Chapter 14 The Zhu family does not know the suffering of tenant farmers
Widower Wang was the first to come back to his senses. He looked at the servant and his lips trembled violently: "Little brother, I have to pay taxes in July - the government already granted an exemption last year, but this year there is no limit to the exemption. .”
Last year they didn't receive the land and couldn't pay the tax, so the government confiscated their livestock. If they can't pay again this year, they won't even have a place to live.
"If you calculate carefully, this money will be enough for you to wait for a year - how can you not survive when the new fields are allocated by then?"
Listening to the servant's nonsense words, Widower Wang wanted to say something more, but the servant's face showed impatience and his expression changed——
"Hurry up and leave. If you don't leave, please wait carefully with sticks!"
After the servant finished speaking impatiently, he slammed the vermilion door.
Several tenants looked at each other, and finally sighed, stooped down, picked up a piece of silver, put it into their sleeves, and stumbled away.
Widower Wang took a deep look at the luxurious mansion and couldn't help but shake his head.
If the world is like this, how can the people survive?
…
The dilapidated ancient temple at the gate of the city hanged several tenants who had lost their farmland.
When the body was put down at Maoshi, it was already hard from the cold.
Huo Qubing, who was buying bamboo slips, heard about this incident and asked the tenant farmer nearby who was collecting the corpses the reason for the incident. He couldn't help but feel angry.
The imperial court stipulates the land owned by each household, but the Fanyang Lu family hired tenant farmers to seize other people's land. This is really deceiving!
He returned to the inn angrily and told Xie Yuan about the matter.
The snow has fallen on the ground for three thousand miles, and the wind has come all night and the cold has not gone away. The rich families do not know the hardships of tenant farmers, and they joke about how they can make a living by eating meat.
Xie Yuan put down his brush and looked at the wet ink stains on the bamboo slips: "Are there any young or old in those tenant farmers' families?"
"They are all gone. They all starved to death during the famine last year - there is only one widower named Wang, and there is a child in his twenties at home. I heard that the relatives in the distance were in dire straits, so they were unwilling to take them back," Huo Qubing said. Here, I can't help showing sympathy,
"Since His Majesty released the land occupation system and the Yinke system, although common people can enjoy the land, those aristocratic families still purchase large amounts of farmland."
Xie Yuanmo.
Although the Yinke system and the land occupation system are good, some people are born with greed.
Just like this Fan Yanglu family, although their family already has a lot of farmland, they still want to occupy the people's fields.
"Ask someone to bring the child over. If you buy an extra pair of dishes and chopsticks, the academy can afford it," Xie Yuan said.
"Here." Huo Qubing's eyes lit up, and he immediately bowed and left.
He originally thought about asking Huo to find someone to take the doll away and make him a domestic servant. Now that the lord has spoken, he might as well stay in the academy and become a book boy.
After Huo Qubing left, Xie Yuan stood up and leaned by the window, looking out at the street.
People were coming and going on the street, wearing rich clothes and riding in cars; those walking on the street were wrapped in coats and looked numb.
Also, this era is so chaotic and you can't even survive, so who cares about the life and death of others.
Xie Yuan thought for a moment, wrote and revised a letter, called for a retainer, and asked him to send someone to deliver the letter to Chang'an.
"My lord, you want to send this letter... to the Prime Minister of Chang'an?" The retainer saw the place where the letter was delivered and couldn't help but be stunned. "The Prime Minister has many things to do, will he read the letter sent by me, a son of a poor family?"
"I don't know either, let's try it." Xie Yuan shook his head.
When the Jin Dynasty was founded, Emperor Tianwu established an unwritten rule in order to show sympathy for the people and prevent the recurrence of the Yellow Turban Uprising of the previous Han Dynasty.
Among the common people, regardless of their family background, as long as they have grievances or other things that they feel are unfair, they can compile a book and send it to the contemporary prime minister, who will put it together with the memorial and present it in front of him.
If he sees it, he will definitely deal with it impartially, regardless of the princes or nobles.
Having said that, some people did write letters back then, but this happened not long after the founding of the country - now that each county is a country and officials protect each other, who would have thought that there would be such a problem.
Even so, Xie Yuan still wanted to try it.
The doorman nodded and left.
A few days later, the letter fell into the hands of the prime minister.
Coincidentally, that day the Prime Minister had to deal with a large number of memorials about the disaster submitted by various counties. He saw that everyone was numb and it was not over yet——
In order to get a beautiful woman in his arms as soon as possible, a certain prime minister did his duty and packed it up and sent it to the palace without even looking at the memorial that followed.
The letter written by Xie Yuan was also included in it.
Emperor Tianwu soon saw the letter.
"Xie Yuan, a poor man from a poor family, submitted a letter... Xie Yuan..." Emperor Tianwu raised his eyebrows and murmured to himself, "Who is this Xie Yuan?"
With the Xie family name, how come he is from a poor family?
The waiter glanced at the name and felt it was familiar.
After thinking for a moment, I remembered Xie Yuan and told him about his life experience.
"Oh, it turned out to be an outside house. I didn't expect it to have some reputation." Emperor Tianwu nodded, read the contents of the letter carefully, and couldn't help but frown, "The Lu family occupied the common people's farmland and caused them to commit suicide?"
Doesn’t the Fan Yang Lu family already have thousands of acres of farmland? Why do they still want to occupy the common people’s farmland?
This is turning a deaf ear to his policies, right?
Even if it is an aristocratic family, it cannot completely ignore the Tian family.
A look of anger flashed in Emperor Tianwu's eyes, and he immediately wrote a letter asking the governors of Youzhou and Liangzhou to investigate the case of Fan Yang's Lu family seizing land.
This went on and on, and by the time the letter was delivered to the two governors, it was already March.
After seeing the letter, the two governors were stunned for a moment, and then they got together to discuss it.
After discussing for a long time, they unanimously came to several decisions.
Investigate the case? Investigate.
Confiscate the land? Confiscate it?
Do you want to have any enmity with the Fan Yang Lu family? No.
Why not make a grudge? Naturally, I blame Xie Yuan for this matter. After all, it was he who wrote the letter to tell His Majesty.
As for whether the confiscated fields should be returned to the civilians...the civilians are dead, so why not give them a hammer? Wouldn't it be nice to annex them and collect more food?
The two governors hit it off immediately and quickly took action.
Although the newly appointed governor of Youzhou is also a descendant of the Lu family, he is not popular with the head of the Lu family on weekdays. After taking office, he seems to be a puppet and is allowed to be suppressed and bullied by him.
Today there is an opportunity to give Lu a hard kick, how could the governor miss it?
On March 5th, the news of the seizure of fertile farmland reached the ears of the head of the Lu family.
After he heard the news, he was furious to death.
After asking about the reason for the incident, I became even more angry.
Xie Yuan, why is it that Xie Yuan is everywhere!
This bastard, the Lu family is not done with him!
At this point, the relationship between Lu and Xie Yuan was finally concluded.
The head of the Lu family really wanted to destroy the Longgang Academy now, but when he thought about the Huo family's children on the other side -
The Huo family in Taiyuan has been a famous family since the Han Dynasty. Its heritage is extremely deep and cannot be touched easily by him.
Everything can only be considered in the long term.
After the head of the Lu family calmed down, he began to think about ways to deal with Xie Yuan.