And the tenants who pay the rent are also subject to a lot of extortion in addition to the "positive amount". One is "additional consumption", every two taels of rented silver will be added to the consumption of silver one dollar and eight cents; The second is the "dismissal", one tael of silver for each rent, plus four cents of the dismissal fee (transportation fee). The numerous additions brought trouble in calculations, and then they were simply combined, adding four dollars for every two. In addition to these explicit additional extortions, there are many other tricks and extortions.

In addition to renting grain and silver, the Confucian government also forced some tenants to pay certain kinds of goods or provide some kind of labor. Among them, there are so-called: radish households, vermicelli households, bean sprout households, toon households, peach households, apricot households, duck egg households, fish households, rice households, plate households, saucer households, broom households, broom households, altar incense households, New Year's flower households, flower cannon households, door god households, slaughtering households, salt transport households, boat households, horn households, light cannon households, bar households, box households, pig households, cattle households, sheep households, howling mourning households, and so on. There are so many names and there are no surprises. Tenants have to volunteer for nothing.

In addition to the above exploitations, there are also various temporary additions from time to time. For example, if the Emperor Yan needed to pay tribute to the emperor in a certain year, all the tribute would be paid by the tenants. When the emperor went on a "pilgrimage" to Qufu, the tenants suffered even more. In addition to repairing bridges and roads, building sheds and tie colors, weaving mats and weaving pus, and other labor, they also had to pay a certain amount of money along with the grain.

In addition, weddings, funerals, and birthdays in the Confucian Mansion often expropriated tenants' property and resorted to their despicable tricks of exploitation and extortion. Then, usury is also a way of exploitation by Confucius, it is said that Confucius rarely talks about profit, and Confucius rarely talks about interest on the surface, and always talks about "benevolence, righteousness and morality" in words, but they put usury, that is really ruthless! It is documented; The Confucian government lends money abroad, and the annual interest rate is as high as 123 percent! Sometimes moldy wheat is distributed, a bucket of rotten wheat is borrowed, and a bucket of good wheat is returned. and put grain in it, and borrowed one bucket and returned two buckets. There is also a kind of so-called "cattle rent" in usury, that is, the Confucian government pays money to buy cattle and horses, and rents them to the peasants at a price of 40 to 50 percent, and the peasants can use them for three years and pay off the rent in three years; But in the end, the cattle and horses still had to be recovered by the Confucian Mansion and disposed of separately. Under this kind of heavy profit, the peasants often have cattle rents that have not been paid off in time, and people have starved to death.

Under the guise of "benevolence" and the disguise of Confucius's "benevolence", Confucius squeezed out the last drop of blood from the peasants in Qufu, starved them to death in the ravine, and exposed their bodies in the wilderness, but he lived an extremely luxurious life. What is not tired of eating, what is not tired of fine, what is not cut properly and does not eat, what sauce is not eaten, what is not right, not sitting, what wears a black lamb's skin robe, must be accompanied by a black robe; Wear a white deerskin robe, and always wear a white smock; Wearing a yellow fox fur robe, it must be paired with a yellow smock, etc., a high-end and high-grade aristocratic style.

And the successive generations of "saints" in Qufuyan Shenggong Mansion naturally followed the example of their ancestors and further intensified their efforts, singing the deceptive tune of "thrifty and loving" on the one hand, and extremely luxurious on the other, showing their "noble" status with the pomp and circumstance of clothing, food, housing and transportation.

For example, the old lady of the Confucius Mansion had a Chinese New Year's Eve, but her family had a private banquet, and she did not invite any foreign guests at all, so she had to spend 830 taels of silver. If there is any joy or funeral, the cost will be even greater. And not only several old men eat delicacies from the mountains and seas, but even cats and dogs, like their owners, live a luxurious life. The food for raising a cat is 3,000 wen a day, and the dog needs to be fed with pig liver, which costs 12,000 wen a day. The cost of bird food is as high as 24,000 wen. At the same time, the tenants outside the Confucian Mansion are selling their sons and daughters for a thousand wen each!

In general, the kind of thing that "Zhumen's wine and meat stink, and there are frozen bones on the road" happens every day in Confucius. Every day, there are so many leftovers that are thrown away in the Confucian Mansion that they can be piled up into a hill, but they never refuse to take less from the tenants even half a bucket of wheat...... Even if many of these tenants in the Confucian Mansion have the same surname Kong, and even retain the same bloodline, they are the descendants of a certain concubine of a certain generation of Yan Shenggong, but they will not be forgiven.

In addition to the exploitation of tenants in the countryside, another method of exploitation of the Confucian government was to occupy the bazaars and collect taxes, and in any case, as long as the bazaars could reach out, they were all occupied by the Confucian government, and the local bullies were appointed to act as market leaders and forcibly extract taxes. In addition to obtaining huge taxes from these markets all year round, the Confucian government also used the method of changing the head of the market from time to time, and often collected the "recognition fee" of the head of the market. In order to raise the price of Jitou, the Confucian Mansion actually regarded Jitou as a strange commodity and auctioned it publicly. In addition, the Confucian government also used its power to make a fortune by opening pawnshops, operating money banks, and issuing money tickets. Whatever any gangsters have done in ancient and modern times, the Confucian Mansion will only do it more ferociously and greedily.

Of course, the more ruthless big head business is naturally the sale of illicit salt, this private salt business in ancient times was absolutely profitable, originally the most important financial income of the government, but Yan Sheng Gong sacrificed to the ancestors and guarded the grave, bought a little salt to eat by himself, who dared to stop it, plus the Donglin Party and the public are in the future, naturally the rich gentry and rich merchants are exempt from taxes, and the burden of taxes is all pressed on the most ordinary poor people, small merchants of small households, they hold the flesh of the daughters of poor families, and ridicule those poor people who work all day long in rags but can only starve to death.

Of course, the greed for land in the Yansheng Mansion has been like a demon in Shandong, and it is already easy to snatch people and seize land, colluding with Xu officials to directly assign all the land of Zhuangzi or small landlords who have no backing to their own names, and let those original people either flee the famine or become slaves for themselves.

Anyway, Yan Shenggong himself laughed, who cares if the people live or die? That's what the court cares about.

Outside the sphere of influence of power, that is, where it is troublesome to kill people and it is difficult to influence the government, another method of plundering is adopted, surrendering.

Of course, the donation is also divided into different types of situations, within the scope of the thugs on the Yansheng Mansion can be sent out to kill people and destroy the door, basically if they fancy that land, they can go directly to rob it, and some people take the initiative to come to the door in the name of donation, which is different, it is equivalent to collecting a symbolic tax burden.

The next level is the trick mail, that is, nominally it is the Yansheng Gong's family, but in fact it is just a ride, and a symbolic part is given every year, which is much more free than the contribution.

As for being like Fan Jinzhongju, after a middle-aged old dick was lifted, countless people came to cheer for him, not to mention those who sent money and things, and those who sent fields, and the family who sacrificed themselves to Fan Jin as slaves, people may not accept it.

The servants of the Confucian family naturally cannot be accepted so vulgarly and casually, and they generally have to be "born in the family" or bought at a very young age, and they are trained to serve people with open and obedient thinking, and they will really instill servility in them, so that people can serve them themselves.

The reason why the Hu family is so excited to find the past is also very simple, an old figure with a high status in the Confucian Mansion is listening to the guidance of a certain person who has attained the Tao to learn the advanced experience of some people and play double cultivation Dafa!

Seventy-seven forty-nine ten-year-old young girls, it really costs a lot, the most difficult thing is that it has to be in harmony with the master, and it has to be a local woman in Shandong.

Outside the history books, the so-called Yan Shenggong often has unknown darkness, just as the traitor Hou Fangyu can become a good man in the peach blossom fan, Hou Fangyu, then the affairs of the Confucian Mansion are naturally covered up in this way.

Although it is not recorded in the official history, it is still recorded in some corners: ...... Kong Hongxu, the prince of Yansheng, sat on the rape of more than 40 happy women, strangled four innocent people, and beheaded them. The edict is to declare the sacred, cut the lord for the people, and replace the younger brother Hongtai......

According to the "Da Ming Law" at that time, Kong Hongxu did so much evil, and he would naturally die. However, because the Kong family is a special family, and because he is hereditary Yan Shenggong title, the local officials do not dare to make decisions without authorization, so they have to report to Emperor Chenghua of Ming Xianzong at the first level. Emperor Chenghua was furious when he heard this, but he was angry, considering that Confucius, as the "Su King" and "the Most Holy Teacher", if it was a little inappropriate to rashly kill his descendants, and more importantly, the Confucian culture and imperial thought established by various dynasties and emperors for thousands of years to consolidate their political power would fall to the ground.

Indeed, the feudal landlords and gentry in the late Ming Dynasty were the most knowledgeable and cultured people in Chinese society at that time, and they were also the most intelligent. They don't sleep all day doing nothing, they are also actively learning. But the problem is that in their eyes, the knowledge that is really worth learning is limited to writing the Eight Shares Examination and becoming an official and seeking privileges, which is simply how to become an exploiter. As for production, whether it is industry, agriculture, commerce, or war and plunder, it is not the "fundamental" of the gentry, but the "miscellaneous" of non-business......

As a representative of the literati in the late Ming Dynasty, he only studied in the Bagu Wen all his life, and the Yanshenggong family naturally responded to Li Xiangqian's summary, the principle of doing nothing to make a fuss, if a group of people are not short of food and clothing, and you don't help him find things to do, then it is normal to make a mess and do all kinds of bad things.

Seventy-seven and forty-nine virgins are not easy to find, but the Kong family has a big family, is very rich, and has influence behind him, although the Taoist priest wants to find a virgin with eight characters, it is not very difficult.

And the Hu family just has such a daughter, fortunately and unfortunate just ten years old, is Hu Sanqi's cousin in the five suits, after being found by the third housekeeper of the Kong family, after coercion and temptation, although his parents are very reluctant, but since the lord wants, it is natural to give, and the Yansheng Mansion also reciprocated the peach, giving the Hu family a dedication status, only need to pay a small amount of benefits every year, you can be named on the Kong family, and you don't have to pay the tax burden of the government.

Of course, this hurts the Ming Dynasty and hurts the interests of China, but what is the matter with the Holy Father? Yan Shenggong only needs to be pampered, occasionally say some high-sounding touting, and endorse the legitimacy of no matter which emperor, and it is almost the same, by the way, he is ready to take refuge in the new master as a traitor at any time, then everything will naturally go well.

The confidence of the Hu family is also there, due to the deviation of information, they naturally don't know that the daughter of the Hu family entered the Confucian Mansion, in fact, she went in with dozens of girls, and thought that she was favored by a certain big man, even if she became a concubine, it was also a great power.

Anyway, after finding a way to get the county government up and down, the Hu family really didn't have to pay the imperial grain tax and all kinds of apportionment and servitude.

However, the Hu family arrived in Qufu, but it was not easy, the mansion here was big, and they were not the people who contacted the housekeeper of the Yansheng Mansion at the beginning, so they were naturally a little blind.

After waiting at the door for a few days, he finally found a porter of a three-butler, who looked at the poor ghosts and accepted the money.

After waiting for another day, the three housekeepers returned home, in fact, the three housekeepers were also surnamed Kong, in fact, Qufu was a place, and later, due to the continuous separation of families, the people around were basically the people of the Kong family.

The third housekeeper listened to the truth of the matter, and heard about the martial arts team in the imperial capital, and naturally his face changed, but he served the master all the year round, and the city government still had it, and the housekeeper without the city government would have become a corpse a long time ago.

"I'm afraid it's going to be a long-term plan, you said that there is a daughter in the old man's room at home, but I don't remember it," the third housekeeper laughed darkly, the reason why he was so confident was naturally because the seventy-seven forty-nine "furnace dings" had already been played to death, basically all of them died of hemorrhage, and they were directly wrapped in straw mats and thrown out.

Anyway, in his memory, there is basically no favor in it, and at present, those uncles and uncles are popular to eat a kind of superb blue pill that has been handed down from the imperial capital, a good product to revive the heroism of men!

He knocked on the side and said: "It's difficult to do anything these days, you have to find a way to dredge it everywhere, do you think the things in the master's room are something that I, a subordinate, can inquire about?" Don't you have to beg someone? ”

This is asking for money, but what money do these men of the Hu family still have in their hands?

That night, I thought that I could rush into the homes of those reclaimed refugees, slaughter and rob those few women, naturally no one would take much softness, and after encountering a counterattack, how many people were stunned at that time, and naturally no one thought of going home and robbing the money and running.

In their cognition, I am the master, I can kill you and rob you at will, you dare to resist, I naturally have to wait until tomorrow to report to the official to deal with it, but you have to ignore people and knock on the door.

Originally, according to the rules, the marching army could not live in the county seat, nor could it live in the homes of local tyrants and inferior gentry, so there were few choices, and it was suitable to live in the homes of those people who reclaimed the wasteland.

Now that people are entertaining you, but you encounter misfortune, a helper is naturally necessary, and after hearing about the Hu family's murderous behavior, it is natural to act bravely and directly cut the grass and eradicate the roots, otherwise, when the martial arts team leaves, then these people will not suffer.

(End of chapter)