"Lan'er, where is my copy of "Yang Wenzhen's Gongchizhengzi"?"
As soon as Fang Ruolan entered the study room, she saw Magistrate Fang looking for books on the bookshelf.
"I took it to copy."
Fang Ruolan said without changing her expression.
"Why do you, a girl, copy the copybooks every day? Get them back quickly, because your father wants to copy them."
Fang Ruolan immediately said: "Dad, you really have no talent in calligraphy. You might as well copy it for your daughter."
Fang Zhifu's nose was so angry that he almost crooked his nose. He wanted to scold his daughter, but it seemed that his handwriting was really not as good as her daughter's.
The prefect was furious because of his incompetence. When Fang Ruolan saw that her father no longer asked for copybooks, she immediately gave him another sweet date.
"Dad, have you verified the method for measuring fields that my daughter mentioned last time?"
Magistrate Fang was depressed for a while, and then changed the topic when he got down to business.
"This method is good. I asked the old officials from the household and canal houses to verify it. It is much easier to use than the fish scale cutting method, and the calculated area is also more accurate!"
Fang Ruolan immediately said: "Can we marry a farmer?"
Magistrate Fang sighed and said: "We can't rush the Zhangtian matter. If it causes a backlash from big households, it will be difficult to handle."
Fang Ruolan's originally eager expression changed immediately, but she lowered her head and thought for a while and said:
"The squires are powerful. There are too many squires hiding their fields."
Magistrate Fang nodded and said: "Take our Yanping Prefecture as an example. In the early years of the imperial dynasty, the total number of official and private fields, gardens and ponds was 9,700, but now the registered fields of the entire Yanping Prefecture are less than 9,000. There is less and less land, which is really ridiculous!"
Fang Ruolan also said: "There are mostly private fields along the Minjiang River and Jianxi River that have been reclaimed from the river. Is there still less land in the field register?"
Magistrate Fang shook his head and said: "It is a chronic problem of this dynasty that big families hide their land. The most exaggerated thing is that in Songjiang Prefecture, the registered land is 30% less than in the early years of the dynasty! Songjiang Prefecture knows that they have encircled polders and opened fields in recent years. No matter how much land has been opened up, the number of registered fields is actually decreasing.”
The difficulty of taxation in the Ming Dynasty was not only reflected in tax resistance, but also in the method of hiding land.
The land tax of the Ming Dynasty began in the Hongwu year, reached its peak in the Xuanzong period, and then continued to decline.
The reason is that the amount of land that should be taxed in various places is decreasing with economic development!
But such ridiculous things are the biggest problem of the Ming Dynasty.
You say that the gentry hid their land, but to prove this, the Ming Dynasty did not have the manpower to reclaim the land.
Let alone land, even the authenticity of registered land sales cannot be guaranteed to be accurate.
Fang Ruolan thought for a while and said: "Since the registered land cannot be measured, how about seizing the traded land first?"
Fang Ruolan said: "Dad can seize the land for sale first. The land that will be bought and sold in the future must be measured by the government before a red deed can be issued. This will prevent these big households from hiding the land during the transaction!"
Magistrate Fang shook his head and said, "It's difficult! Lan'er, you don't know how difficult it is to govern officials. How can you know the official contracts of this dynasty?"
Fang Ruolan nodded and said, "Of course I know. In this dynasty, official deeds printed with engravings and engravings by the government were used to buy and sell land. However, because official deeds were inconvenient for the people, they gradually changed to private contracts, and the government sealed and transferred the land for land buying and selling. .”
The official deed is equivalent to the standard contract stipulated by the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau for buying a house now. It was promoted nationwide during the Xuande period, but was quickly abandoned.
The official reason is what Fang Ruolan said: the official deed is inconvenient to use and ordinary people don't like to use it.
Magistrate Fang stroked his beard and said: "The government will print the terms of the land purchase and sale contract, and the land purchase and sale will not be tampered with by big households. How can the common people not welcome it?"
Fang Ruolan thought for a while, and it seemed that what her father said made sense.
An official deed is equivalent to a contract endorsed by the official. People do not understand the Ming Dynasty law, and they are not likely to hire a lawyer to see if there are any traps when signing a contract. They must trust the official standard contract more.
How come such a good thing cannot be implemented?
Magistrate Fang has also been an official for some time and is very familiar with the bad habits of officialdom. He said:
"The problem lies in the last step. Those cunning subordinates hid the official deed. When the people went to the government to get the official deed, they said that the engraving was broken or there was an accident in the printing shop. Anyway, they couldn't get the official deed and they wouldn't let the people buy or sell it. Land transfer."
"When the pressure becomes too urgent, I will take out the official deed that I have hidden and let the people buy it at a high price."
"Those subordinate officials who refused to pay would not transfer the ownership of their land, which forced many people who were eager to sell their land to borrow money to buy official deeds at high prices. Later, a letter was written on the official road to express the shortcomings of official deeds, and finally they gave up using official deeds."
Fang Ruolan was stunned, what was the reason?
The magistrate Fang then said: "If you want to own land, you need the help of the clerks in the household to do it. If there is an extra step in the land transaction, doesn't it give these subordinate officials a means of exploitation?"
Fang Ruolan lowered her head and thought deeply. Only now did she understand the difficulty of being a good official.
No matter how bad the scholars in the prefecture and county are, they are still from a poor family. The so-called poor family is also a family. At any rate, they are disciples of a big family like Lin Qingcai, or a scholarly family of several generations.
Let them clear the land? How is it possible to find out the hidden properties of wealthy families?
As long as these subordinate officials have the opportunity, they will try their best to exploit the people. If they are allowed to work in the fields, the people will definitely suffer even worse.
Moreover, officials often serve for three to five years, and some local officials can be promoted in one or two years if they are supported by someone.
Why should we cause trouble ourselves and insist on finding out the hidden fields?
While the Fang family's father and daughter were discussing, Su Ze also finished taking courses at the county school. Hai Rui did not leave school directly, but kept the three of them behind.
Hai Rui looked at Su Ze and asked: "Rulin, I also knew about Xiong Yue's matter right away. I hired a lawyer for Xiong's father to file a complaint at the county government office, but the government office had already signed the petition. Why? Do you want to create more trouble?"
"Instigating others to litigate is not what a scholar should do."
Su Ze was being lectured. At this time, Hai Rui was still a newcomer who had just entered the officialdom, and was also a pedantic person who had established the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" as a standard.
Hai Rui naturally did not break away from the thinking of traditional scholars of this era.
That is, litigation is not good. Civil lawsuits are mostly due to poor education, and people must be persuaded not to file lawsuits.
But Hai Rui's starting point was different from Baizhi County's.
Baizhi County doesn't like people to complain to the yamen because he doesn't want too many lawsuits to affect his examination and promotion. He also doesn't want to get involved in these cases and offend the local gentry.
Hai Rui doesn't like people to complain to the government, because of the traditional Confucian concept, which believes that educating the people can solve all problems, and the people should meekly accept the rule of ordinary ethics instead of using the law to take advantage of loopholes.
To put it bluntly, it is a simple Confucian morality. His idea is to avoid litigation if possible. If there is a dispute, try to protect the interests of the weak.
He tried to replace the role of law with morality.
Hai Rui was naturally heartbroken about Xiong Yue's death, but despite the heartache, Hai Rui Suze's method of provoking a lawsuit was disgraceful and not something that a scholar should do.
Hai Rui continued: "I have heard about the injustice in Xiong Yue's death, but the deceased has passed away. Now that Gan Jie has been signed, the matter has been settled, and there should be no further trouble."
"If the customs of the southern people are ruined and everyone starts to litigate everything, how can parents and officials educate the people?"
After saying this, Hai Rui's eyes were a little red. Xiong Yue was his disciple, and now that he died like this, he was naturally very sad.
However, he still did not support Su Ze's behavior.
Su Ze closed the textbook and asked:
"Teacher, what is the law?"
Hai Rui was stunned for a moment and gave the standard answer of this era: "Of course it is normal and punishes the evildoers."
Su Ze knew this would be the answer.
The laws of the feudal era were essentially a way of governing people, a system to maintain imperial rule.
Scholars naturally give top priority to Tsunade.
Su Ze said: "Since it is normal, an official is the parent of a common person. Why do parents use such cruel punishments to punish their children?"
Hai Rui's expression changed.
What Su Ze proposed was actually a loophole in the thinking of the feudal father-son system of monarchs and ministers.
Since he is a good and loving father to the people, why should he give such cruel punishments to the children who made mistakes and carry out these cruel punishments in public?
This obviously cannot be explained by the warm and gentle moral theory of Confucianism.
Hai Rui was speechless.
Su Ze continued:
"Everyone criticizes the Qin system, but there are no people in the previous dynasties who did not learn from the Qin system."
"But I don't want to learn from it! The Hongwu Empire made the "Great Edict" for everyone to learn, which is to learn the 'Three Chapters of the Law' written by the emperor of the Han Dynasty. The law is the contract between the court and the people!"
"What is the law? It is a contract between all the people of the world and the imperial court. If the officials violate the law, they will be punished! If the gentry violates the law, the gentry will be punished!"
After Su Ze finished speaking, there was still one sentence in his mind: "If the emperor breaks the law, he will be punished."
But these two sentences had already stunned Hai Rui.
He was a juren, so he naturally knew that in the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang formulated the "Great Edict" and allowed the people to bring officials who had harmed the people to the capital to complain.
However, this system existed in name only after being implemented for a while in the Hongwu year. Ming officials also relied on Ming laws when trying cases, rather than the "Great Edict".
In short, "Da Gao" also belongs to the kind of Schrödinger training that is swept into the trash can.
Su Ze held up Lord Hongwu's banner, indicating that Lord Hongwu supported litigation and even supported people's lawsuits against officials. This made Hai Rui unable to argue.
After Su Ze finished speaking, he raised his hands to Hai Rui and said, "Teacher, this case is not over yet, I must give Brother Xiong justice!"
Hai Rui was silent for a while, then took out a piece of silver from his sleeve.
"Rulin, you have a bright future. Don't resort to evil tricks. You can handle Xiong Yue's case yourself."
"Give this money to Xiong Yue's mother. You and Xiong Yue are from the same family. Go visit his mother more in the future."
Su Ze and Chen Lin quickly handed over their hands. Su Ze knew how much Hai Rui's salary was, which was a lot of money for him.
Hai Rui waved his hand and said, "As a teacher, if I cannot protect my disciples, it is my dereliction of duty."
"Don't spread what you just said to others. If it is misinterpreted by others, it will be detrimental to your entry into officialdom in the future."
Hai Rui also heard that Su Ze's theory of legal contract concealed the most important relationship.
Since the law is a contract, who signed the contract with all the people in the world?
If it is a contract signed by the emperor, what should I do if the emperor is at fault?
Does that mean that all the people in the world can abandon this contract and rise up to overthrow the emperor?
He couldn't think like this anymore. The more Hai Rui thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong.
Su Ze stood up and left. He knew that Hai Rui was proficient in the law and was not a pedantic scholar who studied hard.
Of course, this passage could not change the concept of the Three Cardinal Guidelines and the Five Constant Virtues that he had read for decades.
But Su Ze believed that this would definitely become a seed that would take root and sprout at some point in the future.
And as long as you sow more such seeds in the Ming Dynasty, you will naturally be able to grow new buds on the old book of the Ming Dynasty.
But what Su Ze didn't expect was that he still underestimated Cai Yuanwai's moral bottom line.
In other words, Su Ze still lacks understanding of the evil heart of the gentry in this era.
On October 16, Mother Xiong sent someone to report to Su Ze, and Mother Xiong was sued.
It turns out that a few days ago, a distant nephew of Father Xiong came to Mother Xiong with a family tree, saying that the Xiong family had no descendants, and was willing to serve Mother Xiong in her old age, and asked to pass the tea garden to him.
Mother Xiong was naturally wary of this distant relative she had never seen before. After driving him away, she did not expect to receive news from the county government soon.
This distant nephew of the Xiong family sued Mother Xiong, saying that he should inherit the Xiong family's tea garden.
The person who helped this distant nephew write the petition was Fang Jing, who had been litigating the Cai family.
Eat to death.
This was the first word that popped into Su Ze's mind.
Needless to say, this distant nephew of the Xiong family must have been found by Cai Yuanwai.
The reason why the Cai family was so anxious to take action was because the sales of Changningwei's indigo cloth were so good.
Because Prussian blue fabric is not easy to fade and is brighter than indigo, after increasing the supply, the Cai family's dyeing shop quickly lost business.
The dyeing shop was out of business, and the tea garden would not have new tea until spring. Cai Yuanwai once again set his sights on the Xiong family's tea garden.
This distant nephew of the Xiong family was naturally instigated by Cai Yuanwai. He was originally a member of a street fighter society. Cai Yuanwai promised that after he won the lawsuit, he could give him a sum of money to buy a tea garden.
Anyway, it was a business without capital, so this gangster naturally agreed.
Chen Chaoyuan’s elder brother, local lawyer Chen Chaoyu, also came to the editorial office.
After reading the letter written by Fang Jing, he sighed and said, "It's difficult!"
"This tea garden is the property of the Xiong family. Now that both the Xiong family and his son are dead, the tea garden is indeed a family property."
"The other party wants to protect the family property. Mother Xiong is just an ordinary woman. It may be difficult to win this lawsuit."
Su Ze asked: "What will the government do?"
"At most, a piece of land will be allocated to the mother bear for her retirement, and the tea garden will most likely be awarded to a close branch of the bear family."
Everyone's expressions changed, and Chen Chaoyu said: "If the imperial court had not set up an archway to commend chaste women, or issued imperial edicts, the government would rarely stand on the side of women."
"A chaste woman? A decree?" Su Ze suddenly asked.
These chapters are mainly foreshadowing the difficulties of the squire class.
You can see the Ming Dynasty under the microscope of Prince Ma. Every case in it is extremely difficult. These squires often do not rely on violence, but on various rules that they are proficient in.
This is the most disappointing part of Ming Dynasty.
Of course, the protagonist cannot always fight with the Cai family within the rules, then it would not be a cool novel.
To put it bluntly, Fat Bird believes that the reason why feudal society is reactionary is because the entire rules are reactionary.
Rather than one or two corrupt officials, or one or two treacherous ministers.
There has never been any fairy emperor. This view of history is what Fat Bird insists on.
So this is why Fat Bird believes that top-down reforms cannot succeed because the system is already distorted.
I would like to express my gratitude to the readers who voted for me.
Being able to be so high on the monthly vote list among the great masters is because of everyone’s praise and support.
I know this article isn't exciting enough, the plot drags sometimes, and my war scenes are crap.
But it’s what Sanjiang said. I have prepared so much information, just to restore the style of the Ming Dynasty as much as possible, rather than write some big principles.
If I had to talk about the positioning of this book, it would be the Ming Dynasty society at the micro level.
Seeking pursuit and monthly votes.
(End of chapter)
