Chapter 112 Deposit
Hu Guangfu felt mixed emotions, which was very unpleasant.
Because a few days ago, he sold seven acres of good land left by his ancestors to Mr. Hu. Mr. Hu's name is Hu Chuanlu. Speaking of which, he is from the same clan as Hu Guangfu, but he has been in the fifth server for a long time.
It was said that it was for sale, but in fact Hu Guangfu didn't even get a single copper plate, so it was just given away for free. But the sale deed clearly stated in black and white, seventy-five taels of silver per acre, and Hu Guangfu willingly took his fingerprints. He was really willing. Mr. Hu did not force him or bully him into being illiterate. On the contrary, Hu Guangfu himself had been begging for a long time before Mr. Hu agreed.
Hu Guangfu didn't just sell his ancestral land - he also sold himself to Mrs. Hu! Likewise, it’s the same kind of “selling” without taking any money. Although he sold himself as a "slave" and had his fingerprints pressed, Hu Guangfu even shed tears of gratitude.
Hu Guangfu is an honest farmer. He doesn't have any bad habits. He eats very frugally and is not likely to owe any gambling debts. To be honest, compared with people in most other places in the Ming Dynasty, Hu Guangfu's fortune is indeed very good: the Huzhuang where he lives belongs to Xiangyang Prefecture, with Feishui to the west and Bishui to the east, and the two rivers are in the shape of "Ya" The fonts meet not far to the south of Huzhuang. The land is very fertile. No matter how bad the year is, the yield per mu can be about 100 kilograms. In a good year, it can be 240 to 50 kilograms. You can go to the river and scatter it at any time. With just a few internet connections, you can have grilled fish for dinner - this kind of life is completely unimaginable to most ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty.
In this case, why did Hu Guangfu "sell" himself and Zutian?
Because he really can't live anymore.
Theoretically, because Zhu Yuanzhang, the great ancestor, had a poor background and knew how hard the people's lives were, the land tax in the Ming Dynasty was set very low, at least in the early days. But then things changed, getting worse and worse.
Because in addition to the theoretically very low tax rate, the Ming Dynasty also had a rule: the families of those with meritorious status were exempt from taxes. In other words, if one of the children obtains a meritorious degree, the family will no longer have to pay taxes! We know that the situation of "working as a farmer in the morning and ascending to the emperor's hall in the evening" does happen, but it is extremely rare. Those who can support their children to study completely full-time and hire famous teachers to teach them are nine out of ten wealthy families. In other words, they are all big landowners with fertile land and vast roads. Well, saying "landlord" is not accurate, because there was no concept of "landlord" in the Ming Dynasty: in the eyes of the government, whether it was a self-cultivated farmer with ten acres of ancestral property or a large landowner with two thousand acres of good land, as long as he There is no "reputation", all "people" are counted and treated equally. However, money can make all the difference - these "people" who are particularly rich are always able to smooth their joints and find various reasons for "tax exemption".
As a result, a strange phenomenon emerged: the more wealthy people were able to pay taxes for the empire, the easier it was for them to find various high-sounding reasons for tax exemption, while most of the glorious tax obligations were borne by ordinary people who were less able.
The country's expenditures are there: the court needs to operate, the army needs to eat, rivers need to be managed, and government offices need to be repaired... Also, don't forget the group of officials who "love the people like sons" and the subordinate staff who are "anxious for public service and love justice" The "poor" life of Qingfeng Liangxiu!
Where does the money come from?
It’s spread to people who can’t get tax exemption.
The earliest land tax was a tax in kind: when you farmed, you paid grain, and when you planted cotton, you paid cloth. Of course there are tricks here, the most famous one being "Linjian kicking dendrobium". When paying rice and wheat, the government's standard measuring instrument is called "Dendrobium", a square container with a small mouth and a large bottom. In the Ming Dynasty, one Dendrobium was counted as sixty kilograms - the reason why a scale is not used is because it is afraid of soil lumps mixed in. For impurities, pour rice and wheat into Dendrobium, and you can check the quality in person. The people who received the grain poured the grain into the Dendrobium, which was higher than the mouth of the Dendrobium, forming a pointed pile. Then the official in charge will fly up and kick the dendrobium hard - whatever falls down will fall into his pocket. For this kick, these people who love the people have worked hard. Some kick trees on weekdays, and the trunks will not move at all, and the leaves will rustle and fall. The best ones; some practice kicking doors, no matter what kind of wooden door they are. A kick can be considered a small success; if you haven't mastered kung fu yet, you will often resort to a running approach! This is not an unspoken rule, but an explicit rule - something many famous positive figures, such as "San Yang" and even Zhang Juzheng, did when they first entered the officialdom. In the Ming Dynasty, kicking skills were a compulsory course in the officialdom - junior officials at the grassroots level had to kick the ball, and when they became senior officials, they had to be able to kick the ball.
In fact, Hu Guangfu and the others don’t have any objections to simply drinking Dendrobium lettuce. It’s okay to just add a few more wild vegetables to the meal.
But miscellaneous taxes will always be more than regular taxes: when the government talks about water control, they will come to you for money, talk about building roads, and they will also come to you for money. When Prince Xiang gets married, Hu Guangfu will also have to pay! The government's court banquets, sacrifices to mountain gods and river gods, officials at all levels being welcomed and sent off, and allowances for students to take the imperial examinations...the expenses will all fall on Hu Guangfu and his colleagues in the end! To cultivate the fields, you need to raise cattle, and you have to pay cattle tax to raise cattle, and to raise pigs and sell them for money, you have to pay pig tax. Later, if you raise a few ducks that lay eggs, you also have to pay duck tax! Most of these taxes had to be paid in kind, which Hu Guangfu couldn't bear.
What made Hu Guangfu want to cry the most was not these, but forced labor, that is, corvee and hard labor. More than ten years ago, there was a flood in Jiangling, Jingzhou Prefecture. Hu Guangfu's father, Hu Er, was conscripted into corvee service. He never returned, and his body was not even recovered. In order to raise his underage self, the Hu family, which originally owned more than 20 acres of land, had to sell their land. When Hu Guangfu grew up, only more than seven acres of his ancestral land was left. The corvee could not catch up easily, but the laborer could not escape: to build the city wall, pave the official road, expand the palace, transport grain... all the people were recruited. Not only do you have to work for free without getting paid, but you also have to bring your own dry food and tools, which can take as little as a few months, and as long as three to five months is normal. Moreover, they will always pick the time when farming is busy - the subordinates know that recruiting people at this time can squeeze out the most money: unless they really have no money, they will give themselves red envelopes. Who goes and who doesn’t, is it just a matter of pointing a finger?
Later, the imperial court issued a whip: no more physical goods were collected, and no more labor was arbitrarily imposed. All households were converted into silver taels according to the amount of land owned by each household. Hu Guangfu breathed a sigh of relief - in the "Fish Scale Book"* it was written in black and white that he had more than seven acres of land, and it was clear how much he should pay. He saved the food for Lin Jian Ki Hu, and he no longer had to worry about being arrested and sent to labor service. ! Not only that, I heard that if someone goes to do labor service in the future, the government will allocate silver wages from the fees paid to the fields! So Hu Guangfu thanked the imperial court from the bottom of his heart for such a good policy, and determined to work hard and marry a daughter-in-law in three to five years. The couple would work hard to buy back those ten acres of land as soon as possible... Oh, no, If you bite the bullet, maybe you can save a few more acres for your children and grandchildren!
However, this joy did not last long.
Because Hu Guangfu found himself going bankrupt.
This is a great year. When it was time to harvest, Hu Guangfu was so happy that he brought down a lot of grain. But he had no money in his hand - after the whipping method, the court no longer asked for grain, but for money. An excited Hu Guangfu went to sell grain, planning to exchange it for silver and copper coins to pay at the Yamen, and then cut some pork on the way home to satisfy his wife's craving for a celebration. However, when selling grain, I discovered that the price of rice was ridiculously low: under normal circumstances, rice could be sold for one, two, two, three, and three taels of silver per stone, but now it was only worth four taels of silver!
A bolt from the blue struck Hu Guangfu. Just don’t sell it now and let’s take a look at it in a few days. He returned to Huzhuang in a daze and found the commander, Hu Wuye, waiting for him. Hu Wuye is the cousin of Hu Guangfu's family, and he has always taken care of their orphans and widowers. Hu Wuye told him a piece of bad news: The government office had a limited time limit, so he had to go and pay the money quickly. Hao Dayun from Haoying in the next village had a bad luck. He thought the rice was cheap and was reluctant to sell it. He missed the court's time limit and lost all his food. Not a single grain was left behind, and the person was dragged to a beating board until the flesh between his thighs flew away. The white leg bones were exposed, and he probably wouldn't survive tomorrow! Hu Wuye spoke kindly to Wu Youde, the leader who came down to collect food, and secretly stuffed him with two coins. This gave him another day of grace!
Early the next morning, Hu Guangfu went to sell grain again, and the price of rice dropped to three cents and five cents. Hu Guangfu calculated that by leaving the seed grains, only more than half of the annual rations would be left. There is no other way. Don’t think about the pork. Go to the Yamen and pay the money. We’ll talk about the rest later.
When he arrived at the Yamen and handed over the money, Hu Guangfu was surprised to find that the money, which was clearly the same, was actually quite a bit off. Then he learned a new term: "Zhesehuohuo". A long-sleeved master patiently explained to him that the silver received by the imperial court was official silver with a fineness of 90%, and the silver you paid was civilian silver with a fineness of only 70%. You had to make up the difference. This is called Zhese*, and you paid it. It's all broken silver. How can the court accept broken silver? Of course, they must be melted into the furnace together and melted into silver ingots of the same size. This process is bound to involve losses. Who should bear these losses? Of course it can't be the imperial court, right? The loss is not too much, only 1.5%! The Yamen will accept the silver and copper coins you brought with you, then go back and collect the balance and hand it over tomorrow. Your mission will be completed! Otherwise, after tomorrow... The master did not continue speaking, but glanced aside meaningfully. Following the master's gaze, the yamen steps have been dyed black and red with blood, and a large group of green-headed flies are hovering above them chasing the stench. If you look carefully, you can still see the minced meat embedded in the cracks of the stone...
Hu Guangfu, who finally completed the task the next day, discovered that except for a little bit of silver slag in his arms and the seeds and grain left at home, he might have to rely on wild vegetables and grilled fish for most of the next year.
Less than a month later, my mother's birthday was coming soon, and Hu Guangfu decided to buy some snacks for his mother, who had been a widow for half his life. When passing by the rice shop, Hu Guangfu was dumbfounded again: It has only been a few days, but the price of rice has now risen to five taels and one stone!
In order to find a way to earn some cash, Hu Guangfu decided to start a small business during the slack period. There are many wild mats growing on the river bank, and people in Huguang use it to weave mats. The grass also has another use: as a wick for oil lamps. Hu Guangfu found a few close friends and worked hard for more than two months: cutting grass, peeling stalks, steaming, drying, bundling... He also found a small boat and prepared to transport it to Zaoyang for sale. Everyone estimated that it would be almost enough. Sold for sixty-seven taels of silver. Everyone scraped together three or four taels of broken silver for Hu Guangfu to take with him. When they arrived in Zaoyang, they could buy some Difeng rice wine and sell it to Xiangyang Prefecture. During this trip, each family should be able to get one or two taels. income. Although it's not much, I can at least cope with it when I pay the royal ration next year.
Not far from the bottom of the character "Y" formed by Qishui and Bianshui, it merges into the east-flowing Gun River. The section near Zaoyang is called Haishui (today it is called Shahe). Before reaching Haishui, Hu Guangfu encountered seven or eight tax collectors just in Gunhe River. His face was beaten into a pig's head, and all the three or four taels of silver in his arms were taken away. Then, as soon as he entered Haishui, he met a group of tax inspectors!
Naturally, he couldn't take the lamp grass anymore, so Hu Guangfu returned home by dry road. After crying and telling the villagers what happened, the family's seed grains were also compensated to everyone. Finally, Mr. Hu Wu woke up the dreamer with a word: Mr. Hu doesn’t have to pay the royal rations. The old man’s second son, Hu Zhiqi, was born in the right way. I heard that in his early years, he was in charge of the Department of Ceremony and Cleaning of the Ministry of Etiquette. Which prince’s palace is he now? Become a housekeeper here... Not only does the famous Mr. Hu's family not have to pay any money, but the Hu family does not need to do any hard labor!
Then, Mr. Hu Wu led Hu Guangfu to chase Mr. Hu's housekeeper Hu Jiuye for many days, and finally they surrendered to Mr. Hu's house together with them.
Mr. Hu was very kind and allowed Hu Guangfu to continue farming the seven acres of land, regardless of the year, as long as he paid half of the land as land rent.
This is called "top-up".
Hu Guangfu had mixed feelings in his heart. On the one hand, a person would always feel a sense of loss when his ancestral land was gone in his hands. On the other hand, he could finally have enough to eat with confidence from now on! As long as you work hard, you will definitely be able to save a lot of food - in a few years, marrying a wife will not be a problem!
After completing this transaction, Hu Guangfu obviously did not suffer a loss. The old man Hu gained an additional seven acres of land and half of the annual farm output, not to mention that he did not suffer a loss. So, here’s the question – who suffers?
The imperial court?
Of course, the court would never suffer a loss - Hu Guangfu really did not need to pay the silver grain, and his share of the silver grain would naturally be spread to other farmers who still had their own fields!
*Fish scale book
The Yellow Book and the Fish Scale Book were tools used in the Ming Dynasty to manage people and acres.
Registers were made for every 110 households in a mile, indicating each household's name, place of origin, population, age, etc., similar to today's household registration book. There are two copies, one is kept in the book, and the other is handed over to the prefectures and counties for collection and made into a general book. One book is kept at the bottom and the other is handed over to the government. The government will prepare it in the same way, and finally summarize it to the Ministry of Household Affairs of the imperial court. Because the provincial registers submitted to the Ministry of Household Affairs by the chief secretaries of each province were covered with yellow cloth, they were named yellow registers.
The fish scale album is a summary album of cultivated land. The shape, grade, area, name of the landowner, etc. are drawn in the book. Because the land is painted in overlapping shapes like fish scales, it is called a fish scale book.
The Yellow Book and the Fish Scale Book confirmed and complemented each other from the perspectives of population and land respectively, and served as management tools for the imperial court.
*Color folding.
We often see the saying that there are true colors and different colors. To put it simply, the original color refers to the actual object, and the discounted color refers to the conversion into silver coins. For example, if the salary paid to an official is 100 taels of natural silver and 50 taels of natural silver, that means that he will be given rice and wheat worth 100 taels of silver, plus 50 taels of cash silver - these 50 taels are based on the sale price. The silver after the land property is converted into money. Gold, lacquer, silk, etc. can be used to fold colors.
What the master here means by discounting color is another meaning: the fineness of civilian silver is low, so it must be converted into official silver and stored in the treasury. Of course, the government has the final say on how to fold it.
