And what was most terrifying was that the court’s additional taxes were completely unpredictable, and they only wanted money, not grain. When farmers brought their grain to the market to sell, they would be exploited once more by merchants or officials. If they couldn’t scrape together enough, in order to avoid being arrested and turned into penal laborers, they had no choice but to borrow money. Usury was a bottomless pit—the interest snowballed, and after a few years, survival became impossible. They could only sell their land and even themselves, throwing themselves at powerful families.

But since The Benson Family had no one in the court, even the head of the family had to serve and pay taxes, let alone act as a protector. So their household held little appeal for dispossessed farmers; most of their land was acquired by gradually annexing land from other surnames in the village, accumulated over time.

“No, the land rent absolutely cannot be raised.”

Henry Benson shook his head in opposition. The tenant farmers and poor clansmen who rented land to farm toiled all year round, yet their harvests were barely enough to sustain themselves—they were just scraping by.

What’s more, this act of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs would make The Benson Family lose something even more important than grain: the people’s support.

“The matter of grain isn’t urgent. Let your grandson slowly think of a solution.”

Henry Benson brought up something he’d noticed during his morning inspection of the granary: “I saw that there’s a surplus of iron farm tools in the storehouse, and there are also a few extra plow oxen in the pens.”

The powerful families had accumulated wealth through exploitation. In the Former Han, they would naturally continue to annex and buy land, but under the new dynasty’s Wang Tian Decree, land could no longer be openly bought. Since the scale of landholdings was locked, surplus grain was used to exchange for oxen and iron tools, seeking ways to improve intensive farming.

But ordinary farming households didn’t have these resources.

“When I returned yesterday, I saw some people already starting to plow the fields in preparation for planting winter wheat. Because they had no oxen, two people had to plow together.”

This so-called “paired plowing” meant one person pulled the rope in front while another guided the plow behind. Yet, as the farming proverb goes: “Plow deep in autumn, shallow in spring and summer.” Planting winter wheat required deep plowing, so poor farmers could only labor under the scorching sun, pulling the plow with all their might, struggling with every step.

What was even worse, Henry Benson saw that quite a few families’ plow blades were actually made of wood or stone!

This surprised him greatly: “Wasn’t it said that the Qin and Han were already in the Iron Age? How are there still people using tools from the primitive era?”

This, too, was the fault of Wang Mang’s new policies. The new dynasty, imitating Emperor Wu of Han, implemented the “Five Equalizations and Six Controls” policy, which basically meant that six commodities—salt, iron, alcohol, and so on—had to be operated as government monopolies. Private mining and selling was illegal.

The original intention may have been to strike at the powerful families who controlled private salt and mines, but no matter how good the intention, it still depended on people to implement it. A fine idea, but when put into practice, it became a bad policy, causing great trouble for the people. Government-made tools were crude and hard to use, ironware became more and more expensive, and after ten years, many people were forced to go back to using stone and wooden tools. With production methods from a thousand years ago, how could productivity possibly be high?

Henry Benson saw all this and was deeply moved. At this point, he proposed, “Grandfather, during this autumn’s plowing and winter wheat planting, could the main family step in and lend our surplus iron tools and oxen to the poor clansmen in the village?”

“Young master!”

Before Robert Benson could respond, Mark Benson, who was in charge of agricultural affairs in the clan, spoke up first.

“Though most of them are of our clan, they’re self-farming smallholders who don’t rent land from the main family. Even if they have a good harvest, they don’t pay us any rent—why should we bother with them?”

“Besides, though we have extra oxen, if they’re overworked, they’ll get exhausted and thin. The same goes for iron tools—deep plowing can easily damage them. Renting them out is already a loss, let alone lending them for free!”

The young master had just given up a spot at the Imperial Academy to someone else yesterday, and now he wanted to lend out oxen and plows. Could it be, as the old family head scolded yesterday, that he really was a wastrel?

But after yesterday’s events, Robert Benson had seen through it—his grandson had deep plans in his heart. What looked like soft-heartedness was actually backed by careful strategy. He stopped the clansmen and asked Henry Benson, “Go on, what’s your idea this time?”

Henry Benson said, “I just want to help each household finish the autumn plowing and wheat planting faster by lending them oxen and iron tools.”

There’s an old poem from the Spring and Autumn period, “Seventh Month,” that goes: “On the first day, hunt raccoons, catch foxes for the young master’s fur coat... On the third day, use the plow, on the fourth, lift your feet, in August pick dates, in October harvest rice, and for this, brew spring wine.”

From January to December, farmers were busy all year round. Centuries passed, the world changed from feudal states to counties and commanderies, but life hadn’t really changed much—in fact, it had gotten harder. The population kept growing, per capita farmland kept shrinking, and if you weren’t diligent, you simply couldn’t survive.

In the past, after autumn, there was at least a little time to rest. But after Emperor Wu of Han began promoting winter wheat, plus the planting of vegetables and beans, there was work even in autumn and winter—there was almost never any leisure.

By lending out the main family’s surplus oxen and iron plows, Henry Benson could indeed help the self-farming villagers finish the autumn rush faster.

“What’s the point of letting them idle, bask in the sun?” Robert Benson, though the family head, had little sympathy for distant relatives—his concern was still for the main family’s interests.

“Of course not.”

Henry Benson did feel some compassion, but even more, he wanted to win favor with the clansmen, and at the same time, organize everyone to do something big during their downtime. To forge iron, one must be strong oneself—if you can’t even unite your own village, how can you expect to rally the surrounding villages?

He said, “At that time, I’d like to ask Grandfather and the village head to organize the villagers, and with our family providing money and grain, rebuild the village shrine!”

...

“The village shrine?”