Lu Ming

Chapter 347 Opening of the Port (thirteen)

After Zuo Hongtang picked up the deed on the table and took a closer look, this time he was really angry: "Master Yu, the ink is still wet, you must do countless things!"

The content on the paper was very simple: Zuo Shiqi agreed to an agreement of intent to rent warehouses and exchange land, with fingerprints on the outside.

At this time, Yu Bende asked with a smile: "Master, this black and white paper has been pressed with fingerprints, how can it be so countless?"

Zuo Hongtang slapped the paper on the table fiercely: "This shit is not a land deed. There is no public discussion within the clan, and it is impossible to buy and sell land in private. Sooner or later, the seventeenth will be beaten to death in the ancestral hall." Yes...Master Yu, you have crossed the line!"

……

From this moment on, clan power and imperial power were on the same page.

Traditional Chinese society is a social structure in which the three powers of "imperial power, religious power, and clan power" coexist.

The exercise of imperial power is political power at the national level, and the exercise of clan power is the power of local autonomy.The imperial power only reaches the county level, which is what the so-called "imperial power does not extend to the county".

The townships and villages below the county level are all clan and folk self-government. Only when the law and state public affairs are involved can the imperial power extend to the townships and villages.

Then, because people follow the traditional culture, the education, right and wrong, and moral judgment of the whole society can be completed by the religious authority who has mastered the culture-a stable triangle is formed in this way.

So the moment this thin yellow contract was thrown on the table today, Yu Bende, who represented the imperial power, was tantamount to a formal confrontation with Zuo Hongtang, who represented the clan power.

In theory, this contract represents an ambiguity: Both parties have reasons.

For the clan of the Ming Dynasty where "imperial power does not come down to the county", everything about Zuo Shiqi, including his property and his life, has the right to settle it privately - this has been done for thousands of years, "Ministry Don’t raise officials, don’t prosecute.” Clans are justifiable to use family law to kill people, and there is no need to report to the government, let alone the small amount of land.

This is why Zuo Hongtang attacked Yu Bende for "fishing beyond the border": Yu Shuban broke the traditional tacit understanding between the two parties.

And the reason why Zuo Shiqi was not dealt with ruthlessly at the beginning was because the elder council of the Zuo family underestimated the seriousness of this matter: handing over Zuo Shiqi's land deed to his elder brother and sister-in-law for safekeeping. It seems that it is enough, there is no need to silence it.

After all, if you really want to kill someone, you need a reason. They just tried to sell the land, and they didn't kill someone while sleeping with their sister-in-law.

But that's where things go wrong.The Zuo family didn't have sufficient sources of information, so they didn't know the purpose and background of Yu Bende and his group. They didn't expect that the opponent's appetite was actually bigger than the sky, and they came for the Zuo family.

The sale of Zuo Shiqi's land just gave Yu Bende an excuse and opportunity to intervene - in fact, if he had asked the patriarchal clan to bury Zuo Shiqi privately yesterday, Yu Bende would not be able to use his strength today.

For Yu Bende, since Zuo Shiqi is still alive, then this matter is easy to handle: he came to the door in person today, and it was easy to make sense of Zuo Shiqi lying on the bed, full of resentment, and asked him to press handprint.

Note that this contract is actually just a "Letter of Intent", which states that Zuo Shiqi agrees to sell his land to the renter.As for the most critical land deed itself, it is still in the hands of Zuo Shiqi's brother and sister-in-law, and Yu Bende needs to handle it himself.

However, this is enough, Yu Bende just needs an opportunity to intervene openly.Now Zuo Shiqi's land sale has become an "official matter" under the witness of his "official servant", and an official matter means that this dispute can be "reasoned" in the lobby of the county government.

So now Yu Bende is eager for the Zuo family to kill Zuo Shiqi again, so that he can make a big mess of this matter - the premise of "the people don't raise officials and don't investigate" is that there is a tacit understanding between the two parties, and once the tacit understanding is broken by the government, they must be held accountable For a certain case, regardless of the others, it is necessary for the parties involved to go to court.

……

These truths sound long, but they can be understood in an instant on both sides of the confrontation.

After listening to Zuo Hongtang's explanation, Yu Bende smiled and pointed at the piece of paper on the table with his finger, and then he asked a murderous sentence: "Whether Zuo Shiqi is Shentang or alive, the villain can't control that much. But this person sued his brother and sister-in-law for conspiring to seize the family property and forcibly demanded the land deed, so it seems that this is true?"

Of course Zuo Hongtang understood the meaning of this old dog: the surname Yu wanted to make things worse and let the public to intervene.In the words of later generations, it is Yu Bende who wants to draw his opponent into his familiar environment, and then defeat him with rich experience.

"There is absolutely no such thing!" Zuo Hongtang instinctively opened his mouth to deny.

"Hehehe" Yu Bende, who was dressed in official clothes and pretended to be a tiger, obviously had the upper hand at this moment, even though he was just an old man who came to Zuo's house alone: ​​"Since there is no such thing, then who owns the title deed of Zuo Shiqiu?"

"This..." Zuo Hongtang realized that he had fallen into a trap.

No matter what answer he gives now, the opponent can use Zuo Shiqi's confession and contract to make an attack and bring the matter to the judicial process.For example, Zuo Shiqi's brother and sister-in-law were sent to the county government to explain the situation by issuing a "ticket".

And how can a rural family like the Zuo family compete with others in the county government?

In fact, it's not that simple at all.With the household book of the county government acting as a witness, referee and team member in person, not to mention that the brother and sister-in-law did take the title deed in full view, even if they didn't take it, they would be blamed countless times if they entered it.If it doesn't work, it can be connected to other members of the Zuo family.

The checkpoint before this is already difficult: in this era, the witnesses summoned are all detained in the "detention hall" privately set up by the police. The brother and sister-in-law are already finished.

This is the reason why small people and small households are afraid of the government: no matter whether they win or lose, they have to shed a layer of skin if they don't die.

...It was originally a simple clan matter, but now it is caught by the opponent.Realizing that no matter what, he couldn't avoid the fact that the other party used the advantage of the public to entangle this point, Zuo Hongtang stopped following Yu Bende's train of thought.

He first thought about it quietly for a while, then picked up the tea bowl and took a sip, and then asked in a gentle tone: "Master Yu, you can't let go of a small matter, you really want to buy the Zuo family's land, right? "

"Of course." After wandering around for a long time, Yu Bende finally led his opponent's thinking on the right track. When he saw that his face was serious, he stared at Zuo Hongtang coldly and said, "You don't really think that I came to Zuo's house, just For Zuoshiqi Naluoshizi's forty mu of land?"

"Master Yu, with so many people in Zuojiazhuang, where can they go to earn a living after selling the land?" Zuo Hongtang still doesn't believe that Yu Bende came to swallow up the whole village's land, so he still doesn't really believe it at this time.

"Hehe, let me tell you the truth from Mr. Zuo, there will be a large studio here in the future." Yu Bende put on a smile again at this time, and began to describe the company's vision to someone: "If you change land in the village, you can go to the south to continue Farming. Those who don’t want to farm can also work in the workshop, and they will always have something to eat.”

Zuo Hongtang suddenly stood up from his chair.A certain person finally understood now that he didn't come here to play with him, but really had a plan to uproot the Zuo family: "Yu, you are really going to drive thousands of members of my Zuo family to death!" No?"

At this time, Yu Bende also stood up slowly: "Master Zuo, this place is bound to be acquired. Compared with the one behind me, your Zuo family is really not enough. Please listen to my old advice: know the current affairs Those who are outstanding, maybe after everyone sells the land, life will be better?"

How could Zuo Hongtang entrust his family's fate to this old man's words?Seriously, he already thought he had seen through Yu Bende's tricks: "Fart! My Zuo family lives here for generations, how can I just leave? Hmph, Yu, I don't care who the master behind you is. If you want to seek land, follow me first." Let’s step over the corpses of thousands of members of the Zuo family!”

After cursing with the halberd finger, Zuo Hongtang tossed his sleeves, turned his back, and said angrily, "It's okay to leave!"

Standing there, Yu Bende couldn't help sighing: After all, we have come to this step.So he hastily clasped his fists together and turned to leave.

……

The moment Yu Bende came out from the left door, the scene entered the main stage.Both sides have already understood the opponent's purpose and ideas at this moment, and the rest is only a cold competition of strength.

The first scene of the main drama came very quickly: after Zuo Shiqi lay on the bed for a day, he was happily helped to the Land Acquisition Office and took his land deed on the table.

And Yu Bende, who was sitting behind the table, saw Zuo Shiqi taking out the land deed, and couldn't help but sneered a few times: "Okay, very good, come here, and go through the formalities for Brother Zuo."

He learned from Zuo Shiqi's mouth that the Zuo family urgently convened a senate meeting. At the meeting, Zuo Shiqi's land deed was returned, and he was also removed from the Zuo family...

So Zuo Shiqi is purely a loner.Wanting to be the God of Gamblers, he now intends to completely let himself go and leave Zuojia Village, where the bad guys are entrenched.

So Yu Bende finally became a good man again: he bought the rooms of Zuo Shiqi with silver.

After sending the God of Gamblers away, the Land Acquisition Office, aware that the Zuo family had begun to shrink their defenses, first waited in a calm manner for a few days.After all the retail investors who were willing to sell the land were settled, another news was announced in the village: for those who sell the land now, an additional two taels of silver will be added to the original standard per mu.

After this news came out, even a fool would settle accounts: as long as you sell the land at home, even if you go to a neighboring village to buy another land of the same size, you can still save a lot of money afterwards.These years, no one's family is well-off. With this money, the overwhelming debts and exorbitant taxes can be solved!

Then there was another wave of land sales, this time involving almost all the remaining retail investors in the village.

Most importantly, another Zuo family came to the door with the title deed.

Chapter 348 Opening of Port ([-])

The story of the breach tells us that when the pressure reaches a certain level, there will always be some weak link that will burst first.

Although the surrounding areas of Gaoqiao were lucky last year, and they did not suffer from the horrible tidal disaster that drowned tens of thousands of people at one time in the Qiantang River Basin, the low temperature during the Little Ice Age was universal, and no one could escape it.

The global low temperature is not as simple as wearing more clothes.For agricultural production, the most obvious expression of climate anomalies is the unevenness of drought and flooding: the warm and humid air flow is stagnated by the low temperature, and the fluidity is insufficient, so droughts and floods alternately erupt everywhere.The rain will either not come for several months at all, or it will fall in the form of heavy rain or even hail.

This alternation of drought and flood was devastating to agriculture in the Middle Ages.In the past 1628, the above scenarios appeared to varying degrees throughout the Jiangnan region.

So, the life of the Zuo family is actually not easy.Since last year, Chongzhen Liaoshang has sent an additional amount of 38 taels in Nanzhili. Exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes are accompanied by unfavorable wind and rain, which makes it even more difficult for farmers who are already burdened with heavy burdens.Needless to say, the tenants, even the lives of many rich peasants and small landlords are already spinning on thin ice.

In this situation, it is difficult for ordinary people who see huge benefits in front of them to restrain them with morality and patriarchal law.In the face of the dimensionality reduction blow of bankruptcy and loss of land, all obstacles began to appear powerless.

So immediately after the Land Acquisition Office announced the latest purchase price, insiders from the Zuo family were eager to make a move.

At the beginning, some people just "closely watched" and did not put the land sale into action.However, after the Land Acquisition Office posted the latest Weibo, someone sneaked in with the land deed to sign the contract that night.

The content of this microblog is: The preferential reward activity only lasts for seven days, and there is no waiting for expiration.

The poor people in the 17th century did not have rich experience in dealing with demolition companies, so they were easily tricked, and they were led by the nose when they were aroused by surprise.

The three self-employed households from the Zuo family who came to sell their land were all rich peasants.Like Zuo Shiqi before, they all belonged to the kind of people who didn't have much say in the clan.

They also need to work hard in the fields on weekdays, and they are also overwhelmed by various taxes.In fact, these few are a little bit better than the sharecroppers and self-cultivators. They just have more fields that are rented out in the family-tenant rich peasants.

In fact, these three people don't have much land, and the total amount is less than 100 mu.However, the Land Expropriation Office rushed to complete the formalities for them as soon as possible, because they represented great significance: Zuo Shiqiu was considered a special case of gamblers, and these three families had pried open a large crack in the iron plate of Zuo's clan.

Zuo Hongtang and his council of elders really sat down.

This time they can't put on the posture of three trials.After all, the three people who sold the land were all dutiful heads of the family, and they didn't have any bad deeds of gambling on weekdays.So even the Suzerain couldn't deprive them of their property by inciting public anger like they did with Zuo Shiqi... So they can only reason.

However, reasoning is not so easy.The three of them did not kill people, and did not break the law—the law of the Ming Dynasty did not stipulate that land could only be sold to members of the same clan.

As for the patriarchal clan... The family has already made up their minds to sell the land deed, and the patriarchal clan that is customary will not be very effective at this time.Is it possible that all three of them have sunk into the pond?That's impossible: not to mention that the teacher is unknown, this is the head of the family with a large number of sons and nephews.They are all related relatives, and it is impossible for the Council of Elders to call on the clansmen to be violent against so many people.

What made Zuo Hongtang unable to move even more was that he could feel the cold gaze of an old official behind him at any time.He had a premonition: if the family got any tricks on that juncture at this juncture, the arresters might come to him the next day.

So now he is really in a state of embarrassment: these three people can't fight or scold, he can only watch them sell the land and take their family to live a good life.And this time he couldn't even get rid of the family: there are more than 20 people in three families, if this is done, the Zuo family will have no one.So in the end Zuo Hongtang could only pinch his nose and let the three families leave, as if the clan had spread out.

The results of the anticlimactic parliament completely exposed the weakness of the traditional clan.

For traditional clans that live together and are always prepared to resist natural and man-made disasters, in fact, the greater the pressure, the more united and closely connected they are.

This model worked for the ancient ruling class who only plundered and plundered: if someone wants to seize the land of the clan, it will lead to the resistance of all the clans who share the same hatred.

However, when this traditional survival mode encountered ideas from later generations, it didn't work for the first time.Because everyone in Zuojia Village, including Zuo Hongtang himself, had to admit that the people from the Land Expropriation Office did not come here to steal.

Adhering to the standard entrepreneurial philosophy of later generations, "If you want to cut leeks, you must first burn money", the people from across the world have no psychological pressure at all on buying land with money, which is relatively stupid in the eyes of the ancients.

We must know that in later generations, if a new industry such as food delivery takes over the country, if it burns less than [-] billion a year at the beginning, it will be embarrassing to say hello to people when going out.

Of course, after the country is conquered, you can enjoy cutting leeks.Take a look at how Meituan's delivery fees have risen now.

Therefore, in the face of a purchase price far exceeding the surrounding land prices, the members of the Zuo clan could not raise their desire to fight.You know, people from neighboring villages have already come to inquire about it with land deeds, just because someone here has paid a high price to take over the land.Some people came to inquire if there was a gold mine buried underground in Zuojia Village...

This is the root cause of Zuo Hongtang's passive response all the time: he couldn't portray a group of seemingly stupid money masters as heinous villains, so as to call on the tribe to unite and resolutely resist everything related to the land expropriation office.No one is blind, and those who sell land in the clan voted with their feet for crossing the Congregation.

In the seven days after the three people from the Zuo family sold their land, another group of people rushed to sell their land to the land acquisition office one after another before the deadline came.

By this time, the situation became quite clear: almost all owner farmers and rich peasants were wiped out by the land expropriation office, and all of them moved out of Zuojia Village.

Among those who remained, the class status was already clearly divided: a large number of tenant farmers and a few large landlords.

Shareholders are the most numerous group of people in the village.Although they share the same surname as Zuo, they are complete proletarians, the bottom of society, and professional melon eaters—just like the workers of later generations, whether the factory boss changes or not has little effect on them, anyway, they still have to do the same thing every day live.

In ancient times, the ownership and management rights of cultivated land were separated.Landlords hold title, and in most cases tenant farmers hold management rights.In other words, the landlord actually has no right to specify the types of crops.This is what the so-called "field bone" and "field skin" are talking about.

Under such circumstances, when the tenant farmers in Zuojia Village found out that the new boss was doing business as usual, no one got involved in the land expropriation anymore... Now is the time when spring sowing and farming are busy, and the struggle between the lords and the poor have nothing to do with it. Kung fu.

Of course, all this is just a superficiality: it's not that the tenants are ignored, but the main reason is that the new boss is still unable to deal with them.

……

Now, everything is clear.After the land expropriation office took more than half a month to clear out the idlers, self-cultivated farmers, and rich peasants in the village, the big landowners were exposed like light bulbs.

The days that followed were not as easy as before.Stubborn big landlords would never sell their land no matter what, so it was time for a tough job.

First, a group of people entered Zuojia Village.There are action team members under Xiong Dao's command, and there are food workers under Yu Bende's command, there are a total of 100 people.

Grain poors are civil servants who go to the countryside to collect taxes during the two tax seasons of summer and autumn every year.However, they are said to be civil servants, but in fact most of these people are unemployed white servants, hooligans and rascals... the legendary temporary workers.

As the head of the county government office, Yu Bende is naturally the natural leader of the grain messengers.So when these people were in place, early the next morning, a paddy field three miles southeast of Zuojia Village was surrounded by grain messengers.

This paddy field is about [-] mu, and it is located at the bend of a small river, which is an excellent irrigated land.Several members of the Zuo family who were working in the fields were also arrested.

After hearing the news, Zuo Hongtang rushed to the scene of the incident with his staff.

"Master Yu, what do you mean?"

"What do you mean? These unscrupulous people are so bold that they dare not pay the tax. Naturally, they will be taken back to the county government and punished according to the law!"

A red-faced man standing next to Zuo Hongtang heard the words and replied loudly: "Nonsense! My Zuo family's food and tax are paid every year, so how can we resist the tax?"

…Generally speaking, when paying taxes in villages and villages every year, some "grain households" are responsible for collecting tax and grain from the small people first, and then handing over the grain to the grain poor.

These food households are either big local households, or bullies and murderers.In short, they are all people who are "capable" of collecting taxes and benefiting from it.

And the person in Zuojia Village who has been responsible for all the food and taxes over the years is this red-faced man named Zuo Hongwu.He is the second wife of Zuo's family, and is of the same generation as Zuo Hongtang, with a local hat on his head.

After hearing Zuo Hongwu's words, Yu Bende shook his head with a smile: "Hehe, the words are true. But your tax covers [-] mu of registered land, and there is tax and grain for this field ?”

When Yu Bende said this, he stretched out a finger and slowly pointed to his feet.

"This..." The red-faced man suddenly became tongue-tied and speechless.

Yes, this piece of land at the creek is a legendary hidden field.

Chapter 349 Opening of Port (fifteen)

As early as the Hongwu period when Zhu Yuanzhang founded the country, the imperial court formally implemented the existing fish scale book system in the Song Dynasty because of the need to clear the land of the whole country.

The fish scale book is the land register.

After arranging and connecting houses, forests, ponds, and fields in order, and marking the corresponding area, soil quality, barrenness, etc., the land is fixed and becomes a general book of folk fields.It has this name because the plots of fields look like fish scales.

In the 26th year of Hongwu, the total number of acres of land in the world after verification was more than 850 million hectares.In this process, the appearance of the fish scale books enabled the imperial court to find out the land rights and clear up the concealment to a considerable extent.In terms of the management level at that time, the fish scale book was a huge progress in the history of land administration.

However, feudal society is like this, debut is the pinnacle, after that, one crab is not as good as one crab.

With the passage of time, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, due to heavy taxes, people fled one after another, coupled with the land changing hands over the years, concealment and other reasons, the Fish Scale Book has actually become chaotic and inaccurate.

So in the 15th year of Hongzhi, there were only more than 420 million hectares of land registered in the country; in just one hundred and nine years, the land used by the country for taxation was reduced by half... This is really a joke in the world , the field actually grew feet, probably installed propellers and ran to Jupiter.