Xiao Dan was surprised. Since the Zhou and Hua families have been married for generations, they are considered to be relatives. The two villages are separated by only a small river. Look up and don't look down, both sides have something, and they take care of each other.

It's a bit unbelievable to play like this this time.

He said to Zhou Xinshu: "Anyway, it's nothing important, you slowly explain the origin of this matter one by one." ”

Zhou Lichang sighed again and said, "It's strange that the people of the Hua family are too stingy, and they want to take my daughter over without spending a penny." Where in the world is there something so cheap? ”

With a sigh, Zhou Xinshu slowly made this matter clear from beginning to end. He spoke in a low voice, rather in a heavy tone.

It turned out that this matter had to start a year ago.

Zhou Xinshu's family has an only daughter who is fifteen years old. In the boudoir, the matchmaker said that he agreed and gave it to an ordinary peasant family in Huajiazhuang. There are four people in this family. His father's name is Hua Jinsheng. There are two sons below, Hua Da Niu and Hua Er Niu. Zhou Xinshu's daughter promised to be the boss and a big cow. The matchmaker is Hua Bixin, the village chief of Huajiazhuang.

Zhou Xinshu's family is such an only daughter. On weekdays, I love like a treasure, and I am a patriarch, and the bride price I ask for is naturally higher than that of ordinary people.

The two parties agreed to take the six acres of paddy fields owned by the Hua family as a dowry.

Hua Da Niu's family is also a ding, medium family, with more than 20 acres of good paddy fields, it is said that such a dowry can still be taken out.

But it's a pity that Emperor Zhengde used troops in Jiangnan in the fourteenth episode of Zhengde, and the military budget was lacking, so he increased the tax by 30%.

Under normal circumstances, the field endowment of the Ming Dynasty was not high, that is, one-tenth of the output. Add three percent. Ordinary people can bear it.

But unfortunately, there is a very special provision in the tax law of the imperial court: progressive tax.

That is to say, the common people receive only 10 percent of the land within the rated amount. However, as long as a certain number is passed, it will continue to accumulate on the basis of the rated tree amount. The more land the people owned, the more taxes they had to pay went up and down until they reached an unbearable number.

This tax law has been in place for hundreds of years, and the main reason why the imperial court issued this decree in the first place was to prevent land annexation. Because Chinese have the habit of buying real estate. In addition, the ancients did not have much consumption, so once they had money, they would save it, and when they saved a certain amount, they began to buy land and property. And so it goes. The land will be concentrated in the hands of the rich in an astonishing way.

In fact, this tax law is not bad, but the imperial court ignored one point while promulgating this decree: scholars and dignitaries with meritorious names do not need to pay taxes.

Ordinary people can't afford such a progressive tax, and they don't buy land anymore, but scholars and dignitaries are not subject to this constraint and can buy land unscrupulously.

As far as the people around Sun Dan are concerned, because the Sun family of the Marquis of Huichang did not have to pay taxes, they bought a large amount of land in Beijing, Jinan, and Shandong, and even Tianjin Wei also had a manor.

In this way, the annexation of land inevitably concentrated in the hands of the ruling class, and also limited the upward passage of the ordinary middle peasantry.

This situation is a bit like the later Republic of China period, when Chairman Chiang also issued the same decree, but unfortunately it could not restrain the greed of bureaucratic capital for land.

Generally speaking, in ancient times, without fame, you could not become the ruling class, even if you wanted to be diligent and thrifty to accumulate wealth and become a landlord, just a progressive tax could kill you.

Now, Hua Da Niu's family has also encountered this problem. Their family is also a middle peasant, and they were originally able to bear the progressive taxes of the imperial court, but the emperor could not bear the thirty percent of the taxes.

also brought Hua Erniu's family to the brink of bankruptcy.

So, Hua Daniu's father gritted his teeth and gave all the land in the family to the family of Mr. Guo, a big family in Fangshan County, hoping to avoid taxes reasonably through this means. This old man Guo is from a humble background, has been a county inheritor, and has tax exemption privileges.

After the Hua family did this, Zhou Xinshu didn't know yet. The parties also agreed on a marriage date.

When the dowry arrived, the Hua family had come to a piece of land and had already given it away, and there was no money. Anyway, there is already a matchmaker, and the villagers in all the towns know that the daughter of your Zhou family is going to marry our Hua family, and you have already agreed. It's impossible to go back. It's a big deal, I'll spend some money to make up for your losses.

The helplessness of the Hua family made Zhou Xinshu very annoyed, and even the entire Zhou Jiazhuang felt stunned that he was teased by the Hua family, and the contradictions between the two sides began to accumulate.

The fuse of the matter was born at the beginning of this year, and Zhou Xinshu saw that it was not a way for the Hua family to drag on like this. The daughter's age is also dragging on day by day, so she is ready to suffer a dumb loss, and takes the initiative to dissolve the marriage contract. informed the matchmaker to find the parents of both sides together, and prepared to return the property that the Hua family had given to the Zhou family before.

The Hua family was already playing an empty glove white wolf and earning a daughter-in-law for nothing, so they were naturally not very happy. After meeting, if he didn't say the right word, he had a fierce conflict with Zhou Xinshu.

When the two sides met, they were naturally cynical and quarrelling. After all, Zhou Xinshu is a person who is the elder, walking on the scene all the year round, and his eloquence is very good. The Hua family was so scolded that they couldn't raise their heads. Hua Da Niu's father was about to leave after Hua Jinsheng was angry.

Zhou Xinshu didn't let it go, and scolded again: "Look at your cowardice, you want to leave before you finish it, it's really a useless thing." ”

Hua Jinsheng was unhappy and sneered: "I'm useless. I coaxed it, but I also gave birth to two of them. Son. ”

This sentence was already a great insult in ancient times, and Hua Xinshu, who had only given birth to a daughter, jumped like thunder, and kicked at Hua Daniu's father.

Seeing that the fight was opened, the Hua family and the son also moved.

It's a pity that this is Zhoujiazhuang, and the result of a duel is that the three fathers and sons of the Hua family were beaten into pigs' heads by the angry Zhou family.

After going back, the more the Hua family's father thought about it, the more angry he became, and waited for the injury to heal. gathered the people of the entire Huajiazhuang to kill them.

So, the surnames Hua and Zhou began to fight.

From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, there were more than a dozen large and small fights, and each paid more than a dozen seriously injured people. The cost of more than thirty lightly wounded.

Seeing that they couldn't take advantage of this fight, the Hua family was also angry and found Master Guo's house for help. Master Guo is also a simple person, saying that he knows the people who work in the capital, and he can help them come forward to invite them to come to the town, but the money has to be spent by the family themselves.

The Hua family also fought a real fire in this continuous fight, and the whole village gathered twenty taels of silver to go out, hoping to sweep the Zhou family away with the help of external forces. However, I don't know how, the news reached the ears of the Zhou family, and this is the afterword that the Zhou family ambushed Sun Dan halfway.