Start with Baihuguan

In the first month of the fifth year of Zhengde, an imperial decree from the emperor spread to the world, and the world was boiling for a while.

Especially when officials all over the world had already heard the news of the reform a few years ago, countless officials wrote letters of impeachment one after another, intending to change the emperor's mind.

But the fact was beyond the expectations of countless officials with great expectations. Even if at least half of the officials above the court opposed it, the emperor still chose to support Li Huan.

If that's the case alone, that's fine.

There have been reforms since ancient times, but there are very few people who can succeed.

For Li Huan, a child with a yellow mouth who is only about twenty years old, and Li Huan's background, it is doomed that it is impossible for him to get any help in the officialdom.

Under such circumstances, as long as these officials don't help Li Huan, no matter how many ideas Li Huan has, they will never be able to implement them. If they don't cooperate, then Li Huan's reform can be completely aborted. , Stillborn.

But Wang Yangming, a famous generation of great sages in the court, and the cabinet ministers actually stood on Li Huan's side with a clear-cut stand. This gave Li Huan room to display and help him.

The thing that worried many officials in the world, local tycoons, and gentry the most finally happened.

That is to say, less than half a month after the imperial decree of the emperor was spread to the world, the reformers headed by Li Huan began vigorous reforms.

Li Huan and Wang Yangming first chose the land of Gyeonggi and the surrounding provinces, and a large number of central officials formed a team and began to go to various places to implement the method of dividing the land into the mu.

Li Huan dispatched Jinyiwei, Dongchang, and civil officials sent by the imperial court for each team that supervised the local reforms, and there were dozens of them.

Of course, it is simply impossible to expect these people to personally implement the method of dividing the land into the mu, and it is simply impossible to put it in such a big mansion. These people can at most play a supervisory role.

Don't underestimate these people, these people are the eyeliners of Li Huan and the court, but if any local officials dare to cheat from them, they will definitely not escape the eyes of Jin Yiwei and Dongchang.

If there are officials who dare to make trouble during this period, once they are caught, then don't blame Li Huan for not showing any kindness.

Yutian County, Jizhou, Shuntian Prefecture
In the lobby of the Yutian County Government Office, several officials in official uniforms were gathering together one by one.

There are as many as a dozen officials in a county, such as county magistrates and teaching officials. It can be said that these people constitute the core class of the entire Yutian County. These people are responsible for disseminating the imperial court's government orders.

As Daming, whose political power does not go to the countryside, the real government order is to be able to reach the county level. As for the lower rural areas, it is really powerless.

In other words, the officials present were the lowest level officials in the Ming Dynasty who ruled a county, and the right to interpret the imperial court's decrees was naturally in the hands of these people.

How to implement the imperial decree, how to implement it, ultimately depends on how these people interpret and arrange it.At this time, it was Zhang Ke, a Jinshi in the 13th year of Hongzhi, who was the county magistrate of Yutian County.

This county magistrate Zhang took office as the magistrate of Yutian County three years ago. At that time, he left the relationship with a servant in the court, and it happened that the servant was a disciple of the former cabinet old Wang Jia.

So to a certain extent, Zhang Ke is also regarded as an official of Wang Jia's line.

At this time, Zhang Ke was sitting in the lobby, his eyes fell on the people present, he coughed lightly and said slowly: "Everyone, I think everyone has seen the imperial court's decree."

Everyone didn't speak, but their eyes fell on Zhang Ke.

Zhang Ke didn't feel that there was anything wrong with the reaction of the crowd. Which one of these people did not represent the local tyrants and squires in Yutian County.

If he, the county magistrate, did not have the support of these people present, I am afraid that his decree would not be able to step out of the county government.

Regarding the reform of the tax system issued by the imperial court not long ago, local officials were ordered to start clarifying the local population and acres of land, and then report the truth to the imperial court.

This order is probably
It had already been sent to Yutian County half a month ago, but in the face of this order, including Zhang Ke, the county magistrate, it can be said that no one in the county government is willing to implement it.

If we want to say that we need to check the population and clarify the number of acres in each area, this measure first touches the interests of these people present.

Too much to say, at least [-] to [-]% of the land and population of Yutian County are under the names of the families behind these people present, but these people have never contributed a single bit of tax to the court for many years.

And the taxes collected by the imperial court were naturally distributed among the poor people by them.

Those who have land will be levied Dingkou tax and land tax, and those who do not have land will also have to pay Dingkou tax, and they will also have to serve various corvees.In the eyes of these people, they shared the world with the royal family, and the royal family took the majority of the benefits, so naturally they should also take part of the benefits, right?

If there is no benefit, why would they still be officials.

I think they sharpened their heads and entered the officialdom not to benefit the people and educate the people, but to use the power in their hands to seek various benefits for themselves.

And one of the biggest advantages of being an official is that you can do it up and down, exempting the family behind it from a lot of taxes.

Now the imperial court actually wants to check the acres of land, trying to spread the tax into the acres of fields. From then on, the tax and tax will be unified, and the tax will no longer be levied according to the head, but will be levied according to the field.

Those without land do not pay taxes, and those with many fields pay more.

In the eyes of normal people, this is a matter of course, but in the eyes of these officials, this method of encroaching on the land is full of malicious malice, and it is completely cutting their flesh with a knife.

Liu De, who was born in the Liu family of the rich family of Yutian, was the teacher of Yutian County.

At this time, Liu De looked at Zhang Ke with a gloomy expression, and said, "Master County Magistrate, haven't we already discussed it before, since the imperial court has an order, we should obey it, and we will transfer the yellow book of the population of the field that we prepared earlier. Just submit it."

Everyone nodded slightly when they heard the words.

According to the method they had previously negotiated, that is, they made a little move on the basis of the original Yutian County Yellow Book that recorded the fields and household registrations, and then made a deal.

After all, how many acres of land and population are in Yutian County, as long as they don't say anything, how can the imperial court know, unless the imperial court sends people to investigate carefully, then they may notice the clues.

However, this time the imperial court implemented the reform law in several provinces, involving dozens or even hundreds of prefectures and counties. With so many prefectures and counties, how many people can Li Huan and Wang Yangming, who presided over the reform, send to investigate.

In the end, isn't it necessary to collect taxes based on the data reported by these local officials?

Anyway, let’s collect it; they have already erased the land belonging to them and the people entrusted to them from the yellow book. If the imperial court wants to collect taxes, they will naturally not be able to collect them.

Although this method is extremely crude, it is the simplest and most effective.

Liu De coughed lightly and looked at Zhang Ke and said, "The county magistrate summoned us this time, could it be that something happened? Or the imperial court has issued an order to revoke the order and stop the reform."

Zhang Kewen shook his head slightly, and said solemnly, "Everyone, there is very bad news."

Seeing Zhang Ke's appearance, everyone stared at Zhang Ke and said, "Your Excellency, you might as well just say it. We are really not afraid of any trouble."

Zhang Ke coughed lightly and said slowly: "The inspectors sent by the imperial court to supervise the local reforms will enter our Yutian County tomorrow, and I will greet them personally and report to them on the progress of the reform of the land-based reform."

Liu De couldn't help raising his eyebrows when he heard the words: "The inspection officials are here? Do you want us to report the progress of the reform?"

Zhang Ke smiled wryly and said, "That's right, we haven't implemented any reforms at all these days, and we didn't even do anything that the imperial court ordered Xiaoyu's people to know about the reforms."

The people in the county don’t know about it at all, if tomorrow the inspection officials find that we have done nothing.”

Many people frowned immediately, just as Zhang Ke said, they really didn't publicize the government's decree. It can be said that Yutian County, a huge county, really knew the court's decree to reform the law of taxation. Except for the dozen or so people who were present, no one else knew about the news.

If this is true, they have committed the crime of deceiving the emperor.Even to put it mildly, it is also a crime of dereliction of duty.It can be said that any crime is not something they can bear.

But everyone just frowned, not too nervous.

At this moment, only a slight cough was heard, and the county lieutenant in charge of a county soldier spoke slowly.

This man didn't look like a man from the army, on the contrary, he looked like an outsider, with a rich appearance.

Hearing Liu De's words now, he laughed and said, "Master Liu is right. In Yutian County, our word is the imperial decree, and it means that the Heavenly King and Lao Tzu are here. Whatever we want them to know is what we want them to know."

While speaking, Huang Wei glanced at Zhang Ke and said: "Since it is the inspecting officials who are here, we can't let them come for nothing, can we? When the time comes, we will take these people to the fields of my Huang family. Last time, it was enough for the tenants of my Huang family to pretend to be ordinary people. As long as everyone pays close attention to these officials, in this Yutian County, they will even be dragons for us." "Okay!"

An official couldn't help clapping his hands excitedly after hearing Huang Wei's words.Not only this official, but also other officials' eyes lit up.

According to what Huang Wei said, then they can get away with it. As long as they fool the inspectors and add the yellow book that has already been prepared, then there is nothing to worry about.

Liu De even stroked his beard and said jokingly at Zhang Ke: "It is impossible to say that the county magistrate will be able to win the goodwill of those inspectors, and it may not be impossible to go further in the future."

Zhang Ke couldn't help grinning and said: "Liu Jiaoyu must never say such things. I have read the books of sages and been educated by sages. How could I join forces with that female gangster and bring harm to our country."

As he spoke, Zhang Ke cupped his hands in the direction of the capital and said, "I am loyal to Your Majesty, and the sun and the moon can learn from each other. What we have done is also to repay His Majesty's great grace."

Everyone nodded in unison, and said loudly: "What the magistrate said is true, we will be loyal to Daming." On the official road, a team of about a hundred people was moving forward at an extremely fast speed.

The leader is none other than Li Huan.

If people found out that Li Huan was not in the capital, but instead led someone to pretend to be an inspection official assigned by the imperial court to supervise local reforms, many people would be shocked.

After all, in the eyes of normal people, since Li Huan wants to preside over the reform, he must sit at the center, control the progress of the reform and deal with various changes at any time.

Reforms have always been full of variables, and no one can guarantee that there will be no surprises during the process of reform.

It can even be said that even if there is any trouble caused by this, Li Huan will not find it strange.

In order to prevent any civil unrest, Li Huan even arranged for an elite cavalry force of [-] people, but whenever there was a disturbance somewhere, the army would directly step out to suppress everything.

Even though Jinyiwei and Dongchang, the two major intelligence agencies, acted as Li Huan's eyes to monitor the place for him, Li Huan was still worried. If he didn't come down to take a look at these changes in person, he would naturally have no idea.

Li Huan chose Yutian County this time because he wanted to see for himself what attitude the local officials had towards this change, or how well the local officials implemented the imperial government's decree.

Along with Li Huan this time, there are still a few officials selected by Wang Yangming. These officials are from the Ministry of Household Affairs and are proficient in numerology. If it is to sort out the data of local population and acres of land, these people can definitely be regarded as good hands. .

Generally speaking, officials with good abilities like this must be able to occupy high positions, but it is a pity that these
Almost all the people are the lowest-level officials in the household department, and they don't even have any grades to speak of.

Lin Pingzhi followed Li Huan with a team of Jinyi guards, looked at the Yutian county town that appeared in sight, and couldn't help saying:

"My lord, the city of Yutian County has arrived. If there are no accidents, the officials of Yutian County should be waiting for your arrival right now."

Li Huan looked at the ancient mottled city wall in front of him and nodded slightly.

At the gate of the city, a group of officials headed by Zhang Ke, the county magistrate of Yutian County, plus the officials of all sizes in the county, there are nearly a hundred people, and they are gathered on the official road in a dark mass. When people saw the billowing smoke and dust in the distance and a group of people slowly approaching, their heart became inexplicably nervous.

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