Lu Ming

Chapter 398 Consecutive Strikes
Yan Tiexia generously admitted the fact of the fight: "A few days ago, the two families fought for water, and they started a fight. After the incident, each had casualties, that's all."

When the county magistrate heard this, he knew it was another mess.

In the Middle Ages, productivity was backward, and farmers did not have the ability to drill wells and repair water conservancy projects, so the villagers valued that little running water very much.

Under such circumstances, fighting for water has almost become a daily routine for farmers.Under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, there were almost every month, every day, every day of rural fighting for this reason.

Generally speaking, if the people don't raise officials and don't investigate, the government has no way to deal with this kind of muddled matter, and it's up to the villagers themselves.The few who go to the government can only fight with each other—the peasants in the two townships who fight in gangs, who is right and who is wrong?

This kind of thing is also unresolved in later generations.

In order to fight for some water in the reservoir during the drought, there were also incidents of villagers fighting and killing people.And what about the government?The government can only mediate, appease, call the village head to hold a coordination meeting, and discuss the amount of compensation for the family members of the deceased, otherwise?Both sides are dead, who is right and who is wrong?Everyone in a township is accomplices, should they all be arrested?

So when the county magistrate heard this, he relaxed and looked in the direction of Butler Xu.

Butler Xu naturally wouldn't sit still and wait for death: "Reporting to the county, these soldiers deliberately provoked troubles a few days ago. They first cut off the river and then poisoned the villagers. All the tenants in the whole village were murdered by them. Now every household in Xujiazhuang is injured. The screams, women and children are crying and howling, the appearance is horrible, I also ask the county to punish these soldiers for the crime of torturing the villagers."

After the prosecution finished its statement, it was the defense's turn again.

Yan Tiexia called out Zhuang Tianqu: "My lord, as the saying goes, if you kill one thousand enemies, you will lose eight hundred. In the battle a few days ago, the smoke from the mulberry garden was everywhere, and my brothers were also brought down a lot. In addition, all men, women and children in Xuzhuang were like crazy tigers that day, brave and fearless, holding hoes and shovels, the brothers were injured, young and old, and a few brothers died in sight."

Yan Tiexia said this, with tears in his tiger's eyes, as if he was going to the Fengbo Pavilion.

"You bastard, you're talking nonsense!" At this moment, Steward Xu was covering his fingers, jumping to his feet and yelling: "You gang of Qiuba designed to ambush the villagers, knocked down all the villagers without losing any soldiers, and even repaired the sticks, it's really inappropriate Son of man!"

"More!" Steward Xu thought of another thing when he scolded here: "Private harbors don't cultivate land, so what do you think Broken River is doing!?"

Yan Tiexia called out to Zhuang Tianqu again: "Nowadays, prices are so high that a load of brown rice costs one tael of silver. If you don't open some fields to store water and grow food, you can't survive!"

Following Yan Tiexia's yelling, all the eyes were rolled up in the hall - if the private port with its golden mountains and silver waters is too poor to afford rice, why did everyone come to the county government today?

But it's different in court.What the court pays attention to is accusation, debate and proof. No matter how outrageous the argument or claim is, it must be refuted by proof one by one according to the rules.

What about the aftermath? After 30 minutes of lawyers' debate, discussion, and proof, the court finally declared not guilty.

There are tricks every year, and there is no difference between ancient and modern times.

Back to the Jiading County Government in the 17th century.The current situation is that unless Steward Xu shows the income account of private Hong Kong to prove that this group of Qiu Ba can live well without farming, otherwise it is useless to "frame" the opponent as a rich man by relying on hearsay rumors .

In fact, Steward Xu had done too many things like this in the first half of his life.The same court, the same prosecution and defense, except that it was Steward Xu who usually sold out badly.And his opponents are some self-cultivated farmers and small landlords who are about to be embezzled by the Xu family.

After changing a strong opponent today, Steward Xu found it extremely unsuitable that once he left the official support, or in other words, the government only needed to remain neutral, then others could also turn black and white in front of him and blame the deer for horses. At this moment, Steward Xu finally finally I felt the grief and helplessness of those self-cultivating farmers.

After complaining about the soaring prices and the suffering of not being able to afford food and rice, Tiexia Yan justly refuted Steward Xu's false accusation of "one soldier is not lost".

Here Yan Tiexia said openly: the county government can come forward and organize "enthusiasts from all walks of life" to set up a research group to go to the port warehouse to see those poor old beggars with broken bones. Wrong, they are his own soldiers.

There are not three or five hundred of these people, but there must be one or two hundred. It can be seen that the two sides fought that day, and everyone suffered a loss. There is no such thing as who took advantage.

In addition, if it really doesn't work, he can also organize all the "wounded" to come to the county government for injury examination on crutches, so as to set the record straight.

When Lai Xianzun heard this, he knew that some people had already prepared for the aftermath.

In this way, the logical line of "villagers fighting with weapons - each with injuries - each going home to lick their wounds" is opened up.

After discovering that Steward Xu could not provide any new valid evidence, the magistrate Lai, who had been on pins and needles for a long time, quickly sounded the last gavel to close the farce: "Restrain the members of the people, and no more incidents will occur."

In this way, the county magistrate stood up and prepared to leave. He had already lost a lot today, and he didn't want to stay in the hall for another second.

However, there is always no shortage of things that do not know current affairs.Just when everyone turned around and was about to break up and go home, Butler Xu, who was hit by the huge gap, was still relentless, behaving in class, making a lot of noise, intending to drag the game into overtime.

A certain county magistrate who had endured to the limit finally broke out: "Come here, pull this dog down and hit him with 25 boards!"

"Respect!"

The fact that the housekeeper of Xu's house had received 25 boards at the county government spread at the level of "people with a heart" at lightning speed that day.

Although the yamen servants were afraid of offending the Xu family and thus did not actually fight, but the fact of hitting the board itself meant that the Xu family was defeated and slapped in the face in the first round of confrontation. Deep in thought.

And Master Xu Jin, who was sitting in the study listening to the report, also felt the difficulty of the enemy for the first time.Ignoring the butler who was kneeling on the ground complaining, Xu Jin put her hands behind her back and walked to the porch. After thinking for a while, she sighed softly: "It seems that we have to think long and hard."

In fact, what happened today was originally expected by Xu Jin.

The day before yesterday, when Xu Jin said about buying shares, it was tantamount to a showdown.From that moment on, Xu Jin seemed calm on the surface, but in fact he and his allies were paying close attention to the port's movements - it was a high probability event that such a large amount of wealth was involved, causing a strong rebound from the other party.

What Xu Jin didn't expect was that Xiong Dao organized people to burn the mulberry garden as soon as he received the news (late that night), and planned the incident of cutting off the water and fighting with weapons early the next morning.

The counterattack came so fiercely, Xu Jin never expected it.Especially the poisonous smoke from the other party, which can wipe out hundreds of tenants without injuring a single person. This latest information immediately stopped the ready-to-go "Land Deed Alliance".

The counterattack also indirectly contributed to the temporary change of the alliance's mind, from a thunderous blow to a slow plan - sending people to the county government to report, using the county government to test the opponent, is the Xu family's response and response after being caught off guard. The price of the temptation is to completely offend the magistrate Lai.

However, the price is still a bit heavy after all.Judging from the butler's action of hitting the board, the Jiading county government, at least Jiading Zhengtang himself, has realized that his family has been used as cannon fodder, so he has completely turned against the Land Deed Alliance.If the Xu family makes any moves in the future, Jiading County will definitely not show up again. Maybe if Xiongdao's side benefits enough, Jiading County may secretly help.

At the same time, the result of the costly trial was also very bad: another Lin sister, Xiong Wencan, fell from the sky.

So after Xu Jin stood in the porch and meditated for a long time, he finally felt the difficulty of his opponent.He even got a premonition from the incident of burning mulberry that night: Xiongdao has been gathering momentum all along, waiting for him to make a move.

"It's better to take the enemy lightly." After expressing this emotion, Xu Jin immediately returned to the study, summoned a group of people and started assigning tasks one by one.

Article [-]: Order people to report to the rest of the alliance, and see who can get in touch with Xiong Wencan, and then send people to Fujian to discuss and communicate as quickly as possible.

Article [-]: Order the housekeeper to bring food, rice, doctor and money to Zhuangzi to condolences, and announce to the tenants: The rent of the whole village last year and this year is free.

The Xu family's burned manor will undoubtedly become the frontier battlefield for the two sides to see each other in the next stage.So when Xu Jin realized it, she hurriedly sent someone to appease her.Otherwise, once those tenants who have lost their livelihood start to flee or quit their tenants, or worse, they are instigated to rebel, it will definitely make the Xu family even more passive.

Article [-]: Xu Jin ordered people to go to various households in the alliance to inform that there will be a tea party in the house tomorrow, and all masters are invited to come and enjoy tea.

Things have developed to this point, and after feeling that the opponent has changed from a hard walnut to an iron ball full of thorns, Xu Jin is now eager to renegotiate with the rest of the alliance to formulate a strategic plan.

After the three emergency measures were issued, the Xu Mansion started emergency operations.After receiving the notice from the Xu Mansion, the alliance also expressed that they would go to the mansion tomorrow - at this time, they didn't care about the etiquette of making an appointment, saying that tomorrow is tomorrow.

However, at noon the next day, when the guests came to the door one after another, people who came from all over the place to report brought some bad news: on the plots of gentry around the port, three new mulberry gardens were destroyed last night. burn.In addition, all the fish in two fish ponds floated to the surface of the water this morning, and a fish farmer had already hanged himself.

After hearing the news, the masters sitting in the flower hall were stunned on the spot.

(End of this chapter)