Great Warriors of Sui and Tang Dynasties

Chapter 1346
The rich old man and his sons ran home in a hurry, fearing that the poor ghosts would ruin their house, and even more so to prevent them from taking advantage of the fire to rob them.

By the time Hou Weidong and the others came back, it was almost noon.Hou Weidong came to report that many weapons, armor and horses were found from the three houses.Among them, the rich family has more than a dozen sets of armor. Although it is only leather armor, it is armor after all.

Old Zhao watched the militiamen excitedly carrying bundles of weapons and armor, and asked with a smile, "What else did you find?"

"Food, a lot of grain, and a lot of gold, silver, money and silk, and various jewelry and utensils."

Old Zhao nodded, and looked at the fields and houses that the rich old man and the others had just reported in front of him.

"The rich family has more than 5000 mu of land, the Gao family and the Sha family each have more than 1000 mu of land, and most of the rest are landless tenants. There are only a dozen or so families with a few mu or a dozen mu. However, there are about two hundred acres of land, most of the land in this village is in the hands of these people."

"That's right." Hou Weidong said immediately.

"The Holy Son of Heaven is very concerned about the people of our Baekje. He issued an edict to allocate and grant land so that the people can have fields to cultivate and food to eat. But if there is no land, how can we farm and eat?"

Hou Weidong waited for a group of militiamen who went to search the rich families just now, saw the wealth of these families with their own eyes, and felt very aggrieved, and it was even more aggrieved by Lao Zhao's words.

"It would be great if the three Fugaosha families could share the land."

Old Zhao smiled and asked Hou Weidong to call out the three families again, and then asked them in front of the villagers, hoping that they would take the initiative to share the land.

All three were silent.

"Everyone go home and have lunch first, and then we will continue the meeting and discuss after the meal."

The hearts of all the villagers were a little confused. How could they be in the mood to go home for dinner? Besides, they had already had a meal of noodle soup from the landlord's house in the morning, so they could save this meal at noon.

Lao Zhao's group had a meal at the rich family at noon, boiled noodles with kimchi and salted fish.

When they came out after eating, many villagers began to ask Hou Weidong and Chang Shan, the two village chiefs who followed the meal.

"Did they agree?"

"No, the pavilion chief raised his mouth at the dinner table, but the rich old man and the other two families didn't talk to each other, so he didn't mention it later." Hou Changshan stood there, rubbing his belly. He ate several large bowls of the meal just now. Noodles are really delicious. "The old woman from the rich family cried, and said later that the imperial court wanted to rob them by force."

Hou Changshan's father sighed, "Hey, the three Fugaosha families have been the landlords of our land for generations, and this land was also bought up on an acre-by-acre basis. How can they be willing to give it away for nothing now?"

"Even if you give us a little bit, one or two acres for the family, our life will be much easier." Some villagers said, of course they didn't mention such unreasonable thoughts before, but now the court is not Do you support them? If you take the initiative to raise this matter, you will give them hope.

Although this hope seems slim, everyone hopes to get some real results.

"What's the use of reluctance? If the court really wants to take the land, how dare the three of them not give it? Didn't our king and the noble officials of the court fight against it before? But they are not all convinced now? I think there is hope for this matter. It will definitely work." A young man who had just joined the village army said.

Life is hard, life is poor, and when you are poor, you want to change. This is how people think.

A militiaman over there called Hou Weidong and Chang Shan to come over, "The pavilion chief told you to go over."

After a while, the two returned to the villagers.

"What did you say?"

"The head of the pavilion said that a village meeting will be held in the afternoon, so that everyone can recall their hardships!"

"Remember bitterness?" Some villagers were puzzled, these days are full of hardships, what else do they remember?
"If you think that someone is oppressing the villagers, running rampant in the village, and committing illegal acts, you can report it at the meeting."

"Those who owe debts to the three families can also bring it up. Now the imperial court has regulations that the annual interest shall not exceed six-thirds of the principal, and the interest shall not exceed one time of the principal. Otherwise, the imperial court will punish the lender with the crime of usury."

In the afternoon, the meeting had not yet started.

But more and more news is flying in the sky.

Hou Weidong, Hou Changshan and other village chiefs, security chiefs, captains, etc. began to run among the villagers, delivering some news to everyone from time to time.

"Report and criticize!"

"Harvest the fields and divide the land!"

These words constantly stimulated the villagers, the cold wind howled, but they didn't feel cold, and their hearts were burning.

Divide land, cut interest rates...

When the sun was already westward, the meeting finally began.

In the middle of the field, there were many weapons and equipment seized from the three families, including knives, spears, bows and shields, and even the rich family found more than a dozen pairs of leather armor, crossbows, and more than a dozen war horses.

"This is inconsistent with the situation that several people said before. Didn't you say that there is no such thing?"

Old Zhao laughed.

The rich family had nothing to say for a moment.

"I am willing to hand over all these weapons to the government." The rich old man said.

"Are there any more?"

"It's all here."

Old Zhao shook his head, "I don't believe it."

"Our house has been searched." The rich old man said.

"Perhaps there are other secret rooms and cellars that have not been discovered yet."

"Indeed there are none."

Old Zhao waved.

The captain of the village militia came over.

"Chang Wei, take the village militiamen to search again, remember to search carefully."

The rich old man changed his face, "Ting Zhang Zhang, why do you not trust me so much?"

"Trust is mutual, and you have failed my trust before."

Over there, Chang Wei continued to search the house with the militiamen, while Hou Weidong and others have already started to lead the villagers to complain and report.

At first, they just complained about their hard life, but finally someone began to report the loan sharks they owed to the three companies.

Then, some people started talking about being bullied by the three families.

As soon as the words started, it was like the waves of the Yellow River flowing endlessly.

"My family used to have a few acres of land, but there were a lot of people and life was hard, so they also rented out the rich family's fields, but the rich family insisted on smearing my younger brother and stealing their family's gold and silver in order to annex our few acres of land. My family Life is so hard, not to mention gold, even silver has never been seen, the woman in the family does not even have a silver hairpin, and my younger brother is only ten years old, has always been honest, how could it be possible to steal gold and silver from their family? He insisted on slandering my younger brother, and in the end he even planted filth and set the blame on him, beat my younger brother to death, and robbed all the fields from my family, and even my sister was robbed to repay the debt and became his servant."

A man became more and more excited as he talked, tears streaming down his face. Because their father had gone out to learn some crafts before, their family had earned some money and worked hard to save up and ask someone to reclaim wasteland and buy a few acres of land. His family was ruined.

Some people also began to tell how the usury of rich families entrapped people, forcing them to sell their wives and daughters, their families were ruined, and the interest has been rolled out until now.

Some people were forced to sell their entire family to the rich to repay the debt because of borrowing money, and became slaves of the rich from then on.

At this time, Chang Wei and the others searched for a long time, and finally came back.

"Pavilion chief, I found the secret room and found many privately hidden weapons and armors. All three families have armors and crossbows in their possession!" Chang Wei said, and asked his militiamen to put the found armors and crossbows in front of everyone.

When the rich old man saw these things, he fainted.

(End of this chapter)