I am the county magistrate in Daming

With the help of Wu Tingyun, the counting of the field books became much smoother. In just one morning, they counted two field books and collected almost [-] mu of land.

Mu Qingtian put down his pen, his expression serious.

"More than five hundred acres, eighty percent of them are private fields, which belong to Zhang Fu's name."

"The rent of private land is heavy, and the tax of official land is heavy." Wu Tingyun reminded Mu Qingtian from the side.

At the beginning of Tai/Zu Li, he hated the "Da/Zhou/Guo" headed by Zhang Shicheng very much, and ordered the confiscation of the family properties and land of its members, and returned them to the government, which was called "no official land".In addition, there are old official land left by the Song and Yuan dynasties, all of which are owned by the Ming officials.

Among them, Suzhou Prefecture confiscated the most official land, totaling more than 380 million mu, which were basically related to the "big/zhou/country".Such a large amount of official land was all divided into the jurisdiction of the counties in Suzhou Prefecture, and then distributed to the townships through the county government, and each Lili was responsible for collecting land taxes.

Tai/zu was born in a poor peasant, and knew the hardships of the people well.In order to improve people's livelihood, the tax on the people's land was deliberately reduced, three liters, three in one, and five scoops per mu.The so-called "official fields" in Suzhou Prefecture, Songzhu Prefecture and other places are "criminal fields" in the eyes of the Tai/Zu, so the tax is extremely heavy. No official fields have one bucket and two liters per mu, and ordinary official fields have five liters and three in five. Spoon.

Although this move reduced farmers' taxes, a lot of land was still in the hands of powerful landlords at that time, and the common people had to pay high rents to the landlords in order to farm.In order to solve this problem, Tai/Zu also ordered that the tax on re-rented land be raised to eight liters, five in one, and five spoonfuls.

According to the old land records, at least one-third of the land in Zimingli is official land, and at least a hundred stone land tax needs to be collected, which still does not include the amount of private land tax.But as far as Wu Tingyun knew, the quarterly taxes paid by Zimingli had never reached this amount.

"Based on this, Zhang Fu is really 'making money every day'." Mu Qingtian sighed.He has seen greedy people before, but he has never seen such greedy people. If he doesn't check carefully, he won't find the fault at all.

Zhang Fu had told him a long time ago that the people in Zimingli were unwilling to farm, so Lizheng put all these fields under his name when he took office, and he hired people to cultivate them.But in this way, there was an extra rental fee for no reason, which went directly into Zhang Fu's pocket.

Wu Tingyun glanced at Mu Qingtian unobtrusively, and found that what he wrote on the paper were still those incomprehensible ghost symbols.But this time he has been standing beside Mu Qingtian, and Mu Qingtian's every move has not escaped his eyes.

Mu Qingtian intentionally avoided Wu Tingyun when writing, and didn't want him to find out that he was writing Arabic numerals that had not been popularized in the Ming Dynasty and simplified characters that only appeared in modern times.But unfortunately, he didn't know that Wu Tingyun's motive for staying by his side was impure.

Wu Tingyun found that when he read numbers, Mu Qingtian would add a few symbols on the bottom of the paper.He also noticed that when he read "one", Mu Qingtian would write a "1".This symbol is somewhat similar to "one", but it is upside down.

"What do you think the adults should do?" Wu Tingyun asked.

Mu Qingtian leaned back on the back of the chair, stared blankly at the beams in a daze, and sighed, "How about it..."

Regardless of whether the people in Zimingli are willing to farm or not, he must return the land to the farmers, and then change his mind.But he was just a newcomer, and he was just a small Lizheng. Even with the support of the Mu Mansion behind him, he was still far away from the emperor, and he couldn't compare with a local snake like Zhang Fu.

Head-to-head is not enough, and the dog will jump over the wall in a hurry, causing death.He had to find a way to get Zhang Fu to hand over the land willingly.

Mu Qingtian's sigh made Wu Tingyun mistakenly think that he was afraid of Zhang Fu, and didn't want to care about the mess left by Li Canshi, so he just let it go.

"Why don't we hold a 'vegetable feast' first!"

"what?!"

Land is not in a hurry, but there are only seven days left for his novice task, and he must get a cabbage as soon as possible.It is a bit unreasonable to snatch it from the people in Zimingli, so Zhang Fu can only let Zhang Fu do a bloodletting!

Mu Qingtian ordered Fubao Fuyuan and Yaoqin to knock on the door from door to door, informing him of the news of the "Vegetable Appreciation Banquet", so that those who were interested in attending would prepare a cabbage and come here on time seven days later.Of course, people who don't plan to participate can also go to the banquet, and they will serve as judges to select which cabbage wins.

As for the money for the banquet, of course, Mu Qingtian paid for it himself - he searched the warehouse for a few pieces of silver left by Li Canshi, which happened to come in handy.

As soon as the news of the "Vegetable Banquet" came out, it caused a thousand waves with one stone.Every household is discussing this matter, without exception, they are dissatisfied, but they are very excited about the free banquet.

"Good! Good!" After Zhang Fu got the news of the vegetable feast from the housekeeper Nian Shun, he applauded happily.

Sure enough, he saw the right person, this Mu Qingtian and Li Canshi are both the same kind.

"Go, take out the emerald cabbage from the warehouse." Zhang Fu ordered.

"Master, isn't it a bit too expensive?" Nian Shun asked cautiously.

This emerald cabbage was bought by Zhang Fu at a huge price. It was originally intended to be given to the man in the court, but the county magistrate of Chongming County returned it to him after reading it, saying that it was not worthy of the man.Helpless, Zhang Fu could only admit that he had suffered a dumb loss, and put the jadeite cabbage in the warehouse to shed dust.

Zhang Fu also felt pain in the flesh, but for the sake of a comfortable life in the future, he also went all out.

"How dare you talk back! You are the master and I am the master!" Zhang Fu looked at Nian Shun, his eyes almost popping out.

"Everything in this warehouse is mine, when will it be your turn to talk!"

"Master, calm down, I know my mistake, master, calm down!" Nian Shun was so frightened that he knelt down on the ground and kept kowtowing, his forehead turned red after a while.

"Go away!"

Compared to Zhang's house, which is flying around like dogs and dogs, Li □□ is calm.

"Tingyun? Tingyun? Why are you ignoring me?" Mu Qingtian asked as he trotted after Wu Tingyun's ass.

He chased from the lobby to the study room, and then from the study room to the latrine. Wu Tingyun acted as if he hadn't seen him, just walking on his own.

"My lord, do you want to follow here too?" Wu Tingyun turned around with a frosty face.

He should have directly learned about Mu Qingtian's life a few days ago, and then personally pick a person who has passed the test of knowledge and conduct to be the leader of the Ming Dynasty.What a "vegetable feast" is ridiculous!The people are still living in dire straits, but he only cares about having fun, how can he be called a "parent official"!

"Go in, hey, I'll wait for you outside." Mu Qingtian scratched his head embarrassingly, and let Wu Tingyun open the toilet door.

For some reason, he always felt that Tingyun didn't seem very happy these days, and he didn't remind him when he was reading the field book, and he didn't talk to him.

Mu Qingtian couldn't figure out where he had offended this strong man, so he could only pester him and try to make himself look more sincere.

"Oh, it's hard to be an official anywhere." Mu Qingtian squatted at the toilet and let out a long sigh.

Wu Tingyun heard Mu Qingtian's voice from inside, his hands trembled, and he urinated crookedly... Looking at the wet toes of his shoes, Wu Tingyun felt that it was time to kill Mu Qingtian quietly.

The system reappeared three days before the Vegetable Appreciation Banquet.

[There are still three days before the novice task deadline, please work hard. 】

Mu Qingtian was still sitting on the stone bench outside the small courtyard looking at the stars, but was startled by the sudden system sound.

"System, let's discuss something. Can you make a ringtone to remind me before I show up next time? It's very late at night."

[Okay, I will pay attention next time. 】

"Before you said that buying or growing by yourself is not acceptable, so is it okay to exchange?" Mu Qingtian asked.

[Yes, but there must be a price difference for the exchanged items. 】

"How to judge the price difference?"

[Determined by the system.Rest assured, the system is fair and just. 】

Mu Qingtian swallowed, and asked again: "Is that cabbage equivalent to a crystal cup?"

[Not equivalent. 】

The system was silent for a while, and added something.

[In Zimingli, the crystal cup is not worth as much as cabbage, if it is exchanged, it will be judged as "greedy", and the task is completed. 】

Great!Now Mu Qingtian was completely relieved, and after saying goodbye to the system, he relaxed and went back to his room to sleep.

At the same time, the man in black sneaked into Mu Qingtian's study again, copied all the words he recorded, and left in the dark, rushing to the prefect of Suzhou Prefecture overnight.