A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 654 Bai Yu
In front of the Wujia round fort,
The newly harvested wheat field was leveled and many square benches were placed.

Wu Huaiyu brought many old people over, but it was a hundred 60-year-old women specially prepared for today's birthday banquet to accompany Wu Liu.

Banquet of [-] Ladies.

They are all old women from Shiliba Township in Sanyuan County. They are all 60 years old this year. The Wu family invited them to a banquet. Each of them prepared a new set of clothes for their birthday, as well as silk quilts, birthday noodles, birthday peaches, and pastries. Drinks and wine, plus sixty Wenxi money, car pick-up and drop-off.

Seeing the scene carefully prepared by her son, Mrs. Wu Liu was so happy that she could not open her mouth from ear to ear. The old ladies who had been invited also praised Mrs. Wu Liu one after another, praising her for her good fortune and the good sons and daughters she had given birth to. , the population is prosperous,

At this moment, Wu Liu truly felt that her life had reached its peak.

Open the banquet,
The children and grandchildren came forward to pay their birthdays one after another, and then came the relatives of the Wu family. Even Lao Wu specially found some distant relatives from Wu Liu's natal family in Hedong. These Liu family members were originally quite distant from the Wu Liu family. Maybe Fan Shang is of course very happy to be a member of the Wu family.
They came up and knelt down respectfully. Some called me sister, some called me aunt, and some called me great-aunt. Mrs. Wu Liu remembered that her family was poor in the past, her parents died early, and her brothers and sisters were gone long ago. Now, the Liu family can still come to congratulate her. Shou couldn't help crying.

"Erlang, these are my mother's family members, you will have to help them in the future."

"I've remembered it."

In fact, the Wu family has developed in recent years, and there are always distant relatives of the Liu family of the Wu family, and even the old Wu concubines of the Wang family come to play on the swing. The old Wu family is quite kind, no matter if he is a relative who cannot be beaten with eight poles, now that he has come to his door, If you can help, help; if you can make arrangements, make arrangements.
Many distant relatives also work directly here in the Wu family, and their treatment is not bad.

For example, some of the distant relatives of the Liu family are already working for the Wu family, or some are helping to manage the Wu family's village in Hedong. Even if others are not working for the Wu family, Lao Wu will not let them go home empty-handed every time.

At the beginning of the banquet, the eight bowls of the Wu family were very beautiful, and they were all hard dishes.

The old ladies toasted to the Wu Liu family. Some of these ladies came from the noble families and powerful landowners, but most of them were ordinary peasants. They held the wine glasses and expressed their gratitude to the Wu Liu family.

Not only did he thank them for the birthday gifts and the birthday banquet, but he also thanked Wu Huaiyu for piloting the new tax law in Sanyuan this year.

Basically all people benefit from the new law.

After receiving the imperial edict, the tax arrears in the past are exempted, and there is no need to pay taxes in the future. Furthermore, those without land are classified as customers and do not need to pay rent. Those with land are levied based on the actual situation and the number of acres of land. With the reduction and exemption, everyone’s taxes this year will suddenly be reduced a lot.

A woman with white hair and her waist almost bent to the ground. She looked like she was seventy or eighty years old, but she was just sixty this year. She almost had no teeth. She was very grateful to Mrs. Wu Liu, saying that she had three sons in her family. Daughter, the two eldest daughters are married, and the two eldest sons are also married, but the younger sons and daughters have not yet married.

There are now twelve members in the family, including four adult men. However, in the early years of Wude, they were allotted [-] acres of land, [-] acres of Yongye and [-] acres of land. Later, they were never allocated any new land.

Now a family of twelve mainly relies on tenant farming on the land owned by the landlord, and also does other work. It is extremely hard all year round, but with four men's rent, each of the four men has to perform 20 days of free labor every year, two for each person. Stone rent, four people is eight stone rent, and four bolts of silk, 12 liang of cotton.

Most of the harvest from rented land must be paid to the landlord in rent.

In addition to the various surcharges, fire expenses, and other miscellaneous apportionments from the yamen, as well as some other charges from the landlord's family, the family worked hard for a year, and in the end there was not much left.

When there was no auspicious grain in the past, they had to eat porridge with wild vegetables for a long time. They often had to borrow grain. If they couldn't repay the borrowed grain, they had to sell their land. Forty acres of land, and twenty acres of land were sold one after another.

After this summer’s harvest, Sanyuan County tried out a new law.

The old lady's family only has twenty acres of land left. Although they have four acres, according to the new law, one patch is only five acres, so they are not included in the grade and can be exempted from rent transfer.

At this time, eight shi of millet, four bolts of silk, and 12 taels of cotton were waived. Only four dou of free grain was collected per mu. There was another advantage of being exempted from rent adjustment, such as fire consumption, warehouse fees, foot money, etc. There is no need to pay bondage money, etc., which could have accounted for [-]% or more of the regular tax.

The old lady’s family is still the main household, but there is almost no tax burden like the clients.
The eight stones of millet, four bolts of silk and 12 ounces of cotton alone were equivalent to a large fortune for this poor family. The eight stones of millet could survive the lean years.

Four pieces of silk can be sold for [-] yuan, which can greatly improve the family's life.

I never dared to do these things before, but this year Sanyuan County has implemented a new law, and the village chief of Rizheng has informed his family that they no longer need to pay several additional taxes and fees for rent adjustment.
The old woman is really grateful to the Wu family. Li Zheng also said that this is a new method that was tried out in Sanyuan County after Wu Xianggong asked the sage. We all owe it to Wu Xianggong.

The old woman was brought to the birthday banquet, and her family even brought out a piece of silk as a birthday gift.

This is a sincere thank you.

Mrs. Wu Liu was very proud after hearing this, but she did not harvest the silk. She used to grow mulberry, raise silkworms and weave silk. She knew very well how difficult it was to make silk. She picked mulberry leaves every day, fed the silkworms several times a day, and worked hard to weave cocoons. Then we have to reel the silk and weave it into silk.

"With the saints in the court and the help of all the sages, the days will get better and better in the future. We old women must live well and live for a few more years to enjoy happiness." Mrs. Wu Liu pulled the old woman and said.

"Alang, the angel from Chang'an Palace has arrived!" Shitou came over to report to Huaiyu.

On the occasion of Wu Liu's birthday, Li Shimin and Changsun of Chang'an both sent envoys to reward him.

I heard that the saint sent an envoy to celebrate his birthday, which made everyone at the birthday banquet even more alarmed.
Wu Huaiyu took Wu Liu and others to welcome the imperial edict.
The emperor gave Wu Liu an agate cup inlaid with a gold animal head, a gilt silver pot with a cup pattern on a dancing horse's title, and Empress Changsun gave a silver sachet with grape, flower and bird patterns, a gold hairpin in the shape of a cloud head, a gold comb back, and a gold arm bracelet. Two of each, as well as a plain gold basin and a plain silver basin.

The emperor also gave a pair of longevity words written by himself.

When the envoys showed the treasures given by the emperor and empress to the public, there were countless exclamations from below. Many people had never seen such good things. These gold and silver objects were all very beautifully made and made by the royal workshop. , these things are generally not seen by people, let alone not qualified to own them.

The reward from the emperor and empress has just been accepted with gratitude,

The prince sent envoys to congratulate him on his birthday and give him gifts.

There are gilt silver boxes with pomegranate patterns, gilt silver bowls with small cluster patterns, jade Ruyi, Funan rhinoceros staff, etc., as well as a picture of a hundred years of longevity written by the deputy prince himself.

Each piece is a royal masterpiece, extremely exquisite and equally valuable.

The birthday banquet of the Wu family reached its climax with the gifts from the emperor, queen, and prince. Everyone was sighing at Mr. Wu's favor.

After the birthday banquet here in Wujiabao,
But there are still many people coming to Longqiao. We have been eating at the flowing noodle banquet for more than an hour, and it is not over yet. The number of people has not decreased at all, but has increased.

The Wu family had to dispatch more servants to knead and roll the dough. A row of large pots over there were also burning with fire. They boiled water, cooked noodles, and stir-fried sesame seeds. Once they were cooked in one pot, they immediately loaded them into buckets and then carried them out to the road to entertain the guests. .

"No matter how many people come today, or how late everyone comes, as long as they come, we must ensure that everyone can eat meat and sesame seeds noodles, and they must be full. If the noodles are not enough, we will not cook them, if the sauces are not enough, we will fry them, and if the meat is not enough, we will kill them as soon as possible. Pigs, in short, everyone who comes is a guest, so you must treat them well."

Ayi smiled and said, "More than ten thousand people are here now. It is estimated that there are tens of thousands of people today. This scene is unprecedented and will never be seen again."

"That's because our Wu family has a good reputation. Otherwise, someone would come all the way for a bowl of noodles."

Zhao Yi thought to himself, there are really many people who come here specifically just for a bowl of pork noodles, not to mention, there is lucky money coming today.

There were too many people coming, and the original plan was to scatter some dried fruit preserves and some copper coins, but seeing this, Wu Huaiyu had to cancel at the last minute. There were too many people, and he was worried that there would be a stampede as they competed for the dried fruit coins.

"In this way, when everyone leaves, each person will be given a bowl of millet and a copper coin. This will be considered as compensation for canceling the fruit and money scattering."

"Alang, we don't owe you anything. A bowl of millet for one person and one copper coin for tens of thousands of people is still a lot."

"With tens of thousands of people, it's only a few hundred stone grains and a few dozen copper coins. Today is a festive and lively event in our family. Everyone has worked hard to send blessings, so we should be generous."

"Alang is generous, I will make arrangements right away."

County Magistrate Zhao Renben and Recorder Zhao Ze were very busy today. It was not until dark that the huge crowd finally began to disperse, but there were still many people left.

"Fortunately, the Prime Minister is generous and generous. Otherwise, if tens of thousands of people gather today and are not prepared enough, riots will easily occur. I have been worried today." Zhao Lushi said, wiping sweat.

Zhao Renben was also very tired, "The Prime Minister has expected it and is well prepared. The Prime Minister is worthy of commanding thousands of troops, destroying Liang's capital, and capturing Jie Li Khan. We are in a hurry, but the Prime Minister has already made arrangements." It’s all right.”

"Mingfu, our Sanyuan County is trying out a new law, and Prime Minister Wu is taking the lead in implementing it. The people are full of praise. You see, the people who came today are all saying yes."

"Of course the people praise it. For those with one ding of land less than [-] acres, the rent adjustment will be greatly reduced this time. Even very few land will be directly exempted from the rent adjustment. Those who have no land are even included as customers and do not need to pay the rent adjustment. Yicang Liang No need to accept it, who do you think is unhappy?"

"Mingfu, if we just follow this new law, our county's tax collection will be greatly reduced this year. Even if the court has a special decree that we don't need to pay so much this year, what will our county do? The surcharges will also be greatly reduced, and our Where do the money for public servants, government food, miscellaneous expenses for officials, and those non-staff servants come from?”

Zhao Renben also knew this. This trial of the new law was actually a bit fierce.At first, the rent adjustment was exempted for the landless, and then the rent adjustment for those whose land was less than [-] acres was exempted. However, for the landlords with more than [-] acres, there has been no change for the time being, and they still rented two feet of silk and three liang of silk at the rate of one stone, two stones. Mian came to conquer.

If you do this, Sanyuan County won't be able to collect much tax this year. Fortunately, there is a special decree from the imperial court that you don't have to worry about it.

The Wu family took the lead in taking the initiative to pay a tax of two liters per mu of land. This tax rate was actually low. He discussed with Wu Huaiyu and felt that the tax per mu should be at least six liters for upper fields, four to five liters for middle fields, and two or three liters for lower fields. Reasonable.

However, this year it is not mandatory for those who have more than [-] acres to pay the rent per mu. They can throw away and only pay the rent per ding. But Wu Huaiyu has set an example and took the lead. This year, people like the Li family will definitely pay the rent on their own initiative. Of course not It doesn’t matter if you pay.

Another example is that there are thousands of households in Sanyuan County. These people are basically small landowners or self-cultivated farmers. Each family owns at least a hundred acres of land. Wu Huaiyu has explained that these households will be ignored for the time being this year.

"Zhao Lushi, look at the attitude of the people today. People's hearts are good. We must step up and achieve some results. We must not let down Mr. Wu's kind cultivation."

"Please rest assured, Mingfu, our county government has been working hard on this matter recently, and the household registration fields have almost been re-examined,"

"Very good. These registers of households, fields, etc. must be completed as soon as possible. The imperial court will send people down to verify them. Remember, do not commit fraud. This time we are trying out the new law. Our Sanyuan County is under the supervision of the imperial court. Extra attention, countless pairs of eyes are watching,

If something goes wrong, not only will you lose Xianggong Wu's trust, but you will also be severely punished. I must reiterate to everyone that you should not ignore your own future just for bribes."

Zhao Lushi was shocked, "I understand, I must warn everyone carefully."

Shi Shouxin came over and said, "Zhao Mingfu and Zhao Lu are involved. My Alang said that you two have worked hard today, so I invite you two to come over for tea."

(End of this chapter)