Volume One: A Farmer at Dawn Chapter 21: All Those Years Wasted Like a Dog

When Zheng Jin spoke, everyone felt baffled, but for a child that age to say such things so boldly, it was obvious he’d been completely spoiled by his parents. Zheng Jin stuck out his neck and insisted, “It’s you, it’s you. If you agreed to split the family, would Mother be crying right now?”

What kind of nonsense was this?

Zheng Daniu was furious but couldn’t bring himself to snap at a child, so he could only plead with Zheng Quan, “Father, please try to talk Mother out of this. We can’t split the family.”

Everyone knew that dividing the family would bring no good to the Zhengs—only harm, a loss on all sides.

First was the matter of household taxes. Previously, as one household, they paid a single tax. If they split and registered as separate households, they’d pay double.

Then there was the division of resources—everything would be parceled out, reducing efficiency and making it harder to get by. Take Zheng Daniu, for example: after splitting, it would be just him and his wife working the land. Their other children were young, unable to help. It would be a wonder if exhaustion didn’t finish them.

But that wasn’t the worst of it; the real problem was corvée labor. If the family split, the burden of forced labor would fall solely on Zheng Daniu. During slack seasons, perhaps it could be managed, but if called away during the busy farming period, the crops at home would wither. Of course, they could pay someone to stand in, but where would the money come from?

Feng Zhaodi was sti