With the land information book, Fang Yuan's work of clearing up the outstanding land taxes was much faster.

There are many gentry and wealthy businessmen in Suzhou who owe land endowments, and Fang Yuan's strategy is to break them one by one, and the first thing to clean up is the Donglin Party and the Dongting Merchants Gang's outstanding land endowments. These people are also the masters who took the lead in making trouble this time, as long as they are suppressed, the only thing left is to obediently listen to the teachings.

Xiao Yuan led fifty brocade guards to start counting day and night, and it took five days to finally count the amount of land owed by the first batch of Donglin Party members who had been officials in the imperial court, but now they had become officials, and the Dongting merchants helped the wealthy merchants.

There were a total of 337 people in this batch, involving 2.77 million mu of land, and 4.86 million taels of land arrears. Among them is the Changshu Weng family, which Fang Yuan immediately wanted to focus on, covering an area of 180,000 mu and owing 250,000 taels of land to be paid.

These few hundred people alone account for nearly one-third of the total cultivated land in Suzhou Prefecture, and they are all the masters of 10,000 acres of fertile land. It can be seen how much money the Donglin Party embezzled when they were in power; The wealthy merchants of Suzhou Prefecture annexed the land of many peasants.

These people were even more disgusting to Fang Yuan than the corrupt officials of the government.

No matter how corrupt an official is, after all, he has earned his fame by studying hard for ten years. On weekdays, it is also necessary to maintain the normal operation of the government and the opposition, harmony and stability. Although the efficiency is not very high, he is still doing the right thing after all, and he will also accept the assessment of the imperial court.

And these so-called famous families and families derived from land annexation, their ancestors have been lying down to collect land rent, and they can also live a life of worry-free food and clothing. That's why I have nothing to do to study poetry, and set up a poetry school and a literary society; What is this Manchu Emperor, and what is that contemporary Confucian.

In fact, it is just a group of parasitic moths sucking the blood of the people.

The problem of land annexation is a problem that shakes the national foundation, let alone a problem of the Suzhou government, Fang Yuan will not be able to solve it for a while and a half, but the door-to-door collection of the outstanding land endowment is justified and famous.

In five days, Liu Rushi also sent a maidservant to hand over more than 20,000 taels of silver owed by the Qian family, as well as a letter of confession.

Fang Yuan divided the target of expropriation into two groups.

The first group is the Donglin Party members, these people are usually the same as Qian Qianyi, they have no backbone, and they are afraid of the weak and afraid of the hard, so they are handed over to Qin Zhan's Jinyi Guards to carry out. He ordered Jinyiwei to post the confession of the Qian family and the list of outstanding contributions of the Donglin Party on the notice board of the Letters and Visits Office for publicity.

The list of arrears, and the amount of money were also given to Qin Zhan, so that he directly led the Jinyi guard to collect according to the names on the list, and those who dared to resist and refused to pay were directly arrested and sent to the edict for trial, and the land was confiscated.

The second group is the wealthy merchants of the Dongting Business Gang, and this part of the party originally planned to personally lead the Xuanjia Army and the Shenji Battalion to collect money.

Because there are not a few families raised by these wealthy merchants, the eight major Jin merchants can gather 3,000 families to resist violently, and the wealthy merchants of the Dongting Merchants Gang can gather no less than this number.

Just the Jinyi guard came to the door, if he encountered a dog like the Weng family jumping off the wall in a hurry, I am afraid that it will violently resist taxes and even cause civil unrest. To clean up this group of wealthy merchants, we must be prepared to dispatch an elite army to suppress it, and it will be difficult for Jinyiwei to do it.

Three days later, Fang Yuan summoned Jing Jie and Chigutai, ordered five hundred Xuanjia troops, and the five hundred Shenji battalion went to the Weng family's manor on the outskirts of Changshu County under the rule of Suzhou Prefecture.

The Weng family manor is also at the foot of Yu Mountain in Changshu, less than twenty miles away from Qian Qianyi's Hongdou Villa, no wonder the Weng family can have the same smell as Qian Qianyi.

Weng's manor covers an area of 200 acres, which is larger and more luxurious than the Canglang Pavilion in Fangyuan, and is famous in Suzhou Mansion.

Suzhou City was originally the capital of the warlord Zhang Shicheng in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, this manor was once one of the countless military fortresses set up by Zhang Shicheng outside the city of Suzhou, after the Ming Dynasty captured the city of Suzhou, most of the military fortresses were used as the army garrison of the Suzhou Mansion Guard.

However, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the military salary of the imperial court was seriously insufficient, and there was no war in the south for a long time, so the guards of Suzhou Mansion were also greatly reduced, and some military fortresses were abandoned.

The wealthy merchants of Suzhou City took over the acquisition of these fortified military fortresses and converted them into manors for residence. Weng's Manor is also a military fortress in Changshu County, which has been famous for several generations.

Fang Yuan led the army to the outside of the Weng family manor, and only then did he see the grandeur and extraordinary atmosphere of the Weng family manor.

The manor is built on the mountain, and the terrain alone has been built according to the standards of a military fortress, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack. There is also a clear river in front of the manor, which can be used to watch from a distance on weekdays, and has the function of a moat in wartime.

From a distance, the wall of the manor is divided into two layers, eight directions, southeast, northwest and northwest, and sixteen arrow pavilions are built for defense, and on each arrow pavilion, Fang Yuan saw at least five family members holding bows and arrows on standby at any time. Sixteen Arrow Pavilions are connected to each other, and in the event of an emergency, they can also support each other.

Jing Jie also sighed when he saw it, and Chong Fangyuan introduced, "This manor is built on the mountain, condescending, and has occupied a favorable area; The walls are made of clay and hard stone; The outer wall is two feet high, and the inner wall is half a foot high, and if it is not artillery, the wall will never be broken; In addition, there are sixteen arrow pavilions that can support each other, and each arrow pavilion has eight archery ports, which can not only fight separately, but also support each other, and win the essence of defense. ”

Fang Yuan was also interested, pointing to the Weng family's manor and asking, "Third child, how can you break through this manor?" ”

Jing Jie pondered for a while and said, "You must use the Hongyi cannon to blast open the mansion gate." ”

Fang Yuan smiled coldly and said, "Chigutai, send someone to the front of the mansion and make Weng Yang give up resistance and leave the mansion immediately." At noon two days later, if the Weng family did not surrender honestly, it was to gather a crowd to rebel, and the Xuanjia army began to attack! ”

"Yes!"

"Third child, immediately go and inform Li Zongze, send an artillery battalion to support, remember to bring the Hongyi cannon."

"Yes!"

Fang Yuan's Xuanjia Army and Shenji Battalion were stationed outside the Weng family manor, rearming for battle.

Two days later, Li Zongze also arrived with an artillery battalion that came to support from Suzhou City, and also brought two Hongyi cannons and 20 medium cannons.

Li Zongze ordered the artillery battalion to give the Hongyi cannons, and the middle cannons were all filled with gunpowder, and as long as Fang Yuan gave an order, the cannons would be fired.

Fang Yuan looked at his watch, it was 11:30 AM, and there were still 30 minutes left, which was the deadline for the ultimatum, and the Weng family's side still didn't make any movement, and it seemed that they were ready to resist to the end.

At 11:45 AM, Fang Yuan was about to get up and give the command to start attacking the manor, when Sergeant Xuanjia came to report that a group of people outside the barracks asked to see Fang Yuan.

Fang Yuanling brought the leader in, but it was not from the Weng family, one was a middle-aged man, about forty years old, with a poetic and scholarly demeanor; One was a young man, not yet thirty years old, born with a fair face and beautiful eyebrows.

Both of them are dressed in brocade clothes, wearing gold and jade, and they look like children of rich families.

The middle-aged man is also the chairman of the Dongting Shang Gang Dongshan Xi family, and the young man is Shen Xiang, the eldest son of Shen Tingzhang, the head of the Dongshan Shen family.

Fang Yuan heard that the two of them reported to their homes, and it turned out that the Dongshan Xi clan and the Dongshan Shen clan of the Dongting Merchant Gang came to the door, needless to say, the two came to intercede for the Weng family.

When he arrived in Suzhou Mansion, he sent Jinyiwei to secretly visit the reputation of Dongshan Xi and Dongshan Shen in Suzhou in the city.

Xi Benzhen of Dongshan Xi is indeed a wealthy businessman who fights righteousness and squanders money, three years ago the Suzhou Mansion disaster, the people are hungry, Xi Benzhen spent tens of thousands of taels of silver to buy food in other places, on behalf of the government to carry out disaster relief, in Suzhou Mansion is a very good reputation.

And the Dongshan Shen family is known as the richest man in the early Ming Dynasty and the descendant of Shen Wansan. Shen Tingzhang, the head of the Shen family, is the brother of Shen Tingyang, the political envoy of Zhejiang, Shen Tingyang is a hero who resisted the Qing Dynasty, and the Shen family often donates money to buy armaments for the Suzhou Mansion Guard.

In Fang Yuan's list of arrears, the land endowment owed by these two wealthy businessmen together is more than 100,000 taels of silver, which is less than half of the Weng family.

In the face of the two wealthy businessmen who had no notoriety and even stated that they were not bad, Fang Yuan couldn't deal with it in the same way as the Weng family, so he put on a smile, ordered the two to sit down, and made people serve tea.