Generally speaking, the fields that can be used as sacrificial fields to support ancestral tombs and ancestral halls are not too bad, and the land prices in the Gyeonggi area are by no means cheap. Han Gang wanted to buy a house in the capital at the beginning of the year, and asked about the land prices around Kaifeng by the way. Ordinary dry land is ten times upwards - this is still a low-yield, remote field. If it is a high-quality land close to a village or a road, the price will be doubled. At that time, after Han Gang inquired about the land prices and housing prices in Kaifeng Mansion, he put away his thoughts about buying a house and property in the capital, and honestly rented a courtyard by the river.

Baima County, although it is a little far away from the capital, still belongs to the important town of Jinliang, and now it has become Qi County, and the land price will not be lower than the surrounding areas of Kaifeng Prefecture. Of the two hundred and fifteen acres of land, Han Gang estimated that there were at least two thousand.

"How many pieces is this sacrificial field divided into?" Han Gang asked.

Hu Er became more and more surprised, Han Gang's every sentence asked the key, and few officials would know so much about the sale of farmland. He bowed his head and replied, "It's all in one place." Right next to the clear water ditch, there is a whole piece of watered ground......"

That's even more expensive!

The Song Dynasty did not suppress annexation, and the sale of fields and houses was frequent, and there was a saying that 'a thousand years of land for eight hundred masters'. Land changes hands so often that in many cases, it is not uncommon to see a piece of land being sold off in pieces. An entire piece of land, after a few changes of hands, becomes fragmented and belongs to dozens of different families.

The land of large families is also one in the east and one in the west, and even scattered in different states and counties. In this case, the more complete the field, the higher the price it will sell. And some landowners, in order to be able to merge their fields in one place, are all painstaking, and it is not uncommon for people to die. At the beginning, Li Lezi wanted to buy the Han family's three acres of vegetable garden, because those three acres of land could just connect the Li family's river beach fields.

Now this is a whole piece of land of more than two hectares, and it is also a high-quality field with good irrigation facilities, and there is no way to run away from the three thousand guan.

Han Gang shook his head, a field worth three thousand guan, no wonder it can fight a lawsuit for thirty years.

"The old Tian nationality, and the old people who can testify back then, are they all gone?" Han Gang continued to ask.

"Back to the truth. In that year, the Yellow River burst and flooded from Tokyo to Huazhou. The people of Baima County either died in the flood or fled with their families. When the water recedes and returns home, there will not be many people left. In addition, in the second year, the county county books were all burned clean because the county government ran out of water......"

Hearing this, Fang Xing, who was standing aside and listening, sneered, "This business is beautiful!" ”

Han Gang's eyes also became cold. This cadre did too much, and it reminded him of Chen Ju back then. A fire burned all the archives, and it was almost dead without proof.

At this time, there are two types of contracts: white deeds and red deeds. The land deed after the tax is registered and stamped in the government at the time of transfer is called a red deed. The land deed that does not go through the government, but is only transferred privately between the buyer and the seller, is called a white deed - because there is no vermilion official seal. According to the law, if you do not go to the government to declare and pay taxes in time after the transaction of the farmhouse, you will be punished after being verified. However, it is very rare to punish the public without accountability, and to be punished in accordance with the law.

In addition, when fighting a lawsuit, both types of land deeds are legal and can be used as evidence. Moreover, when the red deed and the white deed clash with each other, according to the law, the red deed should prevail, but the officials often judge the case based on the later time, and do not pay attention to whether it has passed through the government.

Therefore, after burning the land deed and the Ding property book, there is no land for the head of the household due to the flood, and as long as you take out a white deed, you can swallow it reasonably and legally. Unless someone calls Zhen, go to the household department in the third division of Kaifeng, and turn over the field registration and Ding property books handed over in the county, otherwise this field will be occupied. If you pay another tax and stamp the big seal, basically the case will not be reversed.

"The He family is not a big family in the first place, only three rooms, after a flood, almost all of them are gone, only He Yunwen came back after two years. Although he did not have a title deed in his hand, because the name of the landowner was left on the tombstone and the boundary marker, and He Yunwen had a genealogy in his hand, he found two witnesses and awarded this piece of land to him. Later, it was stamped and the deed was registered in the field register. ”

"There must be love and disadvantage in this!" Fang Xing made a low comment.

"That's nature." Han Gang sneered. Witnesses are easy to find, but the yamen is difficult to deal with, such unreliable evidence, I don't know how much money He Yunwen spent to get Tian Property to be identified.

Motioned for Hu Er to continue: "After another three years, the plaintiff's He Khotan moved back to this county. When he returned, he handed over a petition claiming that He Shuangyuan in the tomb was his grandfather and wanted to recapture the property. ”

"What evidence does he have?" Han Gang asked.

"Nope! There is no field deed, only a genealogy within the clan. Hu Er shook his head, "Although there is no title deed on the two of them, only the genealogy of the clan, but He Yunwen has witnesses!" Therefore, the first judgment of the case has already concluded that Khotan lost. ”

"Then why has this case been repeated several times and dragged on for thirty years?!"

"The trouble is here. Although the witness helped He Yunwen, He Yunwen's family was wealthy, while He Khotan was poor. Everyone knows what happened to this witness. Hu Er sighed, "But He Khotan is a scholar, and he usually writes some poems, and he befriends with a group of scholars, and there are many people who help him speak." So I re-handed the case to the state, and sent it down for a heavy sentence, and now, the result was reversed. It's just that He Khotan has no evidence after all, so after the original governor left office, He Yunwen rehanded the complaint, and the tomb and Tian were cut back to him. ”

Fang Xing shook his head again and again when he listened, although it was common for a long time to be indecided, but how many times this case could go back and forth was indeed a wonder.

"After just planting the land for a year, the losing side comes to the lawsuit again, and the result is the other way around. For the sake of this field, it has been repeated back and forth three or four times in the past ten years, and there has been trouble in the county, in the state, and even in the end, it has even caused trouble in the transfer department and the prison department. But the results of the two yamen were not the same, and it turned into a pen-and-ink lawsuit between them. Now, several witnesses who testified back then have died ten years ago, and since then, this case has never been adjudicated. ”

"I see."

After reading the paper before, and now listening to Hu Er's narration, Han Gang has a general idea of this case.

It's really hard to judge!

The lawsuit has been going on for 30 years, and the flood will go back five years. The old man who could come forward to testify at the beginning had already died completely. Those who can be dragged out to testify now were only in their teens and twenties back then, and what they said was not convincing at all. The plaintiff He Khotan and the defendant He Yunwen are still alive and sixty or seventy years old, and it is impossible for them to torture them to seek evidence.

It is no wonder that the successive Baima magistrates are dragging their feet, and there is no physical evidence, so it is difficult to convince people and make the plaintiff and the defendant no longer appeal.

In this era, there is no such thing as a final verdict, and as long as you refuse to accept the verdict, you can continue to appeal. You can't go to the prefecture in the prefecture, you can't go to the middle of the road in the prefecture, you can't go to the middle of the road, and there are also the dungungu in the city of Tokyo. Moreover, the flow of officials is fast, and the next term may not change the verdict of the case sentenced by the previous one, but it may also be rehearsed. Han Gang didn't want to lose face and make future generations laugh.

Fang Xing frowned, he also had a headache when he listened to it next to him, and he couldn't figure out the case at all. He took half a step forward, and was about to remind Han Gang not to take it rashly, so he listened to Han Gang instruct Hu Erdao: "The trial of this case will start tomorrow." You go and inform He Tian and He Yunwen, the official has to look at the person first, and ask the matter to understand before talking! ”

Hu Er was stunned when he heard this, obviously he told the young magistrate that this case could not be decided, so why didn't he know what to do. But he immediately bowed his head and promised, without the slightest delay. In my heart, I was thinking, it's good to suffer a little, so that I can trust myself.

Hu Er left, and Han Gang returned to the back hall. Together with Wei Pingzhen and You Yu, who heard the news, they also rushed over, and Han Gang picked an old case as his first case in Baima County, and it was impossible for him to sit still as a staff member.

I saw Fang Xing sweating anxiously: "Zhengyan, how can the trial be started so quickly?!" ”

Han Gang didn't care slowly, and ordered the attendants below to bring tea up, "Is this case difficult?" ”

"All the fields were newly created over the years, dating back to thirty-three years at the earliest. Almost all the witnesses are dead. If there is no evidence, who can break it? And it wasn't that it was broken back then, and it wasn't overturned? If the case is reversed in the future, it will be punished! Fang Xing reminded Han Gang.

Han Gang smiled nonchalantly: "It's just a punishment of copper according to the law." It's not a loss of people to death. The lawsuit for the dissolution of family property is only a ransom of seven catties of copper. ”

"There's also Zhan Mo Kan!"

Just like demerits, the ransom penalty is not only a matter of fines, but also the punishment of Zhan Mokan. The original three-year grinding survey will be delayed until four or five years before the official can be moved. For the bureaucrats who have reduced one year of grinding and surveying, and 'killing can also be done', this is tantamount to killing them.

"Don't worry." Wei Pingzhen stopped Fang Xing, who was still about to speak, although he still didn't know the inside story of the case, but looking at Han Gang's appearance, he knew that Lu Dao could feel at ease, "Zhengyan is confident." ”

Han Gang smiled at Fang Xing and You Yu, who looked at him in surprise, "Don't worry, I can still break this case......" After a pause, Han Gang's expression became serious, "Plow in September." The wheat has been planted for nearly a month, but the lack of water for irrigation has not made the seedlings appear well. Moreover, we must guard against next year's disaster, and we must not spend more time entangled in such cases of contention, and we must solve them quickly! ”

The timing of Han Gang's appointment was unfortunate, and it happened to be the busiest time after the autumn sowing. As the magistrate of the county, he could not sit in the county office, and had to go to the township to investigate the disaster. There are officials who don't do anything, and there are also officials in the officialdom, but they will soon be impeached by their superiors, imperial historians, or horses, unless they have the prestige of Wen Yanbo, so that the Son of Heaven can transfer the impeacher in turn.

The reason why the magistrates and prefectures are called pro-people officials is that they have to directly face the people, and the production and life of a prefecture and a county are under their control and are closely related to tens of millions of people. Compared with those shogunates and supervisors, the responsibilities on their shoulders are much heavier.

Han Gang knows that he has a heavy responsibility, so what he has to do now is Liwei. Through a series of clear and square cases, in Baima County, a reputation has been established!