"Come on, what are you still bragging about me, even if you are more honest than Hai Rui as an official, what does it have to do with me, will I promote you? You can keep it and tell your emperor to go later. All I need is silver today, and the more money you have, the safer your dog's life will be, understand?"

"I know, I understand, but I really don't have much silver, I only have a few thousand taels on hand, hero, have you seen enough?" Chen Shizhong said pitifully.

Ling Yun shook his hand and gave him a slap on the fat face, which immediately became red and swollen, and his fat head looked more like a pig's head at the moment, and said angrily: "Who are you fooling? Do you know how much your predecessor can take out casually? One million taels!" This is just silver, not counting the real estate and family property and gold and silver jewelry, he is the magistrate of this remote Jingnan County, and he can still have such a rich family property, you tell me, you have been a magistrate in one of the six counties of the capital for so many years, it is the richest place in the world, you can only take out a few thousand taels of silver, don't you think I am a fool?"

"Don't dare, don't dare, I'm really telling the truth, because I have been an official for thousands of miles, from the capital to this poor place, I really didn't want to be an official for too long, so my family members didn't bring it over, and the family property is also in my hometown, not here, I can only take out so much silver on hand, but you can rest assured, as long as I leave my little life, I can help you come to the silver you want, after all, I have been doing so many years to know the county, I know the skills of looting silver, if you want to sit firmly in prison and operate steadily, you will not encounter opposition from local forces, and you can scavenge the most silver, this is the way to trickle the water, and the county is contacting the local gentry and rich businessmen, monopolize the local property and the necessities of the people, as long as you hold this, all the local silver will roll into your pocket, but this is a long-term solution, the local people are boiled frogs in warm water, and gradually they are exploited without knowing it, so they will not be too opposed, and they can sit firmly. ”

"Of course, for the hero, you urgently need silver now, there are two ways to quickly scavenge the silver, one is to directly open the knife to the people, and the other is not to directly open the knife to the people, but to open the first knife on the rich households, but in the future, the ordinary people will have to bear this loss, hero, which one do you choose?" Chen Shizhong asked with a sly smile.

"What's the difference between the two?" Ling Yun asked curiously.

"There is a small difference between the two, there is roughly no difference, unless I have to do it, I generally do not use this method of looting silver, it really arouses too much resentment among the people, and it is generally only used in the extraordinary time when the military situation is urgent and the emperor's order is poor. Specifically, the former is very simple, directly taxing the people, going door to door, knocking on the door and entering the house, taking money if you have money, taking food if you have food, if you ask about it, you will directly say that you will levy conscription, and if you don't give money, you will arrest people, anyway, just find a reason, with a clear knife and a gun, dozens of people, who dares to resist? Or set up a checkpoint at the gate of the city, and all those who enter and leave will pass the customs duties and confiscate the goods if they do not pay, otherwise they will arrest people and notify the family to ransom them, and in that big prison, it will be damp and dirty, and people will go in one way and come out one by one, and even many will die in it if they can't hold on, and there is no way, they will be thrown into mass graves, and they can only die in vain, and this is one of the ways we loot silver. ”

"Of course, there is a second kind, that is, to find local rich households, in the name of the government to play IOUs with them, coercion and temptation, most of them can squeeze out a lot of oil and water, but the rich are not ordinary people, the so-called horseman is angry and blood is splashed, but the rich are all with some backgrounds, and even some people have officials in the court, even if those rich households who have no power and powerless, in case the family has become a talented child in the future, and has been admitted to the Jinshi and become an official, and since then it has soared, you are equivalent to stabbing a hornet's nest after 20 years, and you have damaged the yin virtue for your children and grandchildren, which is different from the ordinary people who have been poor for generations, so the rich have to pay back, as for how to pay it back, there are various waysor allow them to monopolize a certain local commodity business for the next few years, or give them some tax silver, or even directly grant a piece of land or some kind of power they want, and even some rich families are willing to spend a lot of silver as long as they have a chastity archway, or the title of prisoner, these are all things that can be exchanged. ”

"In this way, whether it is the former way or the latter way, the wool comes out of the sheep, and the most painful ones are those ordinary people?"

"That's right, this also can't blame us, originally the Son of Heaven herded all the people, a pastoral word, it can be seen that all the people are just sheep in the hands of the Son of Heaven, for the Son of Heaven to like what he wants, even if he kills a few sheep, there is nothing to say, not to mention that these people are a little bitter, it is better than being eaten as human broth during the war, rather than being a dog in a prosperous world, not a person in a troubled world, you have also heard this sentence, now they can have a full meal to eat, it is enough, not to starve to death, life is nothing. Chen Shizhong said.

"You can help them see it, you yourself eat fat and have big ears, you don't look like a person, the people are so thin that they don't look like you, you are fat and don't look like you, according to your quibbles, this layer by layer of exploited ruling system is to maintain political stability and avoid war, how ridiculous, should the people suffer and suffer?" Ling Yun said dissatisfied.

"Hero, I know that you are chivalrous and courageous, and you can't get used to what we bureaucrats do, but you must know that in today's society, there are so many fertile fields every year, and so much grain can be produced, and even in the year of the great famine, the green and yellow are not harvested, the granary is empty, and I don't know how many ordinary people will starve to death at that time, so eating is really the biggest life of the people, the people take food as the sky, and don't want the people to rebel, the only thing to do is to let them have enough to eat, so the emperor has always set up the Temple of Heaven to worship the gods, and at the same time set up the altar of the earth to worship the gods of the earth, also for the harvest of grains。 You look at this country, the emperor is clothed and fed, and the officials have no worries about food and clothing, but the people are worried about eating and eating every day, that is because once the emperor can't feed the stomachs of the people, he will be rebelled and overthrown, the royal family at that time is much more miserable than the ordinary people, the head of the head is killed, the miserable royal family is even thrown into the oil pot, once the civil and military officials are in turmoil, it is also the life of the family that is lost, the good can also surrender to the new master, and the bad from the famous family to the street beggars, it is also a common thing, and the people of the world, when the war is also worried, the lives are miserable, so, you have found that every time there is a war, the fate from top to bottom is completely reversed, It turned out that the emperor who was high above became the most miserable person, the civil and military officials were still in the middle, and the rebellious people turned into the new emperor, only those people who kept to themselves always stayed at the bottom, so ah, the emperor took the highest risk, and it was natural that his reward was the most generous, and others also followed suit, not that the people should suffer, but there is always a group of people who suffer, and that group of people is not the same, they can also study and embark on a career, or they can work hard to become rich businessmen, but they can't be made in a generation。 Chen Shizhong had a long speech, and there was a lot of emotion.

"Especially those rebellious people, do you think that after they come to power, they will exercise good governance? No, they will intensify their efforts, and all their relatives will be sealed, and each of them will enjoy the support and fiefdom of several counties and cities, and each royal family will be born with an official title and a golden key, and we who have studied hard for decades cannot compare at all, and you say that they were not once poor people? Once they gain power, they are even more extravagant than the former emperor, and there are not a few. Chen Shizhong said.

"You're right, although you're not a good official, and it's not a good thing, but I'm in favor of today's big remarks, from slaves to masters, will definitely be worse than the original masters, now in this world, productivity is low, the total output of grain is constant and cannot be changed, so how to distribute these grains, so that the largest number of people can eat enough, it must be a difficult choice, and there is even a bloody struggle behind it, for this reason, there is no lack of war in history, which is also the real reason for the replacement of dynasties in our Central Plains, not that the fortune of the dynasty is exhausted, but that many people can't afford to eat, so they naturally want to rebel。 Zhumen's wine and meat stinky road has frozen bones, the poem of the poet Saint Du Fu is very right, like you are a small Liupinzhi County, the daily food is probably more luxurious than the food eaten in a village, so it must be unsustainable, but why do those royal magnates, rich businessmen, and dignitaries know that as long as they leave a little bone and soup for the people, the people will not rebel and will not overthrow them, they still prefer the wine and meat to stink rather than share it with these people? Because they are willing to give more to others and eat more for themselves, such a selfish human nature cannot be expected to make sacrifices on their own, and the result of the final struggle is that the Manchu magnates are sunk, and new royal magnates appear again, and then start a new round of dynasties, this is the real reason for the cyclical law of the change of dynasties in history! This is also the prisoner's dilemma among the rich!" Ling Yun said what he thought in his heart in one breath, many words that Chen Shizhong couldn't understand at all, but he knew that the two of them had almost the same thoughts.

As long as the upper class magnates can not control their extravagant life, excessive desire will cause excessive exploitation of the lower class people, the harvest year of food is good, once the year of famine, the cake is small, but the magnates are unwilling to give up their due share, the final result is that the magnates accuse each other of extravagance and waste, exploit the people, and the people no matter which of you do things, as long as you are starving, starvation is death, rebellion still has a chance of life, then uncover the rod, kill the local tyrants, kill the magnates, and finally kill the emperor, create a new world！！

Of course, Ling Yun is familiar with history and knows that the changes in the Central Plains dynasties are too rich to be summarized in one sentence, but on the whole, the question of the size of the cake and how to divide the cake runs through almost the entire history of mankind.

Greed and selfishness are the ugliest parts of human nature, but they are the parts that can never be changed, when people are full, these ugly sides, animal sides are hidden, and when hunger, all the ugly sides are exposed again, which makes people shudder.