Yongqing County has much fewer refugees than Fangshan County, but Jia Cong couldn't help but shudder when he recalled the deserted scene he saw in front of the porridge shed during the day.
"Our empire strictly prohibits slave-keeping, robbery and trade, which ranges from beheading to exile, but Yongqing County is so rampant under the emperor's feet. It is really unbelievable."
As the magistrate of Yongqing County, Yi Wenxi was deceived and did not participate in these evil things, but he was the parent of the people of the county and was guilty of negligence.
Jia Cong quickly cut through the mess and directly asked his soldiers to hold the golden order and go north to Tongzhou to mobilize troops to Shenwu Zhongwei.
In order to atone for his crimes, Yi Wenxi followed Jia Cong's instructions and hosted a banquet for the wealthy gentry and businessmen in the city who had participated in such evil deeds. He also said that the imperial deputy envoy Xiao Jia was very satisfied with the benevolent deeds of the Yongqing gentry and returned to the capital. He will make suggestions to the court and ask for merit and awards.
Then he said he planned to carve stone tablets to promote kindness. The banquet was immediately pushed to a climax, making this group of originally vigilant sinners relax.
After Yi Wenxi stabilized this group of people, Jia Cong secretly sent people to investigate the criminal evidence of these tycoons, especially the dark line hidden in human trafficking in Yongqing County.
Three days passed by in a flash. On the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, three thousand soldiers from the Shenwu Zhongwei rushed into Yongqing County. With lightning speed, they raided the homes of seven wealthy gentry named Guo, Cai, Jiang, and Chen in the city. The Qing County government swept them away and seized and ransacked all the houses.
In just two days, Shenwu Zhongwei rescued tens of thousands of people who had been coerced and lured into being domestic slaves from mansions, farms, mines and other places outside the city.
This does not include the men, women and children who have been sold elsewhere. According to the account records found, in the past three years alone, Yongqing County has been used as a transit point to send tens of thousands of "slaves" from the capital to Jiangnan.
"There are too many crimes to describe, and cutting them into pieces with a thousand cuts is not an exaggeration. A commoner from Shangxian County was sold to the south of the Yangtze River like this."
After Jia Cong calmed down, he summoned his own soldiers and handed over a memorial: "Immediately return to the capital to send the memorial to the palace, and ask Governor Cao of the Dragon Imperial Guard to send someone to take over the case."
Yongqing County is just the tip of the iceberg, and the trading of tens of thousands of people is simply unheard of. The largest counties in Gyeonggi Province have a total population of less than 100,000. This was still the population statistics during the Taizong Dynasty. In the past few decades, there must have been no children.
But the land tax in the remote Shuntian Prefecture has been decreasing year after year. In Daxia, taxes are paid based on people. If the tax revenue does not increase, it will become less and less. There is only one possibility.
That is the hidden population.
But now it seems that hiding the population is nothing. People regard the people of Daxia as pigs, and they are bought and sold at will as private slaves in the houses of wealthy gentry and wealthy merchants, and as slaves in the workshops of Jiangnan. .
What is more likely is that these people are being squeezed on those ocean-going ships.
The case in Yongqing County was quickly taken over by a dedicated person. Jia Cong copied a copy of the file and handed it over to the Long Imperial Guard. While thinking about the reasons behind these things, he continued to inspect the cases in various counties of Shuntian Prefecture. Disaster relief matters.
Perhaps it is the major case in Yongqing County. Although the other prefectures and counties also have various minor problems, they are generally stable.
On the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, Jia Cong finally drew a circle in Shuntian Prefecture and returned to Wangpingkou Town.
Daiyu has become a living bodhisattva for more than 2,000 refugees in Wangpingkou. In more than a month, the refugees in Wangpingkou have clean and warm shacks. Every day, the young and strong go to work, while the old and the weak wait at home for relief from the court. Rice grain.
Because of the instructions of Prince Liu Hong, Zhuangzi of Xishan Imperial Mansion and the Prince and Princess's Mansion had sent stewards over to discuss in detail the recruitment of landless refugees with Daiyu.
"The Imperial Village will recruit more than 300 people, and there are several villages owned by princes and princesses, which can also take hundreds of people. The rest will have to cultivate the newly established Imperial Village fields in the spring, which can be considered as having a new life."
Wang Qingtang's home was confiscated, and a large amount of nearby land was transferred to the Ministry of Household Official Land. According to the rules set by Grandfather Taizu, official land was leased for farming, and there was no land rent. They only had to pay a land tax of five liters and three pieces per mu. This was much more powerful than those tenants who often paid half of the rent.
As long as you cultivate well, you can have enough food and clothing for your family.
Jia Cong and Dai Yu gathered around the stove, and they talked in detail about what happened these days one by one.
When Daiyu talked about her advice to the emperor, based on the imperial village, the emperor's land should be rented by the people, and rules should be set to pay the land tax according to the official land. This would be a common practice, so that the landless refugees could have a share of the income to support their families. vitality.
Although there were many immature things in this advice, the emperor was overjoyed when he heard it, and seemed to have found a breakthrough to alleviate the growing trend of refugees.
As a result, an imperial edict was sent to Wang Pingkou from the capital, ordering Daiyu to temporarily implement this method and plan to give it a try.
"If this method is really implemented, among other things, it will give these people a chance to survive."
Jia Cong briefly talked about the affairs of Yongqing County, and Daiyu frowned.
I saw Daiyu writing a line on the paper: There is no idle land in the world, and farmers are still starving to death.
She lamented: "In fact, if we had followed the land tax rules set by Taizu back then, even if they were in trouble, the people would not have had a chance to survive. It is true that local taxes are too heavy and the harvested food is not enough to offset the losses. He paid taxes, and eventually the more he planted, the poorer he became, until he mortgaged his land to survive, and finally had nothing but selling himself into slavery.”
Jia Cong thought of the captured county magistrates, chief registrars and other assistant officials in Yongqing County. The rules set by Grand Ancestor back then had been corrupted by these.
Daxia followed the two-tax law of the previous dynasty, collecting summer taxes before August and collecting autumn grains before February of the next year. At the beginning of the founding of this dynasty, the two taxes were taxes in kind. Generally, summer taxes were paid on wheat and autumn taxes on rice.
A few years later, Taizu, who visited privately incognito, discovered that the fertility of the land was different in different places, and the harvest of the people was naturally different.
In some places, mulberry, hemp and other crops were grown, and in order to pay taxes, one had to exchange silk and hemp for grain.
Therefore, the imperial court expanded the scope of collection and ordered the people to pay a certain amount of silk, linen, and cotton in proportion to the acres of land in addition to rice and wheat.
In this way, silk, linen, and cotton became new items as accessory items.
The imperial court also stipulated that if silk, linen, and cotton were not delivered, a certain amount of silk, linen, and cotton could be delivered instead.
In this way, silk, linen and cotton became new items as substitutes.
Of course, in order to make it easier for the people to pay taxes, the imperial court thought of all aspects. Whether it was grain, silk, hemp, or even lack of land in some places, the people were allowed to directly hunt for silver and use it as land tax.
Unfortunately, the policies above are often good, but once the imperial edict leaves the capital, the original care of the people by the court will turn into various methods used by corrupt officials to oppress the people.
According to convention, rice and wheat are called true colors, and other substitutes are called fold colors. As time went by, such items were added one by one, and it took almost a hundred years. By the 35th year of Zhaowu, according to the investigation and statistics of the Ministry of Punishment, the true colors, zese, and corrupt officials in various places had sharpened their heads and came up with it. There are as many as forty or fifty tax items.
What do the forty or fifty tax items represent?
According to Taizu's customization, the land tax for officials and people in the world, for all official land, the mu tax is five liters and three units, private land is reduced by two liters, and re-rented land is eight liters and five units and five spoons. The worst land among civilians is taxed three times a spoonful.
If we really follow the rules set by Taizu, as long as the people can endure hardships, open up wasteland and cultivate land, regardless of being rich and powerful, they will always be able to have enough food, clothing and warmth to have a few fat boys to continue their descendants.
But just because Grandpa Taizu was too thoughtful and the tax items were quite messy, it gave those corrupt officials and landlords an opportunity to manipulate them.
For example, Yongqing County, a county in the Gyeonggi Province, in addition to farm products, is also an important town in the Gyeonggi Province that travels from south to north. The county is rich in high-quality porcelain, and then the county government added a porcelain tax.
Because of the concept of tribute porcelain, households that make porcelain need to pay a pilgrimage tax every year. Not to mention the corvee labor, the most severe of which is dredging the adjacent canal every year.
It has been custom-made since the Taizu Dynasty. At the age of sixteen, one becomes a soldier, and one becomes a soldier at the age of sixty.
For example, every winter when the canal is opened, a large number of servicemen in Yongqing County will be killed or injured due to the cold canal water.
If you say you don't want to serve in the military, fine, just pay for it.
As a result, Yongqing County has another income item, and those who are in charge are often gentry in the county. They use the power of assigning service to accept bribes and squeeze the people under their rule.
Waiting for those who don’t have money to pay for military service
If ordinary people die in the canals and rivers, they will immediately pounce on the homes of the people who have lost their mainstay like jackals, seizing their wives and their fields.
Yi Wenxi had been the magistrate of Yongqing County for two years, urging farmers to farm mulberry trees every year, but he had never heard of anyone complaining of injustice.
Why? It was just a collusion between the top and bottom to deceive him, an outsider.
Lin Ruhai was also an official for her parents, and Daiyu was enlightened at an early age. She had been exposed to these things with her father since she was a child.
As soon as Jia Cong talked about the situation in Yongqing County, she explained the unspoken rules to Jia Cong.
"And they don't just increase taxes privately, they can also come up with all kinds of tricks. For example, color discounting, rice grain grading, grain tax loss, county withholding, etc. There is nothing you can't think of, and there is nothing they can't do."
Daiyu told the aggrieved Jia Cong the reality hidden in the prosperous age: "Brother Cong, my father once said that every time the land tax paid by the people passes through one person's hands, 10% will be lost. Every time a tax is paid, the original tax will be lost. Three liters and three combined of three liters will eventually become 33% of the grain produced per mu. In this way, the county officials can still manage the Qingming Festival, and the people still have a way to survive."
"Shocking, really shocking."
Thirty-three percent of the output per mu is used for land tax, and the remaining grain has to be converted into silver in winter to pay for military service. So, what do the people use to fill their stomachs?
Jia Cong thought of the numb eyes of the refugees that day, staring at the clear soup in the pot. Perhaps that numbness was squeezed out by the forty or fifty tax items that pressed on them.
"Perhaps Sister Lin's advice is the best solution at the moment. At least the farmers in Huangzhuang don't have to be bullied by the county officials. They only need to pay the national tax on imperial grain according to the regulations on official fields."
Jia Cong suddenly lost confidence in the "dividing a small family into an area of mu" that he had previously sent to the emperor's desk. Whether it was the two-tax law or a small group of people entering an area of mu, it would ultimately depend on people to implement it.
If the interests of those with vested interests are to be affected, I am afraid that the emperor himself may not be able to withstand the crazy counterattack of those people.
I am afraid that among the people who took the lead in opposing this, there were scholar-bureaucrats who usually spoke of benevolence, justice and morality. At that time, it will be another fierce battle, and it will be a fierce battle without bloodshed.
Jia Cong rested in Wangpingkou for two days. After inspecting the relief situation in Wangpingkou for the last time, Prince Liu Hong's ceremonial driver finally arrived.
Daiyu left the follow-up matters to the people of Shuntian Mansion and followed the prince Yiji on the journey back to Beijing.
It wasn't until the 29th of the twelfth lunar month that the carriage slowly drove into Rongguo Mansion. The old lady was overjoyed when she heard this. After seeing Daiyu, she held her in her arms for a long time and then let go.
"Your father has already lived in Guanyi. He can't go home until he has an audience with you in the palace tomorrow. If he knew that you, a little girl, had to do such hard things, he would be heartbroken to death."
The old lady felt sorry for her granddaughter, caressing Daiyu's obviously rough hands, and glared at Jia Cong who was standing aside.
"And you, you are just a rough old man blowing the cold wind, but you have to take Yu'er to suffer..."
Uh~
Jia Cong smiled bitterly. Except for Tanchun who looked at Daiyu with envy, everyone in the room seemed to be a little dissatisfied with him for leading Daiyu to the disaster relief. Even Mrs. Xing, who had always been unwilling to offend Jia Cong, complained. A few words.
"Grandma, I don't blame Brother Cong. In fact, it was me who took the initiative to stay after I went to Wangpingkou and saw those poor refugees."
Daiyu briefly talked about what she saw and heard in Wang Pingkou, especially the children who survived because of the relief she hosted, which made Daiyu feel that it was worth the hardship.
"His Majesty also had people pass on oral instructions, praising my grandmother for her good upbringing and saying that I am not inferior to men..."
The emperor indeed sent a personal letter to Daiyu. The letter not only encouraged Daiyu to do it boldly and confidently, but also praised Daiyu for her ancestral style of the Gusu Lin family and her talent as a champion.
As for the emperor's oral praise of the old lady's good education, it was Daiyu herself who added this. Anyway, the old lady can't go to the palace to seek confirmation in person, as long as she can make the old lady happy.
Sure enough, Daiyu accurately scratched the old lady's itch, which immediately made the old lady happy. She hugged Daiyu and felt strange again for a while.
The two of them worked hard for nearly two months.
Guo heard that Lin Ruhai had arrived in the capital and stayed at Guanyi, so he washed and changed clothes and got into the carriage to go to Guanyi.
Unfortunately, when they went there, Lin Ruhai had already been ordered into the palace by the emperor, so he had no choice but to wait in front of the palace gate.
Because the New Year is approaching, governors and governors from all over the country who have come to Beijing to report on their duties have gathered in recent days and are waiting to see them. There are more than a dozen carriages in front of Daxia Gate, and each carriage has a flag.
What is the chief envoy of such-and-such, the admiral of such-and-such, the commander-in-chief of such-and-such town...
On the contrary, the carriage of Rongguo Mansion bore the title of Daiyu, Lord of Wen'an County.
This aroused the curiosity of many young masters who accompanied their father and brother to the meeting. It is said that the Lord of Wen'an County not only has an ethereal appearance, but also has a sharp tongue. The former Dongping County Princess and Princess were speechless when she argued in the palace.
Moreover, Rongguo Mansion is very red now, and County Lord Lin’s fiancé is the favorite of the two saints. Marrying County Lord Lin is the same as marrying Jia Cong of Rongguo Mansion. These second generations immediately took the name of their elder sister and younger sister. , the carriage to Rongguo Mansion sent one greeting card after another.
Daiyu looked at Jia Cong dumbfounded. She immediately knew what these people's intentions were in sending the invitations.
The real owner just rested in the carriage holding the hand stove and squinting his eyes. Instead, he threw all the trouble to her.
"Brother Cong, why don't you go out and show your face?"
?Monthly ticket??Recommended ticket?
