Emperor Sui Yang

Chapter 126 Inspecting the Acres of Fields
Around Jiangling County, there are two largest aristocratic families, one surnamed Wen and the other surnamed Shen.

The Wen family is the largest landowner in the area, with countless land properties and other businesses, the most famous being usury.

The Shen family is engaged in water transportation. The family has more than 200 large and small cargo ships, and they rely on water for food.

Ten years ago, when Yuan Xiao was the general manager of Jiangling, the Shen family was the most popular in Jiangling County. Later, when Yang Liang was the general manager of Jingzhou, the Shen family was replaced by the Wen family.

Small families like this are always seeking protection from high-ranking families, because they know that without relying on them, the interests of the family will be gradually eroded and divided by other families.

A piece of cake is only that big, if you eat less, others will naturally eat more.

As for Shen's right now, only Yuan Xiaoze is the only one he can count on, but Yuan Xiaoze is old and has retired in Daxing, and now he is just carrying the title of Duke of Anchang on his back, waiting for his son to inherit the title after his death Woolen cloth.

Originally, the Shen family was ready to sell more properties in exchange for living space, and continued to linger in Jiangling. Who knew that the arrival of Yuan Wendu would boost their confidence again.

And Yuan Wendu also informed Yang Ming that the Shen family had sent someone to join him.

In charge of the government office, in the Changshi Department, Yang Ming took the tea handed by Yuan Wendu and said curiously:
"So, the Shen family has always been in contact with your family?"

Yuan Wendu nodded and said: "When my father was in charge of Jiangling earlier, the Shen family was considered the most prestigious clan in Jiangling area, and their family arose in the period of Duke Wei (Shikang). Chief, because this is the old Liang’s homeland, most of the local wealthy families do not obey discipline, and there have even been incidents where crowds were gathered to attack the general’s mansion.”

"Grand Wei was tough, and he directly summoned 2000 people from the government army, and within [-] days, he successively mopped up eight families. Among them, the three largest families were killed, and the mansion was burned to the ground. Temporarily suppressed these local tyrants."

"Later, Duke Wei supported the Shen family, the Gao family, the Wang family, the Fei family, etc., and was able to further control the surrounding areas of Jiangling and Jiangxia. Even so, during Wei Gong's time, the Jingzhou area was still unbelievably chaotic, and the government army had to be mobilized at every turn. Repression."

"This phenomenon didn't change much when my father took over as the general manager of Jiangling. It was still in accordance with Wei Gong's thinking, supporting some obedient families, and then using the military government to suppress disobedient ones, so as to maintain the balance."

Yang Ming is quite clear about the position of Jingzhou manager.

In the early years of Kaihuang, Wei Shikang set up the position of general manager in Jingzhou. Later, due to the marriage between Yang Guang and Xiao, this position was temporarily canceled and changed to Jiangling general manager, which was held by Yuan Xiaoze. It was reset again, and Yang Liang, king of the Han Dynasty, was in charge.

The governor of Jingzhou and the governor of Jiangling have different jurisdictions. The former has 22 counties, while the latter has eight counties.

Nominally, it was because Concubine Xiao married King Guang of Jin that Yang Jian's control over the Jingzhou area was slightly relaxed, which was tantamount to giving Xiao a face, meaning that I can trust you.

But the actual reason is that Yang Jian couldn't find a suitable person to guard Jingzhou, because Han Wang Yang Liang was still young at that time.

And Yang Jian didn't want to hand over this position to another surname.

Both Wei Shikang and Yuan Xiaoze are not ordinary people, and the Wei and Yuan families are also married. Wei Shikang's wife is the daughter of Emperor Wen of the Western Wei Dynasty Yuan Baoju, Princess Xiangle.

And Yuan Xiaoze's younger sister is the powerful official of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the wife of Yu Wenhu, and her niece is the concubine of the deposed prince Yang Yong, and his daughter is married to Wei Shikang's third son, Wei Fuzhou.

Wei Fu is Yuan Wendu's brother-in-law.

As for Yang Liang, the king of Han after the two of them, when he took office in Jingzhou, he was just a young man who was brave and fearless. What's more, he is the emperor's own son. When he first came to Jingzhou, he didn't do anything. They all stopped.

With such an identity, one dares to offend only when one's brains are flooded.

So Yang Liang quickly found a group of obedient dog legs in the local area. At first, the Wen family was not the strongest, but the Wen family was lucky.

Because in the 18th year of Emperor Kaihuang, Yang Liang was appointed Marshal of the Marching Army and led the army northward to conquer Goguryeo. When he left, he took away the tribes of several wealthy families in Jingzhou.

But this time the Goguryeo campaign resulted in heavy casualties, seven out of ten of the dead, and the vitality of the powerful clan in Jingzhou was severely damaged, so that the Wen family came from behind and successfully developed from their original hometown in Songzi County to a powerful clan with power covering the entire surrounding area of ​​Jiangling.

But now, Yang Ming has the final say in Jingzhou, so he also needs to find some obedient subordinates in the local area.

An aristocratic family like Wen's who forcibly occupied the land and oppressed one party was obviously not in his consideration.

Although Yuan Wendu worked in the capital in the early days, he did not miss a penny of the filial money sent to their family by the Shen family every year.

If he kept this from Yang Ming, Yang Ming would never pay attention to the Shen family, but Yuan Wendu did not regard Yang Ming as an outsider because of the relationship with the concubine Yuan, so his father Yuan Xiao took how much money, All told the truth.

Yang Ming said with a look of surprise: "The Shen family is really big, is it betting on Yuan Gong?"

Yuan Wen was ashamed.

The filial money that the Shen family sends to the capital's Yuan Mansion every year is not a small amount. Based on Yang Ming's preliminary understanding of the Shen family, this money is almost one-third of their income.

In the previous Yuan family, although Yuan Xiaoze was already at home, at least there was still the signboard of Crown Princess Yuan Zhen, but now it is gone.

Therefore, after Yuan Wendu met with the Shen family this time, he bluntly said that he should not send money to their family in the future, as it would not be of much help, and he was really embarrassed to accept it.

This is a sincere person. If you are replaced by someone like Yang Yue, you will never stop until your family is turned upside down.

But now the Shen family has something else to ask for. After all, Yuan Wendu is already the head of the governor's office and the confidant of the King of Hedong, so they still want to continue to stand next to this big tree, in order to be able to get close to this giant tree like Yang Ming.

But Yang Ming believed that contacting the Shen family should not be hasty, let them wait and see before making a decision.

On the day of the New Year's Eve, the Shen family also sent generous gifts, most of which were gold, silver and jade wares, but among them were a few paintings that Yang Ming was quite interested in.

After leaving the Long History Office and returning to the inner garden, Yang Ming asked Xu Jing to find those paintings from the inner library, and called Yang Yinjiang and others to watch them together.

As soon as the painting scroll was unfolded, Yang Yinjiang immediately recognized who painted the painting.

There is no such thing as inscriptions and postscripts on calligraphy and painting in the Sui Dynasty. A painting is a clean painting, and there is nothing else.

Collectors will only mark who wrote it on the box where the scroll is stored.

The reason why Yang Ming paid attention to these paintings was because the words "Zhan Ziqian" were written on the scroll box.

Yang Yinjiang's eyes fell on the picture scroll, and she said slowly: "This person's ancestral home is in Bohai, and he traveled to the south of the Yangtze River. He made murals in Buddhist temples for a living, absorbed the wind of the south of the Yangtze River, and his skills greatly improved. Doctor, full-time painting."

Obviously, Yang Yinjiang knew Zhan Ziqian well, but that was all. Even after seeing those paintings, a few words of admiration were enough.

Because the elegant taste of painting and calligraphy is not very popular in Daxing, only a few people like it, which also leads to the low collection value of such things.

But Yang Ming knew that these paintings would become more and more precious as time went by.

As far as he knows, there are only two surviving works of Zhan Ziqian in later generations, one is "The Picture of Sutra Teaching" and the other is "Picture of Outing in Spring", both of which are national treasures.

"The Picture of Teaching Sutras" is stored in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, and the "Picture of Outing in Spring" is even more stored in the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Zhan Ziqian is still alive, and he is only about forty years old. Yang Ming thinks that if he has a chance in the future, he must meet this person.

From this point of view, the Shen family still has a discerning eye, and he actually took it as a congratulatory gift to Yang Ming for a painting that no one else valued very much.

This shows that in the eyes of the Shen family, these paintings are good things, because they are not good things, they dare not give them to Yang Ming.

About half a month later, Yuan Wendu presented a stack of files about the Wen family to Yang Ming.

Originally, before taking office, Yuan Wendu had done his homework on the Wen family, and now he has inquired some more from the Shen family, and sent people to hear some in the streets and alleys of the city. After summarizing, he handed it over to Yang Ming.

The county lieutenant of Jiangling County is called Wenhui, and the county lieutenant of Jiangling County is called Wenzheng. These are a pair of cousins.

These two people had already served in the Yamen before the prefect Murong Sanzang took office, and Murong Sanzang did not dare to change at will, because the Wen family was under the protection of the King of Han.

So much so that whether the current Jiangling is chaotic or not is entirely up to the writers. It's not that Murong Sanzang has been excluded, it's just that he turned a blind eye to it. As long as they don't mess around, he doesn't care too much.

But Yang Ming cares.

The fields under Wen's name alone exceeded [-], and Yang Ming wanted to deal with them.

An area of ​​more than [-] acres of land was considered a death penalty in the Sui Dynasty.

Of course, in fact, there are many fields with more than [-] acres of land, so it depends on whether you want to deal with it or not, even if you have [-] acres, you will be fine.

One hundred Qing is [-] mu, which is not much at all for a big family.

As the emperor, Yang Jian also knew it well, so he would occasionally send inspectors to the place to investigate the situation of the average land. As long as he did the investigation, he could find out a lot of problems.

For example, the last time Suwei inspected the south of the Yangtze River, 61 mu of open fields were found to be problematic. These 61 mu of land will be re-granted to the common people in order to obtain land taxes.

Land tax was the main source of income in the Sui Dynasty, and these all relied on the land equalization system.

According to the land equalization system, the open field granted is 80 mu for adult men, 40 mu for women, and 60 mu for small cattle, with a limit of 4 heads per household.

In addition, male slaves were granted 40 mu of land, and maidservants were granted 20 mu of land.

This is an ideal state, but in reality it cannot be achieved.

The common people belong to the bottom of the society, how many acres you can get depends entirely on how much can be left for you after the above divides it up.

Generally, [-] mu is too much, and there are two or three mu less.

Although the Sui Dynasty clearly stipulated that common households could have up to 60 slaves and maidservants, was it really only [-]?Wen's and Shen's are common people, and there are probably thousands of servants in their house.

And they will receive land grants in the name of slaves and maids in the mansion, and when it comes time to pay taxes, they will only pay according to 60 people.

There is a lot of room for manipulation in this kind of thing, and the specific ways in it vary from person to person.

According to the Sui system, the number of servants of the county king should not exceed 2000, but Yang Ming's general manager's mansion plus the Hedong mansion already had more than [-] slaves, but no one said anything.

Because he is not breaking the law, why?Because it was rewarded by Yang Jian and his wife, and the rewards are not within the scope of the law.

Historically, when Yang Zhao served as the crown prince, the total number of servants and servants in the official family exceeded 1.

Yang Ming could use the servants in the house to receive the land grant, and then pay taxes with 200 people, but he was unwilling to do so, even though everyone did.

And the reason why the father Yang Guang pissed off the aristocratic family in history was because he canceled the granting of land to the servants and dingniu. Isn't this killing people?
Ding Niu refers to adult cattle over four years old.

It is a good policy to benefit the country and the people to abolish the granting of land to slaves, maidservants and oxen, and to check and redistribute the household registration, so that more land will be distributed to the common people.

Without the courage and courage beyond ordinary people, this decree would not have been promulgated. It is a pity that although the old man has done many good things, he has done more wrong things.

So Yang Ming handed over this matter to Yuan Wendu, and sent someone to thoroughly check the number of acres owned by the Wen family.

And Yuan Wendu, as the head of the governor's office, would definitely not do this kind of thing in person, but would hand it over to He Chou, his confidant, and order him to take the warrant of the governor's mansion and bring two hundred soldiers to start the investigation from Songzi County. .

Just a few days after the talent left, Murong Sanzang, the governor of Jiangling County, heard the news and came here.

In the government office, Yang Ming invited the other party to sit down, and said with a smile, "What? Mr. Murong has shares in the Wen family?"

"No, no," Murong Sanzang hurriedly waved his hands, "I want to make money, but I don't want to make money from this kind of person."

He really has nothing to do with the Wen family, and he can't make money from the Wen family, who pays tribute to Hanwang Yang Liang.

Yang Ming asked again: "In this case, why did you persuade my subordinates to show mercy?"

Murong Sanzang hurriedly said: "His Royal Highness came here for the first time, and he didn't know the inside information. This Wen family has a way in the Han Palace."

In fact, what he meant was that the Wen family is under the protection of the King of Han, if you dare to move, you are not afraid of offending your fifth uncle?

Yang Ming smiled and said, "I followed the imperial law and checked the number of acres of land. The King of Han would not say anything if he knew about it. What? Could it be that these fields belong to him?"

Not all of them, but at least half of them, but Murong Sanzang didn't dare to say it. If he said it, he would put a label on Yang Liang's head.

So he could only say: "As far as I know, His Highness the King of Han has absolutely nothing to do with this."

"That's right, how can my fifth uncle miss this thing?" Yang Ming said with a smile: "Every six months, the second sage will send inspectors to inspect the place and check the affairs of the land. If the problem is not found out in the future, lest the Second Sage find out and blame me."

Pull it down, Murong Sanzang is slandering in his heart, even if the problem is found out, which blind inspector dares to implicate the matter on you, who wouldn't try to keep you clear of the relationship?

Murong Sanzang said: "His Royal Highness first took office in Jingzhou, so he made a bold move. The servants thought that he was a little anxious, but in fact, he can take his time."

You are a general, you know nothing, go home and play with your knives, guns and sticks.
Yang Ming chuckled, "What? Mr. Murong is teaching me how to do things?"

"Don't dare, dare not," Murong Sanzang hurriedly stood up, and said, "How dare my subordinates overstep."

Yang Ming nodded: "Since that's the case, you go back. If there is anything to do, the king will find you."

Murong Sanzang said yes again and again, resigned and left.

Along the way, Murong Sanzang kept repeating the scene of his conversation with Yang Ming just now in his mind.

In addition to the night of Shou Sui, this was the second time he had close contact with Yang Ming, but the impression the other party gave him was very shocking.

He is only 13 years old this year, right?How do you talk and act so old-fashioned?Moreover, there was a sense of arbitrariness in his words, he had spent half his life in officialdom, and this was the first time he had seen such a person.

It is worthy of being the son of the dragon and the grandson of the dragon, it is indeed extraordinary.

Originally, the Jingzhou officialdom was still rejoicing, but this time it was an underage young highness who was appointed as the governor of Jingzhou. He thought that as long as he could get through the relationship in Yuanwen Capital, basically everything would be easy to handle.

But Murong Sanzang doesn't feel that way now, this little Highness himself is very assertive, and his methods are fierce.

Now that it's interesting, I'll just watch from the sidelines and see what kind of waves this little Highness will make in Jingzhou.

When I first came to Jingzhou, many interesting things happened.

Chen Shuyi took Gao Yue out for a walk under the pretext of going out for shopping, and she also brought five parts with her. Just then, they were surrounded by a group of young people in the street.

The five members of the royal palace were all from the army, they were wild-tempered, and they were ruthless in attacking, so they crippled one of the young men on the spot.

Abandoned means to be killed.

At this moment, those people were dumbfounded, clamoring for something like don't go, and went back to get the rescuers.

Chen Shuyi was also stupid at the time, after all, there were few people around, so she hurried back with Gao Yue, but was chased by others on the way, and about a hundred people fought with the five members of the palace in the street.

As can be imagined, Chen Shuyi was almost taken away again.

Fortunately, the county guard Murong Sanzang passed by and saw that Chen Shuyi looked familiar, as if he had seen Chen Shuyi at the general manager's mansion, so he rescued her.

When Yang Yinjiang learned about this, she was very angry, and she rode the horse herself, brought three hundred pieces of complete armor, and went to find someone to settle the score.

The troublemakers came from three families. One was the Tohara family from Jiangling. A woman from the family married into the Wen family.

The remaining two are ordinary gentry from surrounding counties. Their ancestors were officials in the Jingzhou area, similar to small officials such as county towns and county lieutenants, and they were not officials from the Sui Dynasty, but officials from the old Liang.

Yang Yinjiang likes to wear men's clothes, and she is heroic. Under the guidance of the county government's fast hands, she led people directly into a mansion in Nancheng.

The Patriarch of the Yuan Clan was Yuan Guangqing. When he saw the battle, he was dumbfounded and hurriedly brought his family members to kowtow for mercy.

Yang Yinjiang is different from Yang Ming. In her view, there is nothing worse than others. As long as you are the same, she will not be soft. This is the result of being influenced by two ruthless people, Yang Su and Yang Yue.

It is an exaggeration to say that Yang Yinjiang regards human life as a child's play. This is a common problem of the Guanlong Group, and it is also a basic feature of the aristocratic group.

It was Yuan Guangqing's youngest son who made trouble in the Yuan family, but Yang Yinjiang led people to beat up the entire Yuan family's men, as long as they were men.

The parts of the Wangfu were arrogant, and they were honed on the battlefield, so they didn't care how serious they were, and directly killed a dozen of them.

As for Yuan Guangqing's youngest son, Yang Yinjiang whipped him to death with a whip in his hand.

With her little strength, she knows how many whips she has whipped.

After Yang Ming knew about it, he didn't say much. With Yang Yinjiang's background, it's only normal to do such a thing.

But after this experience, Chen Shuyi has also learned to be good. She will bring more people with her when she goes out in the future, and she will not let the princes wear plain clothes. They must wear armor.

This is not Daxing, under the emperor's feet, few have the guts to dare to make trouble in the capital, and Chen Shuyi was taken to Daxing since she was a child, so she has never experienced such a thing.

Today, a good news came,

The taxes of Hedong County have been paid, and those who stayed are quite rich, equivalent to 23 guan, which have been put into storage by Fang Xuanling and sealed.

Yang Yinjiang sat at the table and read over and over again the accounts sent by Fang Xuanling. Afterwards, she rubbed her sore eyes and said with a smile:
"This person is still capable. Last year, 2 people in Hedong were exempted from taxes, and they had to pay rewards. They should have been short-lived. I didn't expect that there would be such a surplus. If you have this person to manage the palace for you, you will have no worries."

What Fang Xuanling was doing was actually the same as what Yang Ming was doing in Jiangling right now, they were checking the fields.

The difference is that Yang Ming is really investigating, while Fang Xuanling is using Yang Ming's banner to spread the word that he wants to investigate, so the clans in the Hedong area have taken the initiative to send a merciful money.

Hedong Pei and Hedong Liu also made sense. Each family gave [-] guan, and Hedong Xue gave [-] guan.

In the record about Hedong Xue, Fang Xuanling made a special tick at the bottom, which should be implying to Yang Ming that there are fewer sales from this family.

But Yang Ming could see that Fang Xuanling could only play this kind of excuse once, and if there was another deficit this year, he would have to find another way.

After all, these families in Hedong are big clans. Although they are located in Hedong, they also belong to the Guanzhong aristocratic group, unlike Jiangling's jumping-legged shrimps.

At present, Li Jing is still serving as the governor of Hedong County, but Yang Su promised that if there is a war in the future, Li Jing can lead the soldiers of Hedong to follow.

And Yang Ming learned from the history that there were several wars between the Sui Dynasty and the Turks this year. In this way, Li Jing led the Hedong children to win the battle. Will think of ways to make up for this year's shortfall.

It's really embarrassing for him, since he became the recorder of the palace until now, he has been making up for the shortfall.

There was also news from the capital.

Taishi ordered Yuan Chong to measure the length of the shadow, saying that since the founding of the Sui Dynasty, the days have been getting longer, that is, the days have become longer and longer.

So Yang Jian said to the officials: The length of the day is the blessing of heaven, and the meaning of the length of the day should be taken as the name of the year.

Yuan Chong’s table: At the beginning of the emperor’s birth, it is not only the divine light and auspicious energy, but also the auspiciousness of Jiaxiang. As for the year of birth, the birthday of the birth month, and the rotation of the heaven, earth, sun, moon, and yin and yang, it is in line with the cycle of the law of yin and yang. .

Yang Jian was overjoyed, so he changed Yuan Renshou, and stipulated all kinds of work, and added tasks because of the length of time.

It is equivalent to adding an hour or two to the eight-hour working system, and it is legal.

The "Kaihuang" reign title, which has been used for 20 years, has completely become a thing of the past.

　Portugal lost, got mad, England also lost, got dizzy, alas.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)