Pair of Chinese Paintings - Village Life - Quing Dynasty

This pair of Chinese watercolor paintings is from the Quing Dynasty. The paintings were created using watercolor & ink on silk & mounted on cardstock with a light beige damask border. The paintings have a documented story of their origin. Both have profound messages of being very poor during the Han dynasty (202 BC - 9 AD, 25-220 AD). Painting #1: Peasant carrying a sack of food for his parents. The story is on the backside of the frame. It says, "During the Chow Chueng You, (beginning of Reign 719-1122 B.C.) when a poor man had to eat poor food and carry rice for his parents over a long way." Years after his parents had passed away, he accumulated a great fortune, in a sigh he would say "'I would rather still eat my old food and carry rice for my parents, but even that I no longer can do'". Painting #2: Couple in Garden. The woman is holding a baby while the man is digging with a backhoe. It says, " In the Han dynasty, beginning Reign, poverty struck Kuo Chu to the extent that his mother had to curtail her portion of food in order to feed his son. The man consulted his wife & dug a hole in the ground to bury the infant alive in order to reduce the number of items of consumption. "A child is duplicable but a mother not" was the philosophy & sense of justice. During the digging, he got a piece of plistening gold; the following characters were found carved on it: "Heaven's gold to a pious son, a reward fair, neither can the government confiscate, nor the people share".