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The yield of rice per mu in the Ming Dynasty was not low. According to Zhang Luxiang, a land owner in Tongxiang in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, recorded in the "Book of Agriculture": "The fields are extremely ripe, with rice three stones and spring flowers one and a half stone, but there are them. Dayun has a total of three stones. "That means that ordinary paddy fields are ripe twice a year, with rice per season of three stones and rice per season of one and a half stones. Therefore, generally speaking, the yield of rice per mu in Nanzhili is about three stones.

The unit of measurement for the three stones in the Ming Dynasty should be more than 280 kilograms, which means that the annual income of a mu of ordinary paddy fields should be about 300 kilograms. At the same time, the taxes in the Ming Dynasty were not high, which was the two Susong prefectures with the heaviest taxes in the Taihu Lake Basin. The country collected only a little more than seven liters per mu of land, which means the tax ratio was between two and three%.

But don’t forget that there is still a fee. In addition to the regular tax, there are also various additional funds, such as the cost of hiring grain chiefs to collect taxes, food transportation costs, road losses, and other local expenses, including the county to build river embankments, towns to build bridges, and other local expenses, which add up to one-third of the per mu of the yield. In addition, the corruption of officials at all levels, all counties two-thirds of the annual grain output.

This is still a normal year. If there is no harvest when there is flood and drought, and the court is fighting, the officials will regardless of the lives of the people. If they have no money to pay taxes, they will take your pigs and sell your house. If there is no house in the end, they will sell your wife and daughter. Therefore, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, a large number of refugees moved between provinces, and were completely forced by the court to have no way out.

Yang Zongjian is also an old bureaucrat. He has served as a magistrate and a prefecture. Naturally, he knows what the situation is at the grassroots level. Now seeing Mr. You’s expression, he can’t help but feel sad. He sighed and comforted: “Brother You, I have no choice. This is all the emperor’s will. You should urge the son to study. Being a Jinshi is the right way!”

Zhu Hongsan stipulates that juren can reduce the tax exemption of 240 acres of official tuition, but there is no such restriction on Jinshi, which means that as long as you become a Jinshi, you will be truly tax-free for the whole family.

Mr. You said with a sad face: "Thank you for your reminder!"

Yang Zongjian nodded and continued, "The rest is a field survey. Master You, please arrange someone to take us there!"

Master You sent a monk to drive his land with the yamen runners from the work team. He went to the field to measure such a rough job, and Yang Zongjian divided his subordinates into three groups and officially began to clear the land.

Yang Zongjian, accompanied by Chen Xuan, returned to the town office and sat in the lobby to wait for the news. After a while, he went to check Mr. You's group to check Mr. You's house and came back.

The head of the bookkeeper came to Yang Zongjian and bowed and said, "Go back to Lord Yang, You Jun'ang's royal book records 265 mu of paddy fields and 54 mulberry fields, but the villain actually measured 418 mu of paddy fields and 160 mulberry fields, which was much more than it!"

All of these were expected by Yang Zongjian. The landlord You concealed twice the report, which was quite good. Yang Zongjian encountered at most ten times the report in various counties in Suzhou this year, but the unlucky guy had already handed over to the Jinyiwei for legal action.

After hearing the report, Yang Zongjian nodded. He didn't want to deal with the landlord You, because the task given to him was to clear the landlord, not to collect taxes, so he just needed to figure out the landlord.

"Very good, you just need to record the accurate numbers. As for what to do, the General Secretary will handle it in the future and bring the You family files."

The clerk quickly took the Youjia land file and placed it in front of Yang Zongjian. When Yang Zongjian saw that it was written clearly, the original land emperor book was written, the actual test was how many acres of paddy fields and mulberry fields were written clearly, and the grade of the land was also signed below. Yang Zongjian looked at it and signed his name. After completing such a legally effective land document, the court would have to collect taxes from these gentry in the future.

Yang Zongjian and these people were all old officials. In addition, after more than half a year of visits to various places, they have become familiar with the situation in Tongli Town. After initially getting familiar with the situation in Tongli Town, the work quickly began in full swing.

This land inventory is to investigate all the land in the world, so in addition to landlords of all sizes, some self-cultivated farmers are also within the scope of cleaning. However, after hundreds of years of development, there are not many self-cultivated farmers in Nanzhili. There are less than ten self-cultivated farmers in Tongli Town. The others are either landlords or tenants.

Tongli Town is a big town with more than 800 households and more than 50,000 acres of land. Yang Zongjian probably took ten days to complete the inspection. Thinking that he had been out for almost a year, and now that his work has finally come to light, Yang Zongjian was very happy.

Then he knew that the more troubles came, the more troubles came. On the third day of the investigation, Yang Zongjian was sitting in the lobby of the town office. A bookkeeper quickly walked in outside and bowed and said, "Sir, something happened in the east of the town!"

Whatever you are afraid of, Yang Zongjian frowned and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Sir, our group investigated Zhang Qingfang's family today. At the beginning, the Zhang family didn't say anything, and they were very involved. However, during the on-site survey, the tenants of the Zhang family were no longer allowed. Now they are in a stalemate. Lord Liu from our group cannot make the decision. Please go there!"

Well, Yang Zongjian nodded to Chen Xuan sitting beside him and said, "Bang Yan, let's go there!"

Chen Xuanyi heard that Zhang Qingfang's family was so nervous that the Zhang family was too powerful that he could not afford to offend him.

"Sir Yang, this time you must be careful. This Zhang Qingfang is a branch of the Zhang family in Shaoxing. You must be careful when dealing with it!"

Before Yang Zongjian came, he heard from the county magistrate Wang Zhang that he naturally knew that the Zhang family was not easy to deal with, but can the Zhang family have greater power than the king's law?

"Let's go and have a look first!"

Under the leadership of the clerk, Yang and Chen came to the Zhang family's land on the east side of the town. Hundreds of people gathered here, all dressed in short clothes, holding hoes and sickles, and they all seemed to be tenants of the Zhang family. On the other hand, there were less than twenty people on the work team, and half of them were yamen runners in the county and town. If something really happened, these people couldn't count on them at all.

Yang Zongjian looked at the situation and pulled a clerk to whisper in his ear, asking him to ride a horse and return to the county to ask for help. It would be better to transfer hundreds of inspection departments to the inspection department.

At this time, the two groups of people who were stalemate saw the high-ranking officials coming and made a way out. Yang Zongjian and Chen Xuan walked into the crowd and saw a middle-aged man grabbing the collar of a seventh-rank civil servant and cursing.

"You are a seventh-rank sesame official, and you don't know who I am, the master. You just need to measure the piece of land. Why do you do so much nonsense?"

The person who spoke was Zhang Qingfang, the landlord of Tongli Town. When the work team arrived at his house in the morning, Zhang Qingfang was in a good mood and took out the land deeds from his family to the leading governor of the grain bureau to check. The official looked at the land deeds, but they were too different from the records in the imperial book. The official recorded that Zhang Qingfang's family had 1,560 acres of land, but there were only more than 300 acres of land on the land deeds. The official had seen more land, but had never seen less land.

However, the reason given by Zhang Qingfang is reasonable. Zhang Qingfang's father was not well-managed and sold the land in recent years. Now there is only so much left. The reason is reasonable. The Dian Li didn't say anything. You said it is as much as you say, but there was a problem in the next step of on-site measurement.

The land deeds in the Ming Dynasty included rough descriptions of the land they belonged to, such as how far away they are outside the town, what is the rough shape of the land, whether there are rivers around them, and the land that borders the land, etc. However, according to the land deed provided by Zhang Qingfang, it was impossible to get along with the ground when you went to the spot to see it.

When the dictionary asked Zhang Qingfang, Zhang Qingfang first took out a hundred taels of silver bills and wanted to bribe the dictionary. In fact, the dictionary was not a good person. According to the past, the silver was collected. Anyway, no matter how much the tax was done, it was all the country and could not get into the dictionary's pocket. But this time, there was a small flag of the Jinyiwei, and the dictionary did not dare to accept bribes in front of the Jinyiwei.

After Zhang Qingfang saw that the money was not working well, she began to want to use power to suppress others and told her relationship with the Zhang family in Shaoxing. But this made the official even more annoyed. Your Zhang family is awesome, but now the uncle has found out that your family is not as good as the county magistrate. It is definitely not possible if you don’t give me a perfect explanation.

At this time, the more tenants the Zhang family found were gathering. When Zhang Qingfang saw that there were more people, she became more and more courageous. She stepped forward to grab the collar of the Dian Lie and was about to play with her. At this time, Yang Zongjian was here.

Chen Xuan walked into the crowd and saw that things were not good, so he quickly stepped forward to persuade the fight: "Master Zhang, show mercy. Lord Yang from the province is here. Please ask Lord Yang to make the decision if you have any questions!"

Chen Xuan and Zhang Qingfang lived in Tongli Town for decades, and the two families were more or less related, so Zhang Qingfang still gave face when she saw Chen Xuan coming.

Zhang Qingfang put down the clerk, came to Yang Zongjian and bowed and said, "Is this Lord Yang? You clerk is shameless. If you fail to ask for money, you will frame my family. Lord Yang will make the decision!"

When the Dian official saw Zhang Qingfang’s evil man complaining first, he said angrily: “Mr. Yang, he gave the money to the officials first. The officials didn’t want it, so he maliciously wanted to beat the officials! If you don’t believe me, please ask Lord Xie who is with the team!”

The little flag of the Jinyiwei saw Yang Zongjian looking at him and quickly bowed and said, "Mr. Yang, what happened just now is just as Lord Dian Li said. Zhang Qingfang failed to bribe but wanted to hit someone!"

When the Dian Lieutenant heard the Jinyiwei talk for him, he wanted to come forward and hug the little flag and kiss him. He never thought that the Jinyiwei was so cute!

Of course Yang Zongjian believed in his own people, but now there are so many onlookers, and if you accidentally make a big deal out of trouble, Yang Zongjian pointed to the Jinyiwei Xiaoqi and said, "Okay, don't argue anymore! Tell me what happened!"
Chapter completed!