Chapter 40: Living It Up for a Thrill

Yang Dingrui, who was watching the chickens in the courtyard, said that Commander Zhang only demanded three days' worth of grain out of consideration for Old Master Liu's face.

"Every time it lays an egg, the egg gets taken away — lays an egg, taken away. The chickens around it grow fewer and fewer. Look, it's unhappy. It thinks there's something wrong with the coop."

"It probably never had this thought before, when there was always food. But now there's no food, it's so hungry it can't even open its eyes, flapping its wings wanting to fly high, to fly out of the coop."

Yang Dingrui was studying the behavioral patterns of chickens with an almost mystical intensity, and it drew in Liu Chengzong, who was whetting his blade nearby, to also analyze the chicken. He chimed in: "If it ate meat, you could make it kill another chicken and it would do it, because it figures chickens are meant to be killed by people anyway — they all have to die. Being killed by a chicken wouldn't be anything wrong."

Hearing this, Yang Dingrui stroked his beard and laughed: "The boy is worth teaching. You have to let it eat its fill. Once it's full, find it a couple of companions, and then the masses will naturally regulate themselves and never think of leaving the coop again..."

Before he could finish, his smile froze abruptly, because Liu Chengzong had been speaking as he stood up. After he finished talking, he carried his knife over and with a 'Clang!' tossed a small iron bowl on the ground, bent down, pulled the hen from the coop, and slaughtered it with one stroke.

He drained the blood cleanly and efficiently.

"Companions aren't easy to find. People aren't chickens, after all. There's no grain in northern Shaanxi. Stop analyzing it, sir. Let's just make stew — it'll be delicious."

Commander Zhang was true to his word. He ate a meal at Black Dragon King Temple Mountain, and then, taking both food and supplies, marched his troops north.

This was for revenge, so Lu Bin, who had escaped from Old Temple Village, went along too. His wounds hadn't healed yet, so he could only serve as a guide.

Having a guide pleased the government troops greatly. They planned to launch a raid at dawn.

Liu Chengzong looked at the sky, estimating the pace of the garrison troops. They should still be on the march right now, not far from Old Temple Village — perhaps they had already chosen a place to rest.

This battle would be over by tomorrow evening at the latest, but no one knew what the outcome would actually be, much less whether that outcome would be good or bad for Xingping Village. It made him restless for no reason.

Restless enough to want to eat something good.

In the main hall, Liu Xiangyu's face was as dark as water. Chengyun sat at the lowest seat doing calculations — calculating how much grain the clan had, how many dan of grain the land could yield this summer, whether the current grain stores would last until the summer tax handover, and whether the remaining grain could last until the autumn tax handover.

To be precise, Chengyun was calculating the best way to buy grain.

Sixteen took the bled chickens away to be plucked. Liu Chengzong washed his hands, stood up, and walked into the hall. One look at his cousin's pained, contemplative expression told him the clan's financial situation was not good.

"The grain we harvest definitely won't be enough. Our four hundred twenty mu of land uses forty-four dan of seed grain. The summer harvest will yield at most three hundred dan. After setting aside fifty-eight dan for the regular tax and seed grain, we're left with two hundred forty dan. With over a dozen mouths to feed and over a dozen large draft animals, that'll last a bit over half a year."

This was the barren soil of northern Shaanxi. On this land, even a household with a hundred mu of fields still couldn't be considered a landlord or a wealthy family, because a hundred mu here only yields what forty mu would yield in the Guanzhong plain.

"But if Second Uncle wants to calculate land rent from this, I think it'll be difficult. The grain is barely enough for our own use. What about the official levies? Those are much higher than the regular tax."

The regular tax of the Ming Dynasty was very low — a principle set at the founding of the empire. The Hongwu Emperor ordered a thorough land survey and set the basic regular tax based on the annual expenditures of that time, at one-thirtieth of the yield. Later generations were not to increase the regular tax.

But the new order of the founding era was one of peace and prosperity. The amount of farmland was fixed, with no hidden or concealed fields, and the regular tax collected was exactly enough to cover expenses. This inevitably led to a decrease in the recorded amount of farmland after the mid-dynasty period, and the regular tax was no longer sufficient.

So the clever court created the surcharge system of eating next year's grain this year. That is, if there wasn't enough money for a major undertaking in the first year, no matter — they'd proceed with the deficit and leave it to be covered by a surcharge the following year.

The Three Levies surcharge proposed to deal with the Later Jin in Jianzhou, when mixed in with the regular tax, wasn't high at all — merely about one-fifteenth of the yield.

When the common people had an annual income of three hundred dan of grain, they would absolutely never be crushed by those thirty-five or thirty-six dan of regular tax. What crushed the people was when their annual income was only fifty dan, and they still had to hand over six dan.

Because their income was no longer enough for food and drink.

Besides, there was another important type of tax: corvée labor.

Transporting silver and grain taxes, repairing city walls, renovating government offices, and even hiring men to beat the night watch clappers... these were all corvée duties, and all were legal obligations of the subjects of the Great Ming Empire.

If you farmed the land and didn't want to go, you could only pay silver or grain to hire a substitute.

When calculated, it was far more expensive than the regular tax, and came in countless different forms.

The old master had collected taxes before and understood this very well. He waved his hand and said: "Don't worry about the levies for now. Calculate the land rent based on consumption under the regular tax. We'll figure out the levies later. Didn't Dalang and Shizi bring back grain?"

As soon as he said it, Liu Xiangyu remembered that those several dozen dan of grain still had to be kept for the village border troops to eat. His fingers tapped on the table in frustration. "Sell whatever you can from your father-in-law's side. Prepare to buy grain."

Chengyun nodded. "That's what I think too. We can only buy grain. But grain prices in the prefectural city are soaring right now — it's the expensive season. You probably can't buy rice or wheat for less than four or five taels."

Liu Chengyun not only raised the problem but also presented the solution at the same time: "We'd be better off crossing the river into Shanxi. My father-in-law once wrote legal documents for a rice merchant in the prefectural city — a recognized godson. Grain prices in Shanxi are a bit higher, but it wouldn't be two or three qian of silver per dou."

"The same amount of silver can buy twenty dan here, but over there it can buy fifty dan. The goods my brother brought back are valuable. Even if we pawn them, they can serve as capital. We might even make a profit on the return trip."

Yang Dingrui, who had entered the hall with Liu Chengzong, was listening intently and couldn't help but speak up: "It's four hundred li to Shanxi. The round trip passes through Yanchuan, where the Hun Tian Wang is rebelling. Several dozen dan of grain would be extremely easy to get robbed."

"But going to the prefectural city also requires twenty or thirty men as an escort, and it's even more expensive. Even if we hire porters in Shanxi, it's just an extra eight qian of porterage silver per dan."

Chengyun clearly wasn't entirely sure about this porterage price either. He stuck the shaft of his writing brush into his mouth and chewed on it. Old Master Liu, seated in the place of honor, said worriedly: "I'm just afraid that even if we offered one tael of porterage per dan now, others still might not be willing to travel from Jin into Qin."

Chengyun's thinking was quite optimistic. He clapped his hands and said: "If it doesn't work, we'll go to both places. I'll go to Shanxi, and draw a map of the prefectural city for Brother Shizi. Let him find merchants to buy grain. If anyone dares to rob us, we'll fight them!"

Liu Chengzong sat in the chair at the lowest seat, listening, his gaze drifting out toward the courtyard in a daze. Listening to the family's calculations of money and grain stirred a nameless fire in his heart. His two fists rested on his legs, clenched tight.

People calculated back and forth, and there was no good solution. In a famine year, they toiled bitterly building waterworks to fight the drought, farmed the land for half a year, and in the end, it wasn't even enough for their own family to eat?

"If our family is like this, how can other families even survive?"

Liu Chengzong couldn't hold back any longer. He spoke up, interrupting everyone's train of thought, and shook his head: "Right now, don't even talk about bringing grain through Yanchuan. Even if someone tried to bring one or two hundred dan of grain past Black Dragon Mountain — Uncle, sir, brother — do you think he could actually get the grain out?"

"Would Commander Zhang let someone take grain away? Would Big Brother Cao let someone take grain away? No one can take grain away from here. If we go out to buy grain, the government troops, bandits, and villages we meet along the way are all enemies. Grain is life. If you want grain, just spending money is useless now."

The words Cao Yao had spoken echoed ceaselessly in Liu Chengzong's mind.

"The world will only get worse. Thinking you can survive as a law-abiding commoner, just like that post-station runner brother of yours named Li Hongji, will only get you starved to death."

"Waiting until you're too weak from hunger to think of anything else — you'd deserve it. While you still have strength, you should go and plunder others."

Liu Chengzong said no more. He went out and told Sixteen to go to the blacksmith's shop and retrieve the newly forged sword guard he had ordered.

He knew that people were just like that chicken. Whether or not you live it up for a thrill, sooner or later, you have to die.

But could it really be that the only way to survive was to become a bandit, to go and rob?