The two of them were eating, seeing them, Zhou Man's first question was, "Have you eaten yet?"
The adults stood a little cautiously, but the four children standing in the front shook their heads very honestly. Because they were thin, their eyes looked very big. A little girl raised her head and looked at the surroundings with round eyes. Full, those eyes take up almost half of the face.
Zhou Man reached out to hold her hand, turned around and entered the door, "Then let's eat first."
Bai Shan then turned sideways to let them in, and called Zhao Ming by the way, "Come in and have something to eat together."
It's just because the county government doesn't have medicinal soap, so Zhao Ming, who wanted to come to Xibing to ask for some medicinal soap:...
He didn't want to alarm the county magistrate and Mr. Zhou!
Zhao Ming silently followed through the door.
Wu Yue was stunned for a while when she saw this group of people who looked dirtier than beggars, then hurriedly turned around and went to the kitchen to fetch warm water to wash their faces and hands.
The servants in the yard are all busy.
Zhou Man called her to stop and said, "Let the kitchen cook the rice into porridge, put in a little more water, and cook it until it's a little bit more rotten."
Wu Yue glanced at them, a little confused, with so many people, I'm afraid they have to eat everyone's meals, right
"What do the lord and the lady eat?"
"Let's eat porridge too, hurry up, cook it with boiling water if you have it, hurry up."
There was no boiling water, but there was hot water. Mrs. He scooped up everyone's rice and poured it into a large pot, then added hot water to cook.
After they washed their faces and hands, Zhou Man felt their pulse again, and the porridge was ready.
Mrs. He just dumped it in the wooden barrel and brought it over. Even Zhu Sanlang, who had been full for two days, couldn't help swallowing when he saw the hot porridge, let alone other people.
Sister-in-law He brought the wooden barrel over, and seeing them all sitting in the yard, she put it on the porch, turned around and said, "Your maidservant, go get the bowls, chopsticks and side dishes."
"No, no, we have bowls."
More than a dozen people immediately took out their own bowls from their pockets and bags. There were wooden bowls and porcelain bowls with gaps.
But because this is the county magistrate's house, they dare not.
Bai Shan glanced at the bowls in their hands, and felt that the warm water and medicinal soap just washed should not be wasted, so he insisted: "Wait a little longer."
Then let Mrs. He and the others go down to get the bowls and chopsticks and side dishes.
Fortunately, there are still quite a lot of servants in the Bai family. After a while, everyone brought all kinds of things from the kitchen and put the dining table outside.
Wu Yue served them porridge, seeing that they were about to drink it as soon as they got it, she hurriedly stopped her, "Be careful of burning your mouth."
Zhou Man's eyelids twitched, and he said hastily: "Too hot will burn your mouth and esophagus. If you burn your esophagus, you won't be able to eat even if you want to."
The few people who didn't mind being scalded at first didn't dare to pour it into their mouths, and could only drink it in small sips.
Zhou Man breathed a sigh of relief, and after they had all played, he also went up to line up to play a bowl with the bowl.
Looking at Bai Shan who also took a bowl of porridge and squatted on the steps to drink porridge like them, Zhao Ming was speechless for a long time.
County magistrate Bai is too skilled, right
The bucket of porridge was finished just like that, Mrs. He brought another bucket out to put it away, the refugees saw a commotion, and then speeded up their porridge drinking, and then Wuyue and Jiulan also brought up a bucket...
The refugees slowed down their movements.
In order to make them drink more slowly, Zhou Man asked them to eat side dishes while Bai Shan talked to them, "Where did you come from?"
There is a group of refugees in the county town, although the number is not very large, but Bai Shan has already known from the yamen servants patrolling the streets.
However, he sent yamen servants to persuade them to go to the yamen to register, but he stopped pushing. He could probably guess that they were waiting and watching.
He didn't want to force people, so as not to leave a bad impression on the people who came later. Now that the people finally came, he naturally had a lot of questions to ask.
They said, "We came from Luzhou."
Zhao Ming thought about it, but couldn't figure out where Luzhou was. Bai Shan then asked, "Why did you come out to wander?"
"There is no more land, and the taxes that the court has to pay cannot be paid, so I will come out."
Bai Shan raised his eyebrows, "Is there no land yet?"
Then two of them said embarrassedly: "My family still has two acres of land, but the land is not good and there is no harvest. It is better not to plant it."
Bai Shan slightly nodded, "Why did you lose ground?"
The reasons are not uniform, but in the final analysis, it is still the same. Five years ago, Luzhou was drought...
"Actually, it wasn't very dry, but luck was really bad that year, and it rained very easily. I don't know why, but there were so many insects on the ears of rice, and they were all kind of black. The field is full of black worms, there are not many husks on the ears of rice, but the worms have bent the ears of rice, and the leaves have been gnawed a lot."
"I have tried all kinds of methods, such as driving with fire and rolling with hands, but after a month of exhaustion, the rice husks are still empty and there is no harvest. I have to pay taxes and live, so I have to borrow money and food from others. , I thought I could pay it back by tightening my belt for a few years, but who knows that the harvest in the second year is also very mediocre, and the rest after paying the tax is enough for the family to eat, not at all."
"Master Zhao doesn't want to borrow any more money on credit, and asked us to pay back the money immediately. We have no choice but to sell the land or mortgage it to him."
Bai Shan said slightly, "The imperial court has an order that unless there is a mourning or illness, the Yongye Field cannot be sold."
Yongyetian cannot be sold, unless there is a dead person in the family who needs to be mourned, or the patient is in urgent need of medical treatment, and can only be sold after obtaining the approved documents from the county government.
After Bai Shan finished speaking, he paused, apparently also thought of the key point, they wanted to sell these things, so someone would take care of them for them.
Sure enough, a few people said: "This is very easy. Master Zhao and the chief secretary of the county government office can just talk to each other. You can sell as many lands as you like."
They all think that Mr. Zhao is a good person, but they are not very lucky, and they have encountered a calamity year.
Bai Shan paused, and didn't say anything bad about Mr. Zhao, but asked, "Didn't the county government provide any relief back then?"
"The drought is not very severe."
Pest plagues are also natural disasters, okay
But Bai Shan opened his mouth, skipped the topic, and asked, "Are you going to settle in Beihai County?"
Everyone hesitated and couldn't help but look at Zhu Sanlang.
At this time, Zhu Sanlang has great confidence in Beihai County and Bai County Magistrate, especially at this time, Bai County Magistrate is holding a bowl and squatting face to face with them to eat porridge. May I ask which county magistrate can do this
So he nodded fiercely, knelt on the ground and said, "As long as your lord is willing to take us in, we will die."
Bai Shan put down the bowl, helped the man up and said, "That's not the case, you can also think about it for a while, the county will also inspect you."
He said: "When you settle down, the county will give you enough land to live on, build houses for you, and give you tax exemption for two years, but the county is not unconditional."
When everyone heard that he had the conditions, they felt relieved. Otherwise, why would he have such good conditions
They have been wandering abroad for four years, all the way from Luzhou to this place, and they have long known a truth that there will be no pie in the sky.