Gou Dafu is a squire in Lingao and Feng Village, and his family has 200 acres of fertile land, and he is one of the largest households in Lingao. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info brother Gou Ergui is in the county yahu room as a secretary, and the Gou family is also an official person. Every year, the government collects grain and pays taxes, and due to the relationship between Gou Ergui, the original 200 mu of land is calculated as 80 mu, and it is registered in the fish scale register as a low-grade field, which takes a lot of advantage in the payment of grain.

Slowly, Gou Dafu began to be dissatisfied with the two hundred acres of land, and set his eyes on the nearby villagers. Every year, the grain season is a good opportunity for him and his brothers to start embezzling the acres of land.

This dynasty levied money and grain land, and the household department only asked 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 is drawn and revised under the auspices of the government, and is generally a copy of the county government and a copy of the book office. But as the years go by, the county's archives have been annihilated or lost, and they have long been lost, but the copy in the hands of the book office has been passed down from generation to generation, from father to son, son to grandson. In the end, the "official book" revised by the government actually became the private property of the bookstore. The county magistrate who is the official of your parents must smoothly handle the official affairs of the summer and autumn of each year, and it is inevitable to rely on the book.

Because of the fish book, not only can the official affairs go smoothly, but I can also make a fortune with it. For many years, the collection of money and grain has been a messy account, and those who have paid for money and grain have not necessarily received the "grain strings" collected by the government; but he who does not pay his bread has a certificate of payment. There are those who have no place to stand and who have to pay for their grain; Some people sit on thousands of acres of fertile land, but they do not have to pay for grains of rice. Anyway, as long as the levy is enough, how to put on a crown and wear it, it doesn't matter at all.

After the Gou family set their sights on the land of a certain villager's family, Gou Ergui took advantage of the power of the office of the user room to designate the household as a first-class household, raised the standard of grain payment, and in the process of collecting grain, he used his hands and feet on the "floating collection", so that the household paid more "rice consumption" and "sharp rice" than the positive amount of taxes. Taking advantage of his overwhelm, Gou Dafu came forward to buy land at a low price, and most of them could succeed.

As for the tricks of avoiding taxes after buying fertile land, there are many names. The most common means are "preferential exemption", "trickery", and "production and grain storage".

The so-called "preferential exemption" means that scholars with meritorious names enjoy the benefits of being exempted from paying taxes by the imperial court; 'Trickery' is to falsely report one's own land in the name of others in order to avoid servitude. The two are mutually reinforcing. Gou Dafu has no fame, and there are no scholars among his relatives and friends, so he can't enjoy the "preferential exemption" policy, and he can't play "trickery", he plays the third type.

If it is said that "preferential exemption" and "trickery" are 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 of the people.

Taking the Gou family as an example, after Gou Dafu bought other people's acres of land, he used the power of Gou Ergui's house secretary office to not transfer the acres of land, so the seller still had to pay grain tax according to the original fish scale book, and Gou Dafu, as the buyer, did not have to pay any money and grain. The two brothers joined forces and swallowed hundreds of acres of fine paddy fields without paying taxes, the seller was miserable, but the Gou family took advantage of the cheap, and in just a few years, they became the largest household within a radius of dozens of miles.

In March of the fourth year of Chongzhen, the autumn grain had been collected, and the summer tax time had not arrived, which was the most free time for Gou Dafu. In recent years, it is convenient to have a few concubines, even the maids are carefully selected, they have nothing to do, they flirt with the concubines, and the pretty maids are waiting to serve the tea and pour water.

When he was enjoying life, the housekeeper came to report that the second master was back, and he didn't look very good.

The second master is his younger brother Gou Ergui, this is a big help for him, and he can't be neglected. He hurriedly left his concubine and went to visit his brother.

Gou Ergui works as an errand in the county government on weekdays, and his family also lives in the county seat, but there is also a room for him here, and the food and clothing are much better than the county seat, so he will live here for a few days when he has nothing to do. As soon as Gou Dafu entered the room, he saw that Gou Ergui really had a bad face, so he stepped forward and asked with concern: "The second brother doesn't look very good, but the yamen is busy with official business and is too tired?" ”

Gou Ergui sighed: "The things that come and go in the yamen are those things, and they do it according to the rules every year." It's just that there have been a lot of things in the county recently, and it's hard to say whether I can keep this errand or not. ”

Gou Dafu was shocked, one of them was outside, the other was in the county office, the brothers joined forces, and it was unfavorable to do things in this countryside, if the errand of the county government was lost, there was no backer, and it would be inconvenient to do anything in the future. He asked, "What is going on that will affect you?" ”

Gou Ergui got up and went to the door, poked his head out and looked around, then closed the door, and whispered to Gou Dafu: "Brother, have you ever heard that the county town was attacked by the Li people?" ”

"It is said that it was not defeated, and it was beaten away by the official army?" Gou Dafu also heard about this, but he didn't take it to heart, a few Li people mud legs, what kind of climate can it become, and the Li people riot in Qiongzhou Mansion is not only this year, but under the suppression of the official army, it ended in failure.

"That's hearsay, in fact, the county seat has been beaten down, the official treasury has been washed, and none of the big families in the city have been pulled down, and there are heavy losses. In the end, the Li people left, but it was not driven away by the officials and soldiers at all, and the thousands of households closest to Lingao were also far away from the water and could not save the fire, so it was the newly recruited Xiangyong who made the Li people retreat in difficulty. The details of Xia Nan's "Xiangyong" are only known best to Wu Mingjin and Qian Youyu, and others don't know the truth.

"Really?" Gou Dafu was very happy, fortunately he didn't live in the city, otherwise the family business he had worked so hard to accumulate would probably disappear overnight. However, he still doesn't understand, no matter what the process is, the result is that the county seat is back in the hands of the imperial court, what does it have to do with Ergui's errand?

Gou Ergui sighed: "Since then, the county government has changed, the county is recuperating behind closed doors, the county and the history of the county do not show up, the entire county government has no one to take care of things, and people are panicking." ”

"The county master doesn't care about anything? Could it be that you are very sick? Someone has to be in charge temporarily, right? "When it comes to Gou Ergui's job, and it is directly related to his own money, Gou Dafu is very uneasy.

"Now only the master around the county lord is passing the word on his behalf and maintaining the operation of the yamen. However, I don't have a good relationship with this master, and I'm worried that he will take the opportunity to kick me out of the yamen. "The secretary office relies on the fish scale book, to a certain extent, it can hold the county order hostage, and it is a natural antagonistic relationship with the money and grain master who assists the county order in paying grain taxes, and Gou Ergui's worries are not groundless.