Next to the ridge, a man was weeding with a sickle, in the fields more than two miles away from the stone fort.

I just look at the clothes that cannot tell the difference between men and women. They are both rough, short, and short brown clothes that farmers often wear. When I look at the buns that are coiled up behind my head, I realize that they are a woman.

The woman occasionally looked up and wiped her sweat, revealing her withered face, wrinkles, and her hands were as rough as tree bark. She looked at least fifty years old.

Seeing the young man in mourning clothes coming from afar, the woman hurriedly knelt on the ground and kowtowed, calling the lord of the fort.

Zhong Yao waved his hand and said, "Aunt He doesn't have to be too polite."

The people in Zhongjiabao are basically tenants from the Zhongjia family. Each household has 20 to 30 acres of land and rents for 30 to 7 cents. Of course, the people in Zhongjiabao are four to 6.

The renting of tenants seems harsh, but there is no labor service here if there is no royal grain here. The Zhong family will be reduced when in danger. The life of the fortress is much better than that of the Du Guonong on the east bank of the Hui River. In addition, he has lived for many years and is familiar with each other from generation to generation. The fortress treats himself as an alien relative of the Zhong family and is grateful to the Zhong family. The former fortress owner passed away, and the fortress people spontaneously mourned, and the women wear black sleeves on their arms.

Aunt He also saw Zhong Yao as an adult since she was a child, but she just watched him from afar and occasionally said hello, which was not an acquaintance to Zhong Yao.

Seeing that Zhongyao was still the young castle lord, Aunt He suddenly became kind and kind: "Did Xiaoyao go to patrol the mountain? It's too dangerous, you must be careful! We all rely on you now on Zhongjia Castle."

Zhong Yao smiled and said it was okay and looked at the fields that Aunt He was cleaning up.

This dry land is only three or four acres, and the millet is planted, which is yellow rice. It is a type of millet. It tastes sticky and does not taste very good. Zhongyao only ate it occasionally when drinking porridge, but it is the staple food of the forgots.

"Why is Aunt He busy alone? Where is Uncle He?"

Zhong Yao asked casually: "The cows and horses in the fort should be busy this year, why not wait?"

The Zhong family has oxen and horses that can also pull plows. Every spring, it helps the fortress people to plow, which is also one of the benevolent policies that make the fortress people grateful to the Zhong family.

Among the four families in Guanshan, the Bo family focuses on mining and smelting, the Shu family is good at doing business, the Ji family focuses on forestry, medicinal herbs, and the Zhong family’s main business is farming.

When Zhong Yao asked about his livelihood, he was no longer the boy who only knew how to play. Aunt He hunched over and laughed aggrievedly, and his tone became respectful: "Old He said that there is a little... trouble in the fort this year. You can't cause trouble to the fortress owner anymore. You can do whatever you can."

She didn't quite understand why Zhongyao talked about farming, so she asked carefully: "Are you looking for Lao He? He has been using iron plows at home for many years, and he is afraid that the rust will break down."

Aunt He’s husband He Dashan is an ordinary farmer, nothing special. If you want to say it’s special, he is so ordinary that he can’t be more ordinary, and it’s the average line for Zhongjiabao farmers.

Zhong Yao waved his hand and said that he was either looking for Lao He or just chatting casually.

From Aunt He's words, you can tell that the people of the castle know that the situation is not good.

"Aunt He, some people are discussing going to Shujia Town, or even crossing the river to Xiguan County, Duguo. Do you have any plans?"

Zhong Yao's subsequent question was so straightforward that Aunt He had been reluctant for a long time, and she didn't know how to answer it.

When he met Zhong Yao's clear gaze, the woman forced a smile and said, "Those people must have been eaten with their conscience, and they knew they would run away. Lao He and I are definitely not that kind of people."

Zhong Yao turned his head to look at the hut beside the field. He only heard a clanging sound of iron grinding behind the house. He didn't see anyone else. He smiled faintly: "He Xiaoshan has split up, He Xiaoshu should still be there, where are others?"

The woman seems to be fifty years old, but in fact she is less than forty, and has two sons. The eldest son He Xiaoshan has already got married and separated, and the younger son is seventeen or eighteen years old, and is still at home.

The woman's face changed and she knelt down and begged for mercy with a sad voice: "It was Xiaoshan who shouted, we never thought about running!"

As the old uncle Zhong Chenglin said, the small Zhongjia Castle cannot hide the news. Zhongzhi died of Zhongyan's aura, and the fact that the demon nightmare may have surged again has long been spread.

Seven years ago, the demon nightmare had run away and more than a dozen households ran away. This time, there were fewer ones, and today only a few households disappeared. However, the remaining people were not confident in the Zhong family or determined to live and die with the Zhong family, but were just watching the demon nightmare that it was not moving yet and was still watching.

If the Demon Nightmare really rushed through the deep valley and descended from the top of the mountain to the west, no one knows how many people would be left by then. Zhong Chenglin's most optimistic estimate is that only half of them are left.

Zhong Yao helped Aunt He up and said gently: "I'm not here to ask for guilt, but to understand why I want to run, why not run, I want to know what you think."

Aunt He calmed down a little and said bitterly: "Master, why should I ask about this? The family must always keep a root. Xiaoshan's wife is already pregnant and Xiaoshu has not yet married. They are still young and have to survive and pass on the family line."

"Old He and I really never thought about running away. The Zhong family is kind to us..."

Aunt He was still trying hard to defend her, and a dull voice sounded next to her: "This is my home, the child is here, the house is here, and the field is here, how can I run away?"

It was He Dashan, and he heard the noise.

This is a thin farmer with gray hair. Because he has been working all year round, his back is obviously hunched, and his left and right shoulders are of different heights. His big hands are covered with calluses, and the hemp clothes on his body are patched everywhere.

His slightly cloudy eyes also shone with a ray of hot light at this moment.

"The Zhong family will not leave here to avoid the nightmare of demons, don't you think?"

He Dashan is a simple farmer and speaks very simply, but it contains a strong persuasion: "Because your Zhong family, the ancestors of all generations, have been buried here."

He Dashan turned his head and looked at the other side of the field. There were several inconspicuous earthen buns covered with gravel, separated by a piece of alfalfa field, adjacent to the He family's thatched hut.

"The same is true for me. My father and mother, and several generations of grandfathers are buried here. Now they should seep into the soil and turn into grass fat."

He Dashan said with a gloomy expression: "I am going to Du Country. Foreigners know that we will burn our ancestors to ashes and buried them. I am afraid they will tie them up and beat them to death."

Zhongyao looked at the grave and noticed that there was still the burnt paper money.

These words touched him quite, but he still said: "Ancestors finally fell asleep with the heaven and earth, and we descendants still have to live. If our ancestors knew that we were just trying to protect their cemetery, they would be stunned to be so angry that they would lift the coffin board... Well, the lid of the urn can jump out."

He Dashan grinned and said, "The Castle Lord is really not a child anymore, what he said makes sense!"

The wife pinched her arm, and the farmer sucked the cold air and said, "It's not that we just wait to die like this. Look at us, we are still doing spring plowing, but I just think that the Zhong family... the Fortress Master can take us through this difficulty."

"I don't think those who ran away can blame them. Even if they can survive, they can go to Shujia Town without fields and can only do hard work, which is much worse."

"It's even more impossible to say when crossing the river to Du Country. Even if you can open the fields there, after a year of busy work, most of them have to pay imperial grain and county taxes, and you have to go to work far away. Thank God if you don't starve to death. Like us, how can the fortress lords starve to death? When the year is good, you can eat a meal of meat every month."

Speaking of this, he glared at his wife again and said unhappily: "I have said everything. Xiaoshan wants to leave, and Xiaoshu has to stay! If something happens, he can still help the fort work!"

Aunt He stammered and said, "The Liu family next door said that the demon nightmare is very terrifying. Even the master of the master dare not get any nightmare. Look at the castle master..."

When he said this, he covered his mouth. He Dashan quickly cursed: "What a lie! I have to slap your mouth well later and suck your dirty mouth!"

He didn't give up yet, and he scolded him angrily: "The demon nightmare is terrible. Aren't the ancestors of the Zhong family and our ancestors all here? The ancestors will bless us, let alone the nonsense that they are burned to ashes, the Zhong family gods are still there before."

Hearing this, Zhongyao's eyes became deeper.

As if he hadn't heard the couple's half-true argument, he squatted down, grabbed a handful of soil, and pretended to smell it, sucked in a small strand like eating soil by the gray river.

"This soil doesn't look poor, why can't we grow good crops?"

Zhong Yao sighed in his own opinion: "Sow a suitable crop and a little more rain, which will bring you a bumper harvest every year, so you can accumulate more surplus grain. Then you can have more children and your ancestors will be happier."

The couple looked at each other in a daze, not understanding what Zhongyao means.

He Dashan followed the words: "Yes, we have been growing Du Guozu. No matter how fine the food is, we can only harvest 200 to 300 kilograms per acre. My grandfather and my father tried Luo Guoliang in the south and Wan Guozu in the north, and they all lost. After the autumn harvest, I also tried to plant beans, but the seeds were almost confiscated."

Zhong Yao's words were even more strange: "It's a problem of crops and a problem of soil, but in the final analysis, it's a problem of people."

[The red soil is the fourth of the lower soil. The four kinds of the four kinds of the four kinds of the water are extremely lush, and the litter is thin and barren. It is suitable for planting geese with black and solid flesh, red and yellow solid flesh. It is not as good as four tenths of the middle soil.]

This is the tip that the pottery bowl just came out. This field is the fourth-class in the lower soil. The soil grains are scattered and loose, with cracks and barren. It is suitable for planting grains, including black-grained indica, dry rice, and yellow-grained red rice. The harvest of planting grass, fruit trees, and trees is less than four-tenths of that of middle soil.

He Dashan planted the wrong crops...

Not only He Dashan, most of the fields on this field are red colony soil, and some black colony soil, but they are not planted with crops.

But as Zhong Yao said, the fundamental problem is not the crops, but the people.

Zhong Yao comforted them that they would not pursue their two sons' escape, and walked with big strides.

"Xiao Yao... What does the Fortress Master mean to talk about these things? He also talked about farming. Aren't they all the old managers asking about such things?"

"But Xiao Yao doesn't dislike Tu at all. It's different from the previous castle lord. You said damn it, are you right...ahhh!"

Before He Dashan could come to his senses, his ears suddenly hurt.

Aunt He grabbed his ear and said hatefully: "Aren't you going to suck my mouth? You suck!"

He Dashan cried out: "Didn't I cover it up for you? Hey, don't twist it, don't twist it!"

When Zhong Yao heard the couple's movement from afar, he raised the corners of his mouth.

He had already got the answer from the old He and his wife, and had a clear idea inside and out, and was in a particularly happy mood.

It turns out that the true meaning of Taowan to him is not just personal practice.

"Have you found the right person or did you think of other solutions?"

Zi Luo slogged in her ear: "I feel so happy, say it quickly."

Zhong Yao sucked her appetite: "Secret!"

Zi Luo sniffed and stopped talking.

Zhongyao thought she had held back and didn't ask, but suddenly she felt something was wrong. As soon as she stopped, a breeze blew down from her head.

The breeze is soft, but it contains a flexible energy, so familiar that it penetrates the bones and the crisp sound that sounds are even more familiar.

"Look at the sword!"

The girl in white squatted down the sky, and the wooden sword held a clear light, covering Zhongyao everywhere, blocking all directions of his dodging.

Zhong Yao clenched his fist and raised it, shouting: "Go to the sword!"

More than ten bamboo swords in the back basket flew up. Although they did not carry the sword light, the casting was messy, but it was like a barrier blocking the sword light.
Chapter completed!