After taking a bath and eating Zhao Talai's small study, Osmanthus added two lamps to the room to illuminate the study. He sat down at the desk, spread out a large piece of paper, and pressed the four corners with a paperweight, which was the map of the land that he had merged after annexing Chen Tang Manor, which Zhao Ta asked the housekeeper to re-transcribe.

This picture is obviously drawn with the original pictographic drawing method, there is no scale, the symbol represents, there is a mountain to draw a mountain, when there is a river, draw a river, neither in line with Zhao Ta, the modern people's habit of looking at pictures, nor accurate, his work tonight is to redraw a map.

Zhao Tayi stretched out his hand, and saw that Xi hurriedly opened the wooden box he called, and there was a set of drawing tools such as rulers, compasses and triangles, which were all made by the craftsmen in the palace according to the instructions of the prince, and they were all made of fine brass, finely carved, and plated with a thin layer of gold leaf, which looked shiny. He picked it up and looked at it, and couldn't help but shake his head, such a simple thing, the craftsmen have to spend a lot of effort to carve the ornaments on it, which shows that the whole social atmosphere pays attention to luxury.

Zhao Ta picked up the ruler and drew the frame on the paper, marked the direction, and after a few days of investigation and inspection, he was already familiar with the geography and hydrology of the entire 'territory', and reconnaissance and obtaining military records was the basic skill of a special soldier, and these things could not be difficult for him. Half an hour later, a topographical map drawn with charcoal appeared on a blank sheet of paper, on which rivers, villages, ditches, woods, roads, and even the paths taken by the peasants in the countryside were indicated.

"See, can you understand?" Zhao Ta wiped his hands with a towel and asked Jianxi, who was standing on the side.

"Can you see a rough idea, there are some things I don't quite understand what the drawing is?" Jianxi smiled embarrassedly.

"You transcribe this on parchment, I rest, my tired wrists are sore!" Zhao Ta took the teacup handed over by Osmanthus and said.

"Second master, such a meticulous work, I'm afraid I can't do it well, it's better to let the steward of the division do it tomorrow!" Jianxi grinned and said in embarrassment, you can't use a ruler and compass to draw a picture, it all depends on the work of your hands, and you use the tiniest brush, and it's really not easy to draw it without being out of shape.

"What's so difficult about this, it's easier than us drawing patterns, let me do it!" Osmanthus looked at it and volunteered to take over the job.

"See Xi, are you ashamed, the cowhide is blowing loudly, it seems that you are omnipotent, let Sister Osmanthus compare it today, I will punish you for her ink!" Zhao Ta scraped his fingers twice on his face and teased.

"How can I compare with the second master, you know everything, I can't catch up with the horse!" Seeing Xi pouting and saying, but he also wondered in his heart, I didn't see who the prince learned from, why did he have so many things in his stomach, it seems that the prince must be a god in the world, and he obediently studied ink.

Zhao Ta drank some water, opened the notes, which recorded the results of his 'research' in the past few days, looking at the words on it, Zhao Ta's heart became heavy, the life of the people at the bottom of the Great Song Dynasty, who was known as extremely prosperous and wealthy in history, was not so happy.

According to the system, the Song Dynasty divided the residents of the whole country into two categories: the main households and the customers, the residents who lived in the cities and towns were the Fangguo households, and the people who lived in the countryside were the rural households. Rural households are further divided into main households and customers: rural main households refer to those peasant households who occupy land and pay summer and autumn taxes to the state; Rural customers are those tenant farmers who have no land, or even no means of production such as ploughing cattle and farm tools, and rent landlords' land, also known as tenants and floating customers. This system changed the identity of tenants and freed them from the status of slaves, which can be said to be a kind of progress, but the land policy of the Song Dynasty was not to suppress annexation, officials could buy land at will and become large and small landlords, and landlords could also become officials at all levels after passing the imperial examination. Officials and landlords merged into one and occupied the vast majority of the country's land, and the royal family, nobles, bureaucrats, and landlords annexed more and more land.

Zhao Tan wanted to use the free time he had a year ago to inspect his 'territory', investigate the water and soil conditions, and make some preparations for next year's spring ploughing, but he was shocked to see that there was not a single landlord in his territory, not even the upper and middle households, and the lower households with ten acres and eight acres of self-cultivated land were all scaly and phoenixy, that is, almost all of the people who worked on their 400 hectares of land were tenants. ,

What surprised him even more was the method of Chen Tang, the former owner of the land, who completed the annexation of tens of thousands of acres of land in only three or four years, and wiped out nearly 100 landlords of all sizes around him like falling leaves, turning them all into proletariats and turning these exploiting classes into poor hired peasants.

Chen Tang's method of dealing with these landlords and wealthy households, if modern people think about it, you will never think of it -- the way is to let these people become officials and errands. The laws of the Song Dynasty stipulated that the errand workers in front of the government should be served by the first-class large landowners with assets of more than 200 yuan, and they enjoyed the privilege of exemption from the division and change, and could be awarded official titles, one promotion in three years, and the highest promotion to the capital of the military and horse envoys. In addition, the township Lizheng, the head of the household, the township secretary, and even the elderly, archers, and strong men, who are a little powerful grassroots cadres, all have to be from a second-class household, and at worst, a third-class household is qualified to do it. This system was actually a privilege granted by the government to the landlords, who wanted to rely on the landlords and gentry to expand the foundation of feudal rule in the Song Dynasty.

In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the landlords competed for the position of Yaqian and Lizheng, and at that time they could take advantage of the opportunity of the errand to plunder property and get promoted to become rich. But by this time, their good days had come to an end, and the law of service was becoming more and more chaotic. Lizheng and the head of the household are not even urging taxes, and they must also compensate for the compensation on their behalf. Chen Tang took advantage of this to bankrupt the entire family of the landlords.

The method of dealing with those yeoman farmers who have only a small amount of land is more straightforward and simple, that is, to collect taxes and usury, and they have to sell their land to him, or when the harvest is not much in a disaster year, it is not enough to pay the taxes, and the money is lent to them at two to three times the interest, and God is also very cooperative, and after three years of locust plagues, let them give all the land to Chen Tang.

Their fate is also the most miserable, because after selling the land to the landlord and becoming a tenant farmer, they cannot immediately cancel the property, change the household registration, save the property and save the tax, and have to continue to borrow, and even ask their children to be 'servants' as collateral, and the most unfortunate end is that the family is unable to repay the debts and becomes a 'white-haired girl'. Tenants are oppressed by both the government and employers, and many of them choose the helpless solution, one is to flee the tenants, and the other is to become 'heroes'.

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Zhao Tan looked at it and thought about it, and now he is facing two serious problems in front of him, one is that the officials are busy looting and offering to the palace, and they have no energy and no 'superfluous' money to build water conservancy facilities, and the ditches are blocked, and the large families are unwilling to pay for repairs, resulting in the paddy fields becoming dry land, and the wheat and rice can only be planted for one season, and the land utilization rate is greatly reduced.

Another problem is even more serious, that is, there is a shortage of labor, and there is no land to plant. Originally, there were more than 800 tenant households in Chen Tang's Zhuangzi, and there were more than 1,000 tenants, but after several years of his 'operation', the number of households has been reduced by nearly half, and now there are less than 500 households. Even these people who remain are also fluctuating, and there is no overnight food at home, I am afraid that the year is difficult, and now some tenants want to take advantage of the opportunity to change owners to leave, do not want to re-sign the lease, and there is a possibility of loss.

"If this problem is not solved well, no matter how much land there is, it can only be abandoned. It is not easy to find so many tenants at one time. Zhao Ta stood up anxiously and walked around, "Can you solve the two problems together?" Zhao Ta thought for a while, there is still no good way, you can't rely on the fact that you are the prince to force them to stay, this kind of bullying people, especially bullying those poor people who are hungry, Zhao Ta feels that he can't do it anyway.

"Second master, the picture is ready!" Osmanthus said suddenly.

"Oh, yes, you guys should rest first!" Zhao Ta looked at it and said absent-mindedly.

"Second master, how can we sleep if you don't sleep, isn't that too unruly!" Miki said.

"No, you've all been tired for a day, just have a little yellow door on duty all night, I also want to be alone for a while, you all rest early, you don't have to stay up so many people!" Zhao Ta waved his hand and said.

"Yes, the second master also rests early, don't be tired!" Seeing that Zhao Ta was not in a high mood, he didn't dare to say any more, so he pulled the osmanthus out of the house, and then ordered the little yellow door on duty at night to be vigilant before returning to his residence.

"The dams should be built first, and then the main canals should be dredged to divert water to every piece of land... With the dam, the water potential increases, and the water power can be utilized, and the mill and winery can be moved to the river, and it can be built... Zhao Ta looked at the map and said to himself, pointing and thinking with his fingers on the map, one by one ideas were formed in his mind, planning this land that belongs to him, this may just be his own, but he wants to take a solid step from here!

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Early in the morning, when Osmanthus walked lightly into the small study, the prince fell asleep on the desk, making a thin snoring sound, but there was a smile on the corner of his mouth, as if he had dreamed of something happy! The candle on his desk burst out and a lamp finally burned out, and many new marks were added to the map placed next to the prince, and the brazier under his feet was only a dark red, and only a few sparks were still stubbornly struggling to extinguish...