Chapter 86: Propaganda Campaign
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Zhu Wuliu was fifteen years old and lived in Zhujia Village, Taiping County, Qingzhou.
From the time he could remember, his father had been a tenant farmer for the Wang family, one of the powerful local clans in Qingzhou. Every year, seventy percent of their harvest had to be handed over to the Wang family.
He had two older brothers, Zhu Yier and Zhu Sansi. Both of them worked as cowherds for the Wang family. When Zhu Wuliu was nine, he too had to join his brothers in working for the Wang family, all for the sake of a single black steamed bun each day.
Zhu Wuliu hated the black steamed buns. They were made from chaff mixed with moldy wheat and were nearly impossible to swallow.
But he had no choice but to eat them. The thirty percent of the harvest that remained for his family was barely enough to feed the seven members of his household, which included his younger sister.
Almost every day, Zhu Wuliu went hungry. Only during festivals would his parents sell some of their wheat to buy a few pounds of white flour to make pancakes and steamed buns.
In his memory, those were the happiest times.
However, this year was different from previous ones. His father, who had been renting land from the Wang family, suddenly called all three brothers back home. The entire family of seven went to reclaim wasteland along the riverbanks outside the village.
According to his parents, Prince Qi had issued a land reclamation decree. Any family that reclaimed land would own it from then on, and the land could be passed down through generations.
Later, the village head came to their house and told them to join a production team.
He remembered how excited his parents were. All the families who had reclaimed land near theirs were grouped into a production team, and soon, oxen and farming tools were distributed to each team from the county.