Myriad Paths

In the room, Shen Shuibi and Bai Di faced each other.

Most of Shen Shuibi's energy is focused on the documents in his hand. These documents are important data sent for processing and must be verified with physical certificates and seals.

In addition, there was a large amount of information that was not so solemn and was transmitted along with the spell. A large amount of information flow flashed in front of her eyes every minute and every second.

However, even so, she was able to talk to Bai Di freely and clearly stated the order, what Bai Di needed to do, and the reward afterwards.

There must be a reward, you can't just let the horse run without letting it eat grass.

Of course, Li Qi is unpaid, because he is paid and is also the actual leader of this war. This is the proper meaning of the direct line of Wushen Mountain. This is itself a war of witchcraft.

Moreover, these expenses were actually paid for by Li Qi himself.

Wushen Mountain usually does not tax taxes and does not distribute any private income. Naturally, there is no "public property" to speak of. Unlike humanity, everyone will contribute money to establish a "public fund" and then draw from the public funds. Allocate resources.

Wushenshan doesn't do that, but when they encounter such a big event with collective participation, everyone will basically pay out of their own pockets and be responsible for their own share.

The exception is the extraterritorial battlefield. The extraterritorial battlefield involves too many areas and it is unrealistic to pay for it out of your own pocket. Therefore, just like Li Qi before, it is all allocated through the "alliance", and the resources of the "alliance" are collected by the witches themselves.

Li Qi didn't join in before because Zhu Fengdan gave it to him.

But now Li Qi is the one who is involved in this situation. Fortunately, he is quite wealthy and can't afford it.

Of course, Shen Shuibi would not save on such things. Neither husband nor wife valued extraneous things. If nothing happened, the profits would usually be shared with everyone in Luofu Mountain and the Chamber of Commerce, but now they need to use them.

"The specific things have been explained clearly, so let's do it." Shen Shuibi said to Bai Di: "This matter is very important, so I will tell it to you face to face. There is a magic weapon over there that covers cause and effect. Take it with you. , which can prevent you from being counted by the divination method.”

"Yes." Bai Di stepped forward and picked up the magic weapon. It was a compass and should be some kind of magic weapon in stock.

Although the couple are not very good at refining weapons, they still have some reserves.

Bai Di didn't say much, just picked up the compass, bowed slightly, and left the place immediately.

He does have a lot of doubts, but they are not things that should be discussed now. Let’s talk about them when he comes back.

After all, Baiyue is the place where he was born, and...he is not very accustomed to humane methods, so he will come back this time, even if he may face the danger of death.

But...

Wherever the Tao goes, what is there to be afraid of? If he chooses to do something he doesn't want to do because of cowardice, then he may be heartbroken.

It was as if he had resolutely left home, abandoned the smooth path of witchcraft, and chosen martial arts.

It seems that after countless twists and turns, he finally realized... what he was pursuing was not pure martial arts.

Compared with those warriors, he is not pure at all.

Those warriors can sacrifice everything for the sake of "martial arts". Everything they do is so pure, so sincere, sincere to the heart and sincere to the mind. Only in this way can the martial arts and divine will become more refined.

But he couldn't do it.

He didn't know how long he had been fighting for, from that handsome knight in white to this vicissitudes of life, he finally realized what he wanted.

Force is just a means, what he pursues is to level the injustice.

Bai Di left here and rushed to the front line quickly. He had been in White Snake State before, but now he finally went to the front line of the battle.

Holding the sword in his hand tightly, the energy around him emerged.

Now, humanity is unfair.

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At the same time, in the Dalu Kingdom, there was a small village where Lishui was located.

Some petty officials are here to supervise corvee work and taxation.

Several petty officials arrogantly said to some farmers in front of them: "Now the front line is tight and they are almost out of food. The village elders have issued an order. Within two days, each family must hand over ten shi of food to use as military supplies!"

Hearing this, the farmers looked at each other with bitter expressions on their faces.

Thirty dan per family is not a small amount of money.

One stone weighs about sixty kilograms, and thirty stones equals one thousand eight hundred kilograms and one thousand eight hundred grains, which is enough for a family to save for a year.

There are already a lot of taxes on various things in daily life. Forty to five percent of the harvest is used for the tenancy alone. Moreover, a male household is given three bolts of silk and three pounds of cotton every year. In addition to these taxes, there are also salt officials, The Tieguan and Gongguan all collect work and property taxes. This place is close to Lishui, and there is also the Dushui guan who collects fishery taxes.

For the bridge across the river, there is a road tax, a land tax, a city tax, a small tax, and miscellaneous tax, such as harvest, charcoal, fish, and salary taxes, all of which are ten or two. The most outrageous thing is 'harvest', which means that if you go into the mountains and pick up a sparrow, you have to pay a sparrow leg tax.

A large part of these taxes only collect copper coins, not grain, so you have to sell the grain into coins. To sell the grain, you have to go to the city. Among the commercial taxes, there are also overtaxes and residence taxes. That is the market stall fee, and the market entry tax, which is the value-added tax that Li Qi pays when he sells things. There is also tooth tax, pawn tax, and deed tax on some miscellaneous things.

In addition to taxes, there are also various "services", such as household service, labor service, corvee service, and various work services, which require time to do, and they all provide their own dry food, and there is no food supply.

Farmers work hard for a year, and most of the grain they receive is used to pay various taxes, taxes, and labor, leaving little left over.

If it weren't for the fact that the yield of spiritual rice was so high, it could easily produce a thousand pounds per mu, and even more with a little care. I'm afraid no one would be able to survive under such a level of tax burden.

And now that a military tax is added on, it is even more difficult to survive.

But they didn't say much to the clerk, they just nodded.

Needless to say, these officials have very powerful family skills. Some people didn't want to hand over their skills before, but now they have been beaten to death, and the government didn't care about it, or even did it on purpose.

In the current situation, everything is serving the war, and the military is more important than anything else, so it is far more important than the lives of these farmers.

It's just that...the farmers are not helpless.

If you can’t get it at home, just borrow it.

There are many places where you can borrow money, such as... local landlords and sects, many of whom are moneylenders.

Although the interest is a bit high, it is better than being beaten to death if you can't pay taxes.

Zhang Haoming is such a farmer.

Hao Ling is a very common name. Farmers' names are generally relatively straightforward, and Hao Ling, who has been a farmer for generations, is even more so.

However, although his name is good luck, he has never encountered any good things in his life.

He was over fifty years old and was already on the verge of death. He was hunched over and thinking sadly about how much he should borrow and how much he should repay.

Thirty dan, if all is borrowed, at least 60 dan will have to be paid back. Then will the next year's harvest be able to repay it?

If you don't borrow it, how many things are there in your home that can be sold?

It seems that there is nothing left, only a daughter...

Maybe you can get married in exchange for some betrothal gifts, and the old bachelor at the east end of the village can also give you some savings. He is quite hardworking and willing to work, but he is lame in one leg and he is old. He is already thirty years old. No one is willing to marry...

Zhang Haoming doesn't think there's anything special about marrying off his daughter. Everyone does it. There's just one problem. If you marry off and all the food is used to pay military taxes, what about the younger son's betrothal gift?

Fortunately, the sons who were eldest in the past few years are all married, otherwise I really don’t know what to do.

Alas, sad.

He smacked his lips, put his hands behind his back, and returned home.

The house was very shabby, and there were constant sounds of squeaking and looming sounds. It was the old woman and several daughters-in-law who were weaving.

Primitive tools like looms are still in use, but they must be matched with corresponding techniques.

The speed of the textile machine that does not use Kung Fu is too slow. Although it can be used, it cannot beat others.

Zhang Haoming sat in the yard, looking at the rapeseed and spiritual rice in the land outside.

There are only these two crops, because he can only grow these two types of crops.

Farming also requires the coordination of skills. How to plant, how to read the weather, how to judge the soil, how to use Qi to promote seed germination, and how to coordinate the terrain with mountain Qi to coordinate different crops all require guidance from Qigong. of.

Without these corresponding skills, you will not be able to be a farmer, and you will not be able to grow anything, or even if you barely grow it, it will not be able to match the output and quality of others.

Therefore, the skills are extremely precious and are almost only passed down by family members and certain small groups, such as within the village or by a certain surname.

This has also led to a situation where a certain village can only grow a certain kind of vegetables, and other vegetables cannot be grown. The village in the east can only grow radishes, and the village in the west can only grow cabbage. All kinds of boundaries are very tight. .

This was already the case in Li Qi's time, so there was a person like Caitou.

The only universal one is Lingmi. Lingmi is a top-grade seed developed by humane farmers. Almost any technique can activate Lingmi seeds. It doesn’t even require a technique. It requires physical means to germinate. Come on, the output is not low either.

But those are not what Zhang Haoming considers. He has long been accustomed to everything around him.

The world is like this, as if petty officials can bully others, daughters can be sold, and sons are the most important things in this life.

Worried about what to do with the military tax, he looked back at home again.

The old woman at home knew nothing and understood nothing but weaving, working and cooking. She made all the big and small matters at home by herself.

The sons are afraid that they will quarrel over this matter. It is a lot of trouble for each family.

He thought over and over again, but couldn't make up his mind.

But when I looked up at the entrance of the village, there were already many people there, carrying baskets and poles, ready to borrow food.

Borrowing food is a daily thing, it is very common, and everyone is familiar with it.

Zhang Haoming, an old farmer, didn't think there was anything wrong, but in fact, someone had already concluded it.

As the saying goes, "Sell new silk in February, sell new grain in May, heal the sores in front of your eyes, but cut out the flesh in your heart." Farmers have to sell their products in urgent need of paying taxes, or borrow money at double the interest, and even have to sell their fields. The children come to repay the debt.

The so-called urgent and tyrannical government, the collection of taxes and levies is not timely, land rent, taxes, corvée, military service, floods, droughts, frost, hail, locusts and other disasters, fortunately the harvest, public and private debts, disputes and scrambles, the grain has not left the field, the silk has not been unwoven, but it is no longer theirs, the food is bran and rice, but it is not enough, the clothes are silk and brown, and they just serve the fields for generations, and they don’t know how to survive except this.

The government collects a large amount of labor and money from the farmers under various names, but in fact, the petty officials of the same class as the farmers regard this official position as a lucrative position to make money.

As for the officials, they don’t care about all this at all. The officials are almost all practitioners. They are responsible to the king. It is the king who gives them official positions and salaries, not the farmers. For the Baiyue kings, they are not willing to do all this well. They just want to maintain the status quo, because if they really do these things well, their foundation of Taoism will be shaken.

Therefore, the cultivators and officials above were unwilling to take action to prevent "natural disasters", and the petty officials below were even more unwilling to provide relief, resulting in "natural disasters and man-made disasters" often occurring at the same time. Moreover, because the peasants were usually exploited and plundered too much, they completely lost the ability to cope with any sudden disasters, and were even more unable to compensate for the losses they suffered. In this situation, it is natural that any "natural disaster" can expand to an unmanageable level, but they are always very tenacious. Every time such a thing happens, they can do their best to survive, just like locusts. Every time they die in winter, they can leave eggs, and they will emerge again in the spring of the next year, repeating the previous life.

This repetition is the foundation of the Tao of the Lord of Baiyue. He needs a stable and unchanging country to become his foundation of Tao. The real "stability" is not unchanging. Unchanging is corrupt, and such a foundation is unreasonable.

If a person wants to be a farmer for thousands of years, he will most likely go berserk.

As the saying goes, running water never rots, door hinges never rot, and the foundation of Taoism is the same. So how can we achieve "running water" while remaining unchanged?

The rulers of the Baiyue Kingdom gave a good answer.

That is... reincarnation.

Endless reincarnation, just like the passage of time, one batch of mortals after another die, and another batch grows up. Fluidity is guaranteed under time, and repeated tragedies guarantee stability.

Zhang Haoming smacked his lips.

Forget it, let's marry my daughter. The gift will be a matter for the future, let's solve the urgent problem first.

But Zhang Haoming just stood up and saw a ray of light falling in the distance, hitting the landlord's house where he often went to borrow money.

He climbed down immediately.

That was the light of supernatural power!

Could it be that the war is coming! ?

No way! ? (End of this chapter)