Chapter 1858: The Great Landowner of Yangdi

Yangdi is located northwest of Xuzhou, bordering the three prefectures of Luoyang, Zhengzhou, and Ruzhou to the west and north, with connected mountains and rivers, backed by the remaining ranges of Funiu Mountain, and with the Ying River passing through, enjoying favorable geographic and climatic conditions—it is a prosperous zone of the Central Plains.

Yangdi County is also one of the wealthiest counties under Xuzhou's jurisdiction, economically nearly on par with Yingchang, the prefectural seat. Under the long-term erosion of the Ying River, a vast alluvial plain formed in the central-southern part of Yangdi, with good soil conditions and ample sunlight and rainfall, highly favorable for agriculture and livestock production. Cultivated land accounts for over thirty percent of the county's total area, and the land already surveyed by the Metropolitan Circuit amounts to 700,000 mu.

But due to the large population, the per capita cultivated land in Yangdi County is less than ten mu; counted by able-bodied adult males, it is only a little over twenty mu. The land of Yangdi County naturally cannot be limited to just this much—as the county with the widest jurisdiction under Xuzhou, even by rough estimate, its grain-sowing cultivated land exceeds one million mu at minimum.

The government's land survey work is seventy percent complete. The remaining land, without question, is all held in the hands of those with special status. And as Pan You's great decree for in-depth land investigation descended, Yangdi County, being a prefecture-county right under the nose of the circuit office, naturally moved into action in quick succession.

However, this work is truly difficult to carry out. Compared to those middle and lower landowners, or families of ordinary standing, the people occupying the remaining thirty percent of the land are not a single commoner household—they are either meritorious officials or powerful nobles.

They may not be particularly conspicuous on ordinary days, but with a slight tally, a startling discovery emerges: the tiny Yangdi County actually has over twenty marquises and counts who have established landholdings and manors here, ranging from dozens of qing for the lesser ones to over a hundred qing for the greater.

These people, without question, possess formidable backgrounds and family histories. Going back two or three generations, they all have commendable achievements to show—they have been wounded and shed blood for the Great Han.

Among them, the one holding the most land is Marquis of Mayi, Dang Jin. His family's holdings in Yangdi, though not precisely measured, are rumored to approach three hundred qing—making him the number one great landowner of Yangdi County.

Like many nobles of merit, the Dang Jin family has acquired land throughout the country, and most people, apart from their hometowns, cluster together in the Central Plains region.

The Dang family initially had only a little over a thousand mu in Yangdi, of which only a small portion was bestowed by the imperial court. The rest was either purchased or reclaimed from wasteland—and of course, some gray-area methods were unavoidable. Over thirty-plus years, the land holdings multiplied thirtyfold.

With so much land, it naturally requires careful management, and the greatest difficulty is agricultural labor. However, this is not much of a problem for the Dang family. They summoned fellow villagers from their hometown, had quite a few former subordinates and retainers, plus landless peasants who voluntarily attached themselves. When truly too busy, they could hire short-term or long-term laborers to help. Moreover, the Dang family even purchased over a hundred agricultural slaves from Annam, Japan, Korea, and the South Seas to work in production.

Regarding the purchase of agricultural slaves, strictly speaking, it is somewhat against the rules. The court has never relaxed its policy on the import of foreign populations—in fact, it has imposed restrictions. The practice of using overseas slaves was adopted only for cultivating the large tracts of official land and offices directly under the court's jurisdiction, but a specific prohibition was also issued: overseas slaves are only permitted for use on government-operated lands and in mines.

But rules are dead while people are alive. For most people, as long as there is profit to be made, they naturally find every conceivable way to break through the restraints. Using overseas slaves is extremely low-cost—basically just feeding them is enough. As for using Great Han commoners, setting aside the hiring costs, under the current political environment of the Great Han, not daring to exploit them too harshly is also a key factor.

Ordinary people, of course, have no use for slaves, but for someone of Dang Jin's status and connections, buying a few hundred slaves is no problem at all. As for the issue of violating regulations—his Dang family is hardly the only one doing it. Under normal circumstances, as long as no major problems arise, the court won't insist on pursuing the matter.

Against this backdrop, the Great Han has indeed imported a considerable number of overseas people in recent years, mostly able-bodied laborers and young women. These people are distributed across the lands and mines operated by the government and powerful nobles, receiving the most meager and inhumane treatment while doing the bitterest, hardest, and most dangerous work. Beneath the Great Han's lands, mines, roads, and bridges lie countless buried bones.

In the shadows beneath the sunlight, within a prosperous and civilized world like the Great Han, human trafficking thrives—somewhat ironic, to say the least. Among them, the most popular are unquestionably Koreans and Japanese—diligent, hardworking, and obedient, far more serviceable than those uncivilized southern tribes. And thanks to the friendly neighborly relations between the Great Han and Korea and Japan, the laborers from those two countries are nominally "hired" workers. Those truly without any status, completely treated as slaves, are the native peoples of the South Seas.

Emperor Liu is naturally not unaware of these situations, but he has not made a major issue of them. In the frequent exchanges with overseas regions, this opening has already been pried open, and closing it is not so easy—he can only impose some trivial restrictions at the policy level.

On the other hand, Emperor Liu holds a simple notion: rather than letting these people desperately squeeze and exploit Great Han commoners and commit deeds that anger heaven and incense the people, it is better to redirect their exploitative desires toward foreign states and alien lands. This is also one of the internal motivations driving Emperor Liu's push for overseas expansion and colonization.

In this way, the nearly three hundred qing of land has been fully developed and put into production, even with room to spare, providing the Dang family with abundant grain and money every year to sustain their aristocratic lifestyle. Among it all, the aspect of personal bondage is especially pronounced, and Yangdi has become the Dang family's key operational territory.

And after Dang Jin laid down his military post and retired, he did not choose to return to his hometown of Mayi—he made Yangdi his place of retirement. How could Mayi compare to the prosperous lands of the Central Plains?

Back then, the Dang family nephew who was made an example of by Pan You for lawless behavior and executed to establish authority—he was one of the principal managers responsible for operating the Dang family's lands.

For Yangdi County, surveying the remaining land inevitably means dealing with these nobles of merit led by the Dang family, and the difficulty of completing the task is easy to imagine. The Dang family is the hardest bone to gnaw.

After all, Marquis Dang is no ordinary man. Dang Jin has two great reputations in the Great Han court: one, he is completely illiterate; two, he has an eccentric and erratic temperament. But equally, Dang Jin possesses wisdom that ordinary people lack. Though his conduct in affairs is not clean, he never goes too far, and he knows when to advance and when to retreat.

On the other hand, he is himself a meritorious marquis of a generation, with a great backer like Duke Rongguo behind him, and he can speak a word before Emperor Liu. More than once, some of Dang Jin's absurd and outlandish words and deeds reached Emperor Liu's ears, and Emperor Liu's evaluation was often just this one sentence: "Dang Jin is just that kind of person—no need to mind him."

Regarding his vast landholdings in Yangdi, back at the Jiaqing Festival banquet, Emperor Liu even joked with him, saying he had managed his fields and residences quite well, and if the opportunity arose, he would like to visit his manor to see for himself...

Such an old noble who can reach the heavens—how could a local government easily handle him? Just thinking about it gives one a headache. But the circuit office's decrees cannot be ignored, for though Marquis Dang only poses a threat, the circuit office holds the power of life and death.

And as one might expect, Yangdi County's work ran into trouble with the Dang family from the very start. When the county office's clerks and officials came calling, they were not received at all. As for the survey task, there was no intention of cooperation—when led by the steward to the fields, they would brazenly lie through their teeth, pointing at a large stretch of land being fattened and saying, "These are all wasteland..."

As for the County Magistrate personally calling in person, he could not even get through the gates of the Dang family manor. Dang Jin directly had someone relay the message: he was old and recuperating from illness; if there was business, wait until he recovered—or died. He is a reckless, shameless sort who says whatever comes to his mouth, especially without any fear when facing those of lower status than himself.

The County Magistrate had no recourse, so he invoked Pan You's name and cited the circuit office's decrees. Dang Jin's answer was equally simple: his Dang family's lands were all bestowed by the Emperor's grace; how much land there was, His Majesty knew best—let them go ask His Majesty...

At such a reply, cold sweat broke out on the County Magistrate. This Marquis Dang was far too audacious—he would blurt out anything. Yangdi County naturally did not dare to give up easily, but when they pressed on relentlessly, Dang Jin became thoroughly annoyed and stated plainly: a tiny county like Yangdi had no qualification to investigate his family's lands—let Pan You come in person.

This made the County Magistrate's mentality explode while also giving him a great sigh of relief. Returning to the county office, he hurriedly reported to Xuzhou and the Metropolitan Circuit office, wishing he could toss this troublesome matter away entirely. This fierce tiger Dang Jin—his tiny Yangdi County, frail as it was, truly could not afford to touch him.

And upon learning of Dang Jin's arrogance, Pan You naturally flew into a rage. Of course, he also felt that an opportunity had arrived—he had been worrying about not finding a suitable breakthrough, and Dang Jin had just delivered himself to his doorstep. So what if he was a meritorious founding minister? So what if he had brilliant military achievements? Pan You was not afraid.