Imperial Master of the Ming Dynasty

The current situation is just like what Brother Xun said, "Human temperament always likes to compromise. For example, if you say that this room is too dark and a window must be opened here, everyone will not allow it. But if If you advocate removing the roof, they will mediate and open the windows.”

Originally, the gentry felt that it was a bit expensive for the Imperial Master to hold the White Lotus Sect, a basin of unexplainable dirty water, over their heads. In order to prevent the dirty water from falling, he used five thousand dan of grain in exchange for nothing to happen.

But when Jiang Xinghuo doubled the five thousand stones, and after confirming that the imperial master who had cleansed Changzhou Prefecture with an iron fist really dared to open his bloody mouth and intended to swallow them all, the gentry instead I think five thousand stones doesn’t seem like that much?

At present, many gentry are already interested in this deed.

Gentlemen, you look at me and I look at you. They are all looking forward to the piece of paper in Huang Ziwei's hand.

"Prefect Huang, please come and listen."

Xu's representative said.

The other gentry also urged: "Yes, yes! Read it quickly and listen. What kind of deed is this?"

After all, for them, signing a contract, as long as the conditions are not very excessive, is better than having the army come to their door to seize illegal materials and confiscate food in the name of "searching the White Lotus Sect", right?

Of course, in normal times, even the Imperial Master would not be able to do this kind of crude method to the gentry, otherwise it would definitely cause an uproar in the world.

But it happens that it is not the normal season right now, and the White Lotus Sect has caused civil unrest in the south of the Yangtze River. As the highest-ranking official in the Ming Dynasty responsible for quelling the chaos and providing disaster relief, the Imperial Preceptor has the full authority and status to search for the White Lotus Sect.

And the White Lotus Sect's uprising, with the tacit support of the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, was a kind of resistance to the Yongle court's policy of "sharing the labor into the mother's land"?

If you engage in "sharing the labor between the acres" and you make the owner-peasants and tenant farmers decent, according to the "theory of relativity", that means you, the gentry, are not decent. Therefore, the White Lotus Sect's civil strife naturally formed.

In other words, this large-scale civil unrest that did not occur in Jiang Xinghuo's previous life was actually the butterfly effect caused by him as a time traveler.

Of course, misfortune lies where blessings depend, and blessing lies where misfortune lies.

This civil unrest in the White Lotus Sect is actually a good thing for Jiang Xinghuo. Although it is a follow-up to the policy of "sharing the labor to the mother" he proposed in prison, it is also the best opportunity to create new relationships. .

The realization of this opportunity lies in the pieces of paper in the hands of Huang Ziwei, the prefect of Songjiang.

Huang Ziwei coughed twice and said slowly: "Everyone, please be quiet. Let me tell you the rules of the contract on the first page."

"First, what I want to tell you is that the content of this deed is fair and just. It will be implemented first in Songjiang Mansion, and you are the first batch of participants."

"Second, when signing the deed, it must be confirmed to be valid and cannot be changed at will."

"Third, if you have any objections, please raise them. It depends on the situation whether you refer to it, but if not, follow the contract."

"Fourth, from the date of establishment of the deed, all counties and cities will send personnel to various water conservancy projects in the south of the Yangtze River to participate in the construction of various projects. These projects will be supervised by the National Engineer and the Ministry of Industry of the Imperial Court. All personnel must be strictly screened. All personnel must be strictly screened. Those who do not meet the conditions will be sent back to their hometown immediately.”

"Fifth, during the period when the deed is established, if the gentry and merchants want to purchase various wartime control materials from the imperial court, they must first pass the review of the national advisor and then submit it to the county chief for record."

"Sixth, each county strictly implements the curfew for half a year."

Huang Ziwei read the first page eloquently, and then read the second and third pages. He didn't stop until he read the entire deed.

After listening, the gentry showed disbelief on their faces.

——Because, according to the second page of the deed, they only need to pay 3,000 to 5,000 shi of grain in exchange for the imperial court's "Law-abiding Gentleman" plaque.

Is a plaque that costs only a few dozen copper coins worth thousands of shi of food?

Of course it’s worth it! So worth it!

"Law-abiding gentry" means that the court has certified that they have nothing to do with the White Lotus Sect.

Although the court has the final right of interpretation and can choose to settle accounts after autumn, in this age of war and chaos, this is undoubtedly an amulet that may not be completely reliable, but has a strong psychological comfort effect.

The imperial court equivalently used the food they donated to give them special rights.

As for why you do this?

"I dare to ask the Imperial Master, since there are 'law-abiding gentry', are there also 'lawless gentry'?"

The leading Pan clan chief asked cautiously.

"Of course there is."

Jiang Xinghuo slowly said: "Any distinguished gentry who meets the following conditions will be included in the list of 'illegal gentry'. Those who have merit will have their titles removed. Their direct descendants will not be allowed to participate in the imperial examination. The relevant property will be punished as corruption and perversion of the law. To pursue the arrears and the interest rate accrued based on the time of arrears.”

"First, directly participate in or indirectly fund the rebellion; second, take over the payment of taxes and grain from tenant farmers and homesteaders; third, take the lead in resisting grain."

This is the preparatory step for the tax reform plan proposed by Jiang Xinghuo.

Jiang Xinghuo plans to take this opportunity to not only release farmers from their fields, but also to pave the way for local tax reform. In this way, "relief for work", "relief for work", and "local tax reform" will be implemented. "Change", after a set of combined punches, the control and influence of the Jiangnan gentry over the local area will naturally be greatly weakened.

The core content of this deed, which is the core content of "relief for work", that is, the relevant personnel, is quite vague and hidden deep enough to be difficult to detect.

The third page of the deed clearly stated that "if any tenant farmer belonging to a law-abiding gentry family participates in the White Lotus Rebellion, they will be regarded as a member of the rebels and must be handed over to the court for disposal. The law-abiding gentry shall not interfere."

This made the gentry think carefully.

The members who participated in the civil unrest of the White Lotus Sect were just a few types of people.

The first, of course, are the White Lotus believers. Most of these believers are businessmen, craftsmen, rogues, and wanderers.

Secondly, there are the self-cultivated farmers who are completely unable to survive, and they directly abandon their land and follow the rebels to seek food. This is very rare, because the self-cultivated farmers still have their own land, the last property, but they really can’t live now, so they always sell the land at a low price. You can exchange money to extend your life.

Finally, and the largest proportion of people, are the tenant farmers who are completely unable to survive.

The tenant farmers did not have their own land, so after the entire spring plowing was dry and flooded for half the summer, many tenant farmers chose to directly join the White Lotus Rebellion with their whole families, or were coerced into joining along the way.

Gentlemen generally have a large number of tenant farmers to help with the work in their homes. This is nonsense. "Farming and reading family inheritance" means watching the tenant farmers cultivate the land and studying at home. You can't let the gentry personally take care of thousands of acres of land. ? The rice fields in the south of the Yangtze River require intensive farming. Without the help of agricultural machinery, it is very tiring for one person to work more than ten acres. A medium-sized gentry usually hires dozens or even hundreds of tenant farmers to help them farm.

This also means that among the gentry, there are also many tenant farmer families who have joined the White Lotus Rebellion.

According to historical experience and inertial thinking, the gentry did not care much about the large number of tenant farmers fleeing.

As long as you have land in your hands, are there still a shortage of people who have no food to eat and come over to work on the land?

When the civil unrest is over, the gentry can not only recruit cheap refugees as tenant farmers, but can also take advantage of this civil unrest to annex the land of a large number of bankrupt homesteaders.

Therefore, civil unrest was a good thing for the gentry who had abundant food reserves.

How much food can a gentry family with a nursing home of up to 100 people eat? Living behind closed doors, there will be chaos outside for a year or two, or even dynasties change. As long as the family owns the land, they can become rich again in a few years.

In normal dynasty changes, the land of the gentry was rarely touched.

In the Jiangnan area, from the time when the Sun Wu regime vigorously developed this area, to the Jin Dynasty's Yiguan Crossing to the South, then to Wanyan's construction of the Yannan Crossing, and then to Zhu Yuanzhang's establishment of the Ming Dynasty, there were almost a handful of incidents in which the land was deprived of large-scale land. .

Therefore, the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River naturally felt that this civil unrest by the White Lotus Sect was not large in scale. Like the previous unrest, it would not involve their land.

Since the fundamental interests of the gentry are not involved, what does it matter if the court is allowed to deal with the tenant farmers who participated in the White Lotus Rebellion?

It is impossible for the court to support these tenant farmers who participated in the rebellion in vain. There are probably two ways out.

One is to serve as hard laborers in corvee labor, which is the water conservancy projects in various places in the south of the Yangtze River that are supervised by the National Division and the Ministry of Works as mentioned before.

This is the most normal way of thinking. After all, the floods in the south of the Yangtze River are like this, and the local gentry is unwilling to pay for repairs. The imperial court should always provide money and people to repair them. Otherwise, the granary in Jiangnan will still be at the elbow of the imperial court. After a few years, It doesn't look good just to cause civil turmoil, right?

The other way is to use the heads of people as military merits.

Some people secretly thought that they heard that the second prince Zhu Gaoxu was a disciple of the national master Jiang Xinghuo. Perhaps Jiang Xinghuo was seeking benefits for Zhu Gaoxu.

This was the condition put forward by Zhu Gaoxu, the barbaric warrior, in order to cut off more heads of rebels and gain more military merits.

After all, if the gentry admit this in the deed, once the White Lotus Rebellion is put down, even if these people were once tenant farmers of the law-abiding gentry's family, they will still be regarded as out-and-out rebels instead of being dismissed. Innocent civilians held hostage.

In this way, wouldn't it be possible to justifiably behead one's head in exchange for military merit without being criticized by the gentry?

And this is a matter of killing two birds with one stone. The generals who came to quell the chaos can obtain more military merits without paying any price in terms of public opinion, while the gentry also only need to pay a small price to get rid of possible consequences. He was accused of "instructing his tenant farmers to participate in the rebellion and secretly supporting the White Lotus Sect."

After figuring this out, the gentry breathed a sigh of relief.

Win-win!

What a win!

PS: [Important reminder (there is no charge for this content)] Chapters 316 to 356 are about the rectification of officialdom and the suppression of rebellions in Jiangnan. They do not contain any theoretical knowledge. They are all practical content. If you are not interested, you can jump directly to Chapter 366. "Class" will contain theoretical knowledge content from now on.