It is necessary to carry out the new taxation system promulgated by the Ningyuan Bofu and establish a fair and effective new taxation system to lighten the people's burdens and increase their income. At the same time, the fiscal and taxation system, which had been implemented for more than 200 years, was quietly abolished, so that the finances of Guangdong and Guangxi were synchronized with those of other parts in southern and central China.

If we want to achieve these two goals, we must have a thorough understanding of the number, location, type, grade, and property rights of the acres of land belonging to the prefectures, counties, and townships, otherwise the new taxation and land endowment system will be an empty word.

Although the Nanyue Army began to infiltrate the Liangguang region several years ago, and has gone through a series of work, such as suppressing bandits and quelling chaos, resisting the British Hongmaoyi people, and carrying out a series of work such as the building of grass-roots organizations such as task forces in various places, it is now considered to have begun to take shape, but it is still far from being able to have a clear idea of the entire region.

Although there are many fields that belong to clan fields, public fields, and sacrificial fields, and a large amount of land that is exempt from paying money and grain, the in-depth investigation of the work team in these years, as well as the students of the Surveying and Mapping School, in addition to surveying and mapping mountains, rivers, forests, ponds, etc., also carried out a number of surveying and mapping of various fields. However, the issue of land property rights cannot be investigated by simple surveying and mapping.

If you want to investigate property rights, you have to go to the field. Re-filing and mapping is extremely laborious and laborious. And the resistance is very great, in the feudal society, but where you want to zhangtian, in addition to the beginning of the new dynasty, it is easy to do when the old and the new are renewed, and then every time it is carried out, it will always cause a strong backlash from the gentry class, and in the end it will often be lost.

Now, around the implementation of this new tax charter, the secret wrestling between the Nanyue Army and the gentry, officials, and scholars of Liangguang began around this most basic number!

First of all. Jiang Yihong is concurrently acting as the governor of Guangdong. An official letter was sent to various prefectures and counties, citing the grounds that after the Liangguang Bandit Rebellion, a large number of farmlands were deserted, and the original owner did not know where to go or died in the sword war. All localities are required to re-register land measurements.

This official document went down to the state and county. The money, food, masters, and household secretaries everywhere all frowned, holding their glasses, carefully trying to figure out the hidden meaning behind this official document. Re-registration. It is true that the land and property that each person has secretly seized can be rightfully attributed to his own name, but according to the new regulations for the collection of taxes and grain. The more land you have, the more money you pay.

As a result, under the "kindness" of the money and grain master, state and county officials in various localities have issued letters to the authorities, demanding that the tax matter be divided into several steps, first to complete the measurement and clearing of the acres of land, and then to register after finding out the bottom number.

At the same time as measuring the acres of land, a new fish book should be drawn up, and the land property rights and tax status should be re-registered. This is not a trivial matter in ancient society, often to the court to take the lead in the event, the Ming Dynasty in addition to the Hongwu period Zhangtian to draw the fish Lin book, only the early years of Wanli Zhang Juzheng Dynasty did Zhangtian. Every time Zhangtian, not only the household department and the province have to send special officials to handle it, but also send students from the whole province to assist, and the time can not be done in one or two months. At least more than half a year.

In the eyes of everyone, how can such a huge project be carried out? I'm afraid that it won't be long before Ning Yuanbo's Mansion will put this vigorous tax system reform to a dead end and end gloomily. How should you pay money and food, or how should you pay it?

"However, Dong Weng, before Shangfeng officially sent the Qingzhang personnel down, he also asked Dong Weng to issue a notice to order all townships and towns to complete this year's summer grain payment and autumn grain levy! At the same time, the money and grain owed by various households over the years must also be clearly compared. In this way, Shangfeng will know, and he will also praise the adults for their diligence! ”

Some people plan to take advantage of this time difference to make a big profit. wantonly increased the consumption of rice, and extremely seriously cleaned up the arrears of money and grain over the years, which made the gentry and villagers complain, and when the money and grain of the Shengdou small people were almost collected, their own pockets were also full, and then they conspired with the gentry and big households to stage a lively drama of the people and the people, and finally forced Uncle Ning Yuan to accept this charter in disgrace.

For a time, the states and counties in the Pearl River Delta were tossed by the trend of urging money and grain. The peasants, who had thought they could easily drink tea and eat rice, were once again blindfolded by the tax collectors who came to collect their taxes.

In previous years, in addition to issuing notices and distributing "grain reasons" -- that is, after the demand notice, a cabinet was set up in front of the county's official warehouse to collect grain, waiting for the peasant households in the four townships and eight towns to carry rice to the door to pay the grain. It is only after the end of this stage that we will enter the stage of going to the countryside to urge the conscription. However, this year was different, and almost all the subordinates of the county household secretaries went to the countryside, urging the payment of money and grain on the one hand, and building a large number of fields on the other.

For a time, from the big landlords who owned thousands of acres of paddy fields and tens of thousands of acres of mountains and forests, to ordinary peasants with only a few acres of thin fields, they all became uneasy.

As the vested interests of the original tax system, the gentry were naturally unwilling to carry out this so-called tax reform, and they were even more hostile to the first foot of the tax reform and the ensuing affirmation of power. No matter how unreasonable the old tax system was, they have become the biggest beneficiaries of this system. If this new tax system is implemented, it is bound to hand over a large amount of money and grain in the summer and autumn every year, and if the above side plays a game of chasing the money and grain accumulated over the years for the sake of political achievements, then they will be in bad luck.

Thinking about the money and grain they have been in arrears for many years, as well as the benefits obtained by means of guò flying, trickery, and hanging accounts, the gentry and grain farmers are very unwilling! It is good for the Nanyue army to fight and quell the chaos! Defending Sangzi and pacifying the thieves and bandits didn't even get the top, but Ning Yuanbo and his old man didn't know who they had listened to, so they actually wanted to re-measure the acres of land and register property rights, isn't this a clear nuisance to the people and make the people uneasy? !

There are also landlords who are less courageous and stronger, and they are anxious to think about whether they will be dragged to the yamen to show the public because they have too much money and grain in arrears and too long. According to the law of the Ming Dynasty, the people and gentry had to pay the grain to the county on time after receiving the notice of payment. There are first limits, second limits, and third limits. As soon as the three limits are passed, they will enter the stage of chasing the comparison, and immediately take the households who owe grain to the yamen every three or five days to chase the cane, that is, take off their pants and hit the board, and what makes people lose face is the flail to show the public. Wearing a wooden flail of more than ten catties or dozens of catties, he knelt in front of the yamen, and from time to time was knocked on a stick by the Minzhuang officials who guarded the side, and he had to chant his own crimes loudly in his mouth, because he was shown to the public by the flail.

However, the Great Ming Law has been abandoned for many years, and many places are just saying.

Generally a person who has a little bit of face and power in the local area. A famous card with his own title was handed over. Explain who my same year is, who my fellow subject is, and who my fellow brothers are, and it's too late for the yamen to tie up. How dare you do that? This is the reason why the so-called government should not offend the giant room. If you encounter that kind of ruffian, green-skinned scoundrel. Although there is no power. But it is a hob meat that is not steamed and cooked, and there is nothing to be done in the yamen. The landlords, who are more than enough than the above, are making friends with the household clerks and "talking about the pound" to negotiate the conditions. Bargain over how much rice is consumed. As for those big men who have returned to their hometowns, officials at the state and county levels have to go to the mansion at any time to ask the big men to give advice on local political affairs, how much fertile land they have, and not a single grain of rice or penny will be handed over to the imperial court, and even if the state and county-level yamen know about it, they have to turn a blind eye, and there are few local officials who are bent on stammering and helping to cover up.

Lord Xu Jiexu, who branded Yan Song's father and son as embezzlers and colluded with the Japanese in an attempt to rebel, owns 100,000 acres of good land in his hometown of Songjiang, and Dong Qichang, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites of the Wanli Dynasty, is even more Tian Lianqianmo, who collects a penny of imperial grain and national tax from them?

Now that a Ning Yuanbo is here, he wants to take a lot of money and food from our pockets? This kind of thing, Confucius has already had a clear precept, "Is it tolerable or unbearable?" "This can't be tolerated!

Therefore, when the teams stationed in villages, towns, and counties in various localities began to clean up and measure the land on the ground under their jurisdiction with great enthusiasm and enthusiasm, and clarified whether it was a raw or mature wasteland, whether it was a paddy field or a dry field, and whether it was a mountainous land or a forest land, the counterattack of the large gentry and grain households quietly began.

The first to discover this trend was the Wu Liuqi Department of the First Mixed Brigade stationed in Foshan, Nanhai, and Bao'an.

Countless headless posts were posted in ancestral halls, theaters, teahouses, wine shops, etc., and all kinds of sayings were spread in private, and the gentlemen made good use of their cultural and discourse advantages, and took the tax regulations and land clearance quite decently, which sounded very reasonable out of context.

"Did you hear that? After clearing the fields this time, everyone's positive amount will more than double! And it's only cashiers! ”

"Also, the name of the donated fields everywhere is registered, and it is clear to whom! In the past, in order to pay less money and food, everyone used to store the fields in the names of the masters, but now they are all going to become masters! Look! That person came out to say good things about Uncle Ning Yuan's charter, and that must be the one who has a lot of land under his name! He wanted to take the opportunity to swallow everyone's fields in one gulp! ”

"My friend in Yamen said that there is a decree from above, as long as there is no land, it must be transported by ship to thousands of miles overseas, to work in mines dozens of miles deep! With the bull head horse noodles! ”

"Uncle Brothers, the hundreds of acres of paddy fields under the name of the ancestral hall in our clan were originally purchased for the repair of the ancestral hall, anti-smuggling and the study of the descendants of the clan, and now they also have to pay field taxes and grain. I'm afraid that next year, the boys in the clan will be blown up. ”

According to rumors, the consumption of floating rice will be abolished and the standard of positive items will be slightly raised, and the so-called consumption will be borne by the public, which has become a positive double. Instead of collecting broken silver, and at the same time abolishing the policy of fire consumption, it has also become only silver dollars on the basis of doubling the grain levy.

And counting how much land was donated to avoid taxes, and re-registering the ownership is to determine the name of the land that turned the land into its name. Piggybacking on a method of poisoning a well, tell everyone that whoever comes out to say good things about this tax charter will benefit from it. Some people who have a clearer mind and can see the words in this charter clearly do not dare to come out and explain to the people around them.

Using sea ships to transport people who lack land and have no means of livelihood and sources to Nanzhong, Siam, and even Shizhou to reclaim wasteland, open mines, and log trees was originally a virtuous policy for both public and private interests, but it was so grafted by people with intentions. It becomes a link in the chain of evil purposes.

As a result, the homesteaders who supported their families by cultivating a few acres of thin fields, the prisoners who put other people's land in their own names in order to earn a little rent, and the tenants who rented other people's land to pay the rent, money, grain, and silver, all made people panic by this overwhelming rumor.

"Boss! The uncles in our family also asked someone to bring the letter, and the countryside of Chaozhou also began to open the fields, and rumors are flying all over the sky, and several uncles want to ask you to inquire about what the above idea is. Can this field still be planted? ”

and Wu Liuqi or fellow villagers. Or a few officers of the same clan worriedly holding letters from their respective homes. Trying to find out some accurate inside information from Wu Liuqi.

"You guys!" Wu Liuqi put down the iron rod in his hand, took the towel handed over by his own soldiers and wiped the sweat on his forehead and face, "On weekdays, I let you read and write, and you all say that you have something." Turn around and run to the flower boat to drink flower wine! ”

I heard the chief and eldest brother reprimand like this. A few officers felt a lot more at ease. A wry smile appeared on his face. Someone hurriedly took the purple sand teapot in the hands of the soldiers, poured a cup of kung fu tea for Wu Liuqi, and held it in front of Wu Liuqi with both hands.

"Boss. Drink tea! ”

"Duh! In the army, you have to call the brigade commander! After a joke, Wu Liuqi took a sip of tea and asked these old brothers with a straight face, "Let me ask you, does the lord have a distant relationship with us?" ”

As soon as these words came out, everyone suddenly changed their expressions, shook their heads one after another, and even the man spoke: "If you want to say that the lord is not good to us, Lao Tzu is the first to fight with him!" ”

The days of the First Mixed Brigade were indeed good, and the officers were originally worried that after Wu Biao was dug up by the imperial court to turn against the water, the Nanyue Army would look at this unit that had defected halfway to the other side, and the equipment from the military salary, all kinds of small shoes were thrown over like raindrops, and they were the first to think of the things that were sent to death in the war, and they did not have a share in the things that were a little beneficial. But he didn't want to, so Shouhan allocated all the troops that ran out of Wu Biao's headquarters to Wu Liuqi, and gave the number of a mixed brigade, not to mention an artillery team with twelve heavy guns, and a horse battalion of 150 people. As for the baggage troops, medical and medical battalions, and other detachments, they have also been expanded.

This kind of treatment naturally made the mixed brigade grateful to Dade, especially after the capture of the Zheng Zhilong brothers in Xiamen in the First World War, the soldiers of the first mixed brigade talked to others with their nostrils facing the sky, that is, when they saw the Dongfan soldiers under the eldest prince Li Huayu, these guys would be a little polite. After all, the Dongfan soldiers were the troops who charged the batteries one after another under the artillery fire of the Zheng family's army, opening the passage for the whole army.

Shouhan once ordered the military division and the battalion office to ask Wu Liuqi's opinion, the army should be expanded, to be upgraded, with the expansion of the territory, the original field troops of the six towns are no longer enough, if Wu Liuqi has this idea, then the number of the seventh town is his.

Unexpectedly, this Jian yì was rejected by Wu Liuqi.

"Wait for our old Wu to give the lord a few more military exploits, and then upgrade to a town! The brothers of this first mixed brigade think it's good! ”

In desperation, Shouhan had no choice but to shake his head and ask the military division and the battalion office to reformulate a plan, and among the garrison brigades in various places, select troops with combat merits and relatively strong combat effectiveness, and according to Wu Liuqi's precedent, first expand into a mixed brigade, and then gradually upgrade to a town in the future.

"The lord naturally treats us the same as the troops of the old Nanzhong army, so the lord will inevitably treat the territory of Liangguang and Fujian as well as the rest of Nanzhong." Wu Liuqi drank tea and motioned for several subordinates to sit on chairs and drink tea and eat snacks.

"You have all been to Hue, Ha Tinh, Cam Ranh Bay and other places, and everyone knows what the tax situation there is. It seems that there are a lot of taxes, but the life of the farmer is the same, happy and happy. ”

The crowd fell silent. They have also seen the tax situation in various parts of the south and central China, and it is indeed very high on the surface, but the actual burden of the people is not as high as that in the mainland.

"There's not so much float and loss. Naturally, the life of the farmer is much better. ”

Wu Liuqi said a word.

And the lord himself took the lead in setting an example, personally paying taxes and food. Which of the officials at all levels dares to brush the tiger's whiskers? ”

"Brigade commander," a few guys have a long memory, and they no longer call Wu Liuqi a big man. There was a small flame flickering in his eyes, "What do you mean, is that this trend, the rumors everywhere, are all the wind released by those officials and gentry and big food households?" ”

"We are a mixed brigade, but we relied on tax resistance and grain resistance to cause trouble, this dirty matter between the Guangdong government's grain and tax collection, others don't know, we don't know?"

With a cold laugh, a sinister smile appeared on Wu Liuqi's face.

"You guys, do these things for me when you go back......"

Soon, urgent letters from the barracks of the First Mixed Brigade were sent to the counties of Chaozhou by the people of the Information Bureau, and the Wu family, the Liang family, the Lin family, and other Chaozhou surnames all received letters from the children of the army, explaining in detail the methods and methods of the new tax system and the benefits to the ordinary people.

The rumors of the Teochew government were gradually quelled, and people began to wait with anticipation for the team to complete the land clearance.

However, the trend in the Pearl River Delta region is intensifying.

Wu Liuqi ordered that, except for a small number of procurement personnel, the soldiers of the First Mixed Brigade were not allowed to go out without a major order.

"All troops on alert!" (To be continued......)