Chapter 338 Win-win

Author: West Lake in the Rain

Chapter 338 Win-win

The current situation is just like what Brother Xun said, "Human temperament always likes to compromise. For example, if you say that this room is too dark and a window must be opened here, everyone will not allow it. But if

If you advocated tearing down the roof, they would mediate and open the windows."

Originally, the gentry felt that it was a bit expensive for the Imperial Master to hold the White Lotus Sect, a basin of unexplainable dirty water, over their heads, and to use five thousand dan of grain in exchange for nothing to happen in order to prevent the dirty water from falling.

But when Jiang Xinghuo doubled the five thousand stones, and after confirming that the imperial master who had cleansed Changzhou Prefecture with an iron fist really dared to open his bloody mouth and intended to swallow them all, the gentry instead

I think five thousand stones doesn’t seem like that much?

At present, many gentry are already interested in this deed.

Gentlemen, you look at me and I look at you, and they all look forward to the piece of paper in Huang Ziwei's hand.

"Prefect Huang, please come and listen."

Xu's representative said.

The other gentry also urged: "Yes, yes! Read it quickly and listen, what kind of deed is this?"

After all, for them, signing a contract, as long as the conditions are not very excessive, is better than having the army come to their door to seize dirty materials and confiscate food in the name of "searching the White Lotus Sect", right?

Of course, in normal times, even the imperial master would not be able to do this kind of crude method to the gentry, otherwise it would definitely cause an uproar in the world.

But it happens that it is not the normal season right now, and the White Lotus Sect has caused civil unrest in the south of the Yangtze River. As the highest-ranking official in the Ming Dynasty who is responsible for quelling the chaos and providing disaster relief, the Imperial Preceptor has the full authority and status to search for the White Lotus Sect.

And the White Lotus Sect's uprising, with the tacit support of the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, was not a kind of resistance to the Yongle court's policy of "sharing the labor into the mother's land"?

If you engage in "sharing the labor between the acres" and you make the owner-peasants and tenant farmers decent, according to the "theory of relativity", it means that we gentry are not decent.

Therefore, civil strife in the White Lotus Sect naturally formed.

In other words, this large-scale civil unrest that did not occur in Jiang Xinghuo's previous life was actually the butterfly effect caused by him as a time traveler.

Of course, misfortune lies on the back of good fortune, and good fortune lies on the back of misfortune.

This civil unrest in the White Lotus Sect is actually a good thing for Jiang Xinghuo. Although it is a follow-up to the policy of "sharing the labor to the mother" he proposed in prison, it is also the best opportunity to create new relationships.

.

The realization of this opportunity lies in the pieces of paper in the hands of Huang Ziwei, the prefect of Songjiang.

Huang Ziwei coughed twice and said slowly: "Everyone, please be quiet. Let me tell you the rules of the contract on the first page."

"First of all, what I want to tell you is that the content of this deed is fair and just. It will be implemented in Songjiang Prefecture first, and you are the first batch of participants."

"Second, when signing the deed, it must be confirmed to be valid and cannot be changed at will."

"Third, if you have any objections, please raise them. It depends on whether you refer to the situation. But if not, follow the contract."

"Fourth, from the date of establishment of the deed, all counties and cities will send personnel to various water conservancy projects in the south of the Yangtze River to participate in the construction of various projects. These projects will be supervised by the National Engineer and the Ministry of Industry of the Imperial Court. All personnel must be strictly screened. All personnel must be strictly screened.

Those who do not meet the conditions will be sent back to their hometown immediately."

"Fifth, during the period when the deed was established, if gentry and merchants from all over the country wanted to purchase various wartime controlled materials from the imperial court, they must first pass the review of the national advisor and then submit it to the county chief for record."

"Sixth, each county strictly implements the curfew for half a year."

Huang Ziwei read the first page eloquently, and then read the second and third pages. He didn't stop until he read the entire deed.

After listening, the gentry showed disbelief on their faces.

——Because, according to the second page of the deed, they only need to pay 3,000 to 5,000 shi of grain in exchange for the imperial court's "Law-abiding Gentleman" plaque.

Is a plaque that costs only a few dozen copper coins worth thousands of shi of food?

Of course it’s worth it! It’s so worth it!

"Law-abiding gentry" means that the court has certified that they have nothing to do with the White Lotus Sect.

Although the court has the final right of interpretation and can choose to settle accounts after the fall, in this age of war and chaos, this is undoubtedly an amulet that may not be completely reliable, but has a strong psychological comfort effect.

The imperial court equivalently used the food they donated to give them special rights.

As for why you do this?

"I dare to ask the Imperial Master, since there are 'law-abiding gentry', are there also 'lawless gentry'?"

The leading Pan clan chief asked cautiously.

"Of course there is."

Jiang Xinghuo slowly opened his mouth and said: "Any meritorious gentry who meets the following conditions will be included in the list of 'illegal gentry'. Those who have merit will be deprived of their titles. Their direct descendants will not be allowed to participate in the imperial examination. The relevant property will be punished as corruption and perversion of the law.

To recover the arrears and the interest rate accrued based on the time of arrears.”

"First, directly participate in or indirectly finance the rebellion; second, take over the tenant farmers, and own farmers to pay taxes, money and grain; third, take the lead in resisting grain."

This is the preparatory step for the tax reform plan proposed by Jiang Xinghuo.

Jiang Xinghuo plans to take this opportunity to not only release farmers from their fields, but also to pave the way for local tax reform. In this way, "relief will be paid to farmers", "relief with work", and "local taxation" will be implemented.

"Change", after a set of combined punches, the control and influence of the Jiangnan gentry over the local area will naturally be greatly weakened.

The core content of this deed, which is the core content of "relief for work", that is, the relevant personnel, is quite vague and hidden deep enough to be difficult to detect.

The third page of the deed clearly states, "If the tenants of each law-abiding gentry family participate in the White Lotus Rebellion, they will be regarded as a member of the rebels and must be handed over to the court for disposal. The law-abiding gentry shall not interfere."

This made the gentry think carefully.

The members who participated in the civil unrest of the White Lotus Sect were just a few types of people.

First of all, of course, are the White Lotus believers. Most of these believers are businessmen, craftsmen, street scoundrels, and wanderers.

Secondly, there are the yeoman farmers who are completely unable to survive and simply abandon their land to join the rebels in search of food. This is very rare because the yeoman farmers still have their own land as their last property. But if they really cannot survive now, they will always sell their land at a low price

You can exchange money to extend your life.

Finally, and the largest proportion of people, are the tenant farmers who are completely unable to survive.

The tenant farmers did not have their own land, so after a whole spring of drought and waterlogging for half of the summer, many tenant farmers chose to directly join the White Lotus Rebellion with their whole families, or were coerced into joining along the way.

Gentry families generally have a large number of tenant farmers to help with the work. This is nonsense. "Farming, reading and inheriting the family" means watching the tenant farmers cultivate the land and studying at home. You can't let the gentry personally take care of thousands of acres of land.

?The rice fields in the south of the Yangtze River require intensive farming. Without the help of agricultural machinery, it is very tiring for one person to work more than ten acres. A medium-sized gentry usually hires dozens or even hundreds of tenant farmers to help them farm.

This also means that many tenant farmers' families among the gentry also joined the White Lotus Rebellion.

According to historical experience and inertial thinking, the gentry did not care much about the large number of tenant farmers fleeing.

As long as there is land in hand, there is still a shortage of people who have no food to eat and want to come over to work on the land?

When the civil unrest was over, the gentry could not only recruit cheap refugees as tenant farmers, but they could also take advantage of the civil unrest to annex the land of a large number of bankrupt farmers.

Therefore, civil unrest is a good thing for the gentry who have abundant food reserves.

How much food can a gentry family with a nursing home of up to a hundred people eat? They live behind closed doors, and there is chaos outside for a year or two, or even the dynasty changes. As long as the family owns the land, they can become rich again in a few years.

.

In normal dynasty changes, the gentry's lands were rarely touched.

In the Jiangnan area, from the time when the Sun Wu regime vigorously developed this area, to the Jin Dynasty's Yiguan Crossing to the South, then to Wanyan's construction of the Yannan Crossing, and then to Zhu Yuanzhang's establishment of the Ming Dynasty, there were almost a handful of incidents in which large-scale land deprivation occurred.

.

Therefore, the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River naturally felt that this civil unrest by the White Lotus Sect was not large in scale and would not involve their land like the previous unrest.

Since the fundamental interests of the gentry are not involved, what does it matter if the court is allowed to deal with the tenant farmers who participated in the White Lotus Rebellion?

It is impossible for the court to support these tenant farmers who participated in the rebellion in vain. There are probably two ways out.

One is to serve as hard laborers in corvee labor, which is the water conservancy projects in various places in the south of the Yangtze River that are supervised by the National Division and the Ministry of Works as mentioned before.

This is the most normal way of thinking. After all, the floods in Jiangnan are like this, and the local gentry are unwilling to pay for repairs. The imperial court should pay and manpower to repair them. Otherwise, the Jiangnan granary will still be the elbow of the imperial court. After a few years,

It doesn't look good just to cause civil unrest, right?

The other way is to use the head on the item as military merit.

Some people secretly thought that they heard that the second prince Zhu Gaoxu was a disciple of the national master Jiang Xinghuo. Perhaps Jiang Xinghuo was seeking benefits for Zhu Gaoxu.

This was the condition put forward by Zhu Gaoxu, a barbaric warrior, in order to cut off more heads of rebel soldiers and obtain more military merits.

After all, if the gentry recognized this point in the deed, once the White Lotus Rebellion was put down, even if these people were once tenant farmers of the law-abiding gentry's family, they would still be regarded as out-and-out rebels instead of being dismissed.

Innocent civilians held hostage.

In this way, wouldn't it be possible to justifiably behead one's head in exchange for military merit without being criticized by the gentry?

And this is a matter of killing two birds with one stone. The generals who came to quell the chaos can obtain more military merits without paying any price in terms of public opinion, while the gentry also only need to pay a small price to get rid of possible consequences.

He was accused of "instructing his tenant farmers to participate in the rebellion and secretly supporting the White Lotus Sect."

After figuring this out, the gentry breathed a sigh of relief.

Win-win!

What a win!
Chapter completed!