Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 209 0204 [Trapping]

Good people are forced to become thieves, of course they deserve sympathy.

It is also understandable that the bandits then plundered merchants and robbed wealthy households.

But they acted as pawns for Taoist priests, occupied land as temple fields, beat, expelled, and oppressed common people, turned themselves into landlords, and even robbed civilian women as wives and concubines.This nature has changed, from victim to perpetrator.

The entire Zhaozhuang and the good fields on the banks of the Hu River were taken over by the Li family.

The rest of the land was divided up by thieves.The slightly better houses in the village were also occupied by thieves, and the pretty women in the village were also taken as wives and concubines by thieves.

Tao Kai lived a happy life. He has one wife and four concubines, and has more than [-] acres of dry land.

All business travelers passing by the Hu River had to pay him protection fees, otherwise they would be robbed.His next target is Zhuyu Village in the northeast. There are not many big households there, and he can occupy the fields.

If the government doesn't dare to take care of it, there is a Taoist master to back it up!

As long as he doesn't provoke the Li family in the west, no one in Juancheng County will dare to touch him.

Tao Kai even planned to rebuild the village school, and when the sons of the robbers were six or seven years old, they would be sent to the village school to study, and they might be able to become officials in the future.Even if you can't pass the Jinshi exam, you can ask the Taoist priests to help and send a few into the county government as subordinates.

"Brother, someone from Zhuyu Village has come to join us!"

"Bring him here."

It was a village rogue who came, and the villagers called him Zhao Er.

Tao Kai sat on the chair and asked, "Why do you want to join the group?"

Zhao Er replied: "The old father left more than [-] mu of land. Although I am ineffective, my brother is very diligent. My brother died of illness this year, and there are only orphans and widows left in the family. My second uncle brought a few cousins , took my family’s land for life and death. I couldn’t get angry, so I came to Brother Tao.”

"Want to take back your own land?" Tao Kai asked.

Zhao Er said: "I also want the land of my second uncle's house. He can do it in the first year of junior high school, and I can do it in the fifteenth year. My cousin sister-in-law is beautiful, and I want to ask him to be my wife."

"You have a vicious heart, even your cousin's sister-in-law," Tao said with a smile, "All the benefits are yours? What can our brothers get?"

Zhao Er said: "I helped Brother Tao to get Zhuyu Village here. I know who in the village has grudges, and they can also join the gang."

Forcibly occupying a village is easy to make things worse. If there are a lot of ghosts, things will be much easier.Moreover, if more villagers joined the group, it would also enhance Tao Kai's hard power and form a gang that dominated the countryside.

If there are wealthy households in the village who take the initiative to contribute, Tao Kai will also accept it, and will let the wealthy households be the gang leaders.For the bottom, let's fish and meat the common people together; for the top, hold a group to fight against the tyranny of the government.

Tao Kai called some capable men and asked them to go back with Zhao Er, and first take back the land of Zhao Er's family.This has a demonstrative effect, Zhao Er's prestige will naturally be envied by people in the village, and people who take the initiative to contribute will appear.

This is a world of the jungle, especially in Jingdong Road!
"Brother, a gentleman is coming on horseback!" His subordinates came forward to report.

Tao Kai asked: "How many are here?"

The subordinate replied: "Just one person, riding a horse."

Tao Kai immediately let go of his vigilance: "Follow me to meet you."

It was Bai Sheng who came and rode out of the village alone.

Tao Kai led a dozen of his subordinates to meet him quickly, and greeted him respectfully: "What's your order?"

Bai Sheng was riding on the horse, with his nostrils facing the sky, and said: "Zhizhou is going to inspect the embankment. When you pass by here, you should treat yourself well, and bring out good wine and meat!"

"Definitely, definitely." Tao smiled apologetically.

Bai Sheng said: "I still have to go to the village in front, so prepare quickly!"

After speaking, Bai Sheng rode through the village on horseback.

Tao Kai looked resentful and spat: "Dog officer!"

The subordinates reminded: "Brother, is there any fraud? I heard that this Zhizhou is very young, and he arrested many demons in Huhe Town a few days ago. He also arrested a lot of big families in Lei Ze. No Are you here to catch us?"

Tao Kai shook his head: "Yao Dao and big households have money, and if the dog officials catch them, they can make money. We have only been here for more than half a year. Apart from grabbing a lot of land and food, we have not saved much money. We are all poor. Ghost, the dog officer doesn't like it. Go kill ten sheep, get a few jars of wine, and prepare twenty pennies, and send the dog officer away."

In the afternoon, Zhu Ming arrived outside Zhaozhuang Village with dozens of archers.

Tao Kai had been waiting for a long time, and when he saw the dog official Zhu Ming, he no longer felt any resentment, but was extremely envious.How wonderful it is to be an official, with people who are surrounded by people, and wherever they go, there are people who offer wine, meat and goods.

"Cao Min pays homage to the prefect!" Tao Kai immediately knelt down and kowtowed.

"Kill the thief!"

Without further ado, Zhu Ming took off the iron mace and rushed over. Tao Kai's head exploded with the blow of the mace.

The rest of the thieves fled in terror, and Deng Chun and others chased them down with their archers.The thieves greeted and rewarded the prefect, so naturally they couldn't bring weapons, and they had to run for their lives in the face of the archers.

Before letting Bai Sheng come to act, it was purely because he was afraid that the thieves would flee after hearing the news, and it would take too much time to hunt them down.

It is much easier to trap and kill, just put your head in front of you and let Zhu Ming smash it.

Deng Chun, Li Bao and Zhang Tong all chased after them on horseback, like a tiger among a herd of sheep.The three of them galloped on horses, more than a dozen thieves were unarmed, they just scattered and fled, and one of them was chopped down when they fled.

The rest of the thieves in the village also started to flee when they heard the movement.His brain is not bright enough, and he even wants to take his wife and children and money away.

The battle here was over, and Bai Sheng came back on horseback.

Leaving more than a dozen archers behind, Bai Sheng was asked to search the house of the thieves, while Zhu Ming led his men straight to Huang Tingguan.

Still intending to trap, and will not attack by force at all.

This time Yang Pu was sent out, standing in front of the Taoist temple and shouting: "The Zhizhou is here, the abbot is coming out to greet him!"

The abbot of Huang Tingguan is called Li Gongzuo. As Wang Laozhi's registered disciple, and also has the official status of a Taoist official, he never thought that the government would dare to do something.

Li Gong looked like a fairy, surrounded by more than a dozen Taoist priests, walked up to Zhu Ming, and made a Taoist bow: "Meet the prefect!"

Zhu Ming stood on his horse, and said in a cold tone, "Someone exposed you for secretly hiding demon scriptures and secretly spreading demon methods. Is there such a thing?"

Li Gongzuo laughed when he heard this: "Prefect Rong Zhi, Pindao is a Taoist official conferred by the imperial court, how could he spread demon law? Someone must have made a false accusation."

"Maybe you are innocent, but what about those Taoist priests under your seat?" Zhu Ming asked.

Li Gongzuo said: "The poor Daoist dares to use this Daoist robe on his body to guarantee that there will be absolutely no demons in Huang Tingguan."

Zhu Ming said: "Call together all the Taoist priests in the Huangting Temple, and I will personally admonish them. Those who are not in the temple will also be called back, immediately!"

Li Gongzuo had no choice but to summon Taoist priests.

These Taoist priests all have families. They come to work in Huang Tingguan every day, and go home to live with their wives at night.And there are shifts. Those who live in Taoist temples at night are on night shift. (Quanzhen Taoism has not yet emerged, and Taoist priests can marry wives and have children.)
Counting the odd jobs in the Taoist temple, more than 100 Taoist priests gathered one after another.

There are even rural landlords who voluntarily donate their land as temple fields and become practitioners by wearing Taoist robes in order to fight against the government's exorbitant taxes.

It was already dark at this time, and all the pilgrims had left. Zhu Ming ordered: "Deng Chun, you lead people to search. Zhang Tong, you lead people to search the Taoist temple!"

Naturally, nothing can be found in a body search, but there must be something "hidden" in the Taoist temple.

Not long after, Zhang Tong came out holding a torch: "Master, I found some demon scriptures!"

"Take them all away!" Zhu Ming was furious.

Li Gongzuo shouted in horror: "Wait a minute, eunuch, someone must have framed him. I have never seen the demon scriptures, so how can they be hidden in the temple?"

Zhu Ming questioned: "Even if someone framed the demon scriptures, but you colluded with thieves, occupied the land of good people in the surrounding area, and resisted the government's reluctance to pay taxes. Is this also framed by others? Don't quibble anymore, go to the state court and confess your crime!" "

All of a sudden, there was a loud cry, and the Taoist priests were crying, without the slightest demeanor of a practitioner.

Zhu Ming is arresting thieves and raiding Taoist temples. Apart from gaining prestige, he also wants to get more money and food.

In Juancheng, there are many disciples and old officials of the Li family, and the subordinate officials colluded to deliberately not requisition this year's autumn grain, so as to force Zhu Ming to compromise.It is impossible for Zhu Ming to conjure up money out of thin air, so he had to find some extra money to make up for the shortfall in autumn grain.

As for the recovered land, we have to find a way to distribute it to the tenants, and return it if the original owner is still there.

It must not be turned into an official land, otherwise the damage will be even deeper.

Guantian is also called Guanzhuang, and officials are sent to be the supervisors of the village, and they are extorted violently, which can force all the tenants to flee.

In view of this situation, the imperial court also changed its strategy, contracting all the official land to the big landlords, and then letting the big landlords recruit tenants to cultivate them.This kind of policy existed in the late Northern Song Dynasty, and became extremely common in the Southern Song Dynasty.But letting big landlords act as subcontractors is only slightly better than direct management by officials, and it also prevents large-scale fleeing of tenants.

For the tenants who have been allocated land in Huhe Town, as well as the tenants who have been allocated land here, Ju Ming will promise to exempt them from tax within three years.

But in practice, the only way to get rid of regular taxes and ground money is to extort miscellaneous taxes.

Ju Ming can only go so far, at least to ensure that the tenants who have acquired the land will not go bankrupt within three years after becoming the principal household.

After three years, he will definitely not be in Puzhou anymore, and the common people will be happy for themselves.

Staying at the Taoist temple that night, the archers got the rewards, all of them were inexplicably excited, and returned to the city with a lot of money the next day.

Bai Sheng, Zhang Tong, and Shi Yuangong stayed behind and were responsible for distributing the confiscated land to the tenants, whoever was farming it.All land deeds are given, and the handling fee for the transfer of land property is waived.This requires the cooperation of the magistrate of Juancheng, and Zhu Ming has to go to the county government in person.

Yao Guangshu figured out what happened, but didn't respond to it.

Wang Laozhi had offended Cai Jing a long time ago, and those Taoist priests in Huang Tingguan were all Wang Laozhi's disciples and grandchildren, and they deserved what they suffered.

The land deeds were handed out one by one, and it was specifically stated that they would be tax-free for three years, and the farmers in Huhe Town also had to reissue the procedures.

All the properties of the Zhang family occupied by the Taoist temple will be returned.

For a time, the prestige of the prefect spread throughout the county, and scholars in Puzhou rushed to write articles to praise him.

Zhu Shengfei looked at the notice posted at the gate of the state government office, and muttered to himself: "Such capable officials will surely be a generation of famous ministers in the future."

The content of the notice is very simple, ordering the magistrates and county magistrates of the four counties in Puzhou to start checking the Taoist temples and temples in their respective jurisdictions.If there are demons, arrest them immediately and clean up the temple field by the way.Illegally obtained temple land must be returned to the landlord, and legal temple land must pay taxes, and the previous tax arrears must be paid!
Zhu Ming has personally demonstrated, and the county magistrates know what to do. Not only can they please the Zhizhou, but they can also take the opportunity to make a fortune.

This is the breakthrough point. After the prestige is established, the government orders issued by Zhu Ming will be listened to, and the Taoist temples in various places will cooperate honestly. Otherwise, the county officials must be perfunctory.

(End of this chapter)