New Shun 1730

Overall, some officials' comments on the businessmen's annexation of land are quite interesting, saying they are "increasingly thinking of landlords."

In fact, the officials in the imperial court are not fools. They can still distinguish the difference between ownership and use rights.

That's why I said in a very ironic way that "I am beginning to have the thoughts of a landlord." You have just contracted the right to use it, so you are worthy of having the thoughts of a landlord?

I understand everything.

Nothing can be done.

This is the current situation of Dashun at this time.

It can't be done according to the law.

A bunch of people are behind the scenes to take the moral high ground.

This is the difficulty of salt cultivation in northern Jiangsu at this time.

Dashun law, salt law, traditional law, customary law, Confucian morality, and imperial will, these things are mixed together and conflict with each other, which is extremely sour.

Historically, when something similar happened in Jiangsu, they chose Hexini and returned two-thirds of the land to the salt households, allowing the land reclamation company to spend a lot of money and finally get one-third.

Liu Yu made up his mind and would not retreat at all, let alone two-thirds.

If this comes up, it will be muddy. How long will it last for these 40,000 square miles of cotton fields? Which investor in the future would dare to invest money in land reclamation?

A few days later, the allotted time came.

The dealer, who had always had trouble with the reclamation company, was waiting there early.

Since Liu Yu believed that this matter could not be resolved normally and could not be justified, he put on the biggest official airs since he became the Duke of the country.

The guard of honor was laid out and the drums were playing. In addition, he was originally leading troops, so this time he also came with troops.

The ceremonial majesty of the court officials, coupled with the murderous aura of the soldiers, suddenly brought out the aura of a feudal aristocrat, making these businessmen more clearly aware of what "the distinction between high and low" is and what "inequality" means. ", what is the status hierarchy of feudal society.

The merchants kept kneeling there until Liu Yu, Lin Min and others were seated, and then they hurriedly bowed and bowed.

Liu Yu did not laugh as usual, but pretended to ask: "Why are you here?"

These dealers really don't know what to say.

Knowing that Liu Yu was going to get some personal benefits, he forced them to sell the contract, take the money and get out, and never stay here again.

But if we directly talk about the private relationship at this time, wouldn’t we be asking for trouble?

No one spoke for a long time.

Fortunately, someone from the Reclamation Company came forward and said, "Master Hui Guoguo and Lord Jiedushi. They are all local merchants and they are here to discuss the sale of the land with our company."

Liu Yu hummed and immediately retorted: "Sell? How can this grassland be yours? If it's not yours, how can you sell it? Tomorrow you can set up a stick in the middle of the river and say that the river is yours. Why, you can also sell the river?"

The merchants' faces turned pale with fright, and Liu Yu said again: "You don't understand the law. I am tolerant, but the matter must be explained clearly."

"This reclamation company has the right to use the land leased from the imperial court. The money they give you is just unemployment compensation."

"If you sell it, you won't mention it in the future."

The dealer, who was already shaking like chaff, felt relieved. For a moment, he even felt that the rumors were not credible. This prince seemed to be easy to talk to, and it was not like he could kill so many people at once.

But with this change in his mind, Liu Yu said again: "Are all the receipts complete?"

"You need to have a receipt from the dealer, and you also need to have proof of payment. Without these, it will be a lot of trouble in the future, and the lawsuit will be unclear."

This time, a smarter dealer finally came to his senses and hurriedly raised the dense contracts he was carrying above his head.

The entourage brought these contracts to Liu Yu. Liu Yu looked at them and handed them to Lin Min next to him.

Lin Min looked at these contracts. He himself was the Lianghuai Salt Envoy, an authentic professional counterpart.

As soon as I looked at these contracts, I knew that this was going to be troublesome.

In the hands of these merchants, not only do they have coupons, but they also have stamps of completion of classes over the years.

The function of receiving coupons is as follows:

Under the previous system, salt households were state serfs. With the coupons, salt households could receive utensils such as frying pans. In these days, iron was so expensive that small farmers could not afford such things. There are also some stoves, ash pits, pools, piers, etc. built by the imperial court.

These things belong to the imperial court.

As serfs of the imperial court, Shiotou had the right to use these things.

As an obligation, they must ensure that the salt produced in the coupons must be sold in a fixed market and cannot be sold privately.

The coupons in the hands of market merchants make the market merchants' status similar to that of serf contractors.

They hired serfs, one set of stoves and ash pits for each serf.

The dealer hires people to do these jobs and buys them status, but the vouchers are in the hands of the dealer.

With this in hand, in fact, legally speaking, these kitchen households and kitchen men have actually lost and have long lost everything.

Another thing is that there are some things that cannot be explained clearly upon closer inspection.

The salt reform in the forty-fifth year of Wanli era made salt no longer enter official warehouses, and salt merchants acted as intermediaries.

The attitude of the court, how should I put it, is that as long as the money can be collected, it will be fine and it will turn a blind eye.

This means that several large items are actually provided by merchants.

For example, an iron plate has four corners and one corner weighs five thousand kilograms. Is that made by ordinary people?

Forty-five years after Wanli, in essence, the merchants reported to the superiors, the superiors approved, and the merchants came to build it. This is a very large salt boiling tool, also to prevent illegal salt production. The bigger it is, the easier it is to check.

From that time on, in fact, merchants were already allowed to enter the market by default. The previous disputes in Dashun were just that things had reached a point where they could no longer pretend to be ignorant, and they had to establish a name and make it legitimate.

Another example is the mortgage debt repayment agreement in these contracts.

Whether it is Lin Min or the local officials, they all understand.

[If the salt is pledged, it is not allowed by the law].

They can all be officials, but they can't tell the difference between ownership and use rights? What does it mean that ownership can be sold but use rights cannot be sold in this way?

If it is really handled according to the salt law, it is all illegal.

But most of the time, it is tacitly accepted.

Because if you rule that this is illegal today, the salt households in Huainan will come to ask for it the next day, saying that what they sold was illegal, and ask the adults to return these grass ponds to them.

The salt officials all understand that with Dashun's grassroots management and administrative capabilities, it will take less than three years to make the merchants withdraw and repeat the old situation of having salt but no salt.

From the side, the court has no ability to prepare for a rainy day.

It is precisely because the salt production controlled by the merchants after entering the market has reached a very high amount.

That is why there is a dispute between the two factions, whether to continue to maintain the strict stove household system of the previous dynasty, or to legally recognize the merchants' entry into the market to make it legitimate.

Lin Min took a quick look at these bills and knew in his heart that once these bills were collected, the reclamation company could directly drive away all the salt households.

But from the perspective of the Salt Law, it is illegal for merchants to collect debts from the grass pond as usury.

But the problem is that the grass pond collected by the merchants has paid the discount tax on time, and has been paid for more than ten years.

In this situation, even if the future generations are knowledgeable, as long as they are not law students, it is estimated that it is difficult to understand.

Take the grass pond for example, the Salt Law stipulates that it cannot be sold.

In fact, the merchants bought it by lending and collecting debts - only a legal annual interest rate of 36% is required, assuming that this usury is not illegal.

And the officials tacitly agreed to this transaction and recognized that the contract was valid.

Then the merchants paid taxes for more than ten years.

Now, in theory, the court wants to take back the right to use the land. The reclamation company has paid the money to buy the land from the court and obtained the right to use the land from the court, the owner of the land.

The additional money paid is compensation for the users.

Now, the merchants who bought the grass land illegally and paid taxes all year round agreed to the compensation. However, the salt households disagreed.

So, even if the law of the future is used, how should this matter be judged?

Therefore, after the chaos, how should this matter be judged now actually depends on the officials.

The officials have the final decision and interpretation power.

And if it depends on the officials, how can the officials judge when he, the governor of Jiangsu, and Liu Yu, the Duke of the current dynasty, sit here?

Pushing it further, more troublesome things are still to come.

Now, if the market merchants and the reclamation company signed a contract privately, what does it mean?

It means that those salt households will not get a penny.

It is impossible to give them a penny.

The reclamation company spent money to buy the land, but it was the market merchants who collected the money. Then, will the reclamation company give those salt households another sum of money?

He looked at them with a sad face for a while, and Liu Yu asked: "Lord Lin, do you think these contracts and tax payment certificates can allow the reclamation company to directly take over the land?"

Lin Min smiled bitterly in his heart, knowing that he was in trouble.

This matter directly involved the entire Huainan salt merchants, and the Huainan salt merchants had pens in their hands.

What Liu Yu wanted to abolish was the Huainan salt industry.

Then the pens of the salt merchants would sympathize with the suffering of the salt households at this time, even though they would not even look at them before.

If he wanted to execute the emperor's will, it meant breaking up directly with the old salt merchant system and the gentry class in Huai'an and Yangzhou.

The other side was directly standing on the moral high ground, and he would definitely not be accused of seizing the people's property, competing with the people for profits, and depriving the people of their property.

"Duke, these contracts and bills are basically all there. But here, for example, the grass marsh mortgage. How can you say it, it is not in accordance with the rules of the salt law?"

"But the officials have already stamped it, and this..."

He hesitated and did not express his opinion. Liu Yu took a few contracts and said to the market merchants below: "Since you have sold the contracts, you know what the consequences are, right?"

"It is inconvenient to take cash. The reclamation company will directly issue you a bill. You can go to Songjiang Prefecture to get the money and stay here."

"Otherwise, I think these salt households will eat your flesh and peel your skin."

"To put it bluntly, this property is neither yours nor the salt households', but more like a collective. You sold the collective land and took the money and ran away. How can the salt households not hate you?"

Although there was no concept of collective property at that time, in fact, this matter was indeed similar to a certain extent. After all, the salt households relied on these means of production to survive, and these means of production did not belong to these market merchants.

Once the market merchants sold the contracts, they took the money and left. Who would pay the salt households?

Although, in theory, after the reclamation company got these bills, Liu Yu could directly learn from the enclosure movement and send the army to drive away the people.

However, the people of Dashun are not as easy to bully as the British farmers.

Moreover, this time, the people who opposed the reform were the biggest supporters behind these salt households. Once something big happened, they would definitely move.

If you want to deal with these salt households, these bills and contracts alone are not enough.

If you really collect the bills directly and "drive people away according to the law", then any place where the market merchants occupy a large area of ​​grass will be completely messed up.

This is equivalent to leaving some salt households with nothing overnight.

If you give them a sum of money as compensation, this matter may be resolved without too much bloodshed. If you really don't give them a penny, no one can accept it.

Being a small producer, although you are poor, at least you still have your own industry. Overnight, from a small producer, you become a pure proletarian, without a penny of compensation. Who can accept it?

After all, we still have to set an example here and solve it. In the future, local officials will also be able to handle similar incidents conveniently, so that they don't even know how to judge.

"Let's put it this way. You businessmen who rented out the Caodang, don't leave for now. Stay here and don't move. If I'm safe, you'll be safe too."

"People from the reclamation company, go and tell those salt households that you're going to act according to the law and the contract, and order them to move out within two months."

"Don't get into a conflict with them, just tell them that their Caodang contracts have been obtained. After that, withdraw quickly. Workers from all over the country should only work nearby these days and not go far away."

"Don't get into a conflict, just tell them first."