Chapter 19 Su Family

For the country, this is also a disguised contract system, because the livelihood of the farmers on this part of the land is the responsibility of the owners of the food.

In short, land annexation, at least at the national and legal levels of the Song Dynasty, has been expressly prohibited for most of the period from the founding of the country to the present. The population of the annexed land has not become a burden to the state.

One of the problems is that the scholar-bureaucrats are greedy and have embezzled and concealed large amounts of cultivated land. This in itself is a violation of law and a sign of lax law enforcement, and there is a basis for prosecution.

What should be more concerned about is that even though land prices were cheap in the Song Dynasty, a large number of ordinary people still could not afford or were unwilling to buy cheap land, so they were unable or unwilling to become homesteaders.

Moreover, a large part of this population cannot have normal income and cannot pay taxes.

The most terrible thing is that this part of the population is still expanding year by year due to various natural and man-made disasters.

Although these people cannot simply be classified as landless farmers, they are certainly not normal workers and taxpayers.

The daily output of this group of people is misappropriated by noble scholars and bureaucrats, and when these people encounter difficulties in survival, the state pays the bill.

According to Su You, this is fundamentally unreasonable, a waste of population resources, and a burden and hidden danger to the country.

To sum up, perhaps land annexation was not the essential reason for the fall of the feudal dynasty. The reason may be deeper than the extreme gap between the rich and the poor and the excessive expansion of the poor population.

On the one hand, tax revenue is reduced, on the other hand, the poor have become a huge class, and it is inevitable that the country's foundation will be shaken.

But without cultivating the land, can’t we feed the population? The small courtyard in front of us is the best illustration.

The prosperity of industry and commerce and the acceleration of financial circulation can alleviate the contradiction between land and population to a great extent.

Zooming in on the entire Chuanxia 4th Road, the proverb "Thousands of people farm, ten thousand people feed." appeared at this time. It well explains the special phenomenon occurring in this special area in the current period.

It is a pity that no one in power has studied it deeply, or in other words, it is always regretfully interrupted by China's tragic historical process.

Thinking too far again...

The chirping of birds interrupted Su You's thoughts and made him look at the small courtyard carefully again.

The small courtyard is paved with bluestone slabs, and on the right hand side of the entrance is a wooden door leading to the store in front.

On both sides are corridors with tiled roofs attached to the walls. On rainy days, you can enter the store from the inner house through the corridors.

Entering through the side door is a large garden, reflecting the exquisiteness and elegance of the hostess.

There are many flowers and trees in the garden, but they are all relatively low. Su You was able to discover a strange phenomenon. Among the low flowers and trees, there was a bright bird making a nest here.

The tung flower phoenix is ​​no bigger than a thumb, its body is brightly colored, reflecting the luster of metal, and it feeds on nectar.

They are flying among the flowers.

When they were young, Eight Niangs, Su Shi and Su Che were taught by Mrs. Cheng to love animals very much.

Under the leadership of Mrs. Cheng, they quietly observed the life of Tonghuafeng in the garden. They never destroyed the nests, but curiously observed them laying eggs, hatching, and finally transforming from ugly chicks into beautiful metallic rainbows.

of adult birds.

And this definitely plays a huge role in the character development of children.

Walking through the garden, there is a small flat area with a well.

The mouth of the well is small and the water is clear. Su You smiled when he saw the small tree beside the well.

Things that are not ripe anymore are yellow wattle trees.

Su You could tell at a glance which branches were most suitable for smoking Su Shi and Su Che when they were seven or eight years old.

Su Baniang saw Su You staring at the branch with a strange expression on his face and knew what the boy was thinking, so she whispered: "Mother is very kind. We have never been beaten since we were young."

However, after thinking about it, I felt that I needed to be wary of Su You, and added: "But if it were someone as naughty as Uncle Yao, it would be hard to tell."

Su You made a gesture to the yellow thorn tree: "Amitabha, yellow thorn tree, oh yellow thorn tree, you and I can live in peace with each other."

Ba Niang couldn't help laughing and said with a smile: "Then you should be good and keep the true body of Huang Jingshu, and don't let it be broken because of you breaking the precepts."

There is also a lychee tree in the yard. It has a beautiful shape and a huge crown. I heard from Banniang that Su Shi planted it himself.

This man had a hobby of planting trees since he was a child. When he was studying in several temples and Taoist temples in Meishan, he may not have left anything else behind, but no less than 30,000 pine trees were planted in the surrounding mountains.

And like Su You, Su Shi also systematically studied the methods of propagating and transplanting pine seedlings, and when he was old, he wrote them in detail in his works, showing off as a proud achievement.

When Banniang saw Su You's condition, she smiled slyly and said, "Don't you recognize this tree?"

Su You said calmly: "'Looking back at Chang'an, there are piles of embroidery, and the mountain gates are opening one after another at the top of the mountain.' This lychee is definitely a Jiazhou variety. Apart from there, if you want to find it, you need to go to Lingnan. This tree was given to him by a friend of Zizhan.

Right?"

Su Baniang looked at Su You as if she had seen a ghost: "Uncle Yao, Zizhan must get along with you. You actually know this tree."

Su You was secretly proud that the tree had survived for more than nine hundred years, and it did not die until almost the twenty-first century. What Su You saw at Sansu Temple was a dry section and a newly transplanted section from Hejiang County, Luzhou.

strain.

Today can be regarded as meeting the true master who lives a prosperous life.

After Yuanzi finished reading, he entered the inner hall. An elegant woman was standing at the table, looking at them with a smile.

The woman wears her hair in a bun with a red sandalwood hairpin. She wears a cross-collared thin silk blouse with pale moon-green dark flowers and a plain green turban. She has an elegant demeanor and a handsome appearance.

Although he is over forty, he is well-maintained. He is not decorated with pearls and jade, except for a twisted silver necklace on his wrist.

Su You was lonely for two lifetimes. If he needed a perfect mother figure, Mrs. Cheng in front of him was definitely a model in his mind.

There was a look of admiration in his eyes naturally, and all the messy thoughts flew out of the sky. He didn't dare to say any unnecessary words. He was as honest as a mouse seeing a cat. He bowed respectfully: "Boy.

Su You, I have met my sister-in-law."

Mrs. Cheng was surprised by Su You's honesty, but in a blink of an eye she saw the gallbladder pill in Su You's hand, and couldn't help but smile: "You don't have to be like this, Xiao You. It seems that you have gained something from today's trip."

Su You then stood up straight and spread his hands: "Is this what my sister-in-law is talking about? This is an appendage extracted from table salt. The main component is Glauber's salt."

Mrs. Cheng didn't ask whether it was right or wrong, but just looked at Su You: "Then tell your sister-in-law, how can you tell that it is Glauber's salt?"

Su You smiled and said: "You are a naughty boy with a tricky tongue. In the village, you once tried to melt the salt blocks and then filter out the impurities, trying to use this method to remove the sand mixed with the salt."

Mrs. Cheng shook her head and said: "The quality of official salt is indeed questionable. If you continue, I am very interested."

Su You said like a treasure: "After getting the pure salt water, I tried to boil it again, but I was impatient. Every time I boiled a little salt, I filtered it out. Then I continued to boil it."

"After repeating this process, the boy discovered a problem. The salt that was boiled out early had a pure taste, but the later it tasted, the more bitter it became. This is obviously not the same thing, but two, or more than two."

Mrs. Cheng nodded and said: "When you discover things in the smallest details, Xiaoyou is very meticulous and does not let go of any oddities. This is the principle of studying things to gain knowledge."

Su You said: "Finally, the boy roughly divided the substances contained in this coarse salt into two categories, one is snow salt, and the other is gallbladder pills."

"Then the old man looked at this Dan Pill and said that its physical properties are the same as Glauber's Salt, so he came to this conclusion."

Mrs. Cheng said: "This means that there are actually many substances that are soluble in water in coarse salt. You can separate them through your method, right?"

Su You smiled and said: "Actually, there is a whole set of techniques, which I later compiled and tested, which can separate pure salt and Glauber's salt to the greatest extent possible."

After that, Mrs. Cheng explained the process in detail. However, the chemical reaction cannot be explained in detail. It is only said that precipitation can be produced through the fusion of various solutions. These precipitations are also one of the impurities. They can be removed with soy milk and then used

The method just described separates the remaining substances dissolved in water one by one.
Chapter completed!