Chapter 981

Pan Yun and Xue Shao exchanged a glance, couldn't help but smile, and bowed in unison, pretending not to know each other.

Xi Jin stood beside them, eyes darting, and remained silent.

Chun Wang ran out to report Pan Yun's background.

The old man was very hospitable, quickly accepting another guest into his home, squatting aside to wash his hands and feet with the water used for rinsing vegetables.

Xue Shao and Xi Jin were also caked in mud on their hands and feet; the old man called them over to wash up.

Only then did Pan Yun learn that Xue Shao and his group had arrived in the afternoon, spoken with the old man's family by the fields, and casually kicked off their shoes to help harvest rice—this work had kept them busy until now.

So the old man greatly liked Xue Shao.

A scholar, respectful of elders, skilled at cutting rice, unbothered by dirt or fatigue—the old man looked at Xue Shao's eyes as if they sparkled with stars.

Pan Yun sat beside them, chin propped on her hand, listening to their talk, and soon grasped their situation.

Xue Shao was most likely here to survey and measure land.

Thinking of the conversation she had overheard from the group she was trailing, she realized: their opponent was Xue Shao.

The old man's son and daughter-in-law, carrying bundles of rice, lagged behind and returned half a quarter-hour later.

Daylight had fully vanished; Chun Lian brought out a torch and stuck it into a mud wall, illuminating this patch of earth.

By the light, Pan Yun saw six bundles of rice on the ground.

They were not yet fully yellow; their leaves still had a greenish tinge. She stepped forward, pressed a grain, found it plump, and sighed in relief.

The old man noticed her action and chuckled: "Little miss, you're also worried the grains aren't plump?"

Pan Yun smiled: "I was indeed concerned—time is short—but now I see, though the leaves aren't golden enough, the grains are plump."

The old man's face wrinkled with laughter: "I've already peeled a few. If they weren't ripe, I wouldn't have harvested them, no matter how anxious I was."

Harvesting rice is a skilled task—it cannot be too late, nor too early.

Too late, and the grains become overripe; a slight jolt makes them fall off. After cutting, they must be bundled and carried—if too ripe, the grains detach automatically and are hard to collect.

Too early, and the sap hasn't fully matured; the grains aren't plump, and after drying, their weight plummets. After husking, it's worse—some grains may turn to paste during husking, and the cooked rice tastes terrible.

The old man squatted beside her, peeled open a grain to show her: "See? Already plump. But if you wait a few more days, the flavor will be better."

"If so, why rush to harvest?"

The old man pointed to the sky: "Double Ninth is coming. We must prepare the land for winter wheat sowing. After Double Ninth, the weather turns cold, and wheat seedlings need time to emerge. Harvest too late, and the soil won't rest—it'll hurt next year's yield."

He frowned deeply and sighed: "This land is like a person—work it nonstop, and its strength fades fast, it ages fast."

Pan Yun asked: "How many mu of land do you have? Can't you rotate crops?"

The old man said: "Little miss, crop rotation is only for big landowners. Poor families like ours have only these few mu. Two harvests a year barely feed us—let alone rotation."

Their family had five mu of land, three and a half mu of dry land.

One mu of paddy and two mu of dry land were newly reclaimed these past few years.

The old man spoke of this with pride: "That spot was once a swamp of sludge, reeking foully. No one wanted to go near it. But I saw the soil beneath the water was gray-black—I knew it was fertile land, so I decided at once to reclaim it for farming."

Pan Yun gasped: "Old sir, you're bold—weren't you afraid of swamp gas?"

"What gas?"

Pan Yun: "A stench produced by decaying plants and trees. Inhale too much, and it poisons you—it can suffocate you to death."

The old man froze, silent for a long while.

The old man's son straightened up, turned to look at his father, paused a moment, then asked: "Father, so your earlier discomfort was from poisoning?"

The old man muttered: "I didn't eat or drink anything—how could I be poisoned?"

Pan Yun raised an eyebrow, scanned him, then asked: "Old sir, did you suffer headaches, dizziness, nausea, weakness?"

"Yes, yes, yes," the son said at once: "He even vomited!"

The old man warned him: "Daquan!"

Daquan ignored him, eyes fixed on Pan Yun: "Little miss, is my father still poisoned? Can you cure him?"

"Mild poisoning. Usually, rest in an open area eases it. Still, let me check you." Pan Yun took his wrist and felt his pulse.

Father and son stared at her: "Little miss, you can diagnose illness?"

Pan Yun smiled: "I am a wandering physician."

Father and son's eyes brightened further: "So you're a Physician!"

Pan Yun examined the old man briefly—his body was in decent condition—but she didn't release his wrist, continuing to feel his pulse as she explained: "Swamp gas doesn't just poison and kill—it's especially dangerous near fire. Even a tiny spark can ignite a raging blaze—or an explosion." Daquan nodded vigorously: "Exactly! That's why my father set fire to that swamp—the flames shot into the air, terrifying!"

Pan Yun paused a long while, then said: "You're terrifying too."

Xue Shao stood nearby, arms folded, smiling: "I've been there. That swamp formed recently—only about a palm's depth. Water drained downward but couldn't escape, so it became a mud pit. Coincidentally, vegetation grew thick there, and nearby was a large dry field on one side and a big pond on the other."

"Irrigation came from the pond; this side was all wasteland. They pulled weeds and casually tossed them there. Over time, the plants decayed, poisoning and killing all the once-thriving vegetation in the low ground, turning it into a stinking toxic mud pit."

Because of the stench, only trash was dumped there—no one except the old man ever thought of farming beside that toxic swamp.

The old man: "Before I reclaimed it, they all laughed at me. After I reclaimed it, they grew jealous. These past two years, the better wastelands around have been claimed by villagers—everyone's opened a bit of land, and now it's balanced."

Xue Shao asked, taking advantage of the situation: "Have these lands been registered and received land deeds?"

"Register with the government office, and we pay taxes—that won't do," the old man said bluntly: "We never registered. We know where our land is—that's enough."

Xue Shao: "Without deeds, what if disputes arise?"

"We have clan elders and village heads. The village elders are fair. What isn't theirs, they won't seize. What isn't ours, we won't take."

Pan Yun glanced at Xue Shao, then said: "When I left Quanzhou, I heard the imperial court is surveying land. When they come here and find unregistered plots, won't you have to register anyway?"

The old man shrugged: "We have Master Gu—he'll protect us. No need to worry."

Pan Yun asked curiously: "Is Master Gu that powerful?"

"Powerful!" the old man said proudly: "Master Gu is a high official—he's my sister-in-law's cousin. Our land is registered under his family's name, thanks to my sister-in-law's connection."

Pan Yun nodded slightly: "That's convenient. How much rent does Master Gu take?"

"Not bad—just one-tenth."

Pan Yun heard and exclaimed, "So Mr. Gu is a good man."

The old man nodded firmly and said, "Mr. Gu is a great good man, a great benefactor. The village road and the bridge at the eastern edge of the village were both funded by the Gu family. Thanks to their protection, over the years we've paid half less in miscellaneous taxes and conscription levies. Those villagers surnamed Gu who are closer to Mr. Gu don't pay a single copper coin."

Here, the old man turned to his son and instructed, "Daquan, we must remember Mr. Gu's kindness. When this late rice is harvested and dried, send him and Young Master Gu a small sack—let them taste how this late rice differs from the ordinary."

Daquan readily agreed.

The old man spoke endlessly about the Gu family. Before Xue Shao could even ask his questions in the fields, Pan Yun merely dropped a hint, and the old man spilled everything—his desire to share grew stronger with every word.

He didn't stop during dinner, and he didn't stop after dinner.

Only when Chunlian had laid out their bedding and urged her grandfather to bathe and sleep did the old man finally rise, reluctant to leave.

He stood but hesitated to walk away, turning back to Xue Shao and Pan Yun: "Young Master Gu is about your age, and he's quite remarkable—he's already passed the provincial examination. I hear he plans to go to the capital next year to take the metropolitan exam. If tax officials come to measure my land, I'll ask my brother-in-law again to register that one mu of paddy and two mu of field under Young Master Gu's name…"

He said, "Mr. Gu is a good man. Young Master Gu is a benevolent man."

Pan Yun and Xue Shao said nothing, watching as the old man mumbled happily on his way to bathe.

Are Mr. Gu and Young Master Gu good men?

To their hometown and kin, yes—they certainly are. But beyond this patch of land, for the farmers who must pay more because the Gu family evades or reduces taxes, they are not.

Xue Shao said, "Before we came, I checked the records: Dehua County has 64,800 mu of registered farmland. This year, Quanzhou has assigned Dehua County a land tax quota of 31,350 shi. This is fixed. So if they pay less here, others in Dehua must pay more."

Pan Yun sat on a small stool, stirred the fire before her, and said softly, "According to the tax rates established by the founding emperor, Great Ming's taxes aren't heavy. But over seventy years, actual population and farmland have grown, yet the official records show no increase at all. Have successive emperors and ministers ever wondered why?"

Xue Shao lowered his gaze and said gravely, "Because corvée labor is too heavy, and the extra miscellaneous taxes are too numerous, too burdensome."

"For Great Ming to increase state revenue, it must resolve these issues," Pan Yun said. "Otherwise, even if industry begins to emerge, it will be crushed by them. Moreover, industrial development requires labor—but these people aren't registered. They're black households. How can they possibly leave to work and develop industry?"

Xue Shao tilted his head slightly, gazing at the sky thick with clouds. The moon was hidden; only a few stars flickered faintly above.

A wind had risen at some point. The clouds rolled away, and the moon slowly revealed half its face. More stars appeared on the other side of the sky, shining brighter than before.

Xue Shao murmured, "If officials and gentry were required to pay grain taxes like everyone else, there would be no such privileges—and thus no 'registered under another's name.'"

Pan Yun's eyes flickered. She asked softly, "What about the unequal corvée labor?"

Xue Shao turned to look at her. His eyes gleamed in the dark as he fixed her with a quiet gaze: "What do you think?"

"I think," she said, "if grain taxes are made equal for officials and gentry, then corvée labor must be too—either abolished entirely, or fully incorporated into land taxation, collected uniformly. Once the distinction vanishes, hidden land and hidden people will vanish with it."

Xue Shao turned in place, pacing slowly. After a long while, he said, "To accomplish this won't be easy. If you truly do it, you and I may very well die—even if you're a cultivator of profound cultivation, you may still not be able to withstand it."

Pan Yun smiled lightly. "If we've already begun, how could we turn back?"