Several of the largest landlords in Suzhou were thinking about planning a riot at the beginning, but it happened that Zhao Jun was sweeping away the evil and was forced to stop.

But after a year, they finally decided to make a big splash again.

The reason is that their power at that time was actually not very strong, relying only on these landlords in Suzhou, they could not set off any storms, and the government was arresting people everywhere at that time, so they did not dare to act rashly.

However, after a year of observation, many people found that the government was really sweeping away gangsters and eliminating evil. As long as you set up a society, you will be arrested if you run rampant in the city and oppress the good people everywhere.

Although there are also village bandits and road tyrants in the countryside, for example, many villages have village tyrants and the like, but there are still relatively few in most southern villages.

The reason is that the clan concept in the south is relatively heavy, and there are respected people such as patriarchs and clan elders at the top, and even if there are tyrannical people below, they often dare not oppress people with the same surname, same village, and same township.

As for the patriarch and the elder, there are indeed not many people who bully the family in the village, because the southern clan often pays attention to poetry and etiquette, and the patriarch must pay attention to fairness and justice in order to maintain his prestige, otherwise the clansmen below will disobey him.

So even if there are some actions, they must be dealt with in a fairer way. At most, it is to engage in some small actions behind the scenes, and underworld behaviors such as bullying and snatching, beating for no reason, and violent coercion will not happen.

Therefore, under the maintenance of such order, there are not many underworld forces in the southern townships. Or there is, but due to the clan concept and the protection of the same clan, there will not be many people who report it.

The so-called people do not hold officials accountable, and this is the truth at all times. Even if these landlords have some thugs at home, they are disguised as slaves on weekdays, and the villagers are naturally silent because of their wealth and power.

And those landlords who were arrested by the imperial court were basically punished together by accepting outlaws. Most of the landlords were unharmed and did not suffer from the turmoil.

It also gave courage to the landlords.

Suzhou, as the land of fish and rice, was the most abundant place for grain production in the Song Dynasty, and the interests of local landlords suffered the greatest losses.

The landlords led by Gong Xu and other four major families felt that since the imperial court was still official and did not implicate them, did it mean that they could also reasonably pursue their own demands?

And before it was their power that was too small.

But now, after a year of fermentation, the spread of the land into the mu has swept the entire Great Song Dynasty, seriously damaging the interests of the entire Jiangsu and Zhejiang landlords.

In this case, as long as someone raises their arms, I believe that many landlords will choose to stand with them.

So Gong Xu and other landlords first discussed with other large landowners in Suzhou, and then expanded their contacts, and then got in touch with landlords in Huzhou, Changzhou, Xiuzhou, Hangzhou, Runzhou, Jiangning Mansion and other places.

By March, many local landlords responded, and they agreed to take their men and horses to Hangzhou to transport the embassy to protest.

At the beginning of March, the weather was clear.

After a month of preparation, many landlords have acted one after another.

The landlords of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, headed by Gong Xu, decided to come first and then to the soldiers, and they jointly petitioned the transfer envoy Yamen, demanding that the apportionment of the land into the mu be cancelled.

There are more than 300 large landlords with tens of thousands of acres of land in their homes, and the remaining small and medium-sized landlords of thousands to 1,000 mu add up to more than 2,000 people, forming a huge force.

You must know that the total number of Zhejiang roads is only 70 million mu, of which Suzhou, Huzhou, Changzhou, Xiuzhou, Hangzhou, Runzhou, Jiangning and other places add up to more than 40 million mu.

The remaining 14 prefectures, including Taizhou, Wenzhou, Muzhou, and Quzhou, have a relatively small number of acres of land because of the large number of mountainous areas, so the total amount is only more than 20 million mu.

And the landlords who made trouble this time may have more than 10 million mu of land.

If calculated according to the 28 points of land annexation, the large and small landlords of Jiangsu-Zhejiang Road from a few hundred mu to tens of thousands of mu have almost 30 million mu of land, and the landlords who responded this time are basically one-third of the landlords of the entire Jiangsu-Zhejiang Road who are doing things.

They are densely packed with two or three thousand names signed on it, and they are all very important landlords in various places, and the kind of small landlords who only have a few hundred acres are not even qualified to sign on it.

After receiving this petition, Du Qi, the transfer envoy of Jiangsu-Zhejiang Road, originally wanted to invite the landlords led by him to have a good talk.

But when I thought about my own dignified transfer envoys, all the way to the frontier officials, and several times with those people to talk to each other, they regarded it as a deaf ear, and they really made themselves lose face, so they ignored it, and just sent someone to convey that it was the national policy of the imperial court to spread the land into the mu, and it could not be shaken, so that they could do it themselves.

When the news came back, the landlords of Jiangsu, Zhejiang Road were very angry. They felt that the imperial court was too arrogant and harmed their interests so much, but they did not care about it, and took all kinds of measures to take away their tenants.

Is it tolerable or intolerable?

As a result, starting from 10 March, a large number of landlords rushed to Hangzhou with their manpower one after another.

By 15 March, there were more and more people in Hangzhou, and there were tens of thousands of people in Hangzhou.

In the early morning of the 16th, the protest procession entered the city from the Yuhang Gate in the north, and then the flow of people from all over the street poured in like a tidal wave, congesting the entire street together.

At the end of the hour, a large number of people ran to Dawazi Street, and the traffic was temporarily blocked, except for the smooth operation of the boats at the water gates, the streets in the rest of the places were already impassable, and it was difficult for people to pass through at all.

"Spreading the land into the mu harms the country and the people, this kind of evil government should be abolished a long time ago!"

"The court has no way, so my wife is separated."

"I said that I would never give more, but I apportioned it on our heads, and took away our guests, and we are miserable!"

All kinds of slogans shook the sky.

Don't think that there were no demonstrations in ancient times, in fact, there were quite a lot of them during the Northern Song Dynasty.

For example, in the third year of Jingyou, the imperial court wanted to dismiss more than 500 officials from the three divisions, and these officials went to the door of Lu Yijian and Wang Zeng to make trouble, and also ran to the door of Du Yan's house in the imperial history to scold, throw tiles and stones, and protest.

In the second year of Jiayou, Ouyang Xiu deposed thousands of students because of Taixueti, causing them to gather thousands of people to demonstrate in Bianliang and besiege Ouyang Xiu's mansion and his official sedan chair.

In the first year of Jingkang, the Jin army besieged the city, and tens of thousands of people in Bianliang marched and demonstrated, so that Song Qinzong was forced to use Li Gang, the prime minister of the main battle faction. In the process, more than 200 eunuchs were even killed, and the entire Bianliang was a mess.

Therefore, since ancient times, demonstrations are not a few, even when the Qing Dynasty Yongzheng implemented the apportionment into the mu, there were a large number of landlords who went to Zhejiang Yamen to find Li Wei to protest and demonstrate.

At this time, because the imperial court did not deal with the protests of the landlords at the first time, after a year of fermentation, the matter became more and more troublesome, and thousands of landlords and their servants broke into the city of Hangzhou, making the traffic inside and outside the city of Hangzhou almost paralyzed.

That's pretty good.

During the period of the Republic of China, the strikes of dung pickers in Shanghai and Guangzhou were called terrible, and the city was filthy and fragrant.

The Yamen of the Liangzhejiang Road Transfer Envoy is located in the government office in the Fengyu Gate, near the West Lake.

On the east side of the West Lake, the white wall and gray tile of the street parade, the willows are still there, the painting boat on the lake is continuous, and the green buildings on the lakeside are connected with each other, it is the time for visitors to go out and see the beautiful scenery.

As a result, a large number of protesters poured in, and the east bank of the West Lake was suddenly crowded with people, and even a stampede occurred, and the riots continued.

There were countless people outside the yamen, shouting and demanding that the imperial court stop the policy of apportioning the land into the mu.

"Bang!"

At this moment, in the government office, Du Qi, the transfer envoy of the Liangzhejiang Road, heard the news, was furious, and said: "What? You repeat. ”

The little official below hurriedly said: "Si Shuai, at least tens of thousands of people have come to the city, congesting the streets, shouting everywhere, so that the downtown has stopped, and the people have gone home to hide, and those who do not hesitate have been trampled and injured." ”

"These bastards."

Du Qi stood up from the table, put his hands behind his back, and immediately thought about it.

I've been making trouble lately, but he doesn't care about it.

This is the meaning of the imperial court, according to the words of the prefect, this can be regarded as the last chance for these landlords of the two Zhejiang roads.

As long as they are obedient and get through this period peacefully, then everything will be easy to say in the future.

But apparently they don't want that.

actually made the matter bigger and bigger, there used to be a maximum of one or two thousand people, but now there are tens of thousands of people, what do you want to do, to rebel?

Du Qi wanted to send troops to suppress it at that time, but when he turned his head, he had no military power, so he could only mobilize the government officials.

The little bit of manpower of the officials is a drop in the bucket, I'm afraid they won't be able to suppress the scene.

He hesitated for a moment, then said, "Send someone out to keep order in the streets, so that no more people will be injured by trampling." ”

"Yes."

And the officials went out.

Today, the government office was working, and Du Qi was originally dealing with other things, so it happened that Ren Maocheng, the deputy envoy of the transfer, was also there.

Hearing Du Qi's words, Ren Maocheng hesitated: "Si Shuai, don't you care?" ”

"How?"

Du Qi spread his hands and said: "If you want to suppress it, you must send troops, do we have soldiers on hand?" ”

"That"

Ren Maocheng said: "Do you want to send someone to Beijing to report to the prefect immediately?" ”

"Hmm"

Du Qi narrowed his eyes and thought deeply.

Under normal circumstances, if such a thing happens during his tenure, if he does not suppress it and has to report it, he will definitely be punished.

In history, the reason why Nong Zhigao repeatedly wrote to the imperial court and no one responded was because the governor of Yongzhou intercepted the letter.

After all, if the imperial court knew that the Jiaozhi people often neglected their Great Song border, but Yongzhou could not deal with it, then the imperial court would only feel that the governor of Yongzhou was incompetent and would affect their careers.

Therefore, in many cases, officials tend to suppress such a relatively influential matter, and do not allow it to be circulated to prevent it from being reported to the imperial court.

But now this matter obviously can't be blamed on Du Qi's head, because he has long wanted to deal with the landlords, but Zhao Jun gave him a secret order to let things develop, which led to the current situation.

Although the prefect did not say why he did this, Du Qi was not stupid, and he could vaguely guess one or two.

It's nothing more than two points.

First, as the Zhiyuan said on the surface, it gave the landlords a chance, hoping that they would invest their wealth in industries such as steel, cement, and brick factories to contribute to industrial development.

Two..

Du Qi raised his head and looked at Ren Maocheng and said, "Don't be in a hurry to report this matter first." ”

"Why?"

Ren Maocheng was stunned and said: "Si Shuai, the matter is so big, if we don't report it, the other four divisions will also report it, as well as the Imperial City Division."

"It's up to them whether they report it or not, we don't report it anyway."

Du Qi shook his head.

"What if the court is to blame?"

Ren Maocheng hesitated.

Du Qi smiled: "No, we don't report merit for this matter." ”

"Meritorious? This, this, this."

Ren Maocheng was dumbfounded, is there any merit in not reporting this?

How could that be.

However, Du Qi smiled mysteriously and said: "I heard that the imperial court is going to build a railway from Kaifeng to Nanyang this year, most of the railway is wasteland, but there is also some farmland, do you know how the imperial court solved it?" ”

Ren Maocheng thought for a while and said, "I heard that I bought it." ”

"Jiangsu and Zhejiang are all land, transportation is basically by ship, how fast the railway is, it is said that it can be a thousand miles a day, a few days from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Shuzhong."

Du Qi said lightly: "But if we ask them to buy land, will they give it?" ”

"What do you mean?"

"In fact, the imperial court has long wanted to move them, first, they have a lot of land, the rich have thousands of wealthy houses, and the poor have no place to stand, which makes the people miserable. I look at the movements of the Zhiyuan over the years, and I am afraid that they are trying to recover the land. ”

Du Qi said: "You see, in the past few years, the government has issued a request to the local government to find a way to buy back the land and give it to the poor as official land for farming. And what about these people in Liangzhelu Road? ”

"Oooooooooo

Ren Maocheng suddenly realized, his eyes widened and said: "So the prefect deliberately let them go, so as to find an excuse"

"Okay, the transfer has made the yamen busy, so we have to continue to work."

Du Qi said calmly.

"Yes, yes, yes."

Ren Maocheng laughed.

Whoever can do it all the way is not stupid.

In fact, the policy changes of the imperial court in recent years can be seen clearly.

For example, what is the purpose of apportioning the land into the mu, what is the purpose of redeeming the official land, and what is the purpose of reducing the tax of forced labor.

In the final analysis, it is actually to alleviate the increasingly acute land contradictions and the huge gap between the rich and the poor.

As early as the Western Han Dynasty, the minister Shi Dan saw the disadvantages of land annexation, and all dynasties have been trying to solve this problem, but they have not been able to eradicate it.

Now that the imperial court is going to move seriously, they are naturally very clear about it.

So what is their position?

Naturally, you have to stand on the side of the court.

Because there are no big people on the side of the court, they have all been pushed down by the prefect.

So how to choose a side, naturally the door is clear.

Seemingly.

The prefect is about to wield the butcher's knife again.

Du Qi dipped the brush in ink, thought so in his heart, and then began to work on the official documents.

Soon, the attitude of the yamen was passed on.

Still ignoring.

This has angered the people of Hangzhou, as it has seriously interfered with their daily lives.

Therefore, many people also ran to the yamen to scold angrily at night after waiting for the demonstrators to disperse.

Du Qiquan didn't hear it.

There's no way around it.

If you want to make things bigger, you must make things bigger, so that the court can easily send troops.

So a few days later.

The number of demonstrators has grown.

At first, there was some restraint, but by March 20, more and more people in Hangzhou had become more and more, and nearly 20,000 people had poured in to protest.

And on this day, things were completely upset, seeing that the yamen had been closed these days, and the crowd that was originally just protesting began to throw stones and bricks.

Then someone shouted and actually hit the government. Later, they were forced back by the government with bows and crossbows, and they scattered through the streets, and the anger accumulated over the days could not be vented, and they went on a rampage and smashed everywhere.

For a time, Hangzhou became even more chaotic, and public security declined rapidly. With the first deceased, the first shop was smashed, and even after someone raised a torch, the nature suddenly changed.

It was not until this time that the yamen finally moved, and together with the other four divisions of the yamen, the Imperial City Division and the Hangzhou Prefecture Government, all the officials went out to arrest and smash the burners, extinguish the flames, and treat the wounded.

A few days later, the transfer envoy Yamen's sword was conveyed to Bianliang at a very fast speed.

(End of chapter)