The old patriarch shook his head, still unable to accept it.
"By the way, Patriarch, there is one more thing." Yang Kui said, "I heard from Miss Li that the Fourth Young Master hit his head on the door frame, broke his head, and then suddenly became enlightened."
The old patriarch was startled. He had seen the injury on Yang Ning's forehead. He thought it was from fighting the barbarians, but he didn't expect that he hit the door frame.
"If you say this, it all makes sense!"
The old patriarch came back to his senses, immediately clapped his hands and praised, laughing loudly, "What a good collision!"
Yang Kui nodded repeatedly, agreeing with the old patriarch's evaluation of "a good collision."
He thought so too, but it was hard to say it out loud. Now that he heard the old patriarch shouting these words for him, he immediately felt enlightened.
...
"Second brother came to see me so late, why?" Yang Zheng put down the book and saw Yang Meng entering the door. He was surprised and quickly stood up to greet him.
Yang Meng found a seat and sat down by himself. He was silent for a moment, patted his knees and let out a long sigh. He said in a calm tone, "Third brother, the Yang family may be destroyed!"
Yang Zheng was so frightened that his hands shook and the book fell to the ground. He quickly leaned over to pick it up and said with uncertain eyes:
"Second brother, don't be alarmist. Although An Zhi made big talk today about starting an army to fight against Hu, his father didn't agree, so it doesn't matter.
"What he really did, apart from killing the Hu people, was to recruit the peasants. If the Hu people were killed, he would kill them. Not to mention the satisfaction, there is nothing we can do to restore it. As for the latter..."
Yang Meng hit the knot hard and no longer hid it: "I came here just to tell you this!"
"What's wrong with this?" Yang Zheng blinked his confused eyes.
Yang Meng motioned for the other party to sit down: "Don't let the peasants come in. This is what I specifically asked Tong'er to do. Do you know why I arranged it this way?"
Yang Zheng pursed his lips. He was not stupid. He understood what the other party meant in the blink of an eye:
“The bandits passed by like a comb, the soldiers passed by like a grate, and after the barbarians burned, killed, and looted, the peasants lost their houses, food, property, etc., and they had nothing from now on.
"They can build shacks if they don't have houses, but they want to have seeds next spring and have food to eat before the autumn harvest so they don't starve to death. Food is indispensable."
At this point, Yang Zheng stopped.
Where does this food come from?
Gotta buy it.
Who to buy from?
Of course, I bought it from the local wealthy family, the Yang family.
What to buy?
Already impoverished, all the farmers have to offer are their fields!
Military disasters created years of famine. Of course, the price of land in famine years would not be high. If the Yang family was willing, they could deliberately lower the price, so if the farmers wanted to sell their land, it would be sold at a low price!
Those who had a lot of land sold part of their land to the Yang family. They became poor from then on, but they were still able to survive.
Those with little land may not be able to get enough food to last until next autumn even if they sell all their fields, so they can only sell themselves to the Yang family as tenants!
A military disaster resulted in numerous casualties among the villagers, and the survivors were in dire straits. Only the Yang family, as a local wealthy family with a fort and private soldiers, could take advantage of the opportunity to profit and annex land!
This is the reason why Yang Meng is unwilling to take in the peasants.
He wished that the homesteaders had to fend for themselves and die more.
In this way, the land owned by the farmers lost their owners and they did not need to buy it. Yang Meng only needed to manage the county government and take it as his own!
What is a development family? This is the development family!
“In troubled times, order is broken, and the government cannot and does not want to take care of things.
"We only need to spend a little money with the government. Those peasants whose families have been ruined don't even need to be tenants, they can directly become hermit households!"
Yang Meng's face glowed red, his eyes were hot, and his pupils seemed to contain mountains of gold and silver made of the corpses of countless old, weak, women and children. "After this turmoil is over, the number of hermitages in my Yang family will no longer be more than a hundred, but It can exceed three hundred at once!"
Hidden households, hidden household registrations, they are not on the government register, and these people are not included in official statistics. They only belong to the Yang family.
Although the tenants did not pay land taxes to the court, they still had to pay poll taxes and other miscellaneous taxes, and they were required to perform corvee service. After all, not all the wealth they created could belong to the Yang family.
But Yinhu is different. Everything in Yinhu belongs to the Yang family, and there is no need to pay a penny to the government!
According to Yang Meng's plan, after this incident, the number of hidden households of the Yang family can exceed that of tenants. Coupled with the annexation of the land of the deceased, the strength of the Yang family will undoubtedly increase to a higher level!
The price is just that hundreds of farmers starve to death on the roadside or become slaves, which is no harm to the Yang family.
Yang Zheng pursed his lips and said nothing, his face filled with unbearable expression and his eyes quite resistant.
But Yang Meng became excited, he struck the knot hard and said:
"Originally, I had arranged everything, and I was prepared to bear the blame for the family. I didn't need my father and third brother to step in, but what's the result?
"In the end, that little boy An Zhi got into trouble!
"He wants to be a good person, but he doesn't think about who he is being a good person to. What benefit does being a good person to those villagers bring to our Yang family?
"He has been a good person to outsiders, but actually hindered his own family's growth. Isn't this the evil person of the Yang family?"
Yang Meng was very angry, his face turned red and his chest heaved violently.
Yang Zheng looked at him and hesitated to speak.
After a while, Yang Meng calmed down, waved his hands, and said helplessly:
"You know An Zhi. He is young and ignorant. He has been wandering around the counties and counties these years, doing nothing. He has learned nothing but the behavior of so-called celebrities who talk about good reputations. You don't know what is real.
“He can do whatever he wants, but we can’t let him do whatever he wants.
"Third brother, you have to go with me to see your father and explain the truth to him. We can't let An Zhi make trouble anymore!
"Raising an army to fight against the Hu? To put it lightly, can we fight against the Hu? The imperial court's 100,000 troops were massacred by Shi Le. What he did would only kill everyone!"
“In these turbulent times, the Yang family can only follow the trend and seize every opportunity to strengthen itself.
"As long as the benefits that go into the family's pockets are real, the Yang family must be more powerful to protect themselves, instead of being just a show-off and causing trouble for nothing!"
"Come on, let's go see father right now. You have to express your attitude to father!"
Yang Zheng opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but before he could speak, Yang Meng dragged him out.
He fell silent and allowed Yang Meng to forcefully tie him into his chariot.
Walking on the gravel path, Yang Meng had strong steps and a firm look on his face. He was very confident in persuading the old patriarch.
The old patriarch is old and has not taken care of the affairs of the clan very much in recent years. The second and third bedrooms of the Yang family are now the ones who have the final say. He and Yang Zheng have united the front, which represents the attitude of the Yang family.
Furthermore, Yang Meng knew his father well. He was always down-to-earth and focused on practical interests, and was by no means an ambitious person.
During the day, due to Zhao Wenjing's face and the comment of "slaves", he reluctantly accepted the farmers, but until the banquet was over, didn't the old patriarch agree to the Yang family's revolt?
The old patriarch is wise, how can he not see the difficulty of doing something?
Yang Meng felt that as long as he and Yang Zheng unified their attitude and gave the old patriarch a step up, the other party would take advantage of him.
