The new era of chaos begins in the Song Dynasty

Chapter 321 Rumors

Li Gefei was really anxious. For the first time in his life, he was angry at his daughter and that bastard who deserved a thousand cuts.

The teacher fell into the water and disappeared. What a big deal this is!

The two little villains actually kept it from him and tricked him into playing a trick in the court hall. They were simply treating Mr. Mo Mei like a donkey! It’s really unbearable for my uncle and aunt!

Ergou naturally acted as the main target of Li Gefei's anger. In fact, the young lady Qingzhao didn't have to suffer it together.

However, she resolutely took some responsibility for Er Gou, claiming that she asked Er Gou not to tell about Su Shi's disappearance first. The reason was simple: she was worried that after Li Gefei knew the bad news, he would no longer have the mind to deal with the ending in the court.

Of course, the actual situation was the opposite. Ergou used this as an excuse to persuade Li Qingzhao to help her hide it for the time being.

Some people may ask, why didn't Ergou also hide the news from Qingzhao? Why did he need to tell the bad news to cause trouble?

What if Li Qingzhao refuses to help hide his old father?

And this involves some issues of interpersonal mutual trust.

Sometimes, the best way is not necessarily the most appropriate way.

After all, cheating on an old father-in-law and cheating on an old father-in-law with an unmarried daughter-in-law are completely different concepts.

At least at this time, Ergou and Miss Qingzhao were on the same side of being blamed.

The sense of alienation between the two people after five years of separation completely disappeared at this moment.

After all, Li Gefei was a well-educated scholar. After losing his temper, he finally calmed down a bit, but he was still depressed and sat in his study for a long time without saying a word.

Li Qingzhao was about to say some comforting words to his old father, but Ergou shook his head at her and whispered: "Let my father-in-law meditate alone. If we stand in front of him, it will only be an eyesore and make him angry."

Li Qingzhao said with some faint anger: "It's not all your bad idea! Alas! It would be great if my little mother were here, I can't possibly comfort my father. It's a pity that she took her little brother back to her hometown in Qizhou."

Ergou could only remain silent about this.

Speaking of which, Li Qingzhao did not receive support from the [Mulanji] intelligence system, but it was also related to the fact that her baby mother Wang was not around.

After all, without a guide to lead the way, it is difficult for a novice Mulanji to gain the true trust of the veterans.

As Ergou's fiancée, Li Qingzhao does not have a so-called crisis of trust in "Mulan Ji", but everyone is facing another, more terrifying crisis.

The two dogs were messing around in their hometown, and they gave birth to a bunch of puppies with no name or status. If someone accidentally let it slip in front of Li Qingzhao, it would lead to a rift between Li Qingzhao and Siming Shenjun. Who can afford this consequence then?

Don’t think that Siming Shenjun can despise him at such a young age?

Ask the big landlords in Xiangzhou what kind of vicious person Siming Shenjun is!

Ordinary thugs only kill people, but Siming Shenjun directly cuts off the roots of ancestors and cuts off the foundations of big families.

Since ancient times, the foundation for people to settle down and live their lives has been the land. It was in the past, it is now, and it will be in the future.

But Ergou took away all the land of the big families in Xiangzhou, especially the Han family in Anyang. As the largest landowner in Xiangzhou, they controlled nearly 70% of the cultivated land in Xiangzhou. As a result, the Han family was forced by Ergou to move away. , although the land left behind still belonged to the Han family in name, the real right to use it had already fallen into the hands of Ergou, who rented it to landless tenant farmers in Xiangzhou at a low commission.

That is to say, the current time is not right and his foundation has not yet been solidified. Ergou does not dare to risk the disapproval of the world for the time being, otherwise he would even want to completely waive rent and allow tenant farmers to farm.

Some people may say, doesn’t this make people white? How could such a thing be done in ancient times? It was enough to do light corvee and low taxes.

It's a pity that Ergou is not an ancient aborigine. He is a soul traveler armed with modern dragon-slaying skills.

In ancient China, there was a very helpless and annoying paradox.

While the ruling classes of past dynasties advocated focusing on agriculture, they continued to brutally exploit and exploit agriculture, and imposed exorbitant taxes on lower-class farmers, thus forming a cycle of rise and fall of dynasties that lasted for two to three hundred years.

In fact, to put it bluntly, the rulers’ so-called emphasis on agriculture does not focus on agriculture itself, but on the taxes that the agriculture industry can provide.

Rulers with a clear mind and a long-term vision, such as most of the founding emperors or the leaders of the ZTE, also knew that agriculture could not be exploited to the fullest, so they implemented the so-called policy of light corvee and low taxes.

Those brainless fools and tyrants will only kill the goose to obtain the eggs, and then be overthrown by the angry farmers.

Of course, limited to the ancient humanistic traditions, technological level and transportation difficulties, apart from agriculture, which can continuously and stably provide taxes for the dynasty rulers' finances, other handicrafts and commerce can only be used as tax supplements and cannot bear the dynasty's financial operations. The main tax payer.

The most ideal agriculture in Ergou's mind should be a "no-tax" state for farmers at the bottom.

For a classical dynasty, if there were no financial problems, the lack of taxes on agriculture would be enough to extend the dynasty's fortunes for another two hundred years without worries, which is the so-called five hundred years of prosperity.

Some people may also ask, if Ergou becomes prosperous in the future, will land be allocated to farmers?

Of course, land will be divided, but what will be allocated will not be the ownership of the land, but the right to use the land.

The knowledge here is enough to write a paper report of tens or even millions of words. The most fundamental purpose is to suppress land annexation to the greatest extent possible.

Of course, it is still a bit early for Ergou to discuss this.

Ergou also has some restrictions on tenants in Xiangzhou. For example, if a tenant wants to rent land at a lower 50% rent, after the grain is harvested next year, the tenant must sell 45% of the grain to Ergou at a corresponding price. .

Of course, when Ergou purchased these grains, he also paid real money, including Zumo copper coins.

What if the tenant farmer has not enough food left at home after paying the corresponding land rent and agreeing to sell the grain.

It's very simple, just take the money from selling the grain and go to the grain store opened by Ergou to buy it.

Although the price of grain is slightly more expensive, it is only enough to support the lives of a small number of tenant farmers in need.

The most interesting part is that due to Ergou's unique support strategy for his tenants, those tenants' lives are much richer and happier than most of the homesteaders who own their own land.

The reason for this is simple.

The land Ergou rented to tenants was nominally owned by the wealthy families in Xiangzhou. These people originally occupied nearly 80% of the land in Xiangzhou (of which nearly 70% were from the Han family, and nearly 10% came from other wealthy families), and These people do not bear or only bear a small amount of taxes from the local government in Xiangzhou. The real majority of taxes have always been shared by the farmers who only occupy 20% of the land in Xiangzhou.

Before Ergou became famous, the farmers in Xiangzhou were miserable, and the life of the tenants was also difficult. Everyone could only compete with each other to see who was worse off.

The biggest reason for this situation is that there is a behemoth in Xiangzhou that makes the local government helpless, and that is the Han family in Anyang. Not to mention that most of the official officials in Xiangzhou are Han family descendants or students. Despite the influence of the Han family in the government and the public, no scholar-officials dare to come to Xiangzhou to cause trouble.

Therefore, the local government in Xiangzhou could not touch the cakes of the wealthy families, while the more manageable homesteaders had to bear everything.

This is also the reason why when Ergou came out of Xiangzhou for the first time, the people in the world were happy and the land in Duxiangzhou was in dire straits.

Now that Ergou has seized those lands, although they have paid slightly more taxes than the wealthy families in the past to cover the mouths, eyes, noses and ears of those officials, the situation of the farmers has not fundamentally changed.

In this way, the tenants have lived a good life that will not change even if the gods come, but the homesteaders are still in dire straits, which leads to an imbalance in their hearts.

Of course, some of the smarter farmers first sold their land to Ergou, and then became tenants under Ergou.

These smart original farmers only lost their nominal land ownership, but they still cultivated the original land. Not only did they receive lower rents after a year's work, they also had more money and grain in their hands, and they could still farm for free. With a sum of money from selling the land, my life was really good.

This led to a very fatal situation. Except for a few stubborn people, most of the farmers in Xiangzhou rushed to sell their farmland to Ergou, and then made his tenants enjoy the benefits.

As a result, the local government in Xiangzhou had fewer and fewer farmers who could collect taxes. In order to maintain tax revenue, they had to impose more brutal taxes on the remaining farmers, which in turn intensified the asset flight of the farmers.

When Ergou came out of Xiangzhou again, 95% of the entire Xiangzhou land was actually concentrated in his or Siming Mansion's hands.

The finances of the local government in Xiangzhou have completely collapsed. Except for a few indispensable nominal officials appointed by the imperial court, they are still making clay puppets in Xiangzhou, like some subordinate officials and government servants who rely on maintaining local rule. Traces.

If taxes and taxes cannot be raised and wages cannot be paid, and we dare not go to the streets or villages to vandalize, smash or rob, it is easy for the heroes of [Siming Mansion] to light sky lanterns and bury soil to fill rivers. How can the subordinates survive unless they change careers.

Ergou has done this, and anyone with a discerning eye can see that his ambition is not small. Some people are worried that after acquiring all the land in Xiangzhou, he will increase land rents and levy excessive taxes on tenants.

Ergou didn't say much about this. He only told a few close assistants such as Li Shouzhen, Li Zhu, Yang Xiaoniang, Shen Zhou and others that his greatest vision was for the world to have "no taxes on farmers."

For the ancients, equalizing the land and eliminating grains could only be regarded as a beautiful vision.

But Ergou has a comprehensive plan and steps to turn this pie from a painting into a reality.

As a result, Xiangzhou's [Si Ming Mansion] has become more radical and flexible when dealing with certain matters, because they have a core bottom line as a basis.

In the eyes of those demon-suppressing people who did not know the inside story, the [Siming Mansion] headed by Siming Shenjun was simply a terrifying and cruel monster-like existence.

Even those idealists in [Mulan Ji] who are full of a sense of justice and mission, there are some people who dare not provoke Siming Mansion.

The best way for Mulan girls to stay away from the troubles in Siming Mansion is to temporarily distance themselves from Miss Qingzhao. When she becomes the true wife of the Divine Lord, it will not be too late for everyone to get closer.

Ergou stayed at Li's house for the past two days, rubbing elbows and temples with Miss Qingzhao every day and singing poems to make peace.

Of course, the main thing is that the young lady Qingzhao is singing poems, and Ergou is responsible for listening.

After all, after years of writing money, Ergou didn't have much inventory in his stomach anymore, and he needed to hide his clumsiness.

Even though Ergou has the learning talent "Practice makes perfect", poetry creation is really a talent-based field, and he doesn't want to waste too much energy in this area.

After all, although this thing is known as the crystallization of the Wenhua field, for Ergou personally, apart from pretending to do that, showing off what he has, and entertaining the little lady by the way, it really has no other use.

In the past two days, Ergou has been very polite in front of Miss Qingzhao. Although they bumped into each other a lot, he never got too close, but maintained respect for Miss Qingzhao.

This made the little lady feel disappointed but also deeply pleased.

The man I like is indeed a good man with rules!

And on the third day after Li Gefei resigned from the post, a group of anxious messengers rushed into Bianliang City.

They brought about an earth-shattering event.

Su Shi, the first literary figure in the Song Dynasty, and Zhang Dun, the former most powerful prime minister in the Song Dynasty, were playing on Lanxi River in Muzhou when their boat leaked and capsized, resulting in them falling into the water and missing.

As a result, the capital was in an uproar.

The emperor was shocked! All officials in the government and the public were shocked!

Then the edict asking the Muzhou local government to find out the truth was sent to Muzhou in a hurry at a cost of 800 miles.

No one would have any hope of survival for two people with old arms and legs who fell into the water.

But at this time, an unexpected argument quietly emerged.

Now, Mr. Dasu's life and death are unknown after his boat fell into the water. However, his good student Mr. Momei, Mr. Li Gefei, resigned from the position a few days ago. Is there something wrong with this?

At first, this argument was not taken seriously by people. After all, Mr. Su was in Muzhou, nearly a thousand miles away, while Li Momei was in the capital.

The time when Li Momei resigned was about the same time as the time when Su Xianggong fell into the water and disappeared (what people think, it can also be said to be a time cognitive illusion deliberately constructed by Ergou), but it is impossible for the two to exchange news thousands of miles apart.

Besides, what does Li Momei's resignation have to do with the disappearance of Mr. Su!

But at this time, Li Gefei's closest friend Chao Buzhi was provoked and seduced by someone after he was drunk at the Xiyuan Gathering. He told Li Gefei that he had been in love some time ago, not for other reasons, but to protect his mentor. Su Shi lived a peaceful old age.

At first, people did not believe it, but Cai Jing soon reported it to the court meeting, saying that in order to save some dignity for the current prime minister, Da Su's name was not included in the "Yuanyou Party Member Monument". Now that Li Momei has resigned, Su Shi and his disciples should be added to the register of Yuanyou Party members, and the "Yuanyou Party Member Monument" should be re-issued.

The officials did not agree to Cai Jing's memorial. They only said that Da Su's life and death were uncertain now, so he should not act too hastily or suffer too much.

In this way, Li Gefei's earlier slanderous remarks about his attachment to power have been completely eliminated.

The image of an upright man who was willing to harm his own reputation in order to protect his mentor was widely recognized.

At this time, that rather special argument reappeared and aroused widespread discussion and speculation.

A terrible conspiracy theory gradually formed during this great discussion.

(End of this chapter)