emperor and His Highness the Crown Prince certainly want what's best for us ordinary people, but it's hard to say what those officials are like."
"Furthermore, many changes in the court occur before or after the New Year, so how can they be seen in a short period of time?"
Emperor Zhu nodded and asked again, "Do you think there are any ways to make money in our Xiaoliuzhuang? If we just rely on farming or doing manual labor, or like you said, weaving baskets or something, can we improve our lives?"
Liu Zhong shook his head again and said, "That's even harder to say."
“Look at a roughneck like me, I can do anything, like fighting and killing, or guarding the school gate.”
"But if you ask me how to make ordinary people rich, you've asked the wrong person."
After a slight pause, Liu Zhong continued, "Actually, having your own land like this, and being able to eat your fill and stay warm as long as you farm it well, isn't that the best life?"
Emperor Zhu curled his lip and said, "It is indeed a good life to have enough to eat and wear, but have you ever heard of Ningyang County?"
"They not only have enough to eat and wear, but they also eat meat regularly and have new clothes every year."
"If we're talking about the best days, those are truly the best days."
Liu Zhong chuckled and said, "Old brother, you're being too greedy."
What kind of place is Ningyang County?
What kind of place is Jiangning?
"As the old saying goes, others ride horses, I ride a donkey, and there are people carrying loads behind me."
"People need to learn to be content, because only by being content can one be happy."
Emperor Zhu immediately laughed and said, "Being content is a good thing, but being discontent is also a good thing."
"To tell you the truth, this dissatisfaction was brought up by the Emperor, the Crown Prince, the Duke of Han, and Yang the Imperial Son-in-Law. They said they wanted all the people in the world to be able to eat meat regularly, wear new clothes, and even eat vegetables in winter."
"The reason we came out this time is to make a preliminary visit, to see what the local people are thinking, what difficulties they are facing, and how they can get rich."
As Emperor Zhu finished speaking, Liu Zhong's eyes widened immediately.
Damn it, if my leg weren't crippled, I would definitely find a way to kill Wang Baobao.
Even if things go terribly wrong, we still have to find a way to go with the army to burn Karakorum.
No, we should kill those Han Chinese landlords first. Those people are truly rotten to the core, living on the land of the Ming Dynasty while thinking about how to seduce Wang Baobao.
They're all terrible!
Liu Zhong's eyes gradually turned fierce, and Erhu immediately became wary. However, Emperor Zhu, like a silly mascot from Northeast China, asked, "Why are you getting so worked up?"
As Emperor Zhu finished speaking, the fierce glint in Liu Zhong's eyes faded, and he once again transformed into the honest and simple soldier.
"I didn't get angry, how could I possibly get angry?"
Liu Zhong chuckled twice and waved his hand, saying, "It's just that I heard from my older brother that the Emperor, His Highness the Crown Prince, the Duke of Han, and the Prince Consort want to ensure that we common people can eat meat regularly and have vegetables to eat in winter. This makes me hate Hu Yuan even more."
Emperor Zhu gave an "oh," but Liu Zhong frowned and pondered for a moment before tentatively saying, "Just now, my brother asked me how to help ordinary people earn more money..."
"If my older brother asks me to think of a way to make money, I definitely wouldn't be able to come up with one."
"But I've heard people say that you can earn sixty coins a day in the workshop."
“You can earn sixty coins a day working on a construction site.”
"No matter how hard the people farm, they can't earn sixty coins a day."
"Don't you think that makes sense?"
As Liu Zhong finished speaking, Emperor Zhu fell into deep thought.
The standard of sixty cash a day was set after careful discussion with Mr. Shanchang and Mr. Qingtian.
But now it seems that this standard is somewhat wrong.
Based on 15 mu of land per person, how many copper coins can one earn in a year?
Although the imperial court doesn't currently restrict people from working in workshops, as Liu Zhong just said, each family and each person is different. Zhang San's family might have four men; three of them could barely manage to cultivate sixty mu of land, and if they spared another man to work in the workshop, they could earn sixty copper coins a day. Li Si's family might only have two men; each man couldn't cultivate thirty mu of land, so they couldn't spare another man to work in the workshop.
In this way, families with more male members can earn more money, while families with fewer male members can only watch others make money.
Leaving aside the issues of "fear of scarcity and inequality," just consider this: if things continue like this, Zhang San's family will become richer than Li Si's family, and they will gradually develop into landlords.
Then the problem is coming.
We went through all that trouble to drive Hu Yuan away, letting that bastard treat us like donkeys, all for the sake of getting rid of those landlords and making all the people in the world rich.
If we do this, it will only create a new batch of landlords. How can we guarantee that these landlords will be more conscientious than Hu Yuanshi's landlords?
Thinking of the landlord's conscience, Emperor Zhu couldn't help but purse his lips again.
Rather than believing that the landlords have a conscience, I'd rather believe that the country is in dire straits and pigs are climbing trees, or that that bastard will have a change of heart and stop bothering his father-in-law!
While pondering this in his mind, Emperor Zhu looked at Liu Zhong and asked, "We have one last question—just from the name Xiaoliuzhuang, one would think that most of the households are surnamed Liu?"
"I wonder how many families with the surname Liu are there in Xiaoliuzhuang? Are there any clan leaders or elders?"
"Have you heard of them using clan law for private punishment?"