At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 626: Scythes from the Nobles and Tax Resistance

October 45, 10th year of the Han calendar, Memphis City.

After the autumn harvest, Sobek invited the whole village to a banquet, and then asked the villagers to help him build a Han-style courtyard house, and promised to provide lunch and dinner.

With such a good thing happening, the villagers are naturally happy to serve. Memphis is close to the port of Mount Memphis and is also affected by the wave of globalization. There are five small industries in the city, including cement plants, brick kiln factories, flour mills, and textile mills.

Sobek bought cement bricks from Memphis, and the villagers used local sand, stone and wood. With the help of a dozen young and strong people, they spent 10 days to build a simple Chinese-style courtyard building.

To celebrate the building of the new house, Sobek made hundreds of steamed buns, added a small amount of sugar, and treated everyone in the village to a Chinese steamed bun feast.

It was the first time for the villagers to eat this kind of sweet steamed bun. They all gave it a thumbs up and said that this was worthy of being called the Dahan steamed bun.

After the courtyard was built, this exotic architecture from the East always made the villagers feel awe, and Besoke's prestige in the village soared. In addition, he had worked outside for ten years and was knowledgeable. Whenever there were conflicts among the villagers, they would ask Besoke to adjudicate, and his rulings would satisfy both parties.

If nothing unexpected happened, Sobek would become the village elder of this unknown little village, and rely on the advanced farming techniques learned from the Han Dynasty to become a local gentry. If his two younger brothers were lucky, they would become official priests. In that case, their family would rise to the top in one step and become the rulers of the Ptolemaic Kingdom again.

But an accident befell this family first. When the autumn harvest just started this year, news came from the city of Memphis that the Han Dynasty would not buy grain from their country this year. There was too much grain in the country and the price of grain would drop.

Sure enough, when Sobek wanted to sell grain, he found that the price of grain in Memphis was only 80 coins per stone, which was a % drop from previous years.

This news did not matter to other people in the village. The food they had was only enough for themselves to eat, and they had no plans to sell it. The drop in food prices had nothing to do with them.

But for new self-employed farmers like Sobek, the price was too low, and it suddenly reduced their income by 20%.

Sobek and his five families gathered together to discuss whether they should sell grain. They had just returned from the Suez Canal construction site and naturally knew that after the project was completed, the Han people would no longer come to them to buy grain. Under this circumstance, if they did not sell it now, the price of grain would probably be even lower.

But Sobek thought that the Mediterranean region was not peaceful at the moment. The Seleucid Empire was already at war, and several countries in the Asiatic Peninsula were also at war. Under such circumstances, even if the price of food dropped, it would not drop too much, and would rise later. Moreover, they were not short of money, so they could wait and see.

In the end, everyone agreed with Sobek's words. They were unwilling to reduce their income by more than 20% at once, so they simply hoarded the food. After all, in this area, money was less useful than food. If they needed to do anything, they could also trade directly with food.

But soon a shocking piece of news came: the king issued an order that this year the autumn harvest tax would not be collected in grain but in copper coins.

As soon as this news came out, the price of grain in Ptolemy's country could no longer be held back. A large number of self-cultivating farmers had to pay taxes, so they could only sell their grain first, exchange it for copper coins, and then use the copper coins to pay the taxes.

The nobles of the Ptolemaic Empire and the big businessmen also took the opportunity to unite and exploit the self-cultivating farmers.

They had long been eyeing the money in the hands of these self-cultivating farmers, but had never had a good way to collect it. This time, the Ptolemy Kingdom gave them an opportunity by paying taxes in copper coins.

They joined together and drove the price of grain down to 30 copper coins per Han stone, which was only 1/3 of the original price.

For the first time, the sickle of feudal slavery fell on the heads of the self-cultivating farmers in the Ptolemaic Empire, making everyone wailing.

Sobek's home in Memphis.

"Brother Sobek, what should we do now? The tax farmer of Memphis has come to my house and issued an order that my family should pay 2000 copper coins in taxes. Where can I get so many copper coins?"

Sobek suppressed his anger and said, "It's the same for my family. The tax farmer asked my family to hand over 5000 copper coins."

This can be considered as the shooting of the bird that sticks its head out. In the past few years, Sobek's family has purchased land, sent his younger brother to study in the temple, and built a Han-style mansion after returning. It is obvious that they are rich people. Naturally, these tax farmers are unwilling to let Sobek go.

But he never expected that the tax farmers would be so cruel and ask him to pay so much tax, which showed that they no longer cared about their lives.

"How can these tax farmers be so unreasonable? They clearly agreed to collect 3/10 of the tax, but now they want to take away all the grain we harvested. They have never collected taxes like this before."

Sobek said helplessly, "I have already inquired about it. These tax collectors have done all kinds of bad things and only enforced the laws that benefit them. According to the tax law, we only collect three dou of grain per mu of land, but these tax farmers said that our land production capacity is more than three times that of others, so we have to collect three times as much, one dan of grain per mu of land, but the grain price they collect is not based on this year's grain price, but on last year's price of 100 coins per dan. Based on this calculation, the tax farmers have to collect 5000 coins from our family.

Although the Sobek family harvested 150 dan of grain this year, after deducting the cost of growing the grain, the profit was only about 120 dan. According to the current price of grain, it can be sold for a maximum of 3600 coins, and the tax is one and a half times. After working hard for a year, not only can they not make a dime, but they have to pay 1400 coins to these tax farmers.

"General Liu once told me a story about a man who said that money should not be exposed. If it is exposed, it will be targeted by bad people. We are being targeted by these tax farmers."

There must be something wrong with such obviously unreasonable taxation. This is not collecting taxes at all, it is not even a house search like this.

After saying this, Sobek made a bitter face. He thought about what he had done during the time he was back home. This was just exposing his money.

"What should we do? If these tax farmers continue to collect taxes like this, sooner or later we will lose our money, property and land again." They had struggled hard to become self-employed farmers from serfs, and had seen the light. They were unwilling to become serfs again and return to the dark world.

Sobek thought for a moment and said, "We can't pay this tax. We can't afford it. If the tax collectors dare to come to the village, we will drive them out."

"Just us?" There were only five self-employed farmers in the whole village. Even if their fathers and brothers were added together, there were only a dozen young and strong men. With their limited strength, they wanted to defeat the tax farmers and their lackeys. The most important thing was that these people were used to being honest. They didn't have the confidence to resist.

Sobek went into his room, took a book and came back, saying, "This is our confidence."

"The Art of War?" After 10 years of education under the Han Dynasty, they can understand simple Chinese characters, and the excellent ones can even read and write them.

Sobek said: "General Liu told me the story of the Emperor of Han. He was a farmer in the past, working in the countryside. The corrupt officials arrested him, and he led 800 criminals to overthrow the Qin Empire, which had a million troops. Although we are not as good as the Emperor of Han, if we don't make up our minds to protect our property now, our families will be destroyed and our lives will be ruined."

"The nobles in the city are not afraid of us abiding by the law. The more we abide by the law, the more they exploit us. Look at this year's tax rate. They don't want us to live at all. But this book can bring us fairness."

"Recruit the young and strong people in the village. We can recruit 50 people for training and provide them with two meals. The villagers will be happy."

Sobek said viciously: "I would rather give my own grain to my fellow villagers to eat than give it to those greedy and shameless tax farmers."

The other four thought for a long time and said viciously: "Brother Sobek, we listen to you."

These tax farmers were really extorting too much. Although they received compensation, a lot of it had already been spent on buying land, farm tools, oxen, and cloth over the past six months. If they were to pay the tax according to the tax farmers' tax rate, they would have to sell their own land again to barely pay the tax. But if they could just get through this year, what would they do next year? This was driving them to a dead end.

The next day, Sobek took out his own grain and said he wanted to form a village protection team and recruit 50 people. As long as they were selected, each person would be given 10 kilograms of wheat first, and then kilograms of wheat every day.

When the villagers heard about such favorable treatment, they all joined the village protection team. No one thought there was anything wrong with it. Ptolemy was a country with extremely serious feudal separatism. Each village could even be regarded as a separatist force. In the past, they could not be organized without a core. Now Besok has become the core of this village.

Sobek led his men to cut down trees outside the village and sharpen them into wooden spears. He also ordered people to make some wooden shields. Then, he trained them according to the contents of the Art of War, while reading the book himself.

However, he also knew that this was the age of muskets, and if the tax farmers had muskets, it would be difficult for them to defeat these lackeys.

Fortunately, there is manufacturing behind the formation of troops, including methods of making black powder, grenades, and simple smoothbore rifles.

This simple village naturally had no way of manufacturing Huatang guns, but it was not a problem to manufacture black powder grenades.

June 45, 10rd year of the Han calendar.

Ten of the tax farmers arrived at Sobek's village with a horse-drawn carriage and shouted, "It's time for you lowly people to pay taxes."

Then the leader saw the Han-style courtyard of Sobek's house, and his eyes turned red with jealousy. He couldn't even live in such a good house, so why could these untouchables have such good houses?
"Sobek, have you prepared the 5000 yuan tax for your family? If you can't pay the tax, you can mortgage this house to me."

Sobek picked up the whistle: "Dududu, everyone pick up the spears and assemble!"

Fifty strong men holding spears more than 50 meters long surrounded the ten tax farmers.

The leader suddenly became a little panicked. He pretended to be powerful and said, "Do you want to rebel? Our master is the city lord's man. If you dare to touch us, the city lord will send troops to destroy your village." As he spoke, these people retreated towards the village entrance.

Sobek yelled, "Spears down."

50 sharp spears were pointed at the men.

"go ahead!"

Under the leadership of Besok, the villagers moved forward step by step.

Faced with 50 sharp spears, the tax collector's lackeys could only retreat step by step towards the village entrance, and were soon forced out of the village.

"Sobek, this is not over yet, just wait for me." After saying that, the ten people fled in panic.

The villagers raised their spears and cheered. This was the first time they had forced back the tax collector's lackeys, and they felt very relieved.

Sobek said loudly, "Today at noon we will celebrate and eat the sweet steamed cakes that Dahan brought."

Hearing this, the villagers cheered even louder.

Memphis, the tax farmer's house.

The tax farmer Pothinus saw his men fleeing back in a panic, even losing the carriage loaded with money.

He angrily picked up a whip and beat the 10 people, leaving their skin torn and flesh exposed.

"A bunch of useless rubbish. You can't even do something as simple as collecting taxes. What's the point of keeping you? It's better to keep ten donkeys. Donkeys can pull goods."

"Master, please stop fighting. It's that untouchable Sobek. Not only does he not pay taxes, he also mobilizes villagers to resist the taxes. We are outnumbered and cannot defeat him." The ten people kept begging for mercy.

Pothinus said coldly: "This year, there are people resisting taxes everywhere. It seems that unless one or two villages are massacred, these untouchables will not pay taxes honestly."

This year, the Ptolemaic Empire changed from collecting grain to collecting coins. The city of Alexandria only wanted money and at the same time made some money through asset taxes.

But the masters below would not let themselves suffer losses. They tripled the tax rate based on last year's grain price. Of course, when they handed it over to Alexandria, they would collect it at the current grain price. The court took 30% and they took 70%. This year, they finally knew that they had more fat sheep under their command. How could they let these fat sheep be plundered by the people above?

Meng Fei was the city lord who directly put the pressure of triple tax rate on these tax farmers. As a tax farmer, Pothinus naturally could not let himself suffer a loss. It was impossible for him to pay the Ptolemy Kingdom himself, so he added another 50% to the original tax rate. He also got news from Alexandria that every citizen from the Han people brought back a large amount of compensation. If he didn't harvest now, he would harvest it when he could. He spent a lot of money to get the position of tax farmer, wasn't it just to make money.

The taxation of the Ptolemaic Empire was so arbitrary that the tax rate could be increased at every link.

Unlike the Han civilization, which matured very quickly, the centralized feudal system took more than 2000 years to perfect. Although there were divisions and reunions during this period, the trend was continuous centralization, and the power of the imperial courts of successive dynasties became increasingly greater.

The feudal dynasties of all dynasties regarded tax collection as their primary task and formulated various strict systems. The tax collectors could only earn a little more income through fighting and other crooked ways. However, no matter how bold these people were, they did not dare to easily change the tax rate of the court.

For thousands of years, Mediterranean civilization has never established a stable centralized system, and naturally it is impossible to establish a vertical tax system.

They subcontracted the right to collect taxes to various feudal nobles, while the feudal nobles subcontracted the right to collect taxes to the tax farmers below.

As long as the tax farmers could receive enough taxes, the feudal lords and kings did not care whether the tax farmers were levying heavy taxes or extorting money, or even whether they were forcing the people to rebel, as long as they had the power to suppress the rebels.

Therefore, each tax farmer had his own armed force. Pothinus contracted the taxes of ten villages, but this year's tax collection was extremely difficult. Each village was resisting his men from collecting taxes. After all, the tax was increased more than three times at once, and they couldn't pay it even if they wanted to.

But the village of Sobek directly beat out its own people. This made Pothinus furious. This was not beating his men, but a slap in his face.

"Come here, bring 10 muskets and teach these unruly people a lesson."

A cavalry squad of more than 20 men followed Pothinus and charged towards the village of Bessok.

Pothinus and his companions did not hide their whereabouts at all, and Besok soon discovered the smoke and dust rushing towards the village.

"Everyone, grab your spears and grenades, and assemble."

"Bang!" A gunshot rang out, and the sound echoed throughout the village.

Pothinus pointed his spear at the villagers and said, "Kill all these troublemakers."

"Bang, bang, bang!" Ten spears shot at the crowd.

Suddenly, four villagers fell to the ground, wailing.

The remaining villagers saw this bloody scene and fled in all directions.

"Don't run, fight back!"

Pothinus heard this and said, "Shoot at Sobek."

Pothinus purchased cheap second-hand muskets, which were very slow to load. Although Pothinus gave orders, they still had to load the ammunition step by step.

When Sobek heard this, he quickly fled back to his own courtyard and locked the door.

Pothinus and others rushed into the village, while the villagers were all hiding in their houses.

Pothinus sneered when he saw this scene: "Do you think you can escape like this? Someone, burn down all the houses of these untouchables."

Pothinus's men immediately set fire to five thatched huts. The villagers in the huts had no choice but to escape and kneel down to beg for mercy from Pothinus.

But Pothinus ordered his men to kill these villagers. He intended to make an example of them and use the villagers of Bessoke to intimidate other villages that were unwilling to pay taxes.

Then Pothinus led his men to the outside of Besok's courtyard and said, "Sobek, you can't escape."

This is the person who Pothinus must kill when he leads the tax resistance.

Sobek immediately asked his father to light five grenades made of black powder. Due to the lack of firearms, Besok made hundreds of black powder grenades, and the fuses needed to be lit with torches. Then he distributed five to each villager's home. Now these black powder grenades have become their life-saving straw. He climbed up the wall and threw these grenades out.

"Zizizizi!" Pothinus was shocked and immediately spurred his horse to escape.

"Boom, boom, boom!" The sound of five grenades exploding shook the earth and sky. Pothinus's men were blown to the ground and ran everywhere.

Sobek said, "Fellow villagers, if you resist you will die, and if you don't resist you will die too. If we kill one of them we can get our money back, and if we kill two we can make some extra money. Let's all come out together to take revenge."

After saying this, Sobek continued to light grenades with a torch and then threw them to Pothinus' men. Other villagers were also encouraged by Besok.

He also rushed out of the house and used his own grenades to continuously bombard Pothinus' men.

(End of this chapter)