Chapter 126: Inventory of Acres (two chapters combined into one, I had something to do in the afternoon, I stayed up late last night to catch up, and I didn’t even watch the World Cup)
The two largest aristocratic families around Jiangling County are one named Wen and the other named Shen.
Wen was the largest landowner in the area, with numerous properties and also engaged in other industries, the most famous of which was loan sharking.
The Shen family is engaged in water transportation. The family owns more than 200 large and small cargo ships, so they rely on the water for their livelihood.
Ten years ago, when Yuan Xiaoze served as the general manager of Jiangling, the Shen family was the most popular in Jiangling County. Later, when Yang Liang became the general manager of Jingzhou, the Shen family was replaced by the Wen family.
Small families like this always seek protection from powerful families, because they know that without support, the family's interests will be gradually cannibalized and divided by other aristocratic families.
A piece of cake is only so big. If you eat less, others can naturally eat more.
At the moment, all Shen can count on is Yuan Xiaoze, but Yuan Xiaoze is old and already living in Daxing. Now he is just carrying the title of Duke of Anchang, waiting for his son to take the title after his death. Woolen cloth.
Originally, the Shen family had been prepared to sell more properties in exchange for living space and continue to survive in Jiangling. Who knew that Yuan Wendu's arrival had boosted their confidence again.
Yuan Wendu also informed Yang Ming that Shen sent people to contact him.
In the General Manager's Office, Yang Ming took the tea handed to him by Yuan Wendu and said curiously:
"So, Mr. Shen and your family have always been in contact?"
He is only thirteen years old this year, right? How come he speaks and behaves so maturely? Moreover, there is a sense of arbitrary cruelty in his words. He has been in the officialdom for half his life, and this is the first time he has seen such a figure.
And Yuan Guangqing's youngest son was whipped to death by Yang Yinjiang with a riding crop in his hand.
According to the Sui Dynasty system, the number of slaves of a county king could not exceed two hundred, but in Yang Ming's General Manager's Mansion plus Hedong Mansion, the number of slaves had exceeded two thousand, but no one would say anything.
In the former Yuan family, although Yuan Xiaoze was no longer at home, they still had the signature of Crown Princess Yuan Zhen, but that is gone now.
When I first came to Jingzhou, a lot of interesting things happened.
Yuan Xiaoze's sister was the wife of Yu Wenhu, a powerful official of the Northern Zhou Dynasty. His niece was the concubine of the deposed prince Yang Yong, and his daughter was married to Wei Shikang's third son, Wei Fuxian.
But the actual reason was that Yang Jian could not find suitable people to guard Jingzhou because Yang Liang, the king of Han Dynasty, was still young at that time.
So Yang Jian said to all the officials: The long day is a blessing from heaven, so we should take the meaning of the long day as the year name.
Yang Yinjiang liked to wear men's clothes and had a heroic appearance. Under the guidance of the county government's Kuaishou, she led people directly into a mansion in Nancheng.
This is a sincere person. If he were someone like Yang Yue, he would never stop until his family was brought to ruin.
The one who caused trouble in the Yuan family was Yuan Guangqing's youngest son, but Yang Yinjiang led others to beat all the men in the Yuan family, as long as they were male.
These two people had already served in the yamen before the governor Murong Sanzang took office, and Murong Sanzang did not dare to change them at will, because the Wen family was protected by the King of Han.
You are a military general, you know nothing, go home and show off your swords, guns and sticks.
Yang Ming exclaimed: "What? Mr. Murong is teaching me how to do things?"
"Later, Wei Gong successively supported the Shen family, the Gao family, the Wang family, the Fei family, etc., and was able to further control Jiangling and the surrounding areas of Jiangxia. Even so, during Wei Gong's period, the Jingzhou area was still in chaos, and the government troops had to be mobilized at every turn. Suppression.”
The five princes' servants all came from the military, were wild-tempered and ruthless, and they killed one of the young men on the spot.
But Yang Ming cared about it.
As Yuan Wendu was the head of the General Palace, he would definitely not do this kind of thing himself. Instead, he would leave it to his confidant He Chou, who would take the warrant from the General Palace and lead two hundred soldiers to investigate from Songzi County.
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Yang Yinjiang sat at the table and read over and over the accounts sent by Fang Xuanling. Afterwards, she rubbed her sore eyes and said with a smile:
"This man is still very capable. Last year, 20,000 people in Hedong were exempted from taxes, and rewards were also distributed. It should have been a deficit, but I didn't expect that there was such a surplus. With this man running the palace for you, you will have no worries."
Along the way, Murong Sanzang's mind kept repeating the scene of his conversation with Yang Ming.
In the early years of the founding of the Emperor, the position of General Manager was set up in Jingzhou, which was held by Wei Shikang. Later, due to the marriage between Yang Guang and the Xiao family, this position was temporarily abolished and changed to the General Manager of Jiangling, which was held by Yuan Xiaoze. In the thirteenth year of the founding of the Emperor,
It was reestablished and replaced by Yang Liang, King of Han Dynasty.
However, after this experience, Chen Shuyi also learned a lesson. In the future, she will take more people with her when going out, and she will not let the palace servants wear plain clothes. They must wear armor.
And they will receive the land grant in the name of the slaves in the mansion, and when it comes time to pay taxes, they will only pay according to the number of sixty people. The slaves have no household registration, so it is difficult for you to check.
This is really a embarrassment for him. He has been making up for his shortcomings from the time he took up the position of recorder of the palace to now.
On the day of the New Year's Eve, the Shen family also received generous gifts, most of which were gold, silver and jade articles, but there were a few paintings among which Yang Ming was quite interested.
It was obvious that Yang Yinjiang knew Zhan Ziqian well, but that was all. Even after seeing those paintings, she could only say a few words of praise and that was it.
Although the Sui Dynasty clearly stipulates that a commoner family can have up to sixty slaves and maids, but is it really only sixty? The Wen family and the Shen family are both commoners, and they probably have thousands of slaves in their houses.
Wei Fujie is Yuan Wendu's brother-in-law.
But Yang Ming could tell that Fang Xuanling could only play this excuse once. If there was another deficit this year, he would have to find another way.
Hedong Pei and Hedong Liu also agreed. Each family gave out 20,000 guan, and Hedong Xue gave out 10,000 guan.
Regarding the position of the general manager of Jingzhou, Yang Ming is quite clear.
If he hid this from Yang Ming, Yang Ming would never pay attention to the Shen family. However, Yuan Wendu did not regard Yang Ming as an outsider because of his relationship with Concubine Yuan, so how much money did his father Yuan Xiaoze take?
They all told the truth.
Therefore, after Yuan Wendu met with the Shen family this time, he bluntly said that he should not send money to their family in the future. He could not help much and he was really embarrassed to accept it.
Pull him down. Murong Sanzang secretly cursed in his heart. Even if a problem is found, which unsighted inspector dares to involve you in the matter? Who wouldn't try his best to keep the relationship clear with you?
Because he did not break the law, why? Because it was a reward from Yang Jian and his wife, and the reward was not within the scope of the law.
A family like the Wen family that seizes land and oppresses others is obviously not within his scope of consideration.
"Wei Gong was tough. He directly summoned 2,000 soldiers from the government and raided eight families within fifteen days. Among them, the three largest families were killed and their mansions were burned down. In this way, only
This can be regarded as temporarily suppressing these local powerful people."
As the emperor, Yang Jian also knew this very well, so he occasionally sent inspection ministers to local areas to investigate the situation of land equalization. As long as he investigated, he could find out a lot of problems.
So Yang Liang quickly found a group of obedient dogs in the local area. At first, Wen's family was not the strongest, but Wen's family was lucky.
In addition, male slaves were granted 40 acres of land and female slaves were granted 20 acres of land.
To exaggerate, Yang Yinjiang regards human life as child's play. This is a common problem of the Guanlong Group and a basic characteristic of the aristocratic group.
Taishi ordered Yuan Chong to measure the length of the shadow and said that the days had become longer since the founding of the Sui Dynasty, which meant that the daytime was getting longer and longer.
The reason why father Yang Guang angered the family in history was because he canceled the land grant for slaves and young cattle. Wouldn't this cost people their lives?
Ding Niu refers to adult cattle over four years old.
"This phenomenon did not change much when my father took over as the general manager of Jiangling. He still followed Wei Gong's idea of supporting some obedient families and then using the military government to suppress the disobedient ones to maintain balance."
Of course, in fact, there are many farms with more than 100 acres. It depends on whether it touches you or not. If it doesn’t, you will be fine even if you have 500 acres.
As far as he knew, there were only two extant paintings by Zhan Ziqian from later generations, one was "The Picture of Teaching Sutras" and the other was "The Picture of Spring Outing", both of which are national treasures.
This is not Daxing. There are few people under the emperor who have the courage to cause trouble in the capital. Chen Shuyi has been taken to Daxing since she was a child and has never experienced anything like this.
But now the Shen family has other aspirations. After all, Yuan Wendu is already the chief steward of the palace and a confidant of King Hedong, so they still want to continue to stay close to this big tree in order to get close to this giant tree like Yang Ming.
But Murong Sanzang no longer thinks so. This young highness himself is very independent and has sharp methods.
"The Picture of Teaching Sutras" is stored in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, and the "Picture of Spring Outing" is stored in the National Palace Museum in Beijing.
So he could only say: "As far as I know, His Highness the King of Han has nothing to do with this."
Because in the eighteenth year of the founding of the Emperor, Yang Liang was awarded the title of Marching Marshal and led his army north to conquer Goguryeo. When he left, he took away all the tribes of several wealthy families in Jingzhou.
From this, it can be seen that the Shen family is still discerning, and he actually used a painting that others did not value much as a congratulatory gift to Yang Ming.
The number of acres under their Wen family name alone exceeds 1,700 acres, and Yang Ming wants to deal with them.
In the records about Hedong Xue, Fang Xuanling made a special mark at the bottom, probably hinting to Yang Ming that this family was producing less.
The difference is that Yang Ming is really conducting an investigation, while Fang Xuanling is using Yang Ming's banner to spread the word, causing the clans in the Hedong area to take the initiative to send merciful money.
Chen Shuyi took Gao Yue out for a walk under the pretext of going out for shopping. She also took five Bu Qu with her. Just then, they were surrounded by a group of young people in the street.
Yuan Wendu looked ashamed.
The troublemakers were from three families. One was the Tohara family from Gangneung. A girl from the family married into the Wen family.
Land tax was the main source of income in the Sui Dynasty, and these all relied on the equal land system.
The taxes of Hedong County were paid, and those who remained were quite wealthy, equivalent to 230,000 yuan, which had been put into treasury and sealed by Fang Xuanling.
After leaving the Changshi Office and returning to the inner garden, Yang Ming specifically asked Xu Jing to find those paintings from the inner treasury, and called Yang Yinjiang and others to watch them together.
At this time, the group of people were dumbfounded. They shouted something like "Don't leave if you have the guts" and went back to fetch reinforcements.
Historically, during the period when Yang Zhao was the crown prince, the total number of servants and slaves of the official family exceeded 10,000.
Neither Wei Shikang nor Yuan Xiaoze were ordinary people, and the Wei and Yuan families were also married. Wei Shikang's wife was Princess Xiangle, the daughter of Emperor Wen of the Western Wei Dynasty, Yuan Baoju.
Land exceeding one hundred acres was a capital offense in the Sui Dynasty.
Generally, thirty acres is considered too much, and there are two or three acres that are less.
But now, Yang Ming has the final say in Jingzhou, so he also needs to find some obedient subordinates in the local area.
Without the courage and courage beyond ordinary people, this law would not be promulgated. Unfortunately, although my father has done a lot of good things, he has done more wrong things.
Yuan Wendu nodded and said: "Earlier when my father was the general manager of Jiangling, the Shen family was considered the most prestigious clan in Jiangling, and their family arose during the period of Duke Wei (Shikang). At the beginning of the founding of the emperor, Duke Wei took office in Jingzhou
General Manager, so this place is the hometown of Jiu Liang, and many local wealthy families are disobedient to discipline, and there have even been incidents of people gathering to attack the General Manager's Mansion."
Yang Yinjiang's eyes fell on the scroll and said slowly: "This man's ancestral home is Bohai, and he later traveled to the south of the Yangtze River. He made a living by painting murals in Buddhist temples in various places. He absorbed the style of the south of the Yangtze River and his skills greatly improved. Later, he was called to Daxing by the Supreme Being and taught Chaosan.
Doctor, specializes in painting."
To be crippled means to kill.
Wangfu's troops were already arrogant and had been honed on the battlefield, so their attacks were careless and they killed a dozen of them directly.
In the calligraphy and painting of the Sui Dynasty, there was no such thing as inscriptions and inscriptions. A painting was just a clean painting, with nothing else in it.
For example, the last time Su Wei inspected Jiangnan, he found 610,000 acres of exposed farmland. These 610,000 acres of farmland will be re-granted to the people to obtain land tax.
Nominally, it was because Concubine Xiao married Jin Wang Guang that Yang Jian relaxed his control over Jingzhou a little, which was equivalent to giving Xiao family face, which means that I can trust you.
After all, these families in Hedong are all powerful families. Although they are located in Hedong, they also belong to the aristocratic group in Guanzhong, unlike the jumping shrimps in Jiangling.
Yang Ming asked again: "If this is the case, why do you advise me to show mercy?"
"Isn't that right? How could my fifth uncle care about this?" Yang Ming said with a smile: "The Second Saint will send inspectors to inspect the local area every six months to check the land equalization matters. This king also does this for the sake of
I will not be found out about the problem in the future, lest the Second Saints find out about it and blame me."
In the government office, Yang Ming asked the other party to sit down and said with a smile: "What? Does Mr. Murong have shares in the Wen family?"
The county captain of Jiangling County is named Wenhui, and the county captain of Jiangling County is named Wen Zheng. They are cousins.
Now that it's interesting, I'll just sit back and watch to see how big a wave this little highness will make in Jingzhou.
The reason why Yang Ming pays attention to these paintings is because the three words "Zhan Ziqian" are written on the scroll box.
And Yang Ming learned from history that there were several wars between the Sui Dynasty and the Turks this year. In this way, Li Jing led the children of Hedong to win the battle, not to mention the gift, but also to get a reward. I don’t know that Fang Xuanling
I will think of ways to make up for this year's shortfall.
Chen Shuyi felt helpless at the time. After all, there were few people around her, so she hurriedly walked back with Gao Yue. As a result, she was kicked out by others on the way, and about a hundred people started fighting in the street with five members of the palace.
Because elegant interests such as calligraphy and painting are not very popular in Daxing, only a few people like them, which also results in the low collection value of such things.
Murong Sanzang said: "His Royal Highness took drastic measures when he first took office in Jingzhou. I thought it was a little too hasty, but actually we can take things slowly."
Originally, Yuan Wendu had done some research on the Wen family before he took office. Now he had learned some things from the Shen family and sent people to hear some things in the streets. After summarizing them, he handed them over to Yang Ming for review.
He is worthy of being the son of a dragon and his grandson. It is indeed extraordinary.
With this kind of status, only if your brain is in trouble would you dare to offend him.
There is a lot of room for manipulation in this kind of thing, and the specific details vary from person to person.
The areas under the jurisdiction of the General Manager of Jingzhou and the General Manager of Jiangling are different. The former has twenty-two counties, while the latter has eight counties.
In addition to the night of the New Year's Eve, this was his second close contact with Yang Ming, but the impression the other party gave him was very shocking.
The head of the Yuan family was named Yuan Guangqing. When he saw the battle, he was dumbfounded and hurriedly took his family members to kowtow and beg for mercy.
There is also news coming from the capital.
He really had nothing to do with the Wen family, and he couldn't make any money from the Wen family. They paid tribute to Yang Liang, the king of Han Dynasty.
And Yang Jian didn't want to give this position to someone with a foreign surname anymore.
This time, the expedition against Goguryeo resulted in heavy casualties, with seventy-eight out of ten dead. The vitality of the Jingzhou wealthy family was greatly damaged, so much so that the Wen family came from behind and successfully developed from their original home in Songzi County into a powerful family that encompassed the entire Jiangling surroundings.
Not entirely, but at least half of it, but Murong Sanzang didn't dare to say it. If he did, it would put a blame on Yang Liang's head. This was "framing" the prince, which would be fatal.
This is an ideal state, but in fact it is not possible.
Yang Ming nodded: "In that case, just go back. If anything happens, I will find you."
Murong Sanzang hurriedly said: "Your Highness is here for the first time, so he doesn't know the inside story. The Wen family has its own way in the Han Palace."
After Yang Yinjiang learned about this, she was very angry. She rode her horse in person, took three hundred full armor steps, and went to find someone to settle the score.
Zhan Ziqian is still alive now, and he is only about forty years old. Yang Ming feels that if he has the opportunity in the future, he must meet this person.
Fortunately, the governor of the county, Murong Sanzang, was passing by and saw that Chen Shuyi looked familiar, as if he had seen her in the Governor's Mansion, so he rescued her.
With her little strength, she knew how many whippings she had received.
Yang Ming smiled and said: "I followed the imperial law and checked the number of acres of land. The king of Han didn't say anything even if he knew it. What? Could it be that these fields belong to him?"
Yang Ming could have used the slaves in his house to receive the land grant, and then used 200 people to pay taxes, but he was unwilling to do this, even though everyone did so.
So Yang Ming left the matter to Yuan Wendu and sent people to thoroughly check the number of acres owned by the Wen family.
This shows that in the Shen family's opinion, these paintings are good things, but because they are not good things, they dare not give them to Yang Ming.
As for Yang Liang, the king of Han after them, he was only 18 years old when he took office in Jingzhou. It was the time when a young man was brave and fearless. What's more, he was the emperor's son. When he first came to Jingzhou, he did nothing and just left this.
Everyone in the area was restrained.
Murong Sanzang repeatedly said yes, resigned and left.
"Don't you dare, don't you dare," Murong Sanzang stood up quickly and said, "How dare I overstep my bounds?"
After Yang Ming found out, he didn't say much. With Yang Yinjiang's background, it was normal for her to do such a thing.
As soon as the scroll was unfolded, Yang Yinjiang immediately recognized who painted this painting.
The filial piety money that the Shen family sends to Yuanfu in the capital every year is a large amount. Based on Yang Ming's preliminary understanding of the Shen family, this money is almost one-third of their income.
At present, Li Jing is still serving as the Prime Minister of Hedong County, but Yang Su promised that if there is a war in the future, Li Jing can lead the troops from Hedong to follow him.
As a result, whether Jiangling is in chaos or not is entirely up to the Wen family. It doesn't mean that Murong Sanzang has been sidelined, but he just turns a blind eye. As long as they don't act recklessly, he won't care too much.
However, Yang Ming believed that contact with the Shen family should not be rushed, and he should wait and see before making a decision.
About half a month later, Yuan Wendu presented a stack of files about the Wen family in front of Yang Ming.
Just a few days after he left, Murong Sanzang, the governor of Jiangling County, came upon hearing the news.
As you can imagine, Chen Shuyi was almost kidnapped again.
In fact, what he meant was that the Wen family was protected by the King of Han. If you dare to move, wouldn't you be afraid of offending your fifth uncle?
Yang Yinjiang is different from Yang Ming. In her concept, there is no harm to others. As long as you are the same, she will not be soft. This is the result of being influenced by two ruthless people, Yang Su and Yang Yue, for many years.
One hundred pounds is 10,000 acres, which is not much at all for a big family.
What Fang Xuanling was doing was actually the same as what Yang Ming was doing in Jiangling, which was to check the fields.
According to the equal land system, the open fields granted to adult men are 80 acres, women are 40 acres, and oxen are 60 acres, with a limit of 4 per household.
"No, no," Murong Sanzang waved his hand quickly: "I want to make money, but I won't make money from people like this."
Originally, the Jingzhou officialdom was still rejoicing that the person who was appointed as the general manager of Jingzhou this time was a minor highness. They thought that as long as they could open up the relationship between Yuan Wendu and Yuan Wendu, basically everything would be easy to handle.
Yang Ming looked surprised and said: "The Shen family is really generous. Is this all their bets on Duke Yuan?"
Although Yuan Wendu had served as a capital official earlier, he still received not a penny less from the filial piety money sent to their family by the Shen family every year.
This day, a piece of good news came,
If we cancel the land allocation by slaves and oxen, and conduct household registration redistribution, more land will be distributed to the people. This is a good policy that benefits the country and the people.
Collectors will only mark who painted the scroll on the box in which it is stored.
The remaining two families were ordinary gentry from surrounding counties. Their ancestors had served as officials in the Jingzhou area, similar to small officials such as county captains and county lieutenants. Moreover, they were not officials of the Sui Dynasty, but officials of the old Liang Dynasty.
Ordinary people belong to the lowest level of society. How much land you can get depends entirely on how much land is left after the land is divided up.
But Yang Ming knew that these paintings would become more and more valuable as time went by.
Yuan Chong wrote: At the beginning of the emperor's birth, not only the divine light and auspiciousness, but also the auspiciousness should be felt. As for the birth year, birth month and birthday, they are consistent with the movement of heaven, earth, sun and moon, and the laws of yin and yang. Now and the renewal of things, it should be changed to the year of benevolence and longevity.
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Yang Jian was overjoyed, so he changed the name to Renshou, and stipulated a hundred tasks, and added tasks for the sake of longer days.
It is equivalent to adding one or two hours to the eight-hour working day, and it is legal.
The "Kaihuang" reign title that had been used for twenty years has completely become a thing of the past.
Portugal lost and was so angry, England also lost and was so angry, ugh.