Chapter 604 What exactly does he want to do?
He raised a handful of water to his face, and when the water calmed down, Bryson squeezed out a smile at his blurred face in the water of the pottery basin.
But soon the smiling eyebrows drooped, and the corners of his mouth drooped bitterly.
Entering the second spring of his career at the age of 40, Bryson doesn’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Compared with the previous job of teaching the bratty children of armed farmers and knights in a mission school, this job is much busier and more difficult.
There is a reason why the knight manors in the mountains are like this. The mountain people live in a small closed circle and are inherently exclusive.
You know, although armed peasants have great power after taking up manor positions, it is not that even knights cannot touch them.
As long as the knights join forces with the low-level public farmers and seize one or two small tricks of the armed farmers, they can easily get rid of these "relatives" who are cheating on others.
With evidence of guilt, even if the knight expelled his relatives, it would be reasonable and he would not be labeled as a parricide beast.
And Adrian's inability to do anything to Henderson means that either he has no handle, or he has extremely high control over Gong Bo Nong.
Even the knight himself, the highest legal person, couldn't defeat Henderson, let alone Ansel, an outsider.
It's not that he doesn't admire people with dreams, it's just that it's better not to affect his life.
He needed the job as a priest, but he didn't want to offend these local gangsters.
After a large number of church institutions were eliminated and taxes were cut, although overall revenue fell, more was distributed to everyone.
Whether it is Horn's Holy Doctrine or Juannos, one thing is good, that is, priests are allowed to marry wives.
Although he didn't like the fat woman that much, it was his only choice, and their illegitimate child was already five years old.
After hearing that he was allowed to marry, the Fat Widow spent the few days when he went home for vacation after passing the examination. Not only did she completely distance herself from her lover, she also played many tricks that she had never tried before.
You don’t have to live in a cold monastery, your salary is enough for food and clothing, you have a son and a wife, and you can buy a few new clothes at the end of the year. What else do you want?
Ansel is always going to leave. He can't beat Henderson after all. Why should he meddle in his own business?
After walking out of his room, he forced a smile and walked towards Ansel in the small courtyard: "Good morning, Brother Ansel."
"Let's go somewhere."
"Oh, okay." He was guessing Ansel's mysterious method, but as they walked closer and closer to the field along the bushes, Bryson felt something was wrong for no reason.
Ten minutes later, on the edge of the fields of the manor, under the blazing yet cool morning sun.
Holding a sickle and wearing a straw hat, Bryson stood on the field ridge with a numb face: "You said you had a way. I thought there must be a clever way. Why did you use such a crude method?"
"Why vulgar?"
"Even if you help the poorest farmers harvest wheat fields, you won't let them resist Henderson for you."
"Although the mountain people are xenophobic, they are also simple." Putting the fork for harvesting grass on his shoulder, Ansel supported his straw hat. "One of their biggest characteristics is that they must repay their kindness and hatred."
It is a common consensus among mountain people that grudges must be repaid, or it is precisely because of the difficult living environment that this consensus or even an unspoken rule has been created.
Because Shandi County is a hard place with a lack of resources, the fighting is fierce, and people are bullied as hard as they can if they see you being bullied. Therefore, if relatives and friends do not help each other, it will be difficult to survive.
Especially in hunting and disaster relief, if others take the initiative to help you, but if you don't help others, it is very likely that others will not survive because of this, so who else will be willing to help?
The same goes for revenge. If you don't take revenge, you will be bullied until your family is ruined.
Once someone is deemed not to repay kindness or revenge, they will die socially in the mountain folk society.
In modern society, social death means social death, but in a small closed circle like the grassroots of the empire, social death is only a matter of time from actual death.
The power of armed peasants in mountain counties is partly due to their unremitting revenge and resistance against their lords.
This kind of behavior is treasonous in the eyes of ordinary peasants in the empire, but it is absolutely just and reasonable in the eyes of the mountain people.
Bryson awkwardly held the long-handled scythe that he hadn't touched for a long time: "I'm sorry, but I don't see what kind of kindness you can do by helping others plow the land? Then it's better to just pay some dinars."
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"It would be wrong to pay you dinars. Helping you work is helping, and giving you free money is charity." Ansel looked at the oat fields swaying in the wind in front of him. "In the former, he treats you as one of his own, in the latter, he treats you as one of his own." You are an outsider.”
"To be honest, even if we help a little, we can't dispel their prejudice. How can our voice compare with Henderson?" Bryson persuaded him earnestly, "This little favor is not enough for their support. Permanent leasehold.”
"Why are you in a hurry? I have three steps to take." Ansel smiled and held up three fingers. "This is the first step. Let's go harvest the wheat."
When he saw Ansel and Bryson harvesting oats, the farmer named Lalor froze in the field for a long time.
But then he neither asked nor drove away, but silently picked up the sickle and continued to harvest the oats on the other side of the wheat field.
Lalor had already seen Ansel's purpose, but he couldn't refuse. As the poorest family in the village, he had nearly 20 acres of fields to harvest.
The period from July to the end of August is the busiest time of the year for mountain people because it coincides with the harvest season.
The mountains cool down faster than the plains. It starts to cool down as soon as September arrives. Sooner or later, cold rain will begin to fall one after another. This means that from mid-July, when wheat, oats and barley begin to mature, to mid-to-late August, it takes more than a month for two or three laborers per household to harvest about 30 acres of fields.
A month may seem like a long time, but in fact it is not that long, because they have other farm work to do - mid-to-late July happens to be the second time to loosen the soil of the fallow land.
Although I don’t understand why the days cannot be moved forward or backward, as long as they are moved, the harvest of the fallow land will not be good next year.
Therefore, they can only choose to loosen the soil at this time, and the real start of harvesting begins at the end of July, which actually only takes 15-20 days.
The problem is that in addition to harvesting their own crops, they also have to spend an extra day or two every week to harvest crops on the lord's private land.
What's more, the whole family needed to be dispatched. In addition to the housewife who took care of the housework, all laborers, big and small, had to come in to help the lord with farm work and housework.
It’s not just the harvest, it’s not just the lords. They have to come to arm the sedges, ferns and firewood that the farmers use to keep warm in winter. They also have to come to repair the houses, feed the livestock, help with threshing and bundling of straw. They have to come.
But they have to do it, because these tasks vary in severity and are arranged by the village head. If he is annoyed, he will arrange heavy tasks for several days in a row, and even the strongest person will collapse from exhaustion.
Then the subsequent harvest will be complete.
Lalor didn't want to offend Henderson, but he was the only laborer in the family, still owed foreign debts, and even had to go to the lord's private land to harvest tomorrow.
If Ansel is expelled, the harvest may not be complete this year, and the farmers in the adjacent fields will forcibly cut away the wheat on the pretext of "not wasting it."
There is a reason why the poorest farmers in the manor are poor. After a natural or man-made disaster, they run out of favors and fail to show up, and eventually a vicious cycle will continue.
So Ansel helped him work, and he could only pretend that he didn't see it.
Although Ansel was sweating profusely from exhaustion, he smiled. This is why he asked who the poorest families in the manor were.
Lalor had no reason to refuse.
After harvesting all morning, Ansel took the initiative to find Lalor during lunch time.
He did not talk about the issue of permanent leasehold rights and the 100-household area. Instead, he suggested: "The three of us harvest separately. It is too inefficient and too tiring to bundle each other.
How about two people harvesting and one person tying, and the tying person counts it as a rest, and take turns. We farmers in Pingyuan County all do this, and thieves are very particular. How about it? ”
Anyway, they had already accepted Ansel's help. Lalor didn't have to worry about having too many lice, so he agreed after careful consideration.
From harvesting in the morning to evening, until the sun sets, their farm work gradually stops.
Ansel still didn't say anything about the permanent lease. He just agreed with Lalor to continue in two days and left. Standing on the ground, Lalor watched the two people leave with a complicated expression.
In the old days, he worked hard for a whole day to harvest about an acre. When he got home, he was so tired that he couldn't even eat.
But today he was not too tired, but he still harvested 4 acres. If this continues, it will be enough to finish harvesting his field in three or four days.
But, what does this Brother Ansel want?
The next day, Ansel and Bryson went out carrying their sickles and found the second-to-last poorest man in the village.
This time the farmer was not at home, but went to the lord's private land to harvest. Only his wife and a twelve-year-old child were working in the field.
Compared with men, the two women are less likely to refuse Ansel's help. It's still the same, Ansel and Bryson harvest, while the two women are responsible for binding.
It has to be said that it is different whether there are strong laborers or not. They only helped cut less than 4 acres of land from morning to night.
In the next few days, Ansel either helped the poor farmers in the manor to harvest, or helped the family's strong laborers to do the harvest for the farmers' families.
The strange behavior of this strange monk quickly spread throughout the manor.
I don’t know what others think, but Henderson is smiling.
When he heard the news, he couldn't believe it at first, and then followed his men to the field to look at it several times before he dared to confirm it.
A dignified monk is actually helping farmers cut wheat with his buttocks covered in grass clippings?
The most important thing is that he actually believes that he can win people's hearts just by helping others cut wheat!
He is a little kid, he is indeed a little kid, and every move he makes is a move that Henderson has tried his best to simulate and rack his brains.
"Boss Henderson, should we put pressure on those who receive help?"
"No need!" Henderson waved his hand grandly and shook his head with a smile. "Let him help. How many can he help? If we punish them now, we will give them an excuse."
Standing in the shade of the tree, looking at Ansel, who was sweating profusely and with a grim face, standing up to rub his waist, Henderson showed a contemptuous smile.
Keep spending it, I have plenty of time to spend with you.
(End of chapter)