"Wu Dongshun, your family has three thousand and ten fields, one thousand two hundred and fifty-seven in Shanguetian, and two hundred and ten in Zhonguetian...... Totaling and apportioning seven taels and one pennies plus fire consumption, the total amount of silver you brought is seven taels or eight dollars less! ”

The rich man Wu who came to the county government with the silver was like a thunderbolt on a sunny day.

"Seven, two, eight cents of silver?! Thirty stone grains! We will pay a total of 400 stone in the whole village, and you will let my family pay 30 stone more?! ”

The official at the gate of the county government looked at the rich man Wu with a smile and said with a smile: "Master Wu, you are joking, it is seven taels and eight dollars for half a year, and fifteen taels a year." ”

"Does the court not care whether the people live or die?! How much grain does one acre of land produce?! ”

The scribe raised his head suspiciously, looked at the rich man Wu and asked, "Master Wu, we don't understand what you said, this stall is in the acre...... It is for those who have land to pay, and your family has a big business, so you won't even be able to take out this bit of silver, right? ”

The rich man of Wu slapped the silver in front of the scribe.

"That's all! Do you want to love the yamen! ”

The scribe stood in place and looked at the rich man Wu with a smile.

"Master Wu, do you know what it is to roar in court?"

"Qin Xianzun of the county government and I are old friends! ......"

Only then did the scribe say softly: "Master Wu doesn't know, Qin Xianzun has been beheaded by the whole family, and now our Xishan County order is vacant, and we are waiting for the new master." ”

A trace of fine sweat oozed from the forehead of the rich man Wu.

"How did I not know?!"

"Don't talk about you, we only found out when Ning Yanxian came back, the case handled by Dongchang, the official letter hasn't come down yet, in short, you won't be able to meet Qin Xianzun for a while."

The rich man Wu gasped, gritted his teeth and said, "Cheng, isn't it just a matter of spreading into acres?!" I'll pay! ”

"Won't I get a rent increase?! Add another seven catties of grain per acre! Tell Ning Baixian that he will force the tenants of Xishan in the future, and he is also guilty of killing his head! ”

There is no need for the rich man Wu to say, many landlords think so.

"Put this silver on the first and go home to raise the rent!"

"I forced the tenants to rebel, it's a big deal that I will wait to finish my life with Ning Yanxian!"

“……”

I heard the shouting and scolding of the former landlords.

The scribe hurried into the back office.

"You Xian, the landlords are threatening to go back and increase the rent, so won't these taxes go back to the tenants?"

Ning Jue looked at the scribe but said with a smile: "Let them add it, we can't take care of other people's land, take my seal letter, go to Changzhou Mansion to transfer two horse teams over, and two hundred or so people will do." ”

"Huh? Don't we care about the rich people raising the rent? ”

"We can't control the rent increase, and we can't afford someone who doesn't just want to increase the rent."

The scribe didn't understand what Ning Jue's words meant, so he had to take Ning Jue's seal and go to the capital of Changzhou.

——

On the canal, three slightly larger ships traced the canal south.

Each ship was filled with stubborn guards, and the Grand Governor Lu Bing stood at the bow of the ship, coordinating the march of the fleet.

"Mr. Zhang, how long do we have to walk on the canal?"

"There are two capitals in the north and south, and it takes 21 days for the boat division to march, and it should be possible to arrive in Jinling in half a month."

"Three Thousand Miles Canal, is there such a worker everywhere?"

"Yes."

"Is it hard to cultivate, or is it hard to pull fiber?"

Zhang Juzheng pondered for a moment before he spoke: "Your Highness, you are not bitter. ”

"Why?"

"The suffering of tenants is not in farming, in transporting grain, and in the suffering of laborers, not in pulling fiber, but in dragging wages."

"Spread into the acre, lonely can wait, father can wait, can the people wait?"

Zhu Zaili's expression was heavy, and he walked into the cabin.

"Ning Shi's paving in Xishan can be successful, and it must be done, with Nanjing Mai Gonggong trying his best to help, one day earlier, the world will be able to starve to death less."

"Whoa."

Zhang Juzheng bowed as soon as he bowed, and then stood in front of the bookcase to draft the order.

——

Xishan County.

I don't know how many small and medium-sized landlords like the rich man of Wu, after touching the ashes of the county government, cut a handful of meat, turned their heads and returned to their homes.

Before anyone entered the village, they wanted to send long-term workers into the village.

"Inform me to go down, and add ten catties of rent per mu to each family!"

"The court is casually sympathetic to the people, but this place is my grandfather's generation, and Lao Tzu can set as much rent as he wants!"

Changgong frowned.

The long-term workers themselves also rented a few acres of land from the Wu family, and as soon as the rent increased, their own family had to bleed.

"Master, it's a bit ...... to add so much rent"

"Panic? Do you think that only one of us has increased the rent? Let me tell you, within a radius of 100 miles, it is not only my Wu family who will increase the rent! Just these rents, they love to plant or not, don't plant rolls, cover rolls, and get out! ”

Changgong gritted his teeth helplessly and sighed.

I had to jump out of the car and run towards the village.

When the Changgong appeared in the village of Gohama with a gong, almost all the tenants' faces were pulled down.

One acre of land can only survive five stones of grain a year.

Cala, a whole year of hard work.

The tenants themselves did not even have thirty percent left, and the rest were all taken over by the landlords, which tenant would want to live such a life.

As the ox cart of the rich man Wu drove into the village, he saw the tenants in the village.

"What do you think I'm doing?! This is an order from the imperial court! ”

"You don't have any surplus food at home, can my Wu family have surplus grain? That's the price for renting! I'll give you a night to go and ask around! ”

"Plant as much as you want! If you don't want to plant, then roll up and roll out! Houbang can't afford to raise you big Buddhas! ”

The rich man's chest rose and fell incessantly, and then he drove the ox cart back to his house.

Thinking of the more than a dozen taels of silver a year, the rich man Wu couldn't help but feel pain again.

That night, there were countless tenants who went out to inquire about it.

And after they left Houbang, they met tenants who were also confused and came to Houbang Village to inquire.

The group was speechless for each other.

Until the sky was white, and at five o'clock, the morning bell rang throughout Xishan.

A family of five outside the county appeared at the pass into the city.

The soldier with-eyed eyes on his face yawned and stood at the wooden fence, which spun forward even though a slightly timid voice sounded.

"Poor master, the rent in the village is too high, can you let us go into the city to ask for a way to live? I beg you to ......"

The soldier raised his head and glanced at it, waved his hand and said, "You just go over, your legs are on your own body, and you still want Lao Tzu to carry you to the county seat, right?" ”

The old man's family of five were all stunned.

He looked at the soldier in disbelief.

"Can you really go into the city? Don't want to be guided? ”

"The county government sent a letter a few days ago, and the passes everywhere are only used for caravans to collect taxes, and our passes will be laid off in a while."

Just listening to the old man's words, the soldier still thought for a moment.

"There is no way to lead, and it should be fine if you don't leave the county."

"The conscripts are all spread into the fields, and we are so full that we can stop you from doing anything, do you really think that others are willing to care about you?"

The old man burst into tears of excitement when he heard this.

"Hey, let's go, don't get in the way."

This is the first time in the 2,000-year history since the establishment of conscription that there are no thousands of displaced people rushing to the card, and tenants can move openly and independently in the county.

Because there was no forced labor, the imperial court had no motivation to bind the tenants to the land.

And this is far more important to the direction of the whole history than those taxes.

After the land was apportioned into the mu, the land endowment and forced labor became a direct game between the imperial court, the landlords, and the gentry.

The gentry, no matter how difficult it is to coerce the people to respect themselves, the landless tenants can stay out of the matter.

After the old man, countless tenants and their families dragged the cart towards the direction of Xishan County.

The spread of this kind of news only takes a few days to make Xishan known to everyone.

Although it is inconvenient for them to travel, they also know that everything in the county is not so good, but at least there is one more way to go, which is always a ray of hope.

That night, the rich man Wu, who was lying in bed, had a long nightmare.

His family's 3,000 acres of land has changed from "you don't plant, some people rush to plant" to "no one cherishes it." ”

The Wu family has more than ten members, so they have to personally drive the oxen and plows to cultivate in the fields.

It wasn't until the third pole of the sun that the rich man Wu, who was sweating profusely, woke up from his dream.

And the courtyard of the Wu family was already crowded with people.

The rich man Wu wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, got up and washed his face with cold water, and then came back to his senses, and then walked out of the yard with a golden knife.

looked at the tenant in front of him, took a sip of tea, and then said, "Have you figured it out?" To pay rent or not to pay? ”

"Master Wu, we have thought clearly, these hoes are even from the Wu family, let's come over and pay it back, don't mention the rent increase, we will pull it down this year."

The rich man Wu was stunned when he heard this.

"And what about next year?!"

"Next year? We won't rent it next year. ”

"What do you eat if you don't rent it? What do you pay for Tianfu?! And what to pay ......"

Before the rich man Wu finished speaking, he realized the seriousness of the problem.

It's been paved into the acre.

They don't have land, they don't have to give anything!

The rich man Wu looked at the tenant in front of him excitedly as if he had been stabbed in the lung tube.

"Then you don't have Lao Tzu to open the way for you, and you are ...... an inch"

"Master, when you enter the city, you don't need to be guided, as long as you have a household in the county office, you can walk casually in Xishan."

"Impossible! Since ancient times, when did the world not lead the way? How many books have you read? Who do you want to cheat?! The rich man looked at the tenant in front of him with some panic.

The tenants still looked at the rich man Wu with a smile.

"Master, the court said that the monks can't run the temple if they can run, as long as the fields in the village can't run, they don't have to bother with managing people."

"It's not a secret, we have also seen many years of friendship, come and tell you, save you and me trouble, there are already many people in the village who have left with the Wu family's things."

The rich man sat down on the ground with a buttocks.

It wasn't until this moment that he really showed his blade for the first time.

For the gentry landlords of the Ming Dynasty, this is far more terrible than a few taels of silver and a few catties of grain.

The core interests of the landlords have never been how much rent the court has to collect.

Rather, the tenants left the land, unable to survive, unable to pay heavy conscription, and so on......

In other words, the core interest of the landlords is the "personal dependence" of the tenants on the land in their hands, through which they control nearly ninety percent of the labor force on the land.

Now, the path for the gentry to pass on the land to the tenant farmers through rent increases has been cut off.

These poor tenants have enough confidence to choose not to farm.

Rich Wu's nightmare came true.

No matter how many young people look at it, a whip law is a milestone change, but the significance of this is not in the whip law itself, but because "a whip law" has become a clear gap between the changes of all dynasties.

Before the whip law, all the positive significance of the reform of agriculture was agriculture itself.

After the whip law, the most fundamental positive effect of all the changes to agriculture was that they weakened the "personal dependence" of the peasant households on the land, thus freeing up labor to other industries.

And there is only one reason for all this.

- Monetization.

In short, the tenant farmers who have been imprisoned for two thousand years on this acre and three points of land.

Free.

(End of chapter)