Shen Shuren was originally worried that he was too young, but he suddenly became the same knowledge, and there was a group of forty-year-old magistrates below, and everyone would not be convinced.

However, after learning that he was the eldest young man of the Shen family, the richest man in Suzhou, and was still willing to go out to the front line to suppress thieves, all the resentments of his subordinates disappeared.

made Shen Shuren originally think very well of pretending to be a pig and eating a tiger, slapping his face and standing up, but he didn't use any tricks.

In this way, you can save the mind of infighting and concentrate on farming and external enemies.

In the following half month, Shen Shuren inspected Qizhou County and Huangmei County, and roughly found out the situation in Huangzhou.

As for those counties close to the front line, and the towns and villages deep in the mountains, he didn't go for the time being, personal safety is always the most important, and the son of a daughter can't sit down.

Before he came, he had read the archives of Huangzhou on the side of the Ministry of Households, and there were a total population of more than 200,000 in peacetime (in fact, according to the practice of the late Ming Dynasty, at least one-third of them were hidden households, and they were distributed in nine counties.

Of the five counties that have not yet been conquered, the most populous is Qizhou County, with more than 6,000 households and more than 40,000 people, and the least is Luotian County, which has been reduced to an enclave behind enemy lines, with only 7,000 or 8,000 people.

The other three counties range from 10,000 to 30,000 people each, and the five counties together should theoretically have a population of 110,000.

The actual number, because of the war and exile, according to Zhao Yunfan, Jiangcheng and other counties, is only more than 60,000.

If those hidden households and fugitives can be counted, it is estimated that they can still make up 1120,000. But how to get them back to Qi Min's household is a big problem, and if it is not handled well, it will be troublesome to force it to the side of the thieves.

The entire Huangzhou government should pay more than 60,000 stone of tax and grain on the fish scale book of the household department, and has more than 500,000 mu of registered land (in the late Ming Dynasty, the positive field tax was pressed to 1~2 buckets per mu, and an average of eight mu of land was paid one stone of tax grain).

According to the imperial court system, the prefectures with a tax of less than 100,000 stone are the inferior prefectures, and Huangzhou is only more than 60,000 yuan, and there is no doubt that the lower prefectures in the Huguang area are relatively poor.

Fortunately, of the more than 500,000 acres of land, 350,000 mu belong to the five counties that have not been conquered - although the government of Huanggang has not yet been recovered, the most fertile plain in Huangzhou is not the Bashui River Valley where Huanggang is located, but the alluvial fan at the mouth of the lake on the opposite bank of Poyang Lake in the south, which is under the control of Shen Shuren, so the fields are still enough to plant.

Now that the number of people is decreasing, the only good news is that the workforce can be fully utilized. Most of the people had enough land to cultivate if they wanted to farm, as long as the landlords were willing to give them a reasonable price for rent.

In total, there are less than 100,000 people, planting 350,000 acres of land, including the elderly, children, and women, each of whom can get four acres of arable land.

After Shen Shuren completed this global investigation, he immediately realized that the most important task at the moment was to stabilize and resume production and use all the fields that had temporarily escaped from the war.

……

When Shen Shuren arrived in Huangzhou, it was already more than half of May, and it was already early June after the thorough investigation, and it was the season for summer grain harvesting.

What he can do is to first persuade the peasants to ensure that the harvest is rushed in various places, and then organize the cultivation of autumn grain for those fields that are abandoned during spring ploughing. After the summer grain is harvested, it is also necessary to organize a rush for seeds.

The double robbery in the southern summer has always been the busiest time, and the thieves did not dare to harass it on a hot day, and both sides organized production with peace of mind.

At the beginning of June, Shen Shuren first found a few magistrates and some local gentry, and asked them to identify which of the abandoned fields in Qizhou, Huangmei and other places were vacant after the landlords fled.

Zhao Yunfan and the local gentry saw that the acquaintance was just picking soft persimmons and pinching them, but they were also very cooperative. The granges that were abandoned because the head of the household fled to Jiangxi on the other side of the river were all identified.

Shen Shuren immediately distributed hundreds of Shen tenant farmers brought from Suzhou, as well as thousands of newly organized landless peasants, to grow potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn on these plots.

Some low-lying areas are planted with rice, and taro and lotus root are planted in the silt swampy terrain.

In later generations, Hubei was originally an important production area for lotus root, because there were many small lakes and swamps here. In later generations, the Bashui lotus root in Huanggang and the lotus root in Wuchang are very famous.

Taro is a wetland crop that Hubei people grow relatively little, but there are many in Suzhou and Chongming, and the Suzhou tenant farmers brought by Shen Shuren will grow taro and can teach local farmers by hand.

Shen Shuren organized production according to the ratio of one tenant farmer of his henchmen and five to ten local farmers. Although the local people did not want to be managed, they heard that the people brought by the master would teach them the techniques of planting these crops that they had never seen, and they were also very active in learning and did not make trouble.

However, the fact that farmers are happy to see this does not mean that there is no resistance from other quarters.

After Shen Shuren organized the production, Zhao Yunfan reminded him: "My lord, I don't know if you have thought about it." These fields have been temporarily abandoned because the old owner has fled, and it must be reasonable that those landless farmers did not dare to plant indiscriminately before you came.

Just because of the gentry who occupy these fields, many forces are not limited to one township and one county. The boundary of Huangzhou has always been complicated, relying on the Yinghuo Mountains and the junction of three provinces. Many gentry have estates and old forces in Jiangxi Hukou, Nanzhili Anqing Chizhou.

Now they saw that Liu Xiyao was rampant, and they were afraid that the land north of the river would not be safe, so they fled to Hukou and Chizhou. They were sure that there was no sailor who could cross the Yangtze River, and there was Zuo Liangyu on the Wuchang side of the south bank, so they felt that it would be safe to go to the south of the Yangtze River.

If we learn that the fields in Huangzhou are randomly distributed to the poor for cultivation, and that they will come back to make trouble during the autumn harvest in the future, and the dispute will not be evenly divided, what should we do? You can't afford to offend those noble clans whose power spans several provinces. ”

When Zhao Yunfan said this, he was really good for Shen Shuren. He has been a local official for many years, and he knows that those wealthy families who avoid thieves during the war will definitely come back to see after the autumn harvest, because it was like this last year.

Huangzhou is located in the Dabie Mountains, and once it is winter, it is even more difficult to walk by land, so there is no need to worry about thieves coming over the mountains in winter. As long as the counties and townships are not infested by thieves in autumn, winter is absolutely complete.

Those gentry can go back to their hometowns to see if anyone has stolen the fields they have abandoned, and if there is, they will rely on their power to open their mouths to collect rent.

In the early winter of last year, Zhao Yunfan personally experienced several cases, some poor people who stole crops and abandoned wasteland were arrested by the gentry of the return group to fight a lawsuit, because the lease contract was not signed in advance, so the gentry almost opened as much as they wanted, and wanted to share three-quarters of the harvest, and the poor peasants were powerless to resist.

And if the lease is signed in advance, it will be "four or six at most", the landlord will take sixty percent, the peasant will take forty percent, and it is impossible to black seven into five.

At that time, the prefect of Huangzhou also supported this series of case appeals of the gentry, which led to the emergence of "the gentry fled the war and went to Jiangxi after the beginning of spring, and the fields were abandoned, but the poor people no longer dared to steal seeds", because the poor people suffered a loss, knowing that the stolen seeds would be liquidated by the return to the township group in winter, and it was better to honestly plant the owner of the land with complete procedures.

After listening to this series of cases relayed by Zhao Yunfan, Shen Shuren couldn't help but scold angrily: "It's ridiculous! Even if it is stealing seeds, you can't let the gentry make a price because you didn't agree in advance! The former prefect and several of the following prefects were finalized in this way? Are they not afraid of stirring up public anger? ”

Zhao Yunfan sighed: "Isn't this already aroused, otherwise which round will you come here to take office - that is, after the cases were broken, many of the poor peasants who suffered losses last year voted for Liu Xiyao, and many of them were in Huanggang."

Liu Xiyao heard that the Yan Governor's Mansion was unpopular and killed Huanggang, and the thieves originally had no siege equipment, so it is said that the cage city can be held by stubbornly.

But there was chaos in the city first, and those poor people who were sentenced to seventy-five percent of the land rent set fire everywhere, opened the city gate in the chaos, and Liu Xiyao killed the Yan Governor and other officials in the prefecture, the Huanggang Governor, and several wealthy gentry who stayed in Huanggang at that time.

However, those gentry are not all dead, many of them were not in Huanggang at that time, they were still in Jiangxi, so this year the poor people still dare not cultivate the borderless land until you come forward to preside. But even so, public opinion is clearly still waiting, and it is not yet known whether it will be liquidated after the autumn harvest. ”

After hearing this, Shen Shuren just sneered in his heart: "That Yan Governor's Mansion can be regarded as begging for death, and this kind of knot still dares to arouse public anger." Hmph, he is afraid of those Jiangxi gentry, but I am not afraid. Summoning the officials and gentry of Qizhou and the surrounding counties, I will announce my decision in a clear order.

Anyone who abandons his land and flees will not be allowed to return for two years to advocate for collecting rent from peasant households who have cultivated his land without permission. These people fled their hometowns and abandoned the fields, which led to the depletion of the imperial court's tax sources and the failure to pay the share of the grain. ”

When Zhao Yunfan heard this, he admired the courage of this Shangguan a little more, but he knew that things were not so simple, so he couldn't help but smile bitterly:

"Adults love the people, far from being comparable to the predecessor Yan Governor. But this argument, if it is really attacked, is not very tenable. Many of the people who fled the famine are famous, and there are tax exemptions, and even a considerable part of them are side branches of the Jinshi family from Jiangxi.

They took advantage of the unclear accounts of the land in various provinces, exempted more than 2,000 mu of tax exemption in Jiangxi, and then reduced it in Huguang, and even went to Nanzhili Chizhou and Anqing to design and reduce it.

Since these people don't have to pay taxes, you have to say that they abandoned the fields because they 'caused the exhaustion of the imperial court's tax sources' and let outsiders cultivate them, I'm afraid it doesn't make sense, they also have people on it. ”

When Shen Shuren heard this, he was also eye-opening, and said in his heart that it turned out that the people of the Ming Dynasty had this kind of garbage that cheated and defrauded tax refunds everywhere across several provinces.

Isn't this just the same as the subsidy policy of later generations of college graduates and the use of local talent to make up for fraud in many provinces?

How many people have received subsidies for employment in Nanjing, and then found that their companies also have subsidiaries in Hangzhou or Hefei, so they operate to those subsidiaries to pay social security and individual income tax, and then cheat the talent introduction subsidies in Hangzhou and Hefei.

More typical are those who break through the purchase restrictions of multiple suites and exploit loopholes - although the state has introduced purchase restrictions, the national real estate big data has not been opened! Just because you have a purchase restriction in one city doesn't mean you can't buy it elsewhere.

Land registration in the Ming Dynasty was only many times behind the real estate registration in the 21st century. In this kind of state capital at the junction of three provinces, the gentry deceived their fame and tax-free area in all three provinces, which is simply not too much.

It's a pity that the dead Governor Yan is afraid of them, but Shen Shuren is not afraid.

Isn't it just that there are people above, in fact, Jiang Dejing, who is in charge of the work of the household department, is a person from our faction, are we still afraid that these guys will make waves?

Shen Shuren ordered very firmly: "Leave these people alone, I said let you have a treat, you just invite." If you dare to disagree, I will deal with it when the time comes. ”

Zhao Yunfan saw that Shen Tongzhi was so confident, and he also estimated that there were people above him, so he took the order and left.