Meng Guiming got up and walked out in despair, while Qin Chuan and his men followed.

Walking to the ancestral hall of the Meng family, after seeing the corpses full of the ancestral hall, Meng Guiming wiped a few more tears, and then walked to the offering table, first lit a handful of incense and inserted it, and then knelt in front of the ancestral tablet and cried a lot.

Qin Chuan didn't urge him, and after he stopped by himself, he got up and moved the offering table, and took out a few bricks on the wall behind him, revealing a lacquered mahogany box inside.

"The title deeds and house deeds are here, as well as the slips that have been saved over the years."

Meng Guiming took out the wooden box and put it in front of Qin Chuan, then returned to the offering table and knelt on the ground crying and swinging.

Qin Chuan opened the box and saw that the paper strips of the entire box inside, separated by wooden boards, were neatly stacked.

I took out a few and looked at it, it was indeed the title deed and the house deed, and there was even a fish scale atlas among them, which roughly drew most of the cultivated land in Lou Fan Town, and the time of making the book was the eighteenth year of Wanli.

The Meng family is the chief of Lou Fuliang, and this fish scale atlas is estimated to be a copy secretly copied by the Meng family when Zhang Juzheng ordered a re-measurement of the land.

"How many fields does the Meng family have?"

Qin Chuan asked as he threw the things back into the box.

Meng Guiming didn't raise his head: "There are 9,372 acres of cultivated land, of which 7,800 acres are fertile land, most of which are on the edge of Fenshui at the bottom of Loufu Valley. ”

After a little thought, Qin Chuan knew where it was, and the bottom of Loufu Valley was the large field east of Mengjiazhuang, which was the location of the Fenhe Reservoir in the later generations.

That place is the Fen River side of the river water impact into the river beach, the land is fertile, the water source is sufficient, is the best good land, later generations to build the reservoir when the relocation of thousands of households, flooded many acres of land.

Qin Chuan asked again: "Can the Meng family have a lifter?" Is there a tax deduction for forced labor? ”

Meng Guiming shook his head: "No, if you levy labor, spend some money to invite the villagers to go, as for taxes, Xiao Lao'er will do a little bit up and down every year, and he can always be exempted from part of the field tax, and the Meng family's registered fields are only 3,000 mu, and most of the remaining fields have not been registered, or are still in the names of others." ”

Qin Chuan nodded: "How many fertile fields are there in Lou Fu Valley?" Whose family is the rest? ”

"There are a total of 18,000 acres, in addition to our Meng family, the Du family in Jingyou Town has more than 2,000 acres, the Wang family in Loufu Town has less than 300 acres, and the rest of the households add up to about 200 acres, and the rest are all Ninghua Wang's, and the villagers of Loufu have less than 100 acres."

Qin Chuan frowned: "There are also 2,000 villagers in Lou Fu Town, what do they live on without land?" ”

"Most of the villagers are ...... It is the tenants of the Meng family and the Jingyou Du family, as well as the Zhuang household of the king of Ninghua. ”

Hearing this, Qin Chuan probably understood that the Meng family, the Ninghua King and the Jingyou Du family, these three big families had occupied the land of the villagers through various means, that is, the fertile land of Lou Fan Valley, and the villagers who had no land to plant could only become tenants and help them farm.

In fact, among the large gentry in the late Ming Dynasty, thousands of acres of land were very few, just because Lou Fu was located in the mountainous area, and there were not many fields.

Zheng Lian, who is now following Luo Rucai as a rogue, will write a book in the future, called "Yu Change Chronicle", which has a paragraph that reads: "The rich gentry in Henan occupy 50,000 or 70,000 mu of land, and more than 100,000 mu. ”

Especially in the past ten years or so of increasing the salary, the villagers have been overwhelmed and can only borrow from the gentry and large households, and the large households have begun to frantically enclose land by repaying debts with land.

King Ninghua is reasonable, after all, it is the family of King Jin, and Shanxi has their fields everywhere, but the Du family in Jingyou Town occupies an area of Lou Fu, and it is not a good thing at first glance.

Regarding the question of the field, Qin Chuan didn't ask any more, and he would slowly sort it out when he had time in the future.

However, he had already listed the Du family in Jingyou Town as the next target of robbery in his heart.

For the kind of big family that manipulates the people in the township, it's just a matter of robbing his mother.

……

The Black Mountain Mine is only twenty miles away from Mengjiazhuang, and it takes less than two hours to walk back and forth.

At dusk, Luo Daniu and Song Zhiting brought people back, who originally went on foot, but when they came back, they all rode high-headed horses, and they also tied back a black and thin man.

Qin Chuan found that several of the brothers had colors on their bodies.

As soon as he entered the door, Luo Da Niu said hatefully: "Big boss, the brothers almost folded in the Black Mountain mine, those bitches dared to set up an ambush, fortunately, the military advisor was sharp-eyed, otherwise the brothers would not have come back." ”

Qin Chuan frowned: "What's the matter?" ”

"The big boss, the Meng family still has remnants, and it is in the Black Mountain mine."

Song Zhiting took the words, shook his head and told what had happened.

When they arrived at the Black Mountain Coal Yard, they found that the mine had been suspended, and hundreds of miners' furnaces were strengthening their fortifications, as if they were facing a great enemy.

Song Zhiting and Luo Daniu stepped forward to tell each other that they were the new stewards of the Meng family, saying that Master Meng was still there, and the money and grain were still there, so that the people in the mine could work with peace of mind.

There was a white-faced descendant who claimed to be surnamed Wang, who was the manager of the mine invited by the Meng family, and after answering a few words, he invited them into the mine.

Song Zhiting and Luo Daniu had come to take over the mine, so they led people in, but when they arrived at the gate, Song Zhiting found that the originally noisy inside suddenly became quiet, which was extremely strange.

Immediately, Song Zhiting felt bad, but he didn't say anything, and only secretly reminded Luo Daniu.

When they entered the mine, without waiting for the other party to make a move, Song Zhiting and Luo Da Niu led the ten brothers and went straight into the livestock shed inside, and took some horses while the other party didn't react.

As soon as they started, hundreds of miners came out with knives and guns in their hands.

But Song Zhiting and Luo Da Niu didn't go through the gate, but rushed straight inside and killed each other from the mine.

Because the miners were slow to move and did not expect them to do the opposite, hundreds of people could only watch them go, and even captured one of them.

On the way back, Luo Daniu interrogated the miner and learned that the white-faced descendant was not surnamed Wang, but surnamed Meng, called Meng Zhonghei, and was the nephew of Master Meng Guiming.

It turned out that as early as when the thieves attacked Mengjiazhuang, Meng Zhongsi got the news and immediately called the miners to strengthen the defense of the two mines, but he did not rush to Mengjiazhuang to support, because those miners were unwilling to fight the thieves.

They just helped the Meng family mine for a bite to eat, and they didn't have any loyalty to the Meng family, not to mention that the Meng family was very harsh on them on weekdays.

Even if Meng Zhonghei opened a high price of two taels of silver per person, there were only a few dozen miners who were willing to take this silver to work hard for the Meng family, and everyone else was afraid that they would lose their lives if they took the silver.

In desperation, Meng Zhongsi had to stay in the mine and wait for news.

Song Zhiting, Luo Daniu and others were stared at by his spies on the way to the mine, and from the spies' descriptions, Meng Zhongsi guessed that this group of people was thieves, and the banditry in the old bandits of Jiuji Mountain was too obvious.

So, Meng Zhongsi set a trap and wanted to wipe out this gang of thieves.

I didn't expect that the other party was not only a group of experienced bandits, but also a military advisor with so-so intelligence.

After listening to Song Zhiting's report, Qin Chuan turned his head to look at Meng Guiming.

Meng Guiming shrunk his neck: "The big boss, I don't know why the loyal heir ......"

"I'm not going to listen to this kind of nonsense." Qin Chuan directly interrupted him, "What I want to tell you is that I will kill Meng Zhonghei, because you clearly told me earlier that there is no one from the Meng family outside of Mengjiazhuang, but now there is another Meng Zhonghei, so he must die." ”

Meng Guiming's face was defeated.

Qin Chuan ignored him, but said as he walked out of the house: "Military advisor, big bull, come with me to the town, we have to go and gather people's hearts." ”

"Okay."

Song Zhiting and Luo Daniu took a few more subordinates and accompanied Qin Chuan towards the town not far to the east.

Qin Chuan really values the Black Mountain Mine, which can not only provide him with iron materials, but also provide soldiers, but if only one Meng Zhonghei can't deal with it, he, the bandit leader, doesn't have to be a thief.