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Chapter 35 The Three Families of Tanggou Town
In the patriarch's yard, a few full old men walked around the yard. The second uncle and the fourth uncle were running in a small wood beside them and had diarrhea. As they got older, their stomachs were no better than those of young people. Diarrhea, but it will be fine if I vomit, and it will be fine next time I eat.

The third master pointed at the two old men and laughed, laughing at them for not eating meat, but just after he finished speaking, his stomach started to growl, which also provoked the merciless ridicule of the second and fourth masters.

It is strange to say that among this group of uncles, the old patriarch and the fifth uncle are fine. It stands to reason that the old patriarch's health is not as good as the second and fourth uncles. After all, the old patriarch is the oldest.

But the old patriarch is fine, and it is understandable that the fifth uncle is fine, he is not yet fifty this year, he just looks like an old man.

Li Chaosheng walked over and smelled the smell of farmyard manure from a long distance away.

When they got close, the three old men were still a little embarrassed. After all, the patriarch has dignity. Li Chaosheng didn't talk to them.

"Uncle, are you okay?"

Li Jinli smiled and said at this time: "Haha~ What's the matter with me, the second, third, and fourth children usually look very strong, but they are far from me, let's not talk about it, Chaosheng, what do you want from us? "

"Uncle, it's like this. Didn't I tell everyone last time? I want to settle down in our town. Those who settle down have land, so I ask uncle to help me as a staff officer. I want to buy some land."

"Buy land!"

After hearing this, Li Jinli's eyes widened. Land, this is something that Chinese farmers never forget. This is the root of China. The development of Chinese civilization is inseparable from the Chinese people's attachment to land.

Without land, you are a homeless person. If you have land, then you have roots.

The old patriarch was very satisfied after hearing what Li Chaosheng said. He felt that this kid had a serious business. He wanted to buy land first when he had money, instead of spending time and money. This is not a prodigal son. It's getting more and more pleasing to the eye.

And here the second, third, and fourth elders are no longer comfortable with diarrhea after hearing this, grabbed the leaves and wiped them, and came over with their trousers in their hands: "It's good to buy land, we support this matter."

Li Chaosheng smiled politely, and at the same time moved his body to distance himself from the three of you. You are in such a hurry, the leaves are very slippery. If you don't pay attention, ahem...don't dare to think about it.

Li Jinli thought about it at this moment and said: "We have summed up this matter."

As he spoke, the old man drew a circle on the ground with his cane.

"This is our Tanggou Town. It is backed by the Qinling Mountains and has many mountains. There are Heishan and Huling near us. We are in the middle of these two mountains."

"So we don't have a lot of fertile land here, but it is occupied by three major families. The first is the Wang family, and Wang Laocai is their patriarch. In fact, the Wang family came to Tanggou Town with our Li family. What's the matter, our family's land is getting less and less, their family's land is getting more and more, and finally, our Li family became their tenant farmers."

"In addition to the Wang family, it is the Fang family. The Fang family has been in our Tanggou Town for a long time. At the beginning, their family was in business, but when the business lost money, they came to Tanggou Town to become landlords. Their family had low prices back then. A lot of fields have been harvested, but their family is not prosperous, and now there are only a dozen people in the family, living in the town."

"The last is the Qian family. The Qian family came later. They came here for three or four years. It is said that the family used to be an official, but they offended someone under Jiu Qiansui, and then came here. They When I came here, I bought some land from the Wang family, but they were cheated by the Wang family, and all they bought were low-grade fields backed by mountains, and nothing grew, and nothing grew, and they hated the Wang family to death."

The old patriarch said with a smile: "By the way, a few days ago, someone from the Qian family approached me, wanting to sell their low-grade fields, saying that it could be cheaper. I laughed so hard. The wheat in that field is not viable. , the millet does not grow big, the millet does not produce, the land is hard, there are many stones in the ground, and it is high, the high slopes do not gather water, and what kind of drought is planted. One mu of land can produce less than [-] catties of grain, except for the handover There is nothing left over from the tax, and our Li family bought it back, so why don’t we cry to death?”

"It's just the Qian family who bought those fields because they had never farmed before. If you want to say that old boy Wang Laocai is really bad."

The old patriarch cursed, but Li Chaosheng listened with gusto. In ancient times, the fields were divided into upper, middle and lower. The top-class fields are fertile and well planted. They can get more than [-] catties of grain a year.

Medium-sized field, the land is average, and the terrain is not as good as the top-level field, but the year is good, and one mu of land can have a harvest of more than 200 catties, or even close to [-] catties.

Inferior fields, that is, this kind of hillside land, or saline-alkali land, or sandy land, or all kinds of defective land. The natural environment is very bad, resulting in the main crops, wheat, millet, and broomcorns not growing. In good years, one hundred catties of grain , It's a little bit close to no harvest, and all of them will die from drought or flood.

Therefore, inferior land is the least valuable land, but Chinese people have had an excellent quality since ancient times, that is, the land is not wasteland. Although the yield of this inferior land is low, hardworking and simple old farmers are still willing to plant it One ration is also good, after all, every ration can save lives.

"So, if we want to buy land, we can only buy it from Wang Laocai and Fang's family. Both of them have middle-grade and high-grade fields, and rarely have low-grade fields. After all, the low-grade fields were sold to the Qian family back then. .”

The old patriarch made a conclusion at this time. If you want to buy land, you must buy Wang Laocai, or the land of the Fang family. The land of the Qian family cannot be bought. The reason is also very simple. , Now it's all abandoned there, there is no way, the grain from farming is not enough to pay taxes.

In fact, it stands to reason that taxes in the Ming Dynasty were not heavy. In the early days of the founding of the country, Zhu Yuanzhang collected taxes on farmers across the country, which was only 5%-10% per mu of land. is a punitive 20%.

But that was in the early Ming Dynasty, and now the tax rate is surprisingly high. Liaodong, a cave that swallows gold, is increasing every year, and the literati and bureaucrats colluded with officials and businessmen, desperately wanting not to pay taxes, farmers can only continue to exploit, and taxes are also is constantly increasing.

But ironically, this year should be the year with the lowest taxation for farmers, because Wei Zhongxian is still in power. Although this great eunuch who has been scolded by countless people is a scumbag, he is still good to the common people.

Because he was born in the common people, he knows the truth, how much money is there for mud legs, and it is thankless to squeeze them. If you want to say that you are rich, you are still in business, those merchants who are inextricably linked to scholar-bureaucrats.

So Wei Zhongxian risked the world's disgrace and started to collect business taxes, which made the scholar-bureaucrats mad, because Wei Zhongxian took the money from himself.

This is not bad, so the big guys started to attack Wei Zhongxian crazily, until Chongzhen came to power, they finally vented their anger, and at the same time canceled the commercial tax again, and they can no longer pay taxes, happy.

In fact, if Chongzhen was not in a hurry to kill Wei Zhongxian and use Wei Zhongxian to balance the court situation, it is unknown if the Ming Dynasty could last for decades. Continue to suck Daming's blood openly and aboveboard until it dries up...and destroys the country.

(End of this chapter)