In the eighteenth year of Shaowu's reign, in June of summer.

Yongping Mansion, Yangshan Town.

It is adjacent to Fucheng. Although it is a mountainous area, it is rich in products. Many people in the mountains and forests escaped the war and survived.

It is also because of this that they ushered in the Shaowu era. The three-year tax holiday not only restored their vitality, but also made them prosperous.

To the north of Yongping Prefecture, it belongs to Shanhaiguan Pass, an important thoroughfare inside and outside the customs. Yongping Prefecture has also been tainted with wealth and has become increasingly prosperous due to the exchanges of merchants.

However, June is the most critical time for summer taxes. One after another, ox carts or wheelbarrows are driven by a large number of people to go to the county town.

Yongping Prefecture is near the capital. They do not need to endure exploitation by merchants and exchange precious grains for copper coins and silver coins. They only need to send the grains directly to the county warehouse.

However, for each village, they need to send food to Yangshan Town first.

On the spacious official road, dozens of villagers pushed wheelbarrows and moved forward at a steady speed.

At the rear, a middle-aged man with a fair complexion but handsome features, driving two donkey carts with two or three long-term workers, slowly fell behind.

"Mr. Hong, you are too slow."

At this time, the village chief walked from the front to the back, looked at the leisurely middle-aged man, and persuaded: "We have to rush to the town as soon as possible, and then we have to go to the county seat. It will be dark later, so we have to wait until tomorrow."

There was quite a bit of flattery in his words.

There was no way around it, Mr. Hongci was not only the largest landowner in the village, but he was also literate, and he had to arrange all the communication and taxation with the elders in the town and township.

Otherwise, after a lot of criticism, time will be lost and a lot of food will be lost.

"Okay!" Hong Ci recovered from his daze and showed a smile: "I'll do it as soon as possible."

As he spoke, he urged.

After a while, the whole team moved much faster, and arrived at Yangshan Town at noon.

As the center of more than 20 nearby villages, the three elders of the township built a government office in the town, with blue bricks and blue tiles, two little lions at the door, and only two or three steps, which was not even comparable to an ordinary rich man's house.

There are only a dozen rooms, and compared with the county government office, it is even more modest.

It can be said that there is a difference between cloud and mud.

But for the tens of thousands of people living around Yangshan, with a radius of more than dozens of miles, this is their political center.

Litigation in the countryside, as long as no one is killed, is presided over by the village elders.

The ordinary tax corvee is presided over by the township head.

It is the responsibility of the rural police to catch thieves and militiamen.

They are the tentacles of the yamen. From the rank of ninth rank, they receive ten yuan and ten shi of grain, making them no longer hereditary but official officials who can rise.

Although the end result is just a six-room book office or a pian clerk, it is still a hope, isn't it?

According to the rules, the three elders of the township, the township chief is appointed by the court and arranged by the county, the township police is appointed by the county magistrate, and the township elders select the wise men from the township to serve.

After all, nothing knows more about litigation than the locals.

And taxes need to be paid by outsiders.

The summer tax will be levied in May and a half until the end of August. At that time, all the grain will be transported from the counties to the prefecture, then to the province, and then to the capital.

In order to reduce the burden on the people, Shaowu's benevolent government only had to deliver food to the county town, and the imperial finance department would handle the rest of the journey.

As for the grain chief system that lasted for nearly three hundred years in the Ming Dynasty, it also disappeared.

You must know that in the past, people in grain towns could be responsible for transporting grain all the way to Beijing, destroying their homes and the country, destroying their families and people just for nothing.

Arriving at the township government office, also known as Sanlaotang among the people, Hong Ci had mixed feelings.

All the food is gathered here, and then headed to the county town under the leadership of the township head.

Entering from the backyard, the forty-year-old township chief looked shrewd. He held an abacus in his hand, while the village elder beside him held a yellow book.

Several teams formed a long queue, and in this hot summer, no one dared to complain at all.

Even though there were only two of them, they were not wearing official robes.

"Zhaojiacun..."

"Xili Village——"

Soon it was their turn.

The village chief hurriedly brought Hong Ci forward to answer the question.

"My dear fellow villager, my dear fellow villager is well!"

"Zhao Er, your village came quite early."

The old man looked up and smiled when he saw his face.

"Oh, Mr. Hong is here too."

Seeing Hong Ci, the township head and village elders all showed gentle smiles.

Who in the village doesn't respect this boy?

"You two are very polite." Hong Ci also bowed his hands in a friendly manner.

According to his reputation, he could go to the county to seek an official position, but he did not do it. He has been working in the countryside and teaching his children to read.

This earned him a great reputation.

"Xili Village has 103 households, 736 mouths, and 2,836 acres of land—"

The village elder read aloud casually.

"Last year, fifty-nine people died of illness, including nineteen elderly people and thirty children. However, eighty-three more children were born, and nine families were separated."

The village chief recounted the major events that happened in the village last year, and he had nothing to hide about them.

Because of the population, the court no longer collects Ding tax, so there is no difficulty in reporting it like this.

On the contrary, regarding the land, he said sincerely: "The land is right, you always remember it accurately."

"Huh!" At this time, Xiang Zheng didn't say anything, but the old man snorted coldly:

"Your village reclaimed dozens of acres of land last year, do you still want to hide it?"

"How can there be dozens of acres, not that much, at most ten or eight acres."

The village chief trembled, smiled hurriedly, then took out the money bag from his arms and put it directly into the hands of the township chief.

It seemed that he had already known that this would happen.

The township head smiled slightly, weighed the weight, and said: "Xili Village, in the 17th year of Shaowu's reign, eight acres of dry land were reclaimed." Here.

"Is it Mr. Hong's house?"

At this time, facing the smile of the township chief, Hong Ci glanced at the village chief and said: "My family has three acres, and Zhao Er's family has five acres."

"That's right." The village chief nodded quickly.

"That's right, write it down!"

Immediately, the village elder wrote it down in a hurry.

"Have you brought all the food?"

"Not even a cent off -" Give it

"Okay, let me do the math -"

The mayor began to pick up the abacus, which made a loud clanging sound, attracting the attention of all the villagers.

If you slide a small bead, the number in it is enough to make a family starve for more than half a year, and even destroy the whole family.

Therefore, both the village chief Zhao Er and Hong Ci were staring at the abacus intently.

"According to the court's taxation, the local tax is two cents, or one dou of grain. Xili Village has to pay a total of two hundred and eighty-three shi and six dou."

"Add the peeled 10%, which is twenty-eight stones, three buckets and six liters, which is three hundred and one stone and six liters."

The village chief looked at the jingling abacus and then looked at Hong Ci.

"That's right." Hong Ci sighed and nodded.

Although the imperial court was light on corvee and low on taxes, it could not personally collect taxes from the people. It relied on the three elders, so the villagers naturally had to exploit one level.

The so-called peeling naturally refers to the weight of the grain bag.

In the words of San Lao, after weighing the grain, these sacks account for a large portion, so 10% is deducted.

Hong Ci made a rough calculation and found that one hundred sacks weighed at most five or six buckets of grain, and he scooped up the rest.

For the entire township, Sanlaotang can earn three to five hundred dan from one summer tax.

Each of the three elders can earn at least one hundred silver coins. Here.

Not to mention, the three elders often hid the tax on the transactions in the town and the grass market, and the court collected 10% to 20% more, and the rest belonged to the three elders.

These business taxes are no less profitable than summer taxes.

Of course, when they make money, they have to pay it back to the county government, otherwise they will just grab it and spit it out.
To be continued...