On July 15, in the third hall of the Jinguo Mansion, Cui Changwu reported to Li Zhi on the expropriation of Tian Fu. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

According to the Yellow Book and the Fish Scale Atlas, there are 460,000 hectares of land in Shandong. In previous years, Shandong Province levied 865,000 stone of rice and flour and 5,043,000 taels of silver. The gentry basically did not pay taxes, and all of these natural land endowments were pressed on the extremely limited number of yeoman farmers. ”

Cui Changwu flicked the account book and said: "Now we have equalized the land endowment, and let the gentry and small farmers pay taxes together. The economic pressure on smallholder farmers has been greatly reduced. In fact, we have increased the land endowment in Shandong Province by 20 percent, but the poorest small farmers still have only a quarter or less of the original land endowment. ”

"On the basis of the original tax revenue, we have increased the income by 2 percent of the field tax, and the annual income is 570,000 stones. According to the current grain price of 224 yuan in Shandong, this is a profit of 1.38 million taels a year. ”

Li Zhi heard Cui Changwu's report and nodded.

After leveling the land endowment and appropriately increasing the proportion of the land endowment, not only did the small farmers get rid of the heavy and unfair land endowment, but Li Zhi also greatly increased his income. With this input of more than one million taels of silver, Li Zhi's deficit was reduced by half at once.

The gentry were the richest group in the Ming Dynasty, and robbing them of their illicit income would feed all the people of Shandong and Li Zhi.

Cui Changwu put down the account book and said: "Grandpa Guo, now the gentry have lost their main source of income, and almost all of them are in bankruptcy, and they can only live on savings. I don't think these gentry will be willing to fail, and will definitely ask for help everywhere..."

Li Xing nodded and said, "Big brother, these gentry will definitely fight back against us next!" ”

Li Zhi looked at the scenery outside the hall and said with a smile: "Let these gentry make a move, I'll see how capable they are." ”

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In the Yamen of Denglai Governor, Dengzhou Prefecture, Shandong, Governor Shi Hanzhang nodded to the Shandong celebrities who were gathered in the second hall.

"This time, Li Zhi levied land in Shandong without authorization, which is extremely unreasonable. Not only did the imperial court not give him the power to expropriate land taxes, but his violent act of ignoring the tax-free privileges of the gentry had brought Shandong Province to the brink of collapse. For a while, the literati were in trouble, and the scholars were humiliated everywhere. We Shandong scholars can't sit still! ”

A white-haired old man named Chen Wanxin, the governor of Guizhou, put his cane on the ground and said loudly: "These days, the old man's tenant farmers have turned against the sky, and they all went to the court one by one, and they all turned the old man's land into public land. The old man's more than 60,000 acres of land have been half gone in a few days. ”

Li Zhi's method of dealing with the donated land was to confiscate it into public land. If the gentry and the tenant farmers who donated the land could not cooperate and take the matter to court, the gentry would eventually lose ownership of the land completely. The white-haired old man was obviously a man who did not cry when he saw the coffin, and was unwilling to lower the rent, which eventually led to his tenant farmers going to the court to turn themselves in.

Another middle-aged literati, Zhou Xuemu, slapped the coffee table and said loudly: "Not only have tenant farmers gone to court to turn my private land into public land. Some Diao people also took advantage of the situation and wanted to fight a lawsuit with me to grab the land. If this continues, those people will skin us and eat our flesh. ”

There are two kinds of land acquisition: "vain sacrifice" and "self-sacrifice". Self-sacrifice means that the yeoman farmer sacrifices his land to the gentry in order to avoid servitude. And the so-called vain sacrifice means that the traitor takes the disputed property, or even the undisputed property of other people's families, and dedicates it to the powerful gentry, and together with the gentry, he forcibly seizes the land of the small people.

Many powerful gentry had a large number of disputed lands under their names. These properties are not good, they were grabbed by relying on the power of the gentry. Now that Shandong has changed, Li Zhi used the 12-point fair Jinguo Public Court to deal with disputes, and those small people who were seized of their land naturally took advantage of the situation and launched a lawsuit to regain their land.

The gentry of Shandong can be said to be suffering from the enemy.

Now Li Zhi has 5,000 troops stationed in Jinan, and Li Zhi's rule in Jinan can be said to be impregnable. But in Dengzhou, Li Zhi only had a thousand troops stationed, and the gentry still had room to breathe. Therefore, as soon as Li Zhijun's policy of Pingtian Fu came out, the gentlemen and celebrities of Shandong ran to Dengzhou and gathered around Shi Hanzhang, the governor of Denglai, to think about countermeasures.

At this time, the people sitting in the second hall were either jinshi or lifters, and there were many officials who were zhishi. And some big landlords with a slightly lower status and only show off their talents and fame can only stand behind. However, even if they are only famous, these people are also wealthy people who own tens of thousands of acres of land at every turn, and they all have a lot of money.

These big landowners looked at each other for a while, and gradually unified their views.

Chen Wanxin took a slap of his crutches and said, "If this continues, there will be no place for us gentry in Shandong." The so-called trapped beasts are still fighting, we can't just let Li Zhi rob our family business. We have the money to contribute, and we have the strength to contribute, this time we must beat Li Zhi down, let him know that our gentry in Shandong are not up to him! ”

Chen Wanxin didn't wait for others to talk, and hurriedly said: "The old man gave 10,000 taels of silver as funds to fight back against Li Zhi." ”

The others were very excited to see that Chen Wanxin, who was known for his prestige, was so generous. Li Zhi can be said to have driven the gentry to a dead end, and all the famous gentry present at this time hated Li Zhi to the core. As long as they can bite Li Zhi and make him stop Junping Tianfu, these gentry will not be stingy with silver.

"I'll give you eight thousand taels!"

"I'll give four thousand taels!"

"The student is willing to give four thousand taels!"

Chen Wanxin watched the gentry waving their arms to resist Li Zhi's grand scene, and nodded incessantly. His wrinkled old face turned blood-red with excitement, and he kept stroking his gray beard with his right hand.

"Hearts are available! People's hearts are available! ”

For a time, the gentry gave generously. A staff member next to Governor Shi Hanzhang of Denglai waved a pen to record everyone's contributions, and when all of them had finished reporting their contributions, the staff had already written the huge rice paper on the table.

In the last count, Shi Hanzhang got a huge number.

Shi Hanzhang looked at the indignant Shandong celebrities in the second hall with a smile, and said loudly: "This time, everyone is so angry that they can raise 1.13 million taels of silver in the first time. With so much silver, this big event against Li Zhi will definitely be successful. ”

Chen Wanxin stood up and said, "Rest assured, in the final analysis, this world is our scholars. There are more than a million taels of silver to unblock the joints, and this time we will definitely be able to mobilize the greatest strength to attack Li Zhi. Li Zhi thought that he could be unscrupulous with more than 20,000 soldiers and horses, and this time we let Li Zhi know what a large army pressure is. We will definitely let Li Zhi understand what it means to hit a stone with an egg and what it means to regret it! ”