Be a small county magistrate in ancient times

This morning Meng Changqing went down to inspect and saw a small group of people gathering together to talk.

When the few people saw her coming, they immediately dispersed, grabbing the tools in their hands and pretending to work.

While he was working, his eyes secretly glanced at Meng Changqing.

Meng Changqing immediately asked Zhang Yuan to arrest those people, "Go and check, there must be something wrong with those people."

After giving the instructions, he waited for Zhang Yuan to come back after asking questions.

About a quarter of an hour later, halfway across the field, Zhang Yuan's face changed from calm to angry, then calm, and finally frowned again.

Finally, he caught a man and said, "Sir, as you expected, this man is inciting other people to cause trouble."

"Oh." After a few months, Meng Changqing was very impressed with the original refugees, especially the leaders of the 25 groups.

The person in front of me is the leader of Group 20, No. [-].

When Zhang Yuan was about to continue speaking, he was suddenly stopped by Meng Changqing, "I have other things to deal with now. You first take him back to the Yamen and lock him up."

Zhang Yuan stopped what he was about to say and acted as ordered.

Meng Changqing then inspected the fields. So far, more than 3000 acres of land have been reclaimed.

Among them, government land accounted for the majority. The land that 200 people used to exchange grain every day was considered government land.

After that, three acres were opened and one was left, of which two acres were also government land.

Although Meng Changqing had a hundred soldiers, it was impossible for him to farm so much land. In the end, these lands would still have to be farmed by the people.

However, compared with their private land, the income obtained from planting government land is very different.

You have to pay rent to farm government land.

However, most people do not have spare money to pay rent in advance, so they often choose to share the grain with the government after the grain is harvested.

Why does the government want this food?How much food do you need?It is very easy to see whether the person in charge of the government is greedy.

The more harsh approach is to stipulate how many stones of grain per acre should be handed over to the government before the people rent the land.

Regardless of whether the annual harvest is good or not, the agreed grain must be handed over to the government during the harvest season. If the annual harvest is not good and the yield per mu is not enough to pay the government, then you will have to borrow debts from everywhere to repay the debt.

And generally, governments that use this leasing method will require the people under their control to cultivate at least a certain number of acres of government land every year.

In the previous dynasty, there were uprisings everywhere because of this system.

In this dynasty, the court stipulated that the government was not allowed to rent official land in this way.

Of course, it is difficult to say whether the officials below will abide by the regulations of the imperial court.

The mainstream method of renting government land at that time was to share it with the common people when harvesting grain, and the government decided whether to harvest [-]% or [-]%.

Meng Changqing now has the reputation of being kind and caring for the people, so she can't be too harsh. She promised to only take [-]%.

In this way, those people from Luojia Village were scrambling to plant seeds.

There were more than 3000 acres of land in total. As soon as they grabbed it, those people who were originally in Beishan County occupied less.

There are only more than 3000 acres of cultivated land in one county, which sounds ridiculously small.

Although Meng Changqing was anxious, he also knew that there was nothing he could do if there were few people.

"Master." Bafang saw that she was doing her rounds and brought the horse over to her.

Meng Changqing mounted his horse and returned to the county government office deliberately and slowly.

Zhang Yuan was waiting at the side door. As soon as he saw her coming in, he told him what happened to the person he had just arrested.

"Sir, that person encouraged people from other groups to ask the government for an explanation."

"What do you say?"

"When they opened up land before, there was no saying that every three acres would be left behind."

Meng Changqing asked: "Is anyone inspired by him?" "I don't know that." Zhang Yuan looked at Meng Changqing's expression and quickly added: "I called them together at the time, and everyone else identified him as the one who said those words. "

"You just talked about the land?"

Zhang Yuan nodded slightly hesitantly.

"Where is he being held?" Meng Changqing asked.

"The cell hasn't been repaired yet, so I put him where we are on duty."

"I'll go take a look."

When Meng Changqing arrived, the man was sitting uneasily in the room. When he saw Meng Changqing come in, the man knelt down and said, "My lord, please forgive me. I just couldn't think about it for a moment, so I said something I shouldn't have said."

"What's on your mind?" Meng Changqing asked him.

The man knelt on the spot and said, "Young man is also being deceived by others. I listened to Ma Lishan. It was he who said that we should have a share of the land that was reclaimed before."

"You want to say that you have been taken advantage of by others." Meng Changqing continued for him.

"Yes Yes."

"But if you didn't think this was reasonable, you wouldn't be willing to be taken advantage of."

"I……"

"You can't be like this. When I exchanged grain for your work, it was a settled transaction. Why do you say I owe you now?" Meng Changqing asked.

The man knelt on the ground and did not dare to speak.

"I know that you lived a hard life in the past, and you will inevitably dislike the government. But whether you like it or not, your past life has nothing to do with me, Meng Changqing.

I didn't ask you to suffer this.

From the first day I entered Beishan County, I gave you porridge. Without me, you might not have survived.

Ordinarily you should thank me, right? "

The people on the ground nodded repeatedly.

Meng Changqing added: "But what's the reality? Not only do you not thank me, you always feel that I owe you."

"Don't dare."

"You just say you don't dare." Meng Changqing said, "I know some of you say that I favor Luojiacun, but I am too defensive against you.

This statement is really ridiculous. As an official, why should I help the people of any party?Could it be that they are willing to give me [-]% more rent for renting my official land? "

The man shook his head.

"Really speaking, I am also closer to you. You have been with me for a long time, and I can remember everyone's appearance."

"I asked someone to bring you here. My intention was not to punish you. If I really wanted to embarrass you, I wouldn't be able to sit here and talk to you properly, right?"

"Yes Yes Yes!"

"I hope you all understand my painstaking efforts, and I hope you won't be taken advantage of by others in the future."

This person promised: "It won't happen anymore, it won't happen anymore!"

He looked at Meng Changqing and nodded, thinking that the crisis was over. Just when he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he heard Meng Changqing say: "It's just that you've come here. If you go back intact, others will think that I don't dare to use power." Meng Changqing He said, "I will ask someone to beat you twice, so as to scare other people."

Sweat was dripping from this man's forehead, "Sir!"

"Don't worry, it's just a show." Meng Changqing called Zhang Yuan outside the door to come in, "Pull him outside the county government office and beat him five times."

"Yes!"

Zhang Yuan started to pull the man, and the man shouted in panic: "Sir, these words came from Ma Lishan's mouth. If you want to beat him, you should beat him."

Meng Changqing said, "Catch the thief and catch the stolen goods. We only saw what you were saying. We cannot punish him based on your one-sided words." Meng Changqing said, "I'll beat you five times just because you spread these words to others. "(End of chapter)