Qian Youyu's profession is a criminal name, but his learning skills are not proficient, and he has not been able to mix with good owners, most of them are some people who are moving around in remote counties or "Tongjinshi". The small county town www.biquge.info has a small population, and there are naturally few lawsuits, so it is a bit of a waste to invite two masters, so I learned money and food, although I am not very proficient, but one person has two positions, not only has one more income for himself, but also one less person has one less expense, and they are all happy.

In addition to the abacus, Master Qianliang's ability also lies in being able to understand the situation and be good at dealing with books. This is because the amount of money and grain is levied, and the household department only asks about the total amount, not the details. Who has how many fields and how many lands in the local area, where is it located, and how many departments are there? Only the clerk's office in the county government is clear. What they relied on was a secret book that had been passed down from generation to generation, called the "Book of Fish Scales". Without this booklet, I would not be able to levy money and food.

The Yulin Book is a public property, which was drawn and revised under the auspices of the government, but as the years go by, the county's archives have been annihilated or lost, and they have long been lost, and the "official book" revised by the government has become the private property of the bookstore. Whether it is the county order or the money and grain master, if you want to smoothly handle the official affairs of the summer and autumn every year, you will often be held hostage by the book office.

For many years, the collection of money and grain is a bastard, and those who have paid for money and grain have not necessarily been able to receive the "grain strings" collected by the government, but those who do not pay for grain have the voucher for paying grain. There are those who have no place to stand on the cone, but they have to pay for their grain. Some people sit on thousands of hectares of fertile land but do not need to pay grains of rice, anyway, as long as the "top" levy is enough, how to put on a crown and wear it, it doesn't matter at all.

As for the patterns, there are many names. When you have more money, you will talk about the two most common methods: "trickery" and "production and grain storage".

"What is 'trickery' and what is 'production and grain storage'?" Xia Nan asked.

"The so-called 'trickery' is to falsely report one's own land in the name of others in order to evade servitude, and 'producing and storing grain' is a bit of a trick and plunder."

If "deception" is the embezzlement of taxes that should have been paid to the imperial court, and the object of deception is the imperial court, then "production and grain storage" is naked robbery. After a large household in collusion with the Yamen Clerk's Office buys other people's acres of land, they do not transfer the acres of land, and the seller still has to pay grain tax according to the original fish scale book, while the buyer does not have to pay any money and grain. teamed up with Gou Dafu, who died in Fengcun, and his younger brother Gou Ergui, and did this kind of thing, so that he would become the leading household within a radius of dozens of miles in just a few years.

At this time, even the well-informed Xia Nan couldn't help but shoot the case: "How unreasonable! Isn't this an open robbery? A gentleman loves money, takes it in a good way, and even if he evades taxes, he buys land and asks the seller to pay taxes, which is simply knocking on the bone and sucking the marrow, leaving no way for people to live. ”

Sun Yuanhua sighed: "I didn't expect that in order to seize land and evade taxes, I could be so vicious......"

Xia Nan stood up and walked back and forth a few steps, then stopped and said, "No matter what happens to the rest of Daming, anyway, under my nose, I can't sit back and watch such things continue to happen." ”

He said to the people, "Don't you want to know that you can guarantee your taxes in full and your own benefit? To put it bluntly, it is actually very simple, Zhang Juzheng did a similar thing during the Wanli period, that is, Qingzhang Tianmu. ”

Qingzhang acres? Everyone looked at each other.

Sun Yuanhua asked suspiciously: "Zhang Xiang did check the acres of land back then, but it was just to implement a whip law. Now, in addition to the grain amount, the apportionment of Liao salary and other taxes has been converted into cash, and the purpose of the year has almost been achieved. ”

After so many years, the number of acres and property rights have changed greatly, and if you still hold on to the fish scale book of the year, the result can only be to continue to squeeze the people who have little or no land, and the rich households who really have a large area of fertile land do not have to pay grain taxes. In the long run, the rich will get richer and richer, but the people will be overwhelmed and displaced, and the world will be in chaos. ”

Sun Yuanhua listened to Xia Nan's words, and felt that he vaguely grasped something: why after the Liao salary was increased, the imperial court still couldn't make ends meet, and the army was short of pay and training, which led to the north struggling to support, but still let the Tartars enter the customs several times; At the same time, the displaced people in the Central Plains were everywhere, and the officers and soldiers who suppressed the thieves extinguished this side, and the other side appeared again, and the suppression was endless.

He couldn't help but ask: "Could it be that the imperial court is short of money and food, and it has something to do with these?" ”

Xia Nan nodded and said, "Mr. Sun's thoughts are close to the truth. I take Lingao as an example, suppose that the fish scale book records that there are 10,000 mu of land in the county, but in fact, after several years of reclamation, another 5,000 mu has been added, but the fish scale book cannot be found, then the grain tax is still calculated as 10,000 mu. The problem was that the imperial court had a preferential policy for officials and scholars of meritorious honor, and their relatives and friends, in order to avoid paying grain, transferred the land to these people and paid some rent, which was more cost-effective than paying grain to the imperial court, and both sides were very happy. But in this way, the land registered in the fish scale register is much less, and the 10,000 acres of land may be less than half. In the end, Lingao originally had 15,000 acres of land, but only paid grain tax according to 5,000 mu, even if the county government tried its best to catch up with the comparison, hit the board, flail the public, and exhausted all kinds of means, it was finally collected. ”

He glanced at the crowd and continued: "The imperial court can't make ends meet, but the border is tight, and the training and salary of the army require money and food, so we have to continue to increase the apportionment, and these burdens ultimately fall on those poor people, and have nothing to do with the rich. What if the poor can't survive anymore? In order to survive, he was forced to flee and became a homecast. The reason why the rogues are more and more suppressed is because the number of displaced people is increasing, as long as someone climbs the heights and shouts, the homeless people become the source of the rogues in order to fill their stomachs. ”

Sun Yuanhua was like an initiation, and he was enlightened at once. The root cause of the current predicament of the imperial court actually stems from here. In fact, to put it bluntly, it is very simple, it was just a blind eye before, or I am unwilling to delve into this aspect.

Sima De thought in a different direction from him: "In this way, as long as you clear the acres of land and dig out all the hidden fields that are sent by the treacherous, you can get a lot of extra money and grain out of thin air?" ”

Xia Nan nodded, and threw out another bombshell: "Not only that, within the scope of the three counties, I don't care about the preferential and exemption policy of the imperial court, everyone is treated equally, as long as there is land, they must pay grain!" ”

Everyone gasped in unison, and the officials and gentry paid for the food in one piece? (To be continued.) )