Brother Zhu Youxiao

"Let's go? Hehe... My Xu family has thousands of hectares of land and thousands of servants. How can it be changed in a moment?"

"That's right, I don't believe that the court will ignore my ancestors' contribution to the court and harm us and other heroes!"

In the city of Suzhou in Nanzhili, when voices sounded, hundreds of men gathered in a large-scale mansion.

Although it is a private house, the house covers an area of ​​nearly [-] mu, and the whole building is divided into three parts: east, middle and west.

The eastern part is bright and cheerful, dominated by distant mountains in Pinggang, pine forests and lawns, and Zhuwu Qushui.

The central part is dominated by water, with wide pools and lush trees, and natural scenery. There are buildings of different shapes and heights scattered around the water, with a clear distinction between primary and secondary.

The pool in the west is in the shape of a curved ruler. It is characterized by the separation of the pavilions, the undulating corridors, and the reflection of the water waves. It is unique and interesting, and the decoration is gorgeous and exquisite. The main building is the [-] mandarin duck pavilion near the residential side.

Although it seems that the area is not large, its scale is already comparable to some small county palaces.

As for where is this place?I'm afraid the words "Humble Administrator's Garden" on the plaque are enough to explain it.

As one of the four famous gardens in Suzhou, the Humble Administrator’s Garden was extended and lived temporarily by Wang Xianchen, a censor who was frustrated in the officialdom during the Zhengde period. Then his son lost his garden to the Xu family, and the Xu family became the owner of the Humble Administrator’s Garden.

This entry took a full hundred years, and the Lingering Garden, one of the four gardens, is also the private property of another Xu family of the same clan.

Although the primary and secondary are in order, it can be seen that the Xu family has sufficient financial resources, otherwise it would be impossible to buy two famous gardens at once.

It's just that since the Wanli period, the Xu family has begun to age. The reason is that there is no one in the court and they are increasingly bullied.

In the reign of Tianqi, when King Qi was in charge, the Xu family had some opportunities, and they had several children of the sixth and seventh ranks in the court to support them.

Once the news about Yiling spread, the Xu family relied on several of their own officials and did not choose to sell their servants, family property, and move overseas to save their lives, but chose to resist.

They want to see, if they don't move, will King Qi really move them to Changping to guard the mausoleum of the previous emperors!

"My Xu family's fields, if the court can eat them, then we will move. If the court can't eat them, then it's not our problem."

Sitting in the main seat, Xu Ji, the Patriarch of the Xu family, was talking, as if their family property had reached the point where even the imperial court couldn't take care of it.

But in the face of his unruliness, the Xu family children below didn't find it strange, but thought it was normal.

The Xu family has occupied Suzhou for hundreds of years, with hundreds of thousands of acres of land, thousands of servants, and tens of thousands of tenants.

In addition, his family also has shops in two streets in Suzhou City, as well as hundreds of people who work for them.

Looking at it this way, the Xu family is simply stronger than many vassal mansions before the New Deal.

This is just the head of Xu's house, and the branch branches are also flourishing in various places in the south of the Yangtze River.

Combined with the family properties of the main family and the side veins, thousands of Xu family's children occupy more than [-] million mu of cultivated land in the south of the Yangtze River, and their servants and tenants number as many as hundreds of thousands.

The servants here are not the same as the tenants. The servants in the Ming Dynasty were mainly composed of official slaves and official slaves.

For example, Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty bestowed 20 and [-] soldiers of Li Shanchang as the slave army, and later gave him an iron book, also known as the iron book army.

During the Yongle period, most of those who did not attach themselves to Yan soldiers from Jianwen were killed, and the relatives of the victims were all reduced to happy households and enslaved.

After Jiajing, the economy in the south of the Yangtze River developed, and there were many wealthy households, some of whom held as many as 2000 slaves.

All such servants have a contract of selling themselves, and their descendants will not be able to leave their nationality for generations.

Therefore, as long as a person commits a crime and becomes a servant of a gentry, his children and grandchildren will be the servants of a gentry for the rest of his life, unless someone abolishes this law.

The Xu family's arrogance comes from the thousands of servants in his family, and the gentry's arrogance from all over the south of the Yangtze River also comes from this.

Naturally, they didn't want to rely on their servants to fight against the court, but they thought very clearly.

Since the imperial court chooses to exchange acres of land, it should provide them with enough overseas land and let them hand over the land to the imperial court willingly.

In this way, everyone, whether it is the court or the gentry, is happy.

This is what the Xu family thinks. The Peng family, Song family, Shen family, and gentry in Suzhou City, as well as the Xu family in Songjiang, the Sun family in Hangzhou, and the Qian family...

These gentry tyrants continued to annex land and raise servants throughout the history of Ming Dynasty.

By the time of the Apocalypse, only one famous city in the south of the Yangtze River had no less than [-] mu of land under its command. Adding these hundreds of families together, more than half of the [-] million mu of land in the three provinces of the south of the Yangtze River had been acquired. Its annexes, tens of millions of people are their tenants.

The gentry farmland acquired by Zhu Youjian and Hong Chengchou a few days ago is nothing more than arable land handed over by many small and medium-sized gentry landlords after they moved.

The real big head still has to look at these families that have occupied the place for hundreds of thousands of years.

The conflict between them and the imperial court was not only on the issue of land annexation, but on the issue of taxation.

To a certain extent, land annexation was not a bad thing for feudal dynasties. For example, the Song Dynasty, which had the most land annexation in all dynasties, was an example.

Although the common people have been made unable to live by land annexation and court taxation, the Song Dynasty ignored the people's life and death, and turned a blind eye to the gentry's annexation of land.

The more land the gentry annexed, the easier it would be for the court to collect taxes, and the easier it would be to suppress the peasants.

The difference between the gentry in the Song and Ming dynasties was that one could collect taxes and the other could not.

In the early years of the apocalypse, they didn't let Zhu Youjian and his brothers have a good time, so naturally Zhu Youjian couldn't make them have a good time.

Although Xu Ji's words sound exciting, everyone knows that as long as Qi Wang Zhu Youjian is in charge, most of their resistance will be suppressed.

Therefore, even though the main family behaved very confidently, some sidelines still sold their family properties early and moved to Nanzhou and Jiaozhi.

Among the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, hesitation in the wave of whether to go or not, but hesitation is often fatal.

"In the past two months, more than [-] people have been relocated from the south of the Yangtze River, two-thirds of them are ordinary people, and one-third are gentry and powerful."

"Your Highness, the imperial court needs to transfer more than [-] million mu of land to the gentry..."

In mid-July, in the Carrier Hall of King Qi’s Mansion, Hong Chengchou asked Zhu Youjian with the documents from the Relocation Department. His eyes were full of anxiety, and Zhu Youjian got the letter sent by King Charles I of England last year.

[Charles, the king of England, Scotland and Ireland, the guardian of the faith, pays tribute to the great, powerful and invincible Emperor of Ming Dynasty, His Royal Highness King Qi, the patron of all countries. 】

[Here, on behalf of the nationals of England, Scotland and Ireland, I express to you...]

A letter, the content is also about business, but it is mainly about the taxation of royal stores in the UK.

The idea of ​​Charles I was to let Ming Dynasty directly turn over the taxes of the royal stores in London and Ireland to the British royal family instead of handing them over to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In this regard, Zhu Youjian has no reason to refuse. It is more in Ming Dynasty's interest to let Europe continue to be a monarchy than to let them have a constitutional system.

Therefore, Zhu Youjian did not take the lead in answering Hong Chengchou's words, but looked at Cao Huachun and said:
"Let the South Kunlun Supervision and Envoy Division send officials to the four countries and Portugal to promote the alliance of five countries to fight against Franji (Spain)."

"If the Five-Nation Alliance can be established, then Ming promises the royal families of all countries to hand over the taxes of the imperial stores of each country to the royal families of each country, and provide the royal families of each country with a low-interest loan of 20 two days of Qitongbao for the purchase of products from the Ming Dynasty."

The time is getting closer and closer, Zhu Youjian left this time, and he doesn't plan to come back in the future.

Therefore, the affairs of Spain in the American colonies must be resolved as soon as possible.

The current contradiction is that this religious war must end with the victory of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, otherwise the second religious war cannot be triggered.

But if you want Spain to win, you have to support Spain to contain other countries.

Once it supports Spain, it will be very difficult for Qi State to recover Spain's colony in the United States. This is the point of contradiction between Ming and Qi State.

Zhu Youjian's thinking is very simple, that is, Daming sings the bad face, and Qi Guo sings the bad face.

Daming interrupted the trade between Spain and other countries, but Qi State supported Spain to defeat the countries, but the condition was to sell the American colonies.

How to do it is actually very simple.

As a vassal state, Qi State could purchase a large number of flintlock guns and arquebus guns eliminated by the Ming army at low prices, and then sell guns, artillery, and gunpowder to support Spain.

For this reason, Qi State can be in debt of tens of millions of taels. After all, there are still hundreds of thousands of retired munitions in Ming Dynasty, and a few trades can reduce Qi's debt to several million taels.

Anyway, in the future, Qi will also rely on selling grain to earn the gold and silver they plundered from Europe, and the debt problem will be resolved soon.

However, even though Zhu Youjian had made such a big concession, Felipe IV of Spain was still reluctant to give up the American colonies.

Since this is the case, Zhu Youjian can only use force to recover Central America.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian also asked Wang Chengen who was sitting on a chair in the distance:

"Cheng En, how many people have moved to Qi State?"

As soon as Zhu Youjian opened his mouth, Wang Chengen immediately searched for the relocation document handed to Qi by the relocation department.

He looked at the contents of the document, then raised his head and bowed to Zhu Youjian from the air:
"Your Highness, according to the document, since last year, a total of 58 people have been relocated in the seventeen months before July this year. By the end of this year, the number should reach 70."

The number of immigrants in Qi State is about to exceed 70, a speed that Zhu Youjian didn't expect.

"It seems that the drought in the south of the Yangtze River is more serious than I thought..."

Frowning slightly, Zhu Youjian looked at Hong Chengchou again, and continued his topic:

"Has the... behind you moved?"

Zhu Youjian asked about the Nan'an Hong family behind Hong Chengchou, but Hong Chengchou shook his head, but bowed again: "The lower officials didn't pay attention to them..."

In order to save his life, Hong Chengchou cut off contact with the Hong family early on. As for Hong Qiyin who supported him to study, he arranged for him to work in Luchuan, which can be regarded as a kindness.

Zhu Youjian was not surprised by this, but asked Hong Chengchou about something.

"Do you think that the servants of the various gentry are sincerely loyal to them?"

"..." After a word, Hong Chengchou became silent for an instant.

Sincere allegiance?

Who would want their children and grandchildren to be slaves to the family from generation to generation?
They just didn't dare to resist. After all, Daming recognized the relationship between master and servant. ,

"I see..." Seeing Hong Chengchou's appearance, Zhu Youjian smiled.

He wanted to deal with the gentry, but he did not do it himself, let alone send troops to suppress it, but mobilized the power of the people to punish the gentry.

Jiangnan in Ming Dynasty is very complicated. After Zhu Youjian came to this world, his understanding of the contradictions in Jiangnan gradually deepened as time went by.

Coupled with the "Jiangnan slave change" that he knew in his previous life, Zhu Youjian already had a way to deal with the gentry without using troops.

When he was mainly moving gentry before, Zhu Youjian said that the power of gentry is not to be feared because he understands history.

In the history of peasant wars in the late Ming Dynasty, it was not uncommon for servants of wealthy households in various places to take advantage of the situation to riot.

In Yongxin, Jiangxi and other places, slaves occupy the property of the master's family, distribute the food of the master's family, tie up the master, and ask "Why do you call me a slave?" Scenes happened all over the south of the Yangtze River.

Some people in the previous life said that Chongzhen could open folk troupes to maintain the life of Ming Dynasty. The result is that even if Chongzhen didn't make an order, the local gentry had already organized and practiced folk troupes.

The reason why they made such a bold thing regardless of the imperial court was because of the outline put forward by the servants of the Jiangnan Uprising.

They put forward the slogan "Eradicate masters and servants, high and low, rich and poor", pointing at the rich households, landlords, and officials who have oppressed them for hundreds of years.

After Chongzhen hanged himself and the news of Hongguang's south crossing spread to the south of the Yangtze River, the rolling wave of peasant uprisings in the north also began to stimulate the nerves of the slaves in the south.

As the turmoil gradually intensified, domestic slaves from all over the south took up the news and waited for an opportunity to launch an uprising to change their destiny.

On the eve of the Qing army's southward march, servants from Suzhou, Songjiang, Jiading, Wuxi and other places in the south of the Yangtze River fought with each other, and there were more than tens of thousands of servants sitting on the contract, and the momentum was huge.

Servants or tenant farmers tied up their previous masters, and they had to double the punishment imposed on the previous masters, which caused panic among the southern gentry.

When the Qing army began to go south, most of the gentry, in order to save their lives, began to take refuge in the Qing army, donating money and food to show their loyalty.

In order to stabilize the situation in the south of the Yangtze River, the Qing court pursued the remnants of the Ming Dynasty, so it began to wipe out slave and tenant coups in various places one after another.

Among the slave rebellion teams in the Jiangnan area at that time, the "Bi Shaping Ban" and "Oolong Club" were the most powerful, especially the "Bi Shaping Ban" that sprang up in Jintan and Liyang areas was the most prominent.

These people played the slogan "Why should I be a slave forever?", hoping to get rid of the fate of being a slave forever.

They called themselves "Nizai Ban", and the so-called "Nizai Ban" did not mean that they wanted to take revenge by cutting off other people's noses, but because Jiangnan in the late Ming Dynasty usually used noses to refer to domestic slaves in order to avoid taboos.

Therefore, the so-called nose-cutting of the uprising house slaves is to cut off the identity and family status of their servants.

However, the irony is that they tried to get rid of their low status in the name of cutting their noses, but they were eventually defeated by the Qing army who entered the customs, and the Qing army punished them by actually cutting off their noses.

The Qing army arrested several of the leaders. According to historical records, they cut off their noses and hung them on the city road, saying: "The name of the class is to cut the nose, and the nose is cut to show the public, so they beheaded." '

In the end, this decades-long slave change in the south of the Yangtze River was put down after Kangxi succeeded to the throne, but its influence continued until Yongzheng succeeded to the throne.

From this incident, what Zhu Youjian can grasp is the power of slaves and the class contradiction between slaves and landlords.

The servants did not fear the landlord, but the court, which recognized the relationship between master and servant.

But if the court does not recognize this relationship, what will be the consequences?
"I want to abolish the law about masters and servants in the "Law of the Ming Dynasty". From tomorrow, there will be no slaves in Daming!"

If Zhu Youjian doesn't sing, it's nothing but a blockbuster.

As soon as he said this, Hong Chengchou, who was well aware of the conflict between servants and landlords and gentry, knew that the gentry in Jiangnan was doomed this time!

The gentry are not afraid of Zhu Youjian sending troops to suppress, because this will damage the Ming Dynasty's national prestige and the emperor's majesty, and even affect the future Ming Dynasty's governance.

They are even less afraid of Zhu Youjian urging them to pay taxes, because they know that Zhu Youjian cannot send out hundreds of thousands of people who are proficient in arithmetic to settle accounts.

They are not afraid of problems from the outside, but they are afraid of internal problems.

When millions of slaves no longer serve the tens of thousands of gentry and landlords, and even draw their swords at them, the gentry will kneel down and beg Daming.

However, the mere abolition of the master-slave law was not enough to arouse the wrath of millions of slaves.

"From now on, the local government will redeem the servants of each family at the price of the contract, and the gentry must not hinder it."

"The redeemed servants immigrated to Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi, and Anxi provinces, and each was given ten mu of cultivated land and six shi of grain."

"For the migrants, every ten households form a team, ten teams form a village, and each village is given ten tractors."

Zhu Youjian continued to speak, and compared to the words that gave them freedom before, the words now are to give them freedom, and at the same time give them an additional amount of money, food, and land on which they can live comfortably.

After hearing his words, Hong Chengchou also knew that the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River were not far from falling.

The government sent troops to press taxes, which was a contradiction between the gentry and the government.

But the servants left, this is the contradiction between the gentry and the servants.

When the gentry has lost a large number of tenants, if the servant chooses to leave again, the gentry will become a completely empty shell.

Even if the gentry has millions of acres of land, so what?Without enough tenants to help with the farming, and no skilled servants to collect taxes for them, the gentry could only watch the fields grow with weeds.

Thinking of this, Hong Chengchou sighed:

"Your Highness, you really know the people well..."

Thinking of this, Hong Chengchou also got up and bowed: "I'm afraid many officials will object to this matter."

"It's invalid for them to object. If they object, they will directly issue the decree!" Zhu Youjian snorted lightly, not looking down on the group of insects in the court hall.

Seeing this, Hong Chengchou didn't say any more, but suggested: "Although this is the case, we still have to make two preparations."

"One is the need to send troops to strengthen the patrols of the cities, lest some of the slaves have evil intentions and maliciously rob and kill."

"The second is that someone must be sent to supervise the servants so that they can come to Sochi through formal means."

"The third is to replenish the treasury silver of the local government, especially the treasury silver of the three provinces in the south of the Yangtze River, so that when the gentry hand over their birth certificates, the local government will not have money."

Hong Chengchou put forward three points, all of which are to prevent the uneasy factors that may arise after the policy is issued.

For these three points, Zhu Youjian deeply agrees.

If he remembered correctly, in history, Xu Xiake's family was implicated in Xu Xiake's family because of the slave change in the south of the Yangtze River, which led to the death and injury of his children.

"In addition..." Hong Chengchou glanced at Zhu Youjian, and continued:

"Your Highness, if the servants are cancelled, what should the officials do?"

"It's okay to lose the servants in the mansion, but if there are no more servants in the yamen, then we need to recruit another group of officials..."

"October is just around the corner. It's not difficult to recruit more officials." Zhu Youjian interrupted:

"As for the servants in the mansion, there is no need to worry. The common people and rich peasants can hire some old women, but you can't?"

Zhu Youjian's words showed his attitude, and Hong Chengchou didn't dare to ask any more questions.

But he knew that Zhu Youjian's words were likely to cause a large number of Yanshan officials to oppose him.

The reason is very simple. After enjoying the service of young and beautiful maids and slaves who are driven at will, once the slavery system is abolished, many officials in Daming will lose these.

In the past, it was a disaster year, and there were many people who sold their sons and daughters, and there was no shortage of slaves.

But now that the imperial court continues to move the population outward, and does not allow slaves to be raised, the supply and demand will change in the future.

In the interior where the population is decreasing and the land is increasing, many people can live well, and naturally there is no need to sell their children.

Without these people, even if the officials wanted to hire some people to help in the mansion, it would not be so easy.

Not to mention others, even Hong Chengchou himself was a little distressed.

Although his distress was not written on his face, Zhu Youjian still noticed it.

In this regard, Zhu Youjian also added after a moment of silence before Hong Chengchou left:

"Huangdian will organize Yingzhou women and Nanyang women to come to the mainland to do housework, but the wages will not be low. You make the officials prepare."

"The next official takes orders..." Hong Chengchou breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that Zhu Youjian was willing to let Yingzhou girls and Nanyang girls come to the mainland to do housework.

What he is most afraid of is that Zhu Youjian pays attention to equality for everyone, which will make the life of officials worse after losing their slaves.

As a result, it is inevitable that officials will complain.

Fortunately, Yingzhou women and Nanyang women filled the vacancy. In this way, even if the officials have resentment, I am afraid it will not be too big.

Yingzhou women and Nanyang women also often earn money by doing miscellaneous things in some people's houses in the local area. Hong Chengchou naturally knows about this.

Their wages are basically ten yuan a day, even if they are introduced to the Central Plains, they will only be fifteen or twenty yuan at most, which is cheaper than hiring slaves before.

Officials will certainly not refuse such a thing.

With this thought in mind, Hong Chengchou slowly withdrew from the Chengyun Hall.

Not long after he withdrew from Chengyun Palace, the news that King Qi wanted to liberate his servants spread completely.

On that day, there was an endless stream of fast horses leaving the city to deliver news, and the officials knew that King Qi had caught the gentry's dead spot this time...

Update before five o'clock in the afternoon