The first assistant of the poor family

Chapter 318 Lu'an One Overlord (Part [-])

Xie Shen had deduced several possibilities before, so he discussed them with Li Xiaoji one by one.

Seeing Li Tongzhi's gloomy face, Xie Shen asked: "Could it be that Li Tongzhi offended someone and was retaliated against?"

Li Tongzhi felt helpless for a while, as a magistrate, there is no way he would not offend others.But if he offended everyone, he couldn't tell Xie Shen all about it, could he?
You must know that the prefect and the same prefect are in the relationship of chief and deputy, and they are also natural competitors.

If Xie Shen leaked all his old background, wouldn't he become a clay figurine at the mercy of others?

But if he doesn't say anything, it will arouse Xie Shen's suspicion, which is also very bad.

The harm between the two powers is the lesser, Li Tongzhi thought for a while and gritted his teeth: "If you say offend someone, the lower official really offended one person, and that is Huo Yi."

Huo Yi?

How is this going?

If Xie Shen remembered correctly, wasn't this Huo Yi and Huo Yuanwai the one introduced by Li Tongzhi to him?
That day Li Tongzhi hosted a banquet and invited all the gentry from Lu'an Mansion, among them was Huo Yihuo.

If Li Tongzhi really had a rift with this Yuanwai Huo, why invite him to the banquet?
Or is there something else hidden in it?

Before Xie Shen asked, Li Tongzhi sighed and said: "Your magistrate doesn't know that Huo Yi has a lot of contacts with Zhejiang merchants. He got salt and sold salt in Shanxi and Zhejiang, earning a lot of money. The former prefect I wanted him to spend some money to build a school, and there was a fierce dispute with him."

Li Tongzhi swallowed his saliva, and continued: "At that time, the subordinate officials gave advice to the former magistrate, so it is better to find someone to seal the bank under Huo Yi's name and force him to submit. Who knows that this news will eventually be learned by Huo Yi, and finally dragged on. The relationship between the governor of Shanxi and the bank was saved. Since then, the relationship between Xiaguan and Huo Yi has been very bad, and it was not until shortly before the earthquake that it eased slightly."

Hearing this, Xie Shen basically understood.

Then Li Tongzhi hosted a banquet and invited Huo Yi to take the opportunity to repair the relationship.No wonder the two talked and laughed so bluntly during the banquet.

However, it would be too arbitrary to conclude that Huo Yi was behind the scenes.

"Li Tongzhi means that these mobs may have been arranged by Huo Yi?"

After all, Li Xiaoji is a veteran in the officialdom, he just smiled and said: "This is also known to be the decision of the master of the government, the official is just raising a possibility."

Xie Shen secretly scolded Li Tongzhi for being shameless, but there was nothing he could do.After all, he is the chief official of Lu'an Mansion, so the decision is really up to him.

"Li Tongzhi just said that Huo Yuanwai runs a bank and sells salt from Jiangnan to Shanxi. It can be seen that his main business is in business. What's the benefit of him arranging mobs to resist taxes?"

Logically speaking, Li Tongzhi's hypothesis does not make sense.A businessman hopes that the small peasant economy will collapse, only in this way can he hire cheaper labor and earn more income.

Li Tongzhi smiled and said: "Master Zhifu doesn't know, this Huo Yi is not only a businessman, but also a big landlord. The land under his name accounts for [-]% of Lu'an Mansion."

Hiss, Xie Shen gasped when he heard the words.

This is too sensational, right?

Seventy percent?

A businessman actually occupies [-]% of the land in a prefecture?

"Li Tongzhi is joking, right? How could Yuanwai Huo own so much land?"

Scholars can enjoy the preferential treatment of tax exemption, so many neighbors will rush to contribute land.

But this Huo Yuanwai is just a merchant, even if he has a lot of money, he can't enjoy the tax exemption policy, how could he own so much land.

Li Tongzhi explained: "This Huo Yi has a vicious vision and a quick attack. Shanxi has been plagued by natural disasters in recent years, such as locust plagues, floods, and droughts."

He observed Xie Shen's face for a while, and seeing that the young man was not unusual, he continued: "Whenever there is a catastrophe, there are always people who sell the land cheaply in order to make a living. At such times, Huo Yi will buy the land arbitrarily. Then the land under Huo Yi's name will have the scale it is today."

That's it
It has to be said that the self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy in ancient China was very fragile.

Locust plagues, floods, droughts, or earthquakes, as long as any one occurs, it will cause a devastating blow to the agricultural economy.

The advantage of the small-scale peasant economy lies in its low dependence on the outside world, but its disadvantage is also very obvious, that is, its ability to resist major disasters is very weak.

Once severely hit, it is difficult for ordinary farmers to resume production on their own, and those with poor foundations may even go bankrupt directly.

After bankruptcy, these farmers face two choices.One is to starve to death, and the other is to sell land.

At such times, gentry like Huo Yuanwai jumped out and bought the land in the hands of ordinary people.

No business is not rape.

The only pursuit of a merchant is to make money.In their view, there is nothing shameful about lowering the purchase price and asking farmers to sell their land at a low price, but it is worth showing off.

It is by this almost shameless means that the land in the hands of big landlords will increase.

It seems that Huo Yi also used this method.

This is not difficult to explain.

Although Huo Yi has acquired a large amount of land, he will still pay taxes on these lands because he has no fame.

Now that the spring tax is about to be levied, it stands to reason that Huo Yi holds [-]% of the land in Lu'an Mansion, so he cannot escape.But it happened to encounter a natural disaster such as an earthquake.Today, the son is benevolent, and he will definitely issue an edict to reduce or exempt Lu'an taxes.Therefore, Huo Yi wanted to procrastinate, as long as he waited for the court's decree, he could save a large amount of taxes.

However, Li Tongzhi was very "not giving face", not only did not communicate with Huo Yi in advance, but also collected taxes as usual.

In addition, at the banquet, Xie Shen asked the merchants to pay for repairing the damaged houses of the people in Lu'an.In Huo Yi's opinion, this must be the trick of Li Xiaoji, the adjutant.

After all, Li Tongzhi has a "criminal record", and once advised the former magistrate to ask Huo Yuan to go out and build a school.

This time Xie Shen asked the merchants to pay for the repairs of the house. From Huo Yuanwai's point of view, it was Li Tongzhi repeating his old tricks and completely ignored him as a local gentry.

That's why Huo Yi turned the two into one, and decided to take revenge on Li Tongzhi once and for all.

"Master Zhifu, please take a look."

Li Tongzhi took out a land measurement booklet, flipped to the front page and said, "This records the household names of all the land in Lu'an Mansion. The land in the west and north of the city is almost all owned by Huo."

He almost said this through gritted teeth.

Huo Yi is unkind, don't blame Li Xiaoji for being unrighteous!
From Li Tongzhi's point of view, this booklet of measuring the acreage alone is enough to prove that Huo Yi is the culprit behind the tax resistance.

After Xie Shen read the brochure, he found that, as Li Tongzhi said, this Huo Yuanwai was really a tyrant in Lu'an Mansion.

From a logical point of view, Huo Yuanwai owns the most land, and these lands cannot be exempted from taxes.Fighting against taxes would do him the most good.

(End of this chapter)