Chapter 163: The family is exhausted.
"Lan'er, where is my copy of "Yang Wenzhen's Gongchizhengzi"?" As
soon as Fang Ruolan entered the study, she saw Magistrate Fang looking for a book on the bookshelf.
"I took it to copy."
Fang Ruolan said without changing her expression.
"You are a girl, why are you copying copybooks every day? Get it back quickly, because your father wants to copy."
Fang Ruolan said immediately: "Dad, you really don't have any talent in calligraphy, you might as well copy for your daughter."
Fang Ruolan said immediately. The magistrate's nose was so angry that he almost crooked his nose. He wanted to scold his daughter, but it seemed that his handwriting was not as good as her daughter's.
The prefect was furious because of his incompetence. When Fang Ruolan saw that her father no longer asked for copybooks, she immediately gave him another sweet date.
"Dad, have you verified the method for measuring fields that your daughter mentioned last time?"
Fang Zhifu was depressed for a while, and then changed the subject when he got down to business.
"This method is good. I asked the old officials from the household and canal houses to verify it. It is much easier to use than the fish scale cutting method, and the calculated area is more accurate!" Fang Ruolan said immediately: "Then it can be used to establish land?
"
Magistrate Fang sighed and said, "Don't rush into the matter of your husband's land. If it causes a backlash from big households, it will be difficult to deal with." Fang Ruolan's
originally eager expression immediately changed, but she lowered her head and thought for a while and said,
"The power of the country squire Big, there are too many squires hiding their land."
Magistrate Fang nodded and said, "Take our Yanping Prefecture as an example. In the early years of the Kingdom, the official and private fields and gardens totaled 9,700, but now the entire Yanping Prefecture is on the list. There are less than 9,000 acres of land, and the land has been getting less and less over the past century. It is really a shame!"
Fang Ruolan also said: "There are mostly private fields along the Minjiang River and Jianxi River that have been reclaimed from the river. Is there less land in the country?"
Magistrate Fang shook his head and said: "It is a chronic problem of this dynasty that big families hide their land. The most exaggerated thing is that in Songjiang Prefecture, the registered land is 30% less than in the early years of the dynasty! Songjiang Prefecture In recent years, we know how much land has been opened by enclosing and opening fields, but the number of registered fields has been decreasing." The
difficulty of taxation in the Ming Dynasty was not only reflected in tax resistance, but also in the method of hiding land property.
The land tax of the Ming Dynasty began in the Hongwu year, reached its peak in the Xuanzong period, and then continued to decline.
The reason is that the amount of land that should be taxed in various places is decreasing with economic development!
But such ridiculous things are the biggest problem of the Ming Dynasty.
You say that the gentry hid their land, but to prove this, the Ming Dynasty did not have the manpower to reclaim the land.
Let alone land, even the authenticity of registered land sales cannot be guaranteed to be accurate.
Fang Ruolan thought for a while and said, "Since there is no way to measure the registered land, how about seizing the traded land first?"
Fang Ruolan said, "Dad, we can seize the traded land first. The land bought and sold in the future must be measured by the government before the red deed can be issued." , to prevent these big households from hiding their land in the transaction!"
Magistrate Fang shook his head and said, "It's difficult! Lan'er, you don't know the difficulties of government administration, how can you know the official deeds of this dynasty?"
Fang Ruolan nodded and said, "Of course I know, the land of this dynasty is For buying and selling, official deeds printed by government engravings were once used. However, because official deeds were inconvenient for the people, they gradually changed to self-drafted private contracts, with the yamen sealing the transfer of land and buying and selling land." An official deed is equivalent to buying a house now
. The standard contract stipulated by the founding bureau was once promoted throughout the country during the Xuande period, but was quickly abandoned.
The official reason is what Fang Ruolan said: the official deed is inconvenient to use and ordinary people don't like to use it.
Magistrate Fang stroked his beard and said: "The government will print the terms of the land purchase and sale contract. The land purchase and sale will not be tampered with by big households. How can the common people not welcome it?" Fang Ruolan thought for a while, and it seemed that what her father said made sense
. .
An official deed is equivalent to a contract endorsed by the official. People do not understand the Ming Dynasty law, and they are not likely to hire a lawyer to see if there are any traps when signing a contract. They must trust the official standard contract more.
How come such a good thing cannot be implemented?
Magistrate Fang has been an official for some time and is very familiar with the bad habits of the officialdom. He said:
"The problem lies in the last step. Those cunning subordinates hide the official deeds. When the people go to the government to get the official deeds, they assume that the engraving is broken." Either there is something wrong with the seal shop, or the official deeds cannot be produced anyway, and the property transferred to the common people will not be transferred." "
When the pressure becomes urgent, he will take out the official deeds he has hidden and let the common people buy them at a high price." "
No. These subordinate officials refused to transfer the property, which forced many people who were eager to sell their fields to borrow money to buy official deeds at high prices. Later, the government wrote a letter advocating about the shortcomings of official deeds, and finally gave up using official deeds." Fang Ruolan was stunned
. Is this the reason?
Magistrate Fang added: "If you want to own the land, you need the help of the clerks in the household to do it. There is an extra step in the land transaction. Doesn't it give these subordinate officials a means of exploitation?" Fang Ruolan lowered her head and pondered. She was
now Only then did I understand the difficulties of being a good official.
No matter how bad the scholars in the prefecture and county are, they are still from a poor family. The so-called poor family is also a family. At any rate, they are disciples of a big family like Lin Qingcai, or a scholarly family of several generations.
Let them clear the land? How is it possible to find out the hidden properties of wealthy families?
As long as these subordinate officials have the opportunity, they will try their best to exploit the people. If they are allowed to work in the fields, the people will definitely suffer even worse.
Moreover, officials often serve for three to five years, and some local officials can be promoted in one or two years if they are supported by someone.
Why should we cause trouble ourselves and insist on finding out the hidden fields?
While the Fang family's father and daughter were discussing, Su Ze also finished taking courses at the county school. Hai Rui did not leave school directly, but kept the three of them behind.
Hai Rui looked at Su Ze and asked: "Rulin, I also knew about Xiong Yue's matter right away. I hired a lawyer for Xiong's father to file a complaint at the county government office, but the government office Ganjie had already signed it. Why? Do you want to stir up trouble?"
"Instigating others to fight lawsuits is not what a scholar should do."
Su Ze was scolding. At this time, Hai Rui was still a newcomer who had just entered the officialdom, and he was also the one who had the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" as his title. An ordinary person.
Hai Rui naturally did not break away from the thinking of traditional scholars of this era.
That is, litigation is not good. Civil lawsuits are mostly due to poor education, and people must be persuaded not to file lawsuits.
But Hai Rui's starting point was different from Baizhi County's.
Baizhi County doesn't like people to complain to the government because they don't want too many lawsuits to affect their chances of passing exams and promotions, and they don't want to get involved in these cases and offend the local gentry.
Hai Rui doesn't like people to complain to the government, because of the traditional Confucian concept, which believes that educating the people can solve all problems, and the people should meekly accept the rule of ordinary ethics instead of using the law to take advantage of loopholes.
To put it bluntly, it is a simple Confucian morality. His idea is to avoid litigation if possible. If there is a dispute, try to protect the interests of the weak.
He tried to replace the role of law with morality.
Hai Rui was naturally heartbroken about Xiong Yue's death, but despite being heartbroken, Hai Rui Suze's method of provoking a lawsuit was disgraceful and not something that a scholar should do.
Hai Rui continued: "I have heard about the injustice in Xiong Yue's death, but the deceased has passed away. Now that Gan Jie has been signed, the matter has been settled, and there should be no more trouble." "If it ruins the civil customs of Nannan
, Everyone is litigating on everything, how can parents and officials educate the people?"
After saying this, Hai Rui's eyes turned red. Xiong Yue was his disciple, and now that he died like this, he was naturally very sad.
However, he still did not support Su Ze's behavior.
Su Ze closed the textbook and asked:
"Teacher, what is the law?"
Hai Rui was stunned for a moment and gave the standard answer of this era: "Of course it is normal and punishes evil."
Su Ze knew that this would be the answer.
The laws of the feudal era were essentially a way of governing people, a system to maintain imperial rule.
Scholars naturally give top priority to Tsunade.
Su Ze said, "Since it's normal, officials are the parents of common people. Why do parents use such cruel punishments to punish their children?" Hai Rui's expression changed
. What Su Ze proposed was actually a loophole in the thinking of the feudal father-son system of monarchs and ministers.
Since he is a good and loving father to the people, why should he give such cruel punishments to the children who made mistakes and carry out these cruel punishments in public?
This obviously cannot be explained by the warm and gentle moral theory of Confucianism.
Hai Rui was speechless.
Su Ze continued:
"Everyone criticizes the Qin system, but there is no one in the previous dynasties who did not learn from the Qin system." "
But my dynasty does not learn from it! The Hongwu Emperor made the "Great Edict" and let everyone learn it, which is to learn from the Han Dynasty. According to Emperor Gaozu's 'Three Chapters of the Law', the law is the contract between the court and the people!"
"What is the law? It is the contract between all the people of the world and the court. If the officials break the law, they will be punished! If the gentry breaks the law, the gentry will be punished!" Su Ze finished
. After that, there was still an unspoken sentence in my heart: "If the emperor breaks the law, he will be punished."
But these two sentences had already stunned Hai Rui.
He was a juren, so he naturally knew that in the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang formulated the "Great Edict" and allowed the people to bring officials who had harmed the people to the capital to complain.
However, this system existed in name only after being implemented for a while in the Hongwu year. Ming officials also relied on Ming laws when trying cases, rather than the "Great Edict".
In short, "Da Gao" also belongs to the kind of Schrödinger training that is swept into the trash can.
Su Ze held up Lord Hongwu's banner, indicating that Lord Hongwu supported litigation and even supported people's lawsuits against officials. This made Hai Rui unable to argue.
After Su Ze finished speaking, he raised his hands to Hai Rui and said, "Teacher, this case is not over yet, I must give Brother Xiong justice!"
Hai Rui was silent for a while and took out a piece of silver from his sleeve.
"Rulin, you have a bright future. Don't resort to evil tricks. You can handle Xiong Yue's case yourself." "Give
this money to Xiong Yue's mother. You and Xiong Yue have the same friendship. Please visit more in the future. Look at his mother."
Su Ze and Chen Lin quickly handed over their hands. Su Ze knew how much Hai Rui's salary was, which was a lot of money for him.
Hai Rui waved his hand and said, "As a teacher, I am derelict in my duty if I cannot protect my disciples." "
What you just said should not be spread to outsiders. If it is misinterpreted by others, it will be detrimental to your entry into officialdom in the future."
Hai Rui It can also be heard that Su Ze's legal contract theory conceals the most important relationship.
Since the law is a contract, who signed the contract with all the people in the world?
If it is a contract signed by the emperor, what should I do if the emperor is at fault?
Does that mean that all the people in the world can abandon this contract and rise up to overthrow the emperor?
He couldn't think like this anymore. The more Hai Rui thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong.
Su Ze stood up and left. He knew that Hai Rui was proficient in the law and was not a pedantic scholar who studied hard.
Of course, this passage could not change the concept of the Three Cardinal Guidelines and the Five Constant Virtues that he had read for decades.
But Su Ze believed that this would definitely become a seed that would take root and sprout at some point in the future.
And as long as you sow more such seeds in the Ming Dynasty, you will naturally be able to grow new buds on the old book of the Ming Dynasty.
But what Su Ze didn't expect was that he still underestimated Cai Yuanwai's moral bottom line.
In other words, Su Ze still lacks understanding of the evil heart of the gentry in this era.
On October 16, Mother Xiong sent someone to report to Su Ze, and Mother Xiong was sued.
It turns out that a few days ago, a distant nephew of Father Xiong came to Mother Xiong with a family tree, saying that the Xiong family had no descendants, and was willing to serve Mother Xiong in her old age, and asked to pass the tea garden to him.
Mother Xiong was naturally wary of this distant relative she had never seen before. After driving him away, she did not expect to receive news from the county government soon.
This distant nephew of the Xiong family sued Mother Xiong, saying that he should inherit the Xiong family's tea garden.
The person who helped this distant nephew write the petition was Fang Jing, who had been litigating the Cai family.
Eat to death.
This was the first word that popped into Su Ze's mind.
Needless to say, this distant nephew of the Xiong family must have been found by Cai Yuanwai.
The reason why the Cai family was so anxious to take action was because the sales of Changningwei's indigo cloth were so good.
Because Prussian blue fabric is not easy to fade and is brighter than indigo, after increasing the supply, the Cai family's dyeing shop quickly lost business.
The dyeing shop was out of business, and the tea garden would not have new tea until spring. Cai Yuanwai once again set his sights on the Xiong family's tea garden.
This distant nephew of the Xiong family was naturally instigated by Cai Yuanwai. He was originally a member of a street fighter society. Cai Yuanwai promised that after he won the lawsuit, he could give him a sum of money to buy a tea garden.
Anyway, it was a business without capital, so this gangster naturally agreed.
Chen Chaoyuan’s elder brother, local lawyer Chen Chaoyu, also came to the editorial office.
After reading the paper written by Fang Jing, he sighed and said, "It's difficult!"
"This tea garden is the property of the Xiong family. Now that both the Xiong family and his son are dead, the tea garden is indeed the family property." "The
other party used the excuse of preserving the family property. Mother Xiong is just an ordinary woman, so this lawsuit may be difficult to win."
Su Ze asked, "How will the government decide?"
"At most, a piece of land will be allocated to Mother Xiong for her retirement, and the tea garden will most likely be awarded to a close branch of the Xiong family. "
Everyone's expressions changed, and Chen Chaoyu said: "If the imperial court had not set up an archway to commend chaste women, and issued imperial edicts, the government would rarely stand on the side of women." "Chaste women
? Imperial decrees?" Su Ze suddenly asked.
These chapters are mainly foreshadowing the difficulties of the squire class.
You can see the Ming Dynasty under the microscope of Prince Ma. Every case in it is extremely difficult. These squires often do not rely on violence, but on various rules that they are proficient in.
This is the most disappointing part of Ming Dynasty.
Of course, the protagonist cannot always fight with the Cai family within the rules, then it would not be a cool novel.
To put it bluntly, Fat Bird believes that the reason why feudal society is reactionary is because the entire rules are reactionary.
Rather than one or two corrupt officials, or one or two treacherous ministers.
There has never been any fairy emperor. This view of history is what Fat Bird insists on.
So this is why Fat Bird believes that top-down reforms cannot succeed because the system is already distorted.
I would like to express my gratitude to the readers who voted for me.
Being able to be so high up on the monthly voting list among the great masters is because of everyone’s praise and support.
I know this article isn't exciting enough, the plot drags sometimes, and my war scenes are a piece of shit.
But it’s what Sanjiang said. I have prepared so much information, just to restore the style of the Ming Dynasty as much as possible, rather than write some big principles.
If I had to talk about the positioning of this novel, it would be the Ming Dynasty society at the micro level.
Seeking pursuit and monthly votes.
(End of chapter)