Xinshun 1730

Chapter 344: Merchants Are Hateful
At noon on the second day, Liu Yu came to the hill just across the river from Kochi City, where the marines had already established a simple position.

Hundreds of copied articles are being loaded onto hot air balloons and ascended to high altitudes. Taking advantage of the wind blowing from the sea at noon, these leaflets will be thrown into the castle town of Kochi Castle.

There is the place with the highest proportion of literate population.

While the leaflets on snowflakes fluttered in the wind, in the villages and towns around Urado Castle, with the help of interpreters to publicize the notice everywhere, four literate and ambitious people risked their future lives to join Liu Yu's propaganda and agitation.

They really believe in benevolence and righteousness, and they really have the heart to save all people from suffering.

But there are still too few people.

The warships floating at sea also recruited a large number of high-quality military officers, and a large number of intern captains and intern officers all went ashore, leaving only the standard fleet crew.

According to the procedure, they are burning some tribute forms in various villages and punishing those village heads who have withheld them. This is one of the three contradictions.

The lord, the head of the village connecting the lord and the peasants, and a point of contradiction in the castle town of Kochi Castle, that is the real trigger that may ignite the peasants' emotions.

Under the one-country-one-city system, the Tosa Domain had only one Kochi Castle.The city of Kochi is not big, it is just a castle, the city is a city, the city is a city, the city is on a hill, and the city is close to the city.

The samurai had title to the land in name, but they had no right to use it, and they were not allowed to live in the village, so they could only gather in the castle town.

Merchants rarely live in the village. Occasionally, there are some merchants in the village who are small traders, which belong to those who are less angry and can unite.

It is some usury merchants living in the castle town who can really ignite the peasants' emotions.

According to Dashun, it is actually more appropriate to call him a landlord and squire.

Pure feudalism, no gentry.

Land cannot be bought and sold. The lord distributes the land to the farmers, and the farmers pay tribute to the lord according to the land. This is a theoretical model.

If this is the case, in theory, farmers can only hate the lord for squeezing too much, and hate the village head who is responsible for tax collection in the village.

However, with the development of the commodity economy, the implementation of the pilgrimage and account system, and the separation of peasants and soldiers, a pure consumer class emerged, which led to the emergence of a deformed unified market in Japan, and the pure feudal system has gradually disintegrated.

And some policies before the shogunate exacerbated this disintegration.

Before the catastrophe when Liu Yu sent sweet potatoes for smuggling, the shogunate had already encountered financial difficulties.

For this reason, the shogunate even stopped the pilgrimage handover system, in exchange for [-] shi of stone height, and handed over [-] shi of rice to the shogunate to overcome the serious financial crisis.

But participating in the system of interrogation is an important policy to weaken foreign daimyos, and the shogunate knew that doing so would be drinking poison to quench thirst, so they had to find other ways.

When the feudal lords had financial difficulties, the merchants would laugh, regardless of the East or the West.

In order to survive the financial crisis, the shogunate had to agree to develop new fields and encourage businessmen to participate in investment and reclamation.

To develop new fields, capital is needed.

Merchants with capital will not cultivate the land if they are not profitable. Therefore, the shogunate allowed the lease system and turned a blind eye to the sale of land, dismantling the land share system, which is the basis of its own rule.

Liu Yu is not very familiar with how to rebel against the pure feudal system - this is a variant of the well field system that some people in Dashun have been imagining in order to prevent land annexation.

But thanks to the reforms of the shogunate, he finally found the feeling of the Dashun countryside in the Japanese countryside, especially the routine of annexing land, which is very familiar.

Merchants lend usury, and poor farmers eat carrots all day long, so they can only borrow money with land as collateral.In theory, land sales are not allowed, but in reality it is difficult to supervise.

During the great famine a few years ago, many people mortgaged their land to businessmen at very low prices because they could not repay the usury loans.

Under the shogunate government, theoretically no gentry and landlords were allowed, but these merchants who lent money were just landlords wearing merchant skins.

It was originally a binary relationship between the lord and the peasant, and the middlemen were the dignitaries in the village, who charged more and took more when they passed.

Now it has become a ternary relationship of lord, merchant landlord, and peasant.

In addition to the theoretical public four people six, since the shogunate recognized that merchants can rent land, it also stipulated in the law that merchants and landlords can charge 15.00% of the land rent, which is legal.

But just like Dashun stipulated the highest interest rate for usury, the decree is the decree, and the reality is the reality. Emerging merchants and landlords will not only charge 15.00% of the land rent.

With a little effort, the tribute of the public, the four people and the six people plus the land rent of the merchants and landlords, especially in Tosa, which enjoys the most severe famine, the land annexation has been very serious, and the overall land rent of the tenants has reached 60.00%. 70.00%, already almost the same as some of the worst places in Dashun.

The permanent tenancy system with [-]% land rent can become a "benevolent government" in Dashun. Here, Liu Yu shouted the slogan "Thirty taxes are one, and the land is evenly distributed", and the temptation can be imagined.

Peasants hated merchants, but also hated lords.

But the hatred for the lord is hidden deep, because the tribute system has long been used to it, farmers have been institutionalized, and they take tribute for granted, so they hope that the lord will show mercy and charge less.

However, with the development of the commodity economy in recent years, the newly emerged usury merchants, or emerging landlords, are the farmers' immediate and most intuitive hatred.

In a feudal society, scholars, farmers, businessmen, and businessmen had a certain foundation of public opinion.The speed at which businessmen accumulate wealth is too fast, and they do not engage in industry but only engage in lending finance and hoarding land, so it is inevitable to attract hatred.

Those merchants who lend money and acquire land are what Liu Yu thinks is the fuse that detonates the peasants' emotions.

The acknowledgment of the tenancy system in the "Pawn Land Tenancy Act" promulgated by the shogunate 15 years ago and the annexation of land in the catastrophe a few years ago are the gunpowder that can be ignited by this fuse.

These merchants live in the castle town. The castle town is not a mountain city, there is no city wall and no decent defense, it is just a residential area close to Kochi Castle.

Liu Yu could easily capture them there, and then find them out, light a fire in front of the peasants, and burn the pawned documents and land deeds.

And this fire is enough to ignite the trust of farmers.

Now, what we have to wait for is the preaching and agitation of those rural villages in the south.

After observing on the hill for an afternoon, another day later, a few people behind came and reported the situation in the south.

When these people came, they were excited.

"My lord! My lord! According to what you said, it really works. We first chatted with some of the poorest people, and asked about the famine a few years ago. Many families starved to death. That year's Gongmi It didn't cut it, and it brought up the topic."

"That year, the merchants lent usury and took up a lot of land. The more you followed them, the more the farmers hated them, and then they cried bitterly. Many of them had grown rice all their lives, but they hadn't even eaten much rice. If the lord receives tribute, he can only borrow money if he has no money, and he can only use land as a pledge.”

"We called the villagers together again, and the story that one person cried resonated with many people. Some of the poorest people even wanted to take down Kochi City with us. It is only said that although they can't wield a sword, they can At least you can build a bridge and row a boat."

"We also read their pledge documents when they borrowed money, and asked them to collect them together, waiting for how we can get justice for them."

Liu Yu stared at the castle town of Kochi City, raised the corner of his mouth, and said with a smile: "This is fair, of course we have to help to get it back. But don't worry, tell them to continue to increase efforts. Let those who join us follow the preaching and bring All the land documents pledged by the villages due to usury were collected, and the names were recorded."

"If someone lives in the country, solve it directly. Confiscate the house, divide the rice, and burn the pledge documents. Tell the brothers, don't be useless with that little rice and money. Anyone who robs will directly cut off the dividend annuity benefits after retirement. "

"Tell the officers how important this matter is to the navy. If you want to be a serious captain and have your own warship, don't be greedy for small profits."

He has made it very clear about the pros and cons. A large number of military cadets will be assigned. What they expect is that the navy will get more funding, so that the trainee captain who has been on the top for several years will become a full-fledged captain.

Enough officers mean enough organizational power to prevent soldiers from being robbed.

After the arrangement was made, Liu Yu waved his hand and said, "Let's do it like this. Don't worry. I estimate that if the weather remains good, we will see the outcome in three to five days at most."

The staff officer didn't think too much about tactics, and asked, "How can it be considered that we have seen it?"

"Japanese people, when they dare to watch the excitement nearby, it is considered to be the end of the meeting."

Another day of distributing leaflets and building positions.

Liu Yu didn't care about the commotion in the back, he knew that most of the real money lenders lived in the castle town, and after waiting two days until the farmers' emotions were mobilized, they could enter the Kochi castle town.

Five days later, the scene Liu Yu had been looking forward to finally appeared.

Although there are still only a few farmers who are willing to follow them to attack Kochi City, more farmers are no longer afraid of these foreign Tang people, but stand by the river and in the fields, watching the excitement there.

They said they were watching the fun, but they were actually waiting for the army of the Tang people to beat their lord's army to pieces.

A large number of documents for pledged land have been collected, and the specific names and surnames are also clearly registered.After those moneylenders living in the countryside were burned with their documents and title deeds, more farmers began to spread the word that the Tang people were going to take down Kochi City and burn down the usury and title deed documents.

Most people still dare not confront the lord directly, but as Liu Yu planned, once they choose to watch the fun from the sidelines, it means that the people's hearts will be available.

All that remains is to let these people see how vulnerable the mighty warrior in their eyes is.

The Marine Corps has already begun to assemble the whole team. The tactical system after the military reform makes every normal march like a military parade.

Passionate music, neat pace, the marines formed a team by the river.

Across a small river less than [-] meters wide, the remaining warriors of the Tosa Domain also stationed many people on the other side of the river.

But Liu Yu believed that these samurai had been frightened out of their wits, and as soon as the cannon fire opened, these people would flee back to Kochi City.

Looking back at the peasants who were watching the excitement on both sides, Liu Yu waved at the officer, signaling that the attack could begin.

Before attacking, they first found a local who was determined to follow the Tang people to resist the lord, and shouted at the other side of the river.

"The division of benevolence and righteousness is about to start attacking. If you dare to set fire to the houses in the castle town, you will be regarded as cruel. Once the participants are breached in Kochi Castle, they will all be hanged."

They didn't yell for them to surrender, but they were not allowed to burn the city and act like teachers of benevolence and righteousness.

After shouting several times, the artillery began to fire.

The defenses set up on the bank were quickly destroyed, and the few iron gunners who remained felt the power of the explosive bullets again, and all fled back before the marines crossed the river.

When the samurai of the Tosa domain fled, the peasants watching the battle from a distance gave out a burst of applause in unison.

"Hehehe!"

(End of this chapter)