This Qing is wrong

Chapter 118 The Temptation of the Gentlemen
"Boss Hui, we Chaozhou people have been tortured by that demon Li Changqing.

Relying on his sorcerer skills to shock the sky, he insisted on forcing clans from all over Chaozhou to pay taxes for ten years.

I have only heard of tax collection in the future, and this is the first time I have encountered the tax payment in the previous ten years. How is this different from robbery?
Not many years after Guangdong Province settled down, Li Changqing, a monster, came out. This is forcing us to die! "

"That monster Li Changqing not only harmed the clans in Chaoyang County, but also the clans of Xiangdu in other prefectures and counties of Chaozhou Prefecture.

He saw that the big guys were afraid of him, and now there are not even ten people sent to collect taxes. He asked us to send people to transport the food and salaries to the county seat of Chaoyang County!
The Qing army in Chaozhou Prefecture is also a coward. No matter how much money we hand over, those Qing army generals just take the money and do nothing, saying that they need to wait for the reinforcements to arrive before they can do anything.

Completely fooled us for two fools.

Who doesn't know that the Pingnan Palace in Guangdong Province has begun to evacuate Guangzhou City?
How can there be any reinforcements!

This gang of Manchu Tartars, I think they were frightened by the monster Li Changqing! "

"Big brother Hui, everyone here in Chaozhou listens to you. Now the Qing court is unwilling to save us. The demon Li Changqing is cutting our flesh with a blunt knife. The victim of the war between the Qing court!"

…………

Qiu Hui, who was sitting at the top, looked at the Chaozhou clan elders chattering below, and asked in a flat tone, "Do you want to fight the demon Daoist Li Changqing?"

As soon as these words came out, the scene suddenly became quiet.

If they had the guts, would they go to Qiu Hui to complain?

Qiu Hui is a top gentry in this parallel world in Chaozhou and even in the entire Guangdong Province, who takes all black and white.

There are thousands of guns under his hands, thousands of strong men who live with him, and dozens of self-made earthen cannons. No one dares not to give Qiu Hui a little face for the bandits and bandits in Guangdong Province.

To put it bluntly, the Qiu family is the biggest gray force in Guangdong Province!

Of course, on the bright side, Qiu Hui is a 'legitimate' businessman.

This Qiu Hui was a typical idiot when he was beaten up by the Qing Dynasty in Nanming. During the Nanming period, he was a loyal and courageous leader of local righteous men. Apart from not going off in person, any request from the Nanming court was easily negotiated.

After the Qing army came, Qiu Hui immediately transformed himself into the vanguard of the Qing army, wiped out many clan gentry who had worked with him, and embezzled their land and family property along the way, becoming the overlord of Guangdong Province.

However, after the rise of the Qiu family, they did not exterminate those ex-Ming righteous men. On the contrary, they made many friends in the world in private, and even secretly offered money and food to keep those former Ming anti-Qing righteous men alive.

Let yourself win a good reputation among the Han people.

Of course, it is impossible to keep this secret forever. Later, when the Qing court found out, the Qiu family started the silver offensive again, showing off their muscles along the way.

Thousands of firecrackers, dozens of self-made earthen cannons, and the support of thousands of strong men, the magistrates of Guangdong Province saw that it was too difficult to destroy!
What's more, if you don't wipe it out, you will have to pay tribute every year.

Coupled with the fact that the remnants of the banditry from the previous Ming Dynasty had not been wiped out, the local government of the Qing court naturally acquiesced in the existence of local overlords like the Qiu family.

And the Qiu family's secret support for those bandits is also very heroic, putting these bandits at the front, so that the local yamen of the Qing government in Guangdong Province 'there are bandits to suppress'.

Of course, the Qiu family's support for bandits is not just a business that does not come in. The spoils of those bandits are basically sold on the black market controlled by the Qiu family. Everyone in the Qiu family knows.

However, the biggest chain of interests of the Qiu family is still the contacts in Guangdong Province that take both black and white.

Whether it was the officialdom of the Qing court who had private matters to be resolved, or the bandits who needed emergency help, they would always go to the Qiu family first.

The efficiency of the Qiu family's work has further improved the reputation of the Qiu family, and it is no longer a "gray force" in the pure sense.

Therefore, when Li Changqing made a move, the miserable clan gentry sent people to Qiu Hui to seek a solution.

Obviously, the solution can't be to raise troops to fight there. If these Chaozhou clan gentry had the guts, they would have done it a long time ago, and they still need to find Qiu Hui as the boss?

"You want me to stand out, make peace with the demon Taoist Li Changqing, right?"

Qiu Hui is such a character, he can naturally see the real purpose of these clan gentry who only know how to complain.

Sure enough, there was a lot of flattery from below. Anyway, Qiu Hui's status was higher than them. Although everyone was a local gentry, Qiu Hui belonged to the leading gentry in Guangdong Province, and there was still a clear gap with them.

Keep your head down and be small, say nice words and compliments, it's not ashamed.

"I, Qiu Hui, will naturally do my part to be able to do things for Chaozhou people, but everyone must know Li Changqing's appetite.

Although my Qiu family has a big family and a great business, there are still tens of thousands of mouths to eat. I, Qiu Hui alone, can't fill the stomach of the demon Daoist Li Changqing.

Now even the Qing army is afraid of him, and those of us who bow our heads to eat can only use some yellow and white things to ward off disasters.

If everyone is willing, I will take the lead and meet and talk with the demon Taoist Li Changqing.

Presumably, he is also unwilling to let the life of this Chaozhou Prefecture be ruined, and it will not do him any good.

how is it? "

Soon, under Qiu Hui's auspices, many gentry in Chaozhou distributed the amount of 'gifts' they needed to give.

Although the Qiu family is said to be the top gentry in Guangdong Province, the foundation of the Qiu family is still in Chaozhou Prefecture. After all, the Qiu family is originally from Chaozhou.

Therefore, in a sense, these clan gentry in Chaozhou are fellow villagers of the Qiu family, and they are also the clan forces most willing to give the Qiu family face.

Under the current rule of the Qing Dynasty, the Qing government’s decrees came to an abrupt end at the county level, and the villages further down were ruled by clan gentry. When the common people in the village encountered disputes, they would not go to the county government to beat the drums. It is to find the local clan gentry and other talkers to judge.

To put it bluntly, this is the clan court.

Of course, this is not to say that the Qing Dynasty had weak control over the localities. Throughout the ages, all dynasties have come here in this way, and it is a tradition that the law does not go to the countryside.

Who said that the technological productivity of this era is too backward, and the cost of going to the countryside to establish a ruling foundation is too high?
What's more, although Fa did not go to the countryside, the local government officials at the prefecture and county levels had connections with those rural clan gentry.

Don't look at those clan gentry in the countryside who can control the power of life and death of ordinary villagers, but they still have to behave with their tails between their tails in front of the county magistrate appointed by the court.

The so-called Pojia county magistrate Miemen magistrate refers to the power of local officials.

It is not the ordinary people who are disillusioned, but the families of these powerful clans and gentry.

The imperial court relied on this method to control the whole country. Although the countryside was not brought under control, as long as the clan gentry in the countryside could be managed well, it would be enough to collect taxes.

However, at this time, the Qing Dynasty had just pacified the world, so the local clan gentry were clearly divided into two categories.

One is the clan, and the other is the gentry.

The gentry are actually local rich people who rose to become officials by studying the imperial examinations. Although this group has great authority in the countryside, they are all big families with one surname. What enslaves the people is not relying on force, but the background identity of "someone in the court" .

That is commonly known as the use of power to suppress people.

The clan is completely different. Compared with the gentry class, the clan is a local wealthy family with its own armed forces!
It is an ethnic group, not a big family with one surname!

Clans often do not rely on someone in the family to be an official to gain power, but rely on traditional etiquette and clan force to manage the people.

Compared with the gentry class who depended on the imperial court to be domineering, the clan was undoubtedly a 'small imperial court'.

Those townships like Wubao are the 'capitals' of each clan.

It is the political center where the elders of the big households in the clan lived and judged.

Don't underestimate the small courts of these clans. In peaceful times, a clan can easily have a population base of tens of thousands, which is comparable to the number of permanent residents in a county.

Even in times of war, it is not difficult to pull out hundreds of armed men (after all, the population is small during times of war).

Such a top clan giant like the Qiu family can directly and indirectly control the livelihood of tens of thousands of people!

It is no exaggeration to say that at the local level, the power of the clan is second only to the imperial court.

Even those sects of the rivers and lakes dare not easily offend the clan forces with armed forces.

As a matter of course, the imperial court naturally prefers the gentry, the power that controls the countryside, rather than the clan!
Therefore, in provinces with a relatively high degree of development, the gentry class is the main body, which is the result of the efforts of successive dynasties.

But in those provinces where the development period is not too long and the folk customs are strong, the clan is the group that controls the countryside.

For example, provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, and Yunnan and Guizhou in the southern part of the world.

Those chieftains are actually clans that have not been assimilated.

The common people in the clan had more human rights than the tenants under the control of the gentry class.

The most notable feature is that the clan tends to achieve balance as much as possible within the clan, instead of wantonly oppressing the common people like the gentry class, and gathering wealth for the enjoyment of the big families.

The clan has obvious regional characteristics and is very exclusive. Even the Qiu family, a top wealthy family that has become famous in Guangdong Province, will favor the Chaozhou fellows.

This is the bond of clan relations.

It is also the reason why the rural clans in Guangdong Province have a large number of forts and firearms.

Of course, in Guangdong Province, which has been massacred by the Qing army over and over again, the surviving clans have already cut their pigtails and are the "obedient citizens" of the Qing court.

Even Qiu Hui, who had supported the remnants of the former Ming Dynasty in private, still had a handful of pigtails of money behind his head.

This is their way of life.

The power of the clan is mainly distributed in the countryside, so Li Changqing, who has been staring at the state capital and the county seat, has not noticed the power of the clan.

After all, he is just a traveler.

In those government classics, there will be no clear records of clan forces that are not on the table.

In fact, the clan is similar to the gentry class, and it also follows the absolute principle that the strong are respected. Those clans that are willing to fight to the end for the sake of national justice will inevitably be destroyed in the end.

Since clans were divided by region rather than by surname, it was easier to annex.

Two days later, Li Changqing, who was staying in Chaoyang County, suddenly received a report from Yan Dingjun, who was in charge of the newly attached army.

"General, after we expanded the scope of 'tax payment', the rural clans in Chaozhou elected a top gentry named Qiu Hui, who wanted to meet the general."

"Oh?

What are they trying to do? "

Li Changqing subconsciously regarded the rural clans as those rich gentry and big families.

In a sense, Li Changqing's cognition is also correct. Those who are qualified to send representatives must be at the level of the speaker in the clan.

Although this kind of family did not wantonly embezzle the common people's property like the gentry class, ordinary people in the clan had to pay tribute regularly, which was equivalent to paying taxes to the families of these speakers.

"Reporting to the general, they want to offer a small gift, let us leave a way for Chaozhou people to survive."

"Hehe, does this represent Chaozhou people?

The targets of our tax collection are those rich families, and we are not going to grab rations from ordinary people's homes. They are begging us to collect less 'traitor tax'. "

The traitor tax is a private name in the army of the Qing Dynasty. After all, this name is too ugly and it is not elegant...

Now the big families who can keep their family business, one counts as one, is enough to be charged as a traitor. The Qing court may not go to the trouble of Shengdou Xiaomin, but the big families with certain influence want to avoid being abused by the Qing army. They must all have passed the 'voting certificate'.

Therefore, it is correct from a moral point of view to say that those wealthy gentry are traitors.

However, from the perspective of human nature, it is untenable.

After all, human nature is greedy for life and afraid of death. If you know you can't be beaten but still kneel down to be a small boy, what's the difference between sending you to your death?

The East of this parallel world did not have nationalist beliefs.

It is the truth that everyone agrees that those who know current affairs are heroes.

Therefore, these wealthy gentry who once knelt down to the Qing court just did what most people would do. It is true that they are traitors, but this is also in line with human nature.

Just like the society in Li Changqing's previous life, everyone knew that when a war broke out, the rich capitalists would be the first to run away, but they didn't see the court sanctioning these capitalists.

They just ran for their lives and did not violate the law. You can accuse them morally, but you are not qualified to judge them!
Therefore, the clan gentry in Chaozhou Prefecture did not think that it was a mistake for them to kneel down to the Manchu Tartars. They just thought that the evil Taoist Li Changqing was short of money and supplies, and used the traitor tax as an excuse to blackmail them.

The demon Li Changqing has big fists, so the clan gentry in Chaozhou can only accept this dumb loss and choose to save the clan by taking the curve.

Bringing the big brother Hui out is the temptation of the Chaozhou clan.

No matter what you want to do, you must leave a way out for everyone!

(End of this chapter)