Mr. Du and the others had already made plans when they came. It would be best if the head of Jiahua County could make the decision for them. If not, she would have to provide some money to help.
Not bad, two thousand taels are coming.
Mrs. Du counted the banknotes and said, "Master, we have collected enough banknotes. Do we still need to pay off the old grain?"
"nature!"
Mrs. Du felt a little distressed: "But this old grain can only be worth 60% of the market price! If we pay it out, we will lose money, but if we mix it with the new grain in the shop and sell it, we can make a lot more money."
Mr. Du rolled his eyes at her: "Ignorant woman! What do you know? If you don't hand over some old grain, others may think that our Du family is extremely rich. If you pay for some grain, everyone will know that we paid it at a low price. , others will only think that our Du family is short of money, and the most important thing is to show it to Cheng Jingzhou, so that he knows that we are sincerely willing to obey his orders."
Mrs. Du curled her lips. She didn't understand the official business, and she didn't intend to understand it. Anyway, the master is God, and whatever he says will be whatever he says.
Although they have this money at home, it would be a stretch to come up with tens of thousands of taels of silver notes at once.
Fortunately, they got two thousand taels from the head of Jiahua County, and when they paid for some old grain, the actual amount of money their father-in-law took out was probably just over seven thousand taels.
Mrs. Du still felt very distressed when she thought of this number.
How many years does it take to save so much money?
In the past, it would have been easy to save up, but now that so many tax-free fields are gone, this is a huge loss of income.
Cheng Jingzhou ordered someone to carefully inspect the old grain and confirm that it was not moldy or adulterated before putting it into the grain depot.
As for the banknotes, they were naturally returned to the Yamen.
With the Du family as an example, the subsequent work of clearing the father-in-law will proceed quite smoothly.
Especially when the property under the name of Jiahua County Lord was found, the servants of the County Lord's Mansion were very cooperative. This made other people look at it and naturally they did not dare to cause trouble again.
Moreover, when the Lord of Jiahua County began to dispose of the properties that had popped up, many people heard the news and naturally followed suit to dispose of them quickly, but the method of disposing of them was slightly different.
For example, the owner of Jiahua County didn't value money too much, so she sold the properties directly at 70% of the normal market price.
Some people are not happy to suffer losses and force farmers or small landowners in some places to eat at market prices. This is another way to bully the villagers.
Cheng Jingzhou also heard some rumors, but he did nothing. The first priority now was to clear the abbot. After doing this well, he would mention other things.
However, he also ordered people to pay more attention, so that no more lives would be caused because of Qingzhang.
On this day, there was a commotion in Gengjiazhuang because of the issue of clearing the father-in-law.
Geng Hanzi has fifteen acres of fertile land and ten acres of medium-sized land under his name. According to law, the worse the land is, the less taxes and grains he will pay. After all, the people have to eat.
But today, when it was his turn to survey his family's land, Geng Hanzi's daughter-in-law was crying and cursing on the ground, disturbing the guards so much that they couldn't carry out their errands.
The person in charge of this matter was none other than Song DaDa, who was previously promoted by Cheng Jingzhou.
In the past, Song DaDa dared to do anything because he couldn't survive anymore. Now that he saw this aunt being so noisy, and after asking around again, he found out that she was being bullied, and he couldn't help but feel sympathy for her.
"Auntie, if you have something to say, please tell me. It is registered in this book. Your family has fifteen acres of fertile farmland and ten acres of medium-sized farmland. We are only measuring according to the law, and we will not covet your family's land. You don't have to I feel wronged.”
"Bah! None of the officials are good! What's good farmland? The fifteen acres of our family's farmland are clearly low-grade farmland. One crop of wheat can't even grow two hundred pounds per acre, so how can it be considered high-grade farmland? ?”
Song Bingdao frowned: "But we saw it yesterday, and it is indeed a top-grade field."
"That's not my family's land at all. Why should our family have to pay taxes and grain?"
"What are you kidding about?" Song DaDa was confused by these words. Why is it not his family's field?
Song boldly wanted to ask again, but Geng Hanzi came over and forcibly dragged him away, cursing as he walked: "You are introducing prodigal women! Didn't I tell you to stay at your house! You dare to talk about this kind of thing to others, you are really not afraid of those people People come to us to settle their scores? Just calm down!"
The silly guy behind him wanted to continue, but Song DaDaFang couldn't listen to it anymore.
Realizing that something was wrong, after returning home that night, although Song DaDa was extremely tired, he still went to see Magistrate Cheng and explained the matter in detail.
"Fifteen acres of fertile land, did you confirm it yesterday?"
"Sir, we have indeed confirmed it. When we were standing on the land, Song Hanzi himself admitted it. Their village chief was also there at the time and made it clear that this was indeed Geng Hanzi's land."
Cheng Jingzhou had also seen the bullying methods of some squires and bullied the people, and this was not the first time that he had been cleared. He had read through all the injustice cases and some weird things that had happened during the previous clearings, so he was not surprised by this kind of false claim to the land.
As people often say, rules are dead but people are alive.
For example, according to law, a scholar can have 80 acres of tax-free land in his name.
But if the 100 acres of land under the scholar's name are all lower-class fields, or both middle-class fields and lower-class fields, then these 100 acres of fields can also be included in the tax exemption.
So, is this someone who has this idea, thinking of using good things as a good thing so as to avoid the responsibility of the father-in-law?
How smart!
If so, it wouldn't be difficult to check.
"When you go to Gengjiazhuang tomorrow, look for an opportunity to find out if there are any talents or candidates in Gengjiazhuang or nearby villages and towns, or whether there are some high-ranking officials nearby. Then find an opportunity to talk to Geng Han Let’s talk more to my wife and see if I can get out some useful information.”
"Yes, my subordinates will definitely take care of it."
This is the first time Song DaDa has done something serious for the county magistrate, so he has to do it beautifully!
Cheng Jingzhou checked Feng County's topography and who's who that night, and already had several suspects in his mind.
If we exclude any distinguished person, we can basically identify the person who deliberately concealed the truth.
In fact, this method is very clumsy. Once he wants to verify it, it will be very easy.
For example, the county has backup copies of these land deeds, or some records at the time of purchase.
How many acres of land are there? Where is the location in the village? How much you walk after taking a certain place as a benchmark, etc., are all recorded in detail, but the field does not become yours as soon as your upper lip touches your lower lip.
Cheng Jingzhou suddenly laughed. If someone insisted on sending this achievement over, he would accept it unceremoniously!
(End of chapter)
