Compared with those scholars who can only wail like headless flies, Zhang Dai's family is deeply involved in the cruel struggle of the late Ming Dynasty for decades, and the struggle experience is much richer than theirs.

Of course, according to what someone said.

Rookies peck at each other.

But even if it is a rookie, Zhang Dai is a slightly stronger rookie, and although he is still immersed in the flowers of the imperial capital, he began to pay attention to this case.

The facts of the case are too simple, although there are no various flashpoints, but this matter has spread secretly.

The civil servants who re-entered the stage of collecting evidence were running around, they restarted to investigate the case and ask the parties, especially the guys who originally gambled with Li Baibai that day were unlucky and were directly pulled back for the most intense interrogation, and these boys are not at ease on weekdays, at this time, the new accounts and old accounts are counted together, which is really convenient and comfortable, and even small cases have been solved directly, which is really gratifying.

Of course, a small number of people began to think about the old wisdom of the previous dynasty, that is, the vast sea tactics invented by those brocade guards and fathers-in-law, and began to make a fortune.

In the era of the Ming Dynasty, every time there was a case, the guys who received the task of handling the case did not interrogate the person involved in the case and find out the clues, but first arrested all the rich families near the place of the crime, and started from the source.

Of course, the elders are naturally staring at it all the time, there are too many people in the interior, and it is normal for the elders to have a lack of understanding of the determination to reform, and although it was boiling for a while, there was no big mess.

The retrial of the case was very efficient, and the household registration book and the sub-district office made a contribution, and the energy of those small-footed old ladies was either used to talk about people's rights and wrongs, or they could benefit the country and the people.

Smart people know how to work.

The bitter master's mother ran out on her own, and finally she was asked to go to the court to answer, but the old woman was already frightened, and someone told her every day that her son's case was overturned by the powerful to embarrass his family, and if she really went to court, she would beat the five hundred kills first, and she would be better off than dead.

The situation is naturally not good, bustling and chaotic, and the original woman in the tofu shop is also closed down, I don't know where to go, it took a long time to find out, it seems to be hidden by the daughter-in-law of the butcher who died of the apprentice.

Zhang Dai was not idle, he found that Kong Chengren and Meng said that the propaganda style of taking righteousness was not very popular in the imperial capital.

Even if it is a restaurant running a hall, ordinary laborers can also denounce how some powerful people oppress the good people, how they are lustful, how they take advantage of it, as they have seen with their own eyes, Zhang Dai no longer dares to be the same as before.

At the beginning, Zhang Dai's counterattack was that it was a rumor, but after being slapped in the face, he said that it was a hardship, what kind of scholar worked hard, and how many families had to be fed, but all kinds of clever and robbing food were indeed spread.

Zhang Dai returned to the guild hall, only to be surprised, the sun newspaper, there is a "daily business information" report, but the thing it says is also the report on the safety of the trade route that every businessman is most concerned about, in fact, it is what the official reputation of a certain place is, how much corruption, whether there is a strong man who likes to rob merchants, etc.

This is like a talisman for businessmen of all sizes, and if you know where the mines are, you can at least avoid them.

In this process, it is inevitable that the methods of the gentry and landlords in various parts of the Jiangnan will be written, and the evidence is detailed and the details are vivid, in fact, many people themselves are shocked, how this is detected.

Of course, for the elders, this is not intentional, it is just a way to protect the interests of the merchants and help them protect themselves.

But for those who read the newspaper, the perception is different, these materials basically write a landlord in the late Ming Dynasty how to make a big fight, how to lend, how to get both people and land, the number of roads is so close to the best of the word.

This was almost the first time in history that the internal operation mechanism of the landlord class was studied, and after the construction of the university, the pre-republic economics collected and sorted out these materials and turned them into a book "A Study of the Feudal Landlord Class in China".

The article gives a detailed account of how the landlords suppressed the progress of the productive forces, and at the same time was very angry at the recent rise of the village sage craze, but it still analyzes these facts in general from the perspective of the history of class struggle.

The rise of the landlord class is indeed the result of historical evolution, but its demise is also the trend of the times, and it is not something that will change when a certain person appears or disappears.

Because of its backwardness.

Later history often said that the feudal dynasty represented the interests of the landlord class, and this is true, it guaranteed the right of the landlords to exploit the peasants, and relied on the landlord class to rule the peasants at a very low cost.

But that's only one side of the story, and on the other hand, they have their own and conflicting interests. This is mainly in the relationship with the peasants, the landlord class cannot survive without exploiting the peasants, so its nature requires the tenant peasants to be as numerous as possible. Absolutist centralism also exploits the peasantry, and it cannot exist without the peasants providing it with soldiers, so it demands a vast land.

The problem here lies in this, the imperial power, the bureaucracy, and the peasants, the interests of the three are different, the emperor cannot go to the peasants' houses to collect taxes, and the peasants can only fantasize about whether the emperor uses a golden hoe when he goes to the land, but can only rule by level.

Suppressed level by level, and when it could not be suppressed, it collapsed.

Tenant farmers and yeoman farmers are both peasants, there is no insurmountable hierarchical boundary between the two, they are often transformed into each other, although more are homesteaders into tenant farmers, but it is also common for tenant farmers to be transformed into yeoman farmers, and when the total number of peasants remains the same, the decrease of yeoman farmers is an increase in tenant farmers, and vice versa. If the yeoman peasants were converted into tenant farmers, the dynasty's financial resources and military resources would be reduced, and the centralization of power would be weakened. If it is reversed, if the tenant peasants are converted into yeoman farmers more, the landlords' rent income and labor manpower will also be reduced, and their power will also be weakened, which is a contradiction.

You must know that before Li Zicheng rebelled, he had already done his duty as an exploited masses very well, and he couldn't do it as a post soldier, and he couldn't even pay his salary when he was a border soldier.

This contradiction is almost natural and cannot be changed.

In Zhang Dai's own point of view, as a scholar who rules the world with scholars, not with the people, it is natural that he lives better than others, and the Ming Dynasty system is not good, making scholars very poor, and it is normal to use some means, he remembers that since he was a child, the elders in the family often discussed how to seize those lands in the event of disasters this year.

Since the Qin and Han dynasties, dynasties have often issued edicts to limit the landlord class and prevent the decline of yeoman farmers, and the power of feudal emperors is not based on the size of the rent, but on the number of vassals, which in turn is determined by the number of yeoman farmers.

To use someone's analogy, the emperor is a rancher, and his interest is that the sheep in the pasture are fat and abundant, but he himself cannot manage so many sheep, so he can only entrust the power to the sheepdogs.

What does it have to do with the shepherd's interest in not the prosperity of the flock? He and the rancher is an employment relationship, everyone is cooperative, although I want to listen to you, although occasionally the rancher will kill a few sheepdogs, but for the shepherd, as much as possible to take advantage of the rancher's inability to find out, steal more to kill the sheep, so that they have meat to eat, is fundamental.

Most of the time, ranchers don't like this kind of behavior, but they also turn a blind eye, after all, how can it be possible to want the horse to run fast and the horse not to eat grass? He also pays the sheepdogs for mutton.

And the sheep are really pitiful, they can only try to eat grass, hoping that the rancher and the sheepdog will not be so fierce to eat themselves, and would rather eat others, and at the same time, occasionally a few sheep can complete the class leap, become a sheepdog, and eat their own kind more fiercely.

If it's just that, it's fine, but the biggest task of the shepherd dog is to do a good job of shepherding the sheep internally, and to resist the wolves externally.

But the shepherd dog also discovered that the purpose of the wolves was not to kill themselves, but to plunder the sheep, and this was the case.

The wolves attacked, the sheepdog barked louder than anyone else, and all kinds of anti-Japanese war sounds sounded, but they will always hide in the imperial capital or Chongqing to write some moral articles, but it is absolutely impossible to ask them to make sacrifices, and let the wolves plunder the sheep, the sheepdog can always be, high standards for others, low standards for themselves.

The flock of sheep is naturally talking about the peasants, standing in the various circumstances of the Ming Dynasty, a peasant wants to keep his family and dignity, it is almost impossible, relying on the sky to eat, the economic status is unstable, it is scattered, fragmented, fragile, in the event of natural disasters or man-made disasters or tyrannical expropriation may be ruined, become landless peasants, and then it is a real unstable factor.

Of course, if this were all there was to it, the elders would not be so hostile, and the real problem was that they had not been able to solve the problem of the survival of the economically losers.

The United States has one of the three black soils, has the world's largest grain storage arable land, indirectly controls countless lands, and the food discarded every year can feed tens of millions of people.

In Daming, in the absence of new water conservancy facilities, no chemical fertilizers, and no breeding industry, the bankruptcy of a farmer is almost a natural disaster.

It can be said that the white people who came to the East to "learn" in the Age of Discovery, slaughtered the silver plundered by the natives in South America, and came to work hard for shopping, so that many people can start work.

But such a situation did not exist in the late Ming Dynasty.

Another evil consequence of the landlord system is that it is impossible to produce any industrial revolution at all, and the big businessmen like to make money by means of usury and rising prices, but after they have made money, it is impossible for them to carry out such stupid things as industrial upgrading, invest their money in the countryside, buy more farms and houses, and become landlords or landlords.

This is what it means to bring wealth to the end and keep it with the book.

Unwilling to do this, Dong Xiaowan's experience tells everyone that every minute is the bankruptcy and bankruptcy of the main backbone after his death.

Zhang Dai is not only used to this kind of thing, but also thinks that it is normal, but there are some things that can be done but cannot be said.

For example, the various ways of pouring sharp kicks, big and small fights, and usury printing money, have brought out these tricks, but they have really exposed the foundation of others.

"This Sun newspaper and this daily newspaper, who is writing it, it's insulting to Sven, insulting to Sven!"

When I think of the reader to uncover the painting skin of the reader, Zhang Dai's hatred is naturally higher, the so-called enemy is not hateful, and the traitor is hateful, nothing more.

Although this is an open secret, it is also a way for everyone to deal with the common people with one heart, even if ordinary farmers are not stupid, they can only admit it.

In the original history of the Ming Dynasty, the Great Edict was almost the only talisman for the common people, but after the death of Zhu Yuanzhang, the law was basically abolished. In the future, if there are officials who are greedy and their bosses don't care, any good people can directly arrest corrupt officials in the capital.

However, once such an emperor died, it was impossible for those who came after him to be willing to spend such a huge price to uphold such a law that shook the ruling class, and besides, such a thing really did not work.

Zhang Dai looked at these newspapers, but gradually discovered something.

Most of these newspapers are in the vernacular, straightforward and unliterate, and at the same time have no respect for Confucianism, and they cannot even do basic evasion, and there are often direct references to saints.

In Zhang Dai's view, it is natural that the person who writes this newspaper must be a well-educated person, which is the real mouthpiece, and at the same time quietly write it down, preparing to go to see the location of these newspapers another day.

At the same time, Zhang Dai also found a breakthrough, lawyers.

The lawyer group in the imperial capital, compared with the previous Ming Dynasty, the misery of lawyers, because they directly resisted the pressure of the government, and there were many times when they took benefits from the government, so it was normal to be suppressed.

But in the imperial capital, lawyers were registered by exams or held temporary employment permits, and their right to defend themselves was guaranteed.

(End of chapter)