In the twelfth year of Dasheng Cheng'an, Zhou Yan, a poor scholar, went to the city to buy medicine for his mother. When he was doing a road guide, he learned that Sang'ao Village had been reported as a deserted village in the yellow book ten years ago.
But the 173 people in the village are clearly alive, and the government has never received less than a bushel of grain in these years.
Without household registration, my mother cannot buy medicine, my sister cannot go out to study medicine, and the villagers' fields and cattle can be taken away by the government at any time. Zhou Yan did not have the right to read the original book, so he could only check it from a grain reminder stamp, check the ticket number, inspection paper, and warehouse recovery book, forcing everyone who handled it to leave their name.
But the deeper he dug, the more old accounts he uncovered. The grain that disappeared from the county warehouse, the soldiers who were never registered, the villages that were wiped out, and the father who died in prison for changing the accounts were all hidden in the same set of accounts.
If Zhou Yan wants the whole village to return to official status, he must first prove the most ridiculous thing:
One hundred and seventy-three people in Sang'ao are indeed still alive.
