In Zuo Zongtang's study, Xiao Yungui was wearing a red robe from Wuyi Mountain, and Zuo Zongtang was accompanying him, and asked with a slight smile: "What does King Xi think of this tea?" ”

Xiao Yungui nodded and said: "This Wuyi Mountain Da Hong Pao is one of the top ten famous teas, it was originally a tribute tea, it is clear to drink, refreshing and refreshing, and it is good tea." ”

Zuo Zongtang stroked his beard and said, "Yes, but does the King of the West know how to pick this tea?" ”

Xiao Yungui wondered in his heart, he was here to ask Zuo Zongtang how to deal with those township officials tomorrow, but he was talking to himself about tea, and shook his head at the moment.

Zuo Zongtang said: "When this tea is picked, it is necessary to burn incense and sacrifice to the sky, and then let the monkey put on the red shoulder and climb to the tea tree on the cliff to pick the tea leaves, so this kind of monkey tea picking is also called Ma Liuqi in Cantonese." Due to the scarcity of quantities and the difficulty of picking, this tea is expensive and rare. ”

Xiao Yungui said: "What does this have to do with meeting the representatives of the township officials tomorrow?" ”

Zuo Zongtang said: "Xiwang's new policy focuses on industry and commerce, and this move is bound to break some old folk customs. Just like this big red robe, since it became a tribute tea in the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, after hundreds of years, does the king of the West think that no one has thought about expanding production? ”

Xiao Yungui was slightly stunned, touched his chin and said, "Naturally, someone has thought of changing the law and widely promoting the big red robe to increase the yield." But in this way, the preciousness of this tea is not revealed. ”

Zuo Zongtang bowed slightly: "Yes, and it is the gentry and people in the Dahongpao production area that have limited the production of this tea to a certain amount." Speaking of this, Zuo Zongtang stood up and pointed to the map of Sufu Province hanging on the wall and said: "The gentry clan, the common people's clan since ancient times, have been connected by blood, one is prosperous, one is lost, like my Zuo family also has the law of the clan." Within the clan. Individuals have to defend the interests of their own clan, which in turn protects their own interests. The number of big red robes is scarce, so the price is expensive and precious, and the local clan also intends not to spread this product to ensure that this tea is unique to a few clans. ”

Xiao Yungui said: "This Wuyi Mountain is far away in Fujian, and Fujian is still under the rule of the Qing Demon, what does it have to do with the new policy of my Sufu Province?" ”

Zuo Zongtang smiled faintly and said, "What if we take down Fujian in the future?" In terms of the new policy of the king of the west, the protection of industry and commerce means that all kinds of department stores can be commodities, and the high price of the big red robe will inevitably attract merchants to covet it, and the local clan will not spread it. It is bound to lead to disputes. This is just one example given by Zuo, and the clan is bound to oppose the New Deal in order to protect its own interests. The fields and properties of the clan in the countryside have been around for a long time, and the uniform land will touch the interests of the clan, just as the output of the big red robe has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. The clan Shili still hopes that the old law will remain unchanged as before. ”

Xiao Yungui frowned and said, "But Zuo Xiang." Times are advancing. Take Da Hong Pao as an example, this tea is precious, foreigners in order to obtain a large number of people, do not hesitate to travel across the ocean to come, open Xiamen and Fuzhou two ports in front, there are many British foreign companies Gao Jin hired Chinese compradors to go deep into Wuyi Mountain to buy this tea. Driven by generous profits. I think those clan shili will also think of changing the law to make the big red robe more prolific. ”

Zuo Zongtang smiled slightly and said: "King Xi's words are to the point, although our Juntian system has a lot of preferential decrees, but only the decree that appeases the clan Shili is missing. In order for the new political decree to be promoted, it must be exchanged for profit, so that the gentry and the common people can see that there will be greater benefits after the new policy, and if it is not profitable, who will follow? ”

Xiao Yungui frowned and said: "But the new policy Juntian is to benefit the people, but we are turning the interests of a few people into the interests of the majority, that is, a uniform word." The New Deal cannot take care of every class and everyone. ”

Zuo Zongtang nodded and said: "Yes, our new policy really can't take care of everything, but at this moment, the clan shili is still a great shili in the countryside, and it is different from the ordinary local tyrants and inferior gentry, so it should be treated differently." ”

Xiao Yungui nodded thoughtfully, and Zuo Zongtang continued: "Although the clan field also has a large number of fields, and no one with a foreign surname is allowed to cultivate it, but the king of the west can issue a new order to supplement it, the clan field must not be barren, someone must cultivate it, and the township officials have the obligation to call the people to cultivate the clan field that has not been cultivated for more than three months. At the same time, he told the clan in the countryside that those who rent the clan land to people with other surnames can be reduced by 30% of the grain endowment. ”

"As for the patriarch's succession, we can slowly change it and continue to implement the system of electing township officials, if the clan patriarch is a traitor, oppresses the people, or acts unfairly, he can be removed from the power of the township official. At present, although the new school has begun to be promoted, it has not been able to go down to the countryside for the time being, and the matter of education can be done according to the old practice for the time being, but if you want to participate in the imperial examination of our heavenly kingdom, you must enter the new school. Zuo Zongtang said slowly.

Hearing this, Xiao Yungui patted his thigh and said: "Yes, Zuo Xiang is right, we can set up a township official office in the countryside, in addition to being responsible for solving the clan affairs in the countryside, send some township officials and assistants to the countryside, responsible for guiding the township officials to deal with clan economic disputes, public security affairs, and civil disputes, in short, some of the power of the clan will be slowly collected into the township office, and after more than ten years, the power of the clan will always slowly fade." At the same time, the township government office will become a bridge below the county order to control the countryside, and there will be no situation in which the Manchu Qing Dynasty cannot reach the township. ”

followed Xiao Yungui rubbing his hands and said: "There is also the new deal that touches the interests of some clans, and it can also disintegrate the interests of the clan by dividing interests, so as to continue to implement the new deal." ”

Zuo Zongtang smiled and nodded: "Yes, that's right." Although the township officials we will see tomorrow represent different clans and have different demands, as long as we have a general policy, we will know how to deal with it. ”

Xiao Yungui got up, followed Zuo Zongtang to take out some official documents exchanged by township officials from all over the country, and classified the difficulties encountered in the implementation of the new policy in the countryside, and the two of them discussed in detail one by one and gave specific solutions, and this discussion was overnight......

Chen Tian has been waiting for more than an hour in the side hall of Xiwangfu with tea, he is a township official of Dahe Township, Zuowang Town, Hangzhou, and he is a township official at the level of a brigade commander, and he should be in charge of 500 rural people. Under his rule, most of them were surnamed Chen, that is, the Chen clan. When the Taiping army attacked Suzhou and Hangzhou last year, the Qing army passed in the countryside and plundered Dahe Township to force donations, Chen Tian's father, that is, the old patriarch of the Chen clan was forced by the Qing army to donate a large sum of silver, the old man was old, and could not withstand the threat, and died after a serious illness.

Chen Tian then inherited his father's position as the patriarch, he hated the Qing army for forcing his father to death, and after the Taiping army captured Suzhou and Hangzhou, he took advantage of the Taiping army to clear the countryside and surrendered to the Taiping, and was promoted by the rural people as a brigade commander and township official. Chen Tian was grateful to the Taiping Army for avenging him, so he became a township official with peace of mind, and actively cooperated with the Taiping Army to sweep away the township warriors in other towns, who were all minions of the Qing Demon, and even often occupied the Shili of the Qing Demon to invade the Chen clan's clan fields and mountain fields. Chen Tian has taken the Chen family to fight with them a few times, but others have the support of the Qing Demon, and the Chen family always suffers. When the Taiping Army came, Chen Tian naturally led the Taiping Army to clean up those government minions, and he also became the first batch of township officials of the Taiping Army.

After the Taiping army in Qingxiang, left a batch of weapons to the Chen clan, and even more than ten arquebuses, Chen Tian relied on several generals left by the Taiping army, established a team of township soldiers in Dahe Township, usually farming, drilling, and when there was a war, he cooperated with the main force of the Taiping army to fight the dog.

After a few months, at the end of last year, the remnants of the Qing demon Shili in the countryside were almost eradicated, and Chen Tian also participated in several searches, searching for those who fled to the countryside The remnants of the Qing army were defeated, and he also won several rewards.

After the arrival of the Taiping army, it was not like the previous legend of the Qing Demon, everything had to be donated to the holy treasury, what men and women were divided into camps, and what had to believe in foreign religions. Several of the leaders of the township soldiers were all old men of the Taiping Army, and only two of them were religious, and the others worshipped Bodhisattvas, and they did not force the people to convert. As for the holy treasury, there is, but in Chen Tian's view, it is the property of the family, and the public property of the people of his brigade is only, except for the public grain and field taxes to be paid, the rest are all family property, and there is no difference. As for the men's and women's separate camps, the leader of the Taiping Army told Chen Tian that unless it was the male and female soldiers who joined the Taiping Army, there would be a separate camp for men and women, Chen Tian understood very well, of course, the soldiers and horses fighting in the war were to be divided into male and female camps, when had you ever heard of men and women in one battalion? Military discipline is not easy to clean.

Just when Chen Tian thought that after the Taiping Army came, there would be no oppression from the government and he could have a good life, and the Taiping Army suddenly started a new policy. The greatest influence on the Chen clan is the uniform field system, the Chen family's family land has thousands of acres, because it is a family property, there is no land deed, but it is noted on the family tree, which family has divided how many acres of land. When the Qing court was there, it only registered the number of fields in Dahe Township, and let the Chen clan pay grain according to the number of fields, during which the amount of taxes and miscellaneous taxes made Chen Tian have a headache.

After the Taiping Army promulgated the new policy, the number of fields was also checked, but because the clan fields did not have land deeds, they were included in the objects of equalizing the fields, which meant that Chen Tian had to divide the clan fields equally among the more than 500 households under his rule. The Chen clan relatives who were originally assigned to the land can also say that it is nothing more than re-dividing the land, but what makes Chen Tian unwilling is that he has to distribute the clan land to more than 100 households with foreign surnames. Now that the Chen clan is gone, why should the land left by the ancestors be distributed to tenants with foreign surnames?

In addition, Dahe Township produces a large amount of silk, and many households in the Chen clan make a living from weaving. Originally, the cloth in Dahe Township was hit by the foreign cloth from Shanghai, and it was already difficult to sell, and it could not be sold at a price, if the government-run textile factory rose again, then many people in Dahe Township who relied on weaving for a living were afraid that they would go bankrupt.

And what other orders to pay heavy taxes for marrying concubines are also things that make Chen Tian have a headache, for these decrees, the county lord is forced to press, but the people are opposed below, so that Chen Tian is anxious to deal with these disputes every day. This time, he was elected as a representative by several surrounding township officials, and came to Suzhou to meet the king of the west to present his feelings, hoping to change some government decrees.

When he came, Chen Tian came with the belief that he would die, and he had always seen the official to hit thirty boards first, not to mention seeing a prince? Chen Tian arrived in Suzhou tremblingly, but he didn't expect that there were not a few township officials who came with the same purpose as him, so he put his mind at ease, it was impossible for the king of the west to kill all the big guys. (To be continued......)