The next morning, Luo Yue received an order to pay the responsibility for the protection investigation team to conduct investigation activities in the rural areas of Xiaowai, Tianjin. Because the Tianjin area is now basically under the control of the Crossing Group, there is no need for too many military protection investigation teams.

After the previous stage of the battle, Luo Yue's platoon sacrificed three soldiers, and one squad died, and now there are only twenty-five people left in the platoon.

The next morning, Luo Yue led all the soldiers of the platoon, fully armed, to the Gordon Hall and met with the investigation team. After the two sides met, the three team leaders of the investigation team, Li Songchen, Wang Sheng, and Zeng Dong, shook hands with Luo Yue, and said a few words to thank the People's Liberation Army.

Luo Yue was also polite, and then asked about the situation of each investigation team. Li Songchen's investigation team had five people, Wang Sheng's group had three people, and Zeng Dong's group had only two people. It happened to be allocated to protect one group in each class, while Luo Yue followed Li Songchen's group, because the number of people in this group was not only the largest, but also men, women, and naturalized people.

It turns out that the personnel composition of each group is selected by the leader of each group, and there is no limit on personnel. Li Songchen thought it very carefully. Since he wanted to conduct a rural survey, it would be best to find a few local people as guides, and it would be best to have local women with him, because women have stronger affinity.

So Li Songchen went to the Zizhulin Military Camp where the naturalized people lived, and happened to meet a captain of the reserve army he knew, Xie Tao, who was responsible for the guards of the Zizhulin Military Camp. He was familiar with the naturalized people, so he immediately found a local farmer named Zhang Pan as the guide for Li Songchen. At the same time, he also wanted to go and check with Li Songchen. In fact, Xie Tao felt bored staying in the concession and wanted to go out and see the rural areas of this era.

The women who wanted to find naturalized people had to pass Gao Jun. After listening to Li Songchen's request, Gao Jun immediately thought of Geng Jinyan because she was a local and also a farmer. During this period, Geng Jinyan's performance was very positive and received a lot of praise. However, Geng Jinyan only obeyed Gao Jun's discipline, and the others could not control her. Therefore, Gao Jun was not at ease to let Geng Jinyan follow Li Songchen alone, so Gao Jun also decided to accompany him. As a result, Li Songchen's investigation team reached five people.

After dispatching personnel, the three groups set out from the concession and conducted separate investigations. Because Li Songchen and his group had two locals, they had very clear goals, so naturally they were the villages of these two people. First, they went to the villages of Geng Yuyan, which was closer.

After leaving the concession, the group walked south along the Hai Avenue. After walking for about twenty minutes, they turned one road and entered the suburbs.

There are large areas of farmland on both sides of the road, but not many farmers are farming in the fields. However, Luo Yue noticed that there seemed to be more than when he occupied Tianjin a few days ago. At least most of the fields were working. He passed several villages along the way, but everyone saw a dilapidated scene. Each village had a large number of damaged houses, and a large number of new graves could be seen outside the village, and one of them was almost completely abandoned. When they saw their group, the people in the village hid and closed their doors, just like hiding from the plague god. It seemed that they were scared.

The group was also very moved by it. Although they all knew that imperialism invaded China and caused great harm to China, they were only seen in books before, but now they saw the real scenes, which still touched people very much.

After about a while, Geng Jinyan said, "Here, right in front."

Everyone looked in the direction of her fingers and saw that opposite a stream in front of the left was a large field, and on a high hill on the edge of the field, it was indeed a village, and the scale was much larger than the several villages passing by in front.

On the way here, Geng Jinyan arrived and gave a brief introduction to everyone. This village is the largest of the more than ten nearby villages, with a total of about 500 households and more than 8,000 acres of land. The reason is that the stream I just saw can irrigate the fields nearby.

Li Songchen also asked Geng Jinyan in detail about the situation in the village. It turned out that Geng Jinyan had four large households in the village where he used to live, occupying about 6,000 acres of land. The most household occupied more than 2,000 acres of land. More than 150 households in the village rented their land and became tenants; the least one had more than 1,000 acres of land. There were more than ten landlords, with arable land between fifty and one hundred acres, and each household had several employers, while there were only more than 100 self-cultivated households, but most households had about five or six acres of arable land. Therefore, in addition to cultivating their own fields, they also had to rent a few acres of land to plant.

Geng Jinyan's family used to have twelve acres of land and the terrain was relatively good. If it was in a normal year, it could basically ensure the whole family's life. If it was a bumper year, there would be some surplus. During the slack season every year, Geng Jinyan's husband would go to Tianjin to do odd jobs and earn a fortune. Therefore, Geng Jinyan's family was still doing well in a self-cultivated farmer.

Li Songchen asked again how to collect the tax every year and how much? Geng Jinyan's reply was that in normal years, ordinary self-cultivated people would pay about 50% of the taxes earned every year, while tenants would have to pay about 70% of the harvest, and sometimes even more, because they were tenants of large households, and sometimes only 267% of the harvest was left in a year.

After listening, Li Songchen was also a little surprised. He did not expect that the tax revenue in this era would be so heavy, and it was not an exaggeration to exploit it. Geng Jinyan further explained that the government actually paid not much tax, usually only 20% to 30%, while the rest were levies from the county and private income from tax collectors, while the tenants also had to add the burden of annual land rent. However, Geng Jinyan had never left Tianjin in his life, so he did not know the tax situation in other regions.

However, the business in Tianjin is relatively developed. During the slack farming period, most of the villagers would go to Tianjin City to work in the concession to make money and subsidize their household income. Therefore, as long as they are willing to work hard, their lives can still continue. Geng Jinyan also told Li Songchen that in recent years, more people have gradually come to work in the city. Some people have a lot of labor, and some people work in the city. Some families simply rent all their own fields to others to grow, and they work in the city, and their income is no worse than farming.

After listening to Geng Jinyan's speech, Li Songchen generally got some understanding of the situation in Tianjin. Tianjin is a relatively developed region in China in this era, and the agricultural economy does not dominate. Therefore, despite the serious exploitation, it can still survive and under normal circumstances, it can still live well.

There are wooden bridges on the stream. When passing by the bridge, everyone found that the stream was not wide, at most twenty meters, but it was enough to make the land close to the stream a good land in this area. In the past, Geng Jinyan's land was close to the stream, so the annual harvest was good, otherwise these more than ten acres of land would not be favored by the villagers.

After passing the stream and passing through the fields, the group came to the village. After entering the village, everyone found that the village was like other villages, and most of the houses were damaged. Because it was at the entrance of the village, there was a large mansion with a wide area, but it was obviously robbed. The courtyard was in chaos. According to Geng Jinyan, the family's surname was Huang, and the largest landlord in the village. They still had some relationship with officials from Tianjin Road. During the Boxer Rebellion, they donated 100 stones of rice and 200 taels of silver, thus saving their home, but they did not expect to escape in the end.

Everyone was sighing, but when they walked into the village, the villagers were also avoiding this group of people. Every household closed their doors, which made everyone feel a little embarrassed.

Squad leader Li Lixin said, "Does we look like the devils entering the village?" He held a gun and put on the most classic style of the Gui Zi entering the village in the old movie. He also hummed a few lines of background music and said, "Does it look like this?"

After seeing this, the others couldn't help laughing. Only Geng Jinyan and Zhang Pan were a little puzzled and didn't know what they were laughing at.

Luo Yue said: "I guess the villagers were frightened by the Eight-Nation Alliance, so when they saw us like this, they were so scared that they hid."

Li Songchen also looked at Geng Jinyan and said, "Is there anyone you know?"

Geng Jinyan cut her head and walked through several streets with everyone to an abandoned house. The house was completely damaged. Not only had several walls collapsed, but some of the houses collapsed, and even the doors were demolished. The house was covered with dust and spider webs. It was obvious that no one had lived in it for at least a few months. Geng Jinyan stood in front of this house and refused to do so for a long time.

Everyone was a little puzzled, only Gao Jun guessed a few points, came to Geng Jinyan's side, and said, "This is..."

Geng Jinyan said: "This was my home before."

Everyone knew what Geng Jinyan had happened. Seeing that Geng Jinyan's family was ruined and the whole family was gone, not only everyone sighed, but Gao Jun patted her on the shoulder and comforted her: "The things have passed, and it's useless to be sad. Just look away."

Geng Jinyan was about to speak, but with a "creak", the door of a family next to her opened, and a man poked his head out of the house and said, "Yan Ji, are you back?"

Geng Jinyan turned around and couldn't help but be surprised and happy. She rushed over a few steps and said, "Uncle Six, you are fine."
Chapter completed!