The other party looked Ming Yu up and down. Seeing that although the guards behind him were strong and sturdy, he himself appeared quite frail, with a somewhat pale complexion—clearly someone in poor health.
Thus reassured, he turned to fetch a large bamboo tube from the field ridge. “Here, this tube of water is for you all.”
Ming Yu accepted it and unscrewed his own water pouch to pour water in.
After filling it, he returned the bamboo tube to the farmer. He lowered his head to look at the grain, couldn’t help but reach out to touch it, and sighed, “This grain has rather ordinary ears. Is it because the farming season was missed?”
He continued, “I came from Chen County, where the grain was already harvested in the first ten days of the month. Here it seems to be ten days late.”
Mentioning farming matters, the farmer became more talkative. Moreover, since Ming Yu had borrowed water and came from Chen County, he was friendly too. “Alas, fighting was still going on when spring began this year. Fortunately, Administrator Zhao is benevolent and issued us seeds and farming tools, allowing us to farm with peace of mind. Otherwise, we wouldn’t even have this little grain this year.”
He was already quite content. “I planted five mu of grain this year—not much, but when it’s all harvested, it can sustain us until next summer. The administrator will also give us wheat seeds this year to sow in autumn, and we can harvest them next summer. Just right—if nothing goes wrong, next year we might not suffer from the spring food shortage.”
“Is all the harvest from these five mu yours? I remember the court has laws—adult males must pay four hu in grain tax.”
“No, no, no.” The farmer was startled and hurriedly waved his hands. “The administrator is magnanimous. This year she only requires each household to pay grain tax on two mu per adult male, and secondary males and adult females only one mu each. I only have one wife and grandson, and my grandson is still small—he doesn’t even count as a secondary male yet. So my household only needs to pay grain tax on three mu.”
He touched his chest. “Young master, please don’t mention four hu. Now whenever I hear that number, my heart pounds and my head spins. The year before last and last year, the court first collected six hu of grain from my household, then said my six-year-old grandson was also an adult male and collected another four hu. Soon after, the court wanted to send troops to attack Yuzhou and collected another two hu from each household.”
“Last year, there was disaster and famine in Luoyang. We were already struggling, but the court said they needed to support His Majesty and collected grain tax from each household again—another four hu from my family. Alas—” The farmer sighed. “But I heard that grain didn’t reach the emperor either. Prince Donghai took it for himself and fled with his people. We sold everything we could sell in our household—not a single mouthful of grain left. We even ate our seed grain, so we didn’t flee with them. We figured we’d die either way, so better to die in our hometown.”
“Fortunately, Heaven finally opened its eyes and Administrator Zhao came.” The farmer couldn’t help but smile. “Administrator Zhao said that Emperor Wu’s land allocation decree was excellent, and she would follow it as well. But there’s one problem with this law—the allocated land area is too large and the taxes collected are also high. Clearly, one adult male cannot farm that much land. So she decreed that all adult males and females should be allocated half the land according to the land allocation decree, and taxes should also be collected at half the rate. This year times are hard, so it’s even less. My household only needs to pay grain tax on three mu.”
He raised his broad smile. “Only two dou and four sheng.”
Ming Yu couldn’t help but smile along. “This tax rate is indeed not heavy. Congratulations, old sir.”
The farmer grinned widely. “Same to you, same to you. Young master, if you’re from Chen County, then you’re the administrator’s fellow townsman. Have you come to join the administrator?”
Ming Yu smiled and nodded. “I’m not from Yuzhou, but I’ve heard Administrator Zhao’s name like thunder in my ears. I admire and submit to her, so I’ve come to join her.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place. Our administrator is a magnanimous and benevolent person. She treats us lowly commoners so well—not to mention subordinate officials. I’ve heard that anyone with great talent, upon entering Luoyang, can be allocated housing and land, and there are even people to help farm the land.”
“Even those with ordinary talent and virtue can rent very cheap housing from the county office. The expenses are not great at all.”
Ming Yu smiled and nodded. “I’ve also heard people say this, which is why I came to join her.”
The farmer glanced behind him and saw his servants were robust and he had carriages and horses, so he felt his status was not low and his learning must also be considerable. Thus he wanted to form a good connection.
He turned and fished out something wrapped in lotus leaves from his wooden bucket. Opening it, inside were dried cakes. He reluctantly gave Ming Yu one, smiling, “Young master must be hungry. Here, eat this.”
Ming Yu knew how important food rations were and hurriedly declined.
The farmer forcefully pressed it into his hand. “This is a bean cake made with bean flour mixed in—not worth much. Eat it, eat it.”
He smiled. “My household’s grain is also harvested. After drying for a few days, we can eat it. For now, we’re not lacking food at home. Please eat without worry.”
Only then did Ming Yu accept it. He took a bite—it wasn’t as hard as he’d imagined, nor particularly unpleasant. It even had a bean fragrance, tasting somewhat similar to wheat cakes.
Ming Yu carefully chewed and swallowed, then asked with a smile, “Is this made from bean flour?”
“That’s right, made from bean flour. My household also planted three mu of beans this year. They were all harvested not long ago and have been dried. Unfortunately, we don’t have water mills or oil presses here—we can only grind the bean flour ourselves. Otherwise, if we sent it to a water mill, the flour would be ground very quickly. Bean oil is also extremely delicious. Alas, we lowly people have only been fortunate enough to eat it once. Pressing oil requires great effort and manpower. My household has few people and really can’t spare the hands to do it.”
Ming Yu also knew about the bean oil pressing method—it spread from Yuzhou. He’d heard it was accidentally made in Zhao Hanzhang’s workshop. She didn’t conceal the oil pressing method but instead spread it so everyone in the world knew.
He and Yan Heng had privately had people try it. Using bean oil for cooking indeed had a distinctive flavor, so they also opened several workshops in Yanzhou specifically to do the oil pressing business with others.
“Are there no oil pressing workshops in the nearby county town?”
“There are, but the road is far. To transport the beans to such a distant place for pressing—actually, not much oil can be pressed. Better to keep them to eat ourselves. Bean rice, and occasionally we can grind it into bean flour—it’s also a decent food supply.”
“There are also people who buy beans. Some sell them and can save some money for emergencies.” He said happily, “We have money now. Those who come to buy beans all pay with money, unlike before when they wouldn’t bring money and only wanted to exchange with cloth and other things. But some cloth is too fine and expensive. If we exchanged for it, we’d have to exchange it again to get the coarse hemp cloth we use at home.”
Ming Yu didn’t yet know that Zhao Hanzhang had minted new coins, because these coins currently only circulated in the Luoyang area—there weren’t even many in Yuzhou.
So at this moment, he thought what the farmer meant was that Luoyang’s merchants had become wealthy and made money, so they were also willing to use money to trade with the farmers.
When he noticed something was wrong, he had already entered Luoyang’s territory. After traveling along the road, he stopped at a teahouse in Luoyang’s suburbs to have lunch. During the wait, he caught a glimpse of someone slapping down seven or eight copper coins to the shopkeeper and getting up to leave.
He stared at those coins, his gaze sharp, vaguely feeling something was not quite right.
—