sweeping the world

Chapter 514 Desire for Land
In a county, the county magistrate with a population of less than [-], and the county magistrate with a population of more than [-].Under the county magistrate, there are also the county magistrate and the county magistrate. The county magistrate presides over the six Caos.The six Caos are divided into Gongcao, Cangcao, Hucao, Bingcao, Facao, and Shicao, followed by many Qiangfu and Youjiao.

The Han Dynasty generally followed the old Han system, and did not set up three elders in the countryside alone. The reason was that although the three elders were in charge of education, they were basically the product of the clan, which was actually not conducive to the government directly controlling the people.

Liu Yan built the country from scratch, and lacked enough officials to accept the rich, powerful and aristocratic families, but still lacked enough administrative personnel.

Soldiers of Youze in the Han Dynasty were given follow-up pensions when they retired due to disabilities, and they would give priority to positions if conditions permitted. Most of the positions below the county magistrate (county head) were filled by retired military personnel.

Compared with the previous dynasties, the number of public officials in the Han Dynasty is obviously much more. It is because Liu Yan believed that power should go to the countryside from the beginning, not controlled by local wealthy families.

It is definitely not easy for a country to spread the power of the regime all over the country. First of all, there must be absolutely sufficient administrative personnel. The terrible thing is that administrative personnel are not so easy to find. Liu Yan's use of retired military personnel is only a non-existent solution.When there are more public officials, the state's salary for public officials will become a new problem.

In fact, it is not so smooth for retired military personnel to serve as public officials in the local area. In the past, local people in each place were recommended as officials or officials. Generally, they were popular people in the local area. .What must be said is that a person from a family like Liu Bang can become the head of the pavilion. The main reason is that Liu Bang's old father is an old friend with the county magistrate, and the second is that Liu Bang has a gang.What's more, taking local hooligans and gangsters as petty officials (non-staff civil servants) didn't become a special case in the first dynasty of China, it has existed since ancient times!
The Han Kingdom built on top of the ruins was restored from the hands of the Hu people. On the premise that most of the old rules were destroyed by the Hu people, the obstacles to the implementation of the New Deal are the local big clans and tyrants.

Because of the relevant national policies, the resisting big clans and tyrannical powers will face the suppression of the Han army. As long as they don’t want their families to be ruined and are unwilling to do so, they can only endure it. It's so calm, but in fact, there are absolutely dark vortices everywhere under the water surface.

"Xinpingli?" Wang Meng knew that it would not be a trivial matter for the county government to report what happened in a village, but he still had to ask, "What happened?"

County lieutenant Huang Zhan is an Israeli military marquis in the army who retired to the civilian population, not a military marquis of the field army, but a military marquis of the second-line army.If he is a Marquis of the Field Corps, his post-retirement arrangement is at least one of the positions in the county. It may not be enough to be a county captain, but it is definitely enough to be a county soldier.

Xinpingli is one of the many lis in Nanpi County, but it is far from the core of Nanpi County, so it is considered a remote li.Normally, the farther away from the core of power, the weaker the official power, and the easier it is for some illegal things to happen.

"A homicide happened." As a county lieutenant, Huang Zhan was of course in charge of the punishment. He specifically told Wang Meng that the matter was big and complicated: "A family of three died overnight at home. The cruelty of the gangster's crime can be seen. He not only killed people, but also chopped off his limbs. And the head, openly placed in front of the gate. The initial clues traced by You Jiao are related to the local clan, and it is suspected to be a land dispute and a contract dispute."

Youjiao is equivalent to the policeman of later generations, specializing in managing law and order and arresting thieves.

What I have to say is that when the Han Kingdom recovered a land, it was necessary to measure the land and buy it back, but the government has government policies, and the big families and powerful people below also have their own ways to deal with it.

Isn't the government going to buy the land?The rich and powerful families transferred the land under their names to some people in advance. Those people may have been slaves of the family before, or they may have been recruited temporarily. Those lands are still in their hands.

The Han State was not ignorant of the methods of the big clans and tyrannical powers in various places. It may be due to incompetence, or even deliberate indulgence. After the local government resumed operations, it did not make any embarrassment for the re-registration of the previous land contracts.

Wang Meng asked again: "What do you think of Quanzhi?"

Huang Zhan replied: "The Patriarch of the Ge family came in person, found him, complained in every possible way, and even took out a hidden contract in order to clear up his grievances. He thought that someone deliberately framed him, but the case is definitely not that simple."

At this time, the contract does not need to be certified by the government to take effect. As long as the written clause has the signatures or pledges of both parties, it will be recognized. They are all extremely headaches, just because it is the mainstream to stick to one's own opinion, and there is no basis for judging the case because the contract is not recognized.

"Even the hidden contract?" Wang Meng is no stranger to similar contracts. They are nothing more than some clauses written by the parties. The text must be about the actual land owner certificate or agreement.He asked: "Who did the Ge family offend?"

"The job is already being investigated, and for the time being, no one has found any recent disputes between the Ge family." What Huang Zhan cares about is: "Who committed the crime, why did they blame the Ge family, and what is their purpose."

Wang Meng pondered for a while, and asked, "Who will report the crime after the incident?"

Originally, the victim's family died, and no case could be filed if no one reported to the government. This was the official method before the Han Dynasty.After all, what we are talking about now is that the people do not investigate the officials and do not investigate, which is a common practice.

Under the territory ruled by the Han Dynasty, no one reported to the government. As long as the government found out, the case could be filed, but compared with those who reported the case, they would be ranked behind in the case handling sequence.This is because the gap between ordinary people and public officials is too large, and there may be only one public official for thousands of people.

Regardless of the fact that the Han Dynasty arranged a large number of military retirees to transfer to local officials to become public officials, if you think about it, you must have a pavilion leader. Usually, ten pavilions are a li, and three to five li are a township. A county has at least one There are about ten townships, so how many public officials should there be?
Taking Nanpi County as an example, there are more than 7000 people in the county, but only about [-] people are responsible for local security.And there are more than [-] people because Nanpi County is the capital of Bohai County, and a county that is not the capital can pay around [-] yuan, which is considered too much.

Huang Zhan didn't think too much, and told the truth: "It was a neighbor of the murdered family, named Dahei. He claimed to have an appointment with the victim Muzi the next day, so he went to the victim's house early, and immediately reported to the pavilion chief when he found the corpse."

What I want to say is that the current situation of people living together, the number of people in one pavilion, and the current situation of scattered living are relatively common. Although two families are neighbors, they may be far away, but the houses in the city will appear concentrated.

The reason why Wang Meng asked was that the common people lived scattered. Considering that Qiangfu would only go down to investigate taxes, and Youjiao couldn’t hang around at any time, what happened could only be caused by the local pavilion chief. People who pass by by coincidence or go there on purpose will discover it at the first time.

"According to the investigation, Dahei and the victim Mu Zigu were contracted slaves of the Ge family, and they were freed after the restoration of the Dahan." Huang Zhan obviously made a lot of investigations in advance, and said: "Although it is nothing more than blood relatives to testify whether they are similar, but the two often meet. They made an appointment to go hunting in the mountains, and Dahei said that it was difficult to find any doubts if he kept the agreement."

Wang Meng asked: "Is the head of the pavilion in the county government office?"

Huang Zhan immediately replied: "Yes."

Wang Meng said, "Send him in."

The head of the pavilion is a man missing his right arm. He was assigned to a local post after retiring due to injury. After he entered, he saluted respectfully and stood up straight like a soldier, waiting to ask questions.

"When Dahei went to look for you, did he bring hunting gear?" Wang Meng thought for a moment, and added: "What was Dahei's behavior at that time, let me tell you one by one in detail."

The head of the pavilion didn't answer right away, but recalled it carefully before saying: "Dahei didn't bring any hunting gear when he found the job. When he arrived at the scene, he saw the hunting gear discarded on the ground. When he came, he looked terrified and yet Sad, I keep saying that it must be the Ge family who harmed Muzi himself, his mother, and his wife."

"Did Dahei pick up the hunting gear when he left?" Wang Meng paused for a moment, and when he got the answer, he asked again: "Did Dahei say that he would return the land contract to the Ge family?"

The head of the pavilion answered quickly this time: "There are indeed such soliloquies."

"Was it murmuring unintentionally, or did it on purpose?" Wang Meng felt that this question was very important, and said to the pavilion chief, "Think about it carefully, and then answer me."

The pavilion chief originally wanted to blurt it out, but after being mentioned, he could only recall and confirm it again and again, and finally said: "Reporting to the county, when Dahei found a job, he had been talking to himself constantly, and he kept mentioning it repeatedly along the way, and he still kept talking when he left Whisper."

Wang Meng looked at Huang Zhan and asked, "How many people secretly agreed with the contract that the head of the Ge family took out?"

This stumped Huang Zhan. He only glanced at a few copies at that time and could roughly remember the number of wooden rafts, but he couldn't give an exact number.

"It seems like a lot?" Wang Meng saw Huang Zhan nodding his head as if he was relieved of his heavy responsibility, and he probably had a guess about this case.He said: "Let me express my opinion."

The private distribution of land among rich and powerful families in various places is very common, and the people involved are also extremely wide. In addition to the explicit and secret control of non-blood relations, family division is also one of the means.After all, the state of Han limited how much land a family could have, not how much land each family in a clan could have.They only need to reduce the land held by the family on the surface, and they don't believe that the Han government can control so much as much as they control secretly.

Separation of big clans is actually something very welcome to the government of every country. Families do not separate and grow bigger and bigger is something that every generation of government wants to manage but is difficult to manage, whether it is privately distributed to people without blood or people with blood. , it can be said that Han officials just watched without interfering, and even secretly encouraged them.

Too many families do that, and there are many follow-up things. The reason is that it is easy to distribute, and what the people who get the land think is another matter.

"..., so I have two guesses now." Wang Meng would not do something like raising his hand and wringing his fingers, An Zuo said in an unhurried tone: "It may be that the person who got the land committed the crime and framed the Ge family to let the government It is an established fact that there is no threat in the name of reaching the land; the other possibility is that the Ge family is in crisis and commits a bloody murder to frighten everyone."

"Zhi..." Huang Zhan looked at Wang Meng with an admiring expression, and said bluntly, "Zhi is more inclined to the first possibility."

Pavilion chief?He was silent all the time when he was not questioned.

"If the contract presented by the Patriarch of the Ge family is not here, the county captain should go get it now." Wang Meng said to Huang Zhan, then looked at the pavilion chief: "You go back to the pavilion and don't make any noise to see who is different recently."

Naturally, the two left one after another, leaving Wang Meng sitting there alone looking in a daze?

It’s not that Wang Meng has any malicious prejudice against the people, it’s that he never underestimated the people’s desire for land. Although the Han State has a channel to award land with military merit, the army is not recruited unlimitedly, and those who can get land by enlisting in the army will always be a minority, then If you have the opportunity to take the land you hold as your own, don't doubt that they will have any scruples.

Nanpi County... and even most of the states and counties in the Han Kingdom today have not been included in the territory of the Han Kingdom for a long time, and the time for the New Deal to be implemented is even shorter. Most local officials, including Wang Meng, have long known about the land There will be many problems that have erupted. For Wang Meng, what happened in Xinpingli was too late.

The national policy of the Han Dynasty was to attack the local tyrants, and countless families were killed and exterminated for rebellion, but there were no obvious policies that benefited ordinary people, such as national policies such as free land sharing.It can be said that the amount of land held by the common people is very limited nowadays, and about [-]% of them are privately distributed by local rich, powerful, and aristocratic families.Regarding how to increase and equalize the amount of land held by the common people, the center has conducted related discussions more than once, and the occasional proposal to equalize the land without compensation was quickly overwhelmed by the wave of insisting on military merit.

How to let the people obtain their own land on the premise of paying is the most urgent thing for the magistrates in each place. After all, the magistrates want to make political achievements, besides education, isn't it just a consideration of taxation?Even if there is no hint from the center to privately distribute the land, the magistrates will definitely indulge in it, and the price is the follow-up troubles caused by the land dispute.

【Only awarding fields with military merits, when will more people own their own land? 】Wang Meng started from the perspective of a local official, but in fact he had no objections to the national policy of the Han Dynasty:【Military merit grants land, those who can get land are all from the military background, on the contrary, it is difficult for other people to have a way.If things go on like this, the military power will expand infinitely, who will check and balance? 】

Thinking about it, Wang Meng smiled wryly. He is a county magistrate now, and what he should worry about is the affairs of a county. Matters related to the overall strategic level of the country cannot be intervened by a county magistrate.

(End of this chapter)