Chapter 2085: Taizong Chronicles 27: Worthy Gentry, Schemes Abound

"Who dares to barge into the county office!"

A sudden roar erupted before the Heqing County office. Four yamen runners stood on the stone platform, hands on their regulation blades, fierce and menacing, warily eyeing the group before the office.

It wasn't that they were overreacting—the newcomers were all tall and burly, with hostile expressions, and armed to boot. They looked like trouble. Though storming the county office was unlikely, given there were only a few of them, a dutiful shout was still in order.

The leader of the group was a young man, handsome and upright, radiating virility. He held a long sword in his hand, its scabbard adorned with exquisite patterns and its hilt fitted with jade ornaments—clearly no ordinary weapon.

He practically ignored the four yamen runners, lifting his gaze to take in the imposing plaque overhead, then noting the tightly shut doors of the main hall. With no small measure of mockery, he said, "Broad daylight, and the county office sits closed. One can well imagine how Heqing County is governed!"

The sarcasm was unmistakable to anyone. The yamen runners felt as though they'd been insulted and snapped angrily, "How dare you! You dare to profane the government office!"

"You!"—the man was clearly putting up a brave front. The young man gave the runner a cold glance and ordered, "Go inform your county magistrate—someone from the capital has arrived!"

At these words, the runner's expression shifted several times. Meeting the young man's icy gaze and cowed by his bearing, he dared not even utter a harsh word. He turned and hurried inside to report.

The young man saw no reason to wait. He slung his sword behind his back, beckoned his attendants, and strode calmly into the county office. The other runners who overheard the exchange dared not block him either—someone from the capital was not someone small fry like them could afford to offend.

As for this young man, he was hardly an ordinary person—indeed, he bore various halos of prestige. His name was Li Zhaoxian, twenty-one years old, grandson of Emperor Shizu, nephew of the current Emperor. His parents were the Duke of Leping, Li Jilong, and the Grand Princess Liu Jia. He currently held the rank of Zhaowu Commandant and served as a guard in the Inner Palace, accompanying the Emperor on this inspection tour.

He strode boldly into the main hall. Before he could even take a look around, two middle-aged men in blue-green official robes emerged from the inner hall, faces dark and gloomy. They swept their eyes over the scene, their attention settling on Li Zhaoxian, and asked with guarded wariness, "May I ask who you are, sir?"

Li Zhaoxian looked at the green-robed middle-aged man and said flatly, "You are Chen Ruoyu, the County Magistrate of Heqing?"

"Indeed I am!" Chen Ruoyu replied, then probed, "May I ask which young lord you are, and what business brings you to our county? If you need assistance, please speak frankly!"

"Then I'll trouble Magistrate Chen to come with me," Li Zhaoxian said directly, his tone calm but his attitude thoroughly forceful.

At this, Chen Ruoyu's face darkened. He was, after all, the magistrate of an entire county. He'd already given plenty of face on account of those four words "someone from the capital." This fellow, with no explanation, no clarity, just told him to come along—what the hell was this!

With that thought, Chen Ruoyu's tone turned hostile, and he put on his official airs: "This county still has official business to attend to and has no interest in being toyed with! Given your youth, I'll let this slide. See our guest out!"

Having said this, Chen Ruoyu turned to leave—which, in Li Zhaoxian's eyes, looked rather like a guilty conscience. But he paid it no mind. He drew a document from his bosom, its bright yellow silk cover particularly eye-catching, and said calmly, "Magistrate Chen, perhaps you should look at this handwritten decree before making your decision."

Chen Ruoyu was hardly ignorant of the world. The moment he caught sight of that document, his heart clenched. But after reading it through, his legs nearly gave out beneath him.

When he looked back at Li Zhaoxian, his voice trembled slightly, carrying a note of pleading: "Would the envoy please wait a moment, while this humble official tidies himself up a bit..."

At this, Li Zhaoxian put on a perfectly courteous manner. He stepped forward two paces, reached out to smooth the wrinkles on the chest of Chen Ruoyu's official robe, and said with a smile, "Magistrate Chen's attire is quite proper as is. Best not keep His Majesty waiting!"

"Yes!" Chen Ruoyu had no choice but to comply. Yet his heart was already filled with gloom. He knew his own situation all too well—this hurdle would not be easy to clear. But since matters had come to this, he could only strive to steady his mind and seek some way to salvage the situation.

Chen Ruoyu came from a distinguished family. His father was the famed general Chen Sirang, who in his early years had served as Patrol Inspector of Huainan, earning merit in the Huainan campaign, and later rose to Chief Commander of Huaixi and Patrol Inspector of the Yangtze.

His elder brother, Chen Ruozhuo, had placed second in the imperial examinations in the nineteenth year of Kaibao and had already risen to Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Personnel. As for Chen Ruoyu himself, he too was a jinshi graduate, and Heqing County was his first post outside the capital.

Li Zhaoxian had clearly come on the orders of Emperor Liu Yang, who was on his inspection tour. And being "invited" away in such a manner by Li Zhaoxian meant that something had gone seriously wrong in his tenure—something of major proportions.

Officials of the Great Han committed crimes for all sorts of reasons and motives, and Chen Ruoyu was no exception. He came from a good family and had no shallow vision; money and wealth meant nothing to him. But he craved fame and power, harboring ambitions on the official path. That in itself wasn't a major problem—it was just that he was too eager for quick success in pursuing his career.

Among the "tax reform faction" of the Great Han, many had risen because they'd produced tangible results—outstanding contributions in implementing reforms, land surveying, and public education.

Over the past three years, Chen Ruoyu had clearly been one of them, and had even received commendations for it. Especially in comparison with his predecessor, his work efficiency and administrative talent stood out all the more.

After all, it was under Chen Ruoyu's leadership that Heqing County had fully completed its tax reform. The figures in the land registry were clear and unambiguous—the registered acreage had more than tripled compared to the old rolls, and tax revenues had grown several-fold over what the Two-Tax system had brought in, all dutifully remitted to the circuit authorities and the court in accordance with regulations.

With such a family background and such outstanding achievements, Chen Ruoyu only needed to wait for his promotion. Especially now that the new Emperor had ascended the throne and Murong Defeng had taken office as Minister of Personnel and was reshuffling appointments—according to letters from his elder brother Chen Ruozhuo in the capital, he was already on the next promotion list, and a one-step jump at that: Prefectural Administrator of Mizhou.

However, all of this was utterly shattered by the Emperor's sudden private inspection. From Liu Yang's two days of on-the-ground investigation, it turned out that Chen Ruoyu's shining achievements were riddled with falsehoods. Heqing's tax reform was soaked through with water like a cloth dipped in the Yellow River.

First of all, the Heqing County office's protection of small farmers and common folk was a dead letter—it even sided with the landlords and local magnates, turning around to oppress ordinary people.

It was said that upon taking office, Chen Ruoyu had gathered all the major landowners under his jurisdiction and delivered a fine-sounding speech, openly and covertly conveying this message: the court's tax reform must be implemented, and thoroughly so; the government's land registry must show every household's acreage; and as for any problems the local gentry encountered during the reform, the county office would do its utmost to help resolve them.

A discerning person catches the meaning behind the music. Heqing's worthy gentry understood their magistrate perfectly and were glad to oblige. And so Heqing's tax reform work hit the fast track—land surveying and registry compilation were completed just two years later, with names, households, and families all accounted for. The results were impressive.

But what was the reality? After learning the truth, Liu Yang had only eight words of assessment: "Too vile to behold, too guilty to forgive!"

Methods like splitting up landholdings and distributing portions to clan members and tenant farmers to dodge taxes—well, that was the safest approach, so no need to dwell on it. But in Heqing County, not many actually did that.

The more common practice was to distribute land to commoners through so-called rental and loan agreements, but those very contracts bound them hand and foot. In practice, the landlords still controlled the peasants' lives from birth to death, working them like oxen and horses.

Under these conditions, the small farmers who "owned" their land weren't necessarily better off than before—in fact, they were often worse. Before, they paid rent to the landlord plus the Two-Tax to the court. Now, they repaid loans plus land tax. Adding the two together, the latter was no lighter than the former. The crushing loans and interest were like a rope around their necks, strangling the breath out of them. Whether things improved or worsened depended entirely on the conscience of the landlord-creditors.

There were indeed worthy gentry who were benevolent and helped their neighbors, but they were few and far between. As for the majority of powerful landlords, even if only out of resistance to the court's "harsh land policies," they wouldn't let the common folk have it easy—otherwise, wouldn't those mud-footed peasants and lowly commoners be turning the world upside down?

There were also farming households who couldn't bear the usurious loans and filed complaints at the county office. And at such times, Magistrate Chen naturally had to fulfill his original promise—to help the worthy gentry solve their problems.

He had his talking points too, delivered with righteous indignation: a debt must be repaid—that was only natural and just. The contracts and fingerprints were all there, even signed by the county office's legal clerk. They were perfectly valid.

Besides, looking at the contracts, they weren't so outrageous. Can't pay it off in ten years? Pay it off in twenty. Still can't? There's always the next generation. The land couldn't just be given away for free, after all. They had their own land now—what more could they want? People shouldn't be too greedy.

Of course, Magistrate Chen, as a father-and-mother official, also had a "heart that loved the people." Out of compassion, when such petitions came before him, he would summon the creditor and rule that a few years of interest be reduced. The local gentry naturally had to give face to their magistrate. With all that, what more could the complaining peasants possibly want? If they kept pressing the matter, did they still want to live in the village? Weren't they afraid of their neighbors pointing fingers and cursing them for being insatiably greedy and ungrateful?

There were also those who refused to take loans. But if you didn't borrow, someone else would. And the temptation of owning your own land was more than the average small farmer could resist. Once you signed your name on that loan agreement in a moment of hardship, being trapped was a foregone conclusion.

Of course, there were those who tried every means to pay off their loans early—whether by stealing or by robbing, some actually managed it. But after the old loan came a new one. In the course of production and livelihood, there were always difficulties and risks. As long as there was need, the worthy gentry were generous and only too happy to lend a helping hand.

Gradually, many landlords discovered that under the current policy environment, the lending business was genuinely profitable. It allowed them to legally and legitimately avoid the heavy land taxes that came with concentrated landholdings, and the returns were no lower than keeping all the land under their own names.

Under such circumstances, some "clever people" began turning their sights on the originally self-sufficient farmers. If you had difficulties, they'd offer timely help; if you had no difficulties, they'd manufacture difficulties just so they could lend you money and grain.

And that was the restrained sort. The truly ruthless ones, who devoured people without spitting out the bones, would scheme to drive you to bankruptcy and ruin, then "save" you with a loan agreement. They wouldn't even take your land—they'd leave it with you to farm and work off the debt.

As for fleeing the debt—setting aside the government's protection, a person might run, but could the land run? At worst, they could take the land back and hand it to other farmers to work.

Through such maneuvers, land concentration in Heqing County was indeed effectively brought under control. But the farmers' livelihoods saw no fundamental improvement—if anything, they deteriorated.

And the control and exploitation of ordinary farming households through lending was no lighter than the old personal bondage based on land. And this was the result of the local gentry "compromising" with the court and responding to the government's reforms.

One can well imagine what Heqing County was like under such circumstances. Of course, in years without disasters or plagues, the farmers could still scrape by, even presenting a picture of stability. But the small farmers under this order were trapped in an invisible, even more suffocating atmosphere.

Beyond all this, Chen Ruoyu had other shady tricks. For instance, he played games with land grading: the gentry's lands were recorded as mid-grade, low-grade, or even poor-grade, while ordinary farmers' lands were uniformly recorded as high-grade or mid-grade—and taxed accordingly.

This was also a frequent flashpoint in the tax reform process, and one of the main contradictions of the new tax system. In some people's eyes, the new tax system was worse than the old head-count Two-Tax. At least in prosperous regions, with developed economies, high land output, and substantial populations, even if the court tilted the tax quotas somewhat, the per-person share wasn't heavy.

Beyond that, the county office also allocated a portion of barren mountain land, wasteland, and woodlands to farming households as arable land, squeezing out another round of taxes.

At the same time, they effectively halted the relief loan policy for the common people under their jurisdiction—after all, the worthy gentry were there to help. But the annual relief loan operations continued to "run"—on the books, and quite prettily at that.

As for the grain, seeds, tools, and other supplies meant for relief loans, they could be easily converted into tax revenue. Some operations required no more than a couple of entries in the ever-normal granary registers—old grain out, new grain in, a flick of the brush sufficed.

With such methods deployed in combination, Heqing County's tax revenues naturally shot up compared to before, transforming into Chen Ruoyu's outstanding achievements in tax reform.

After learning the true state of affairs, the fact that Liu Yang could restrain his anger and not curse was a testament to his self-cultivation.

Beyond his indignation, there was also a sense of helplessness. He felt that he had paid considerable attention to the tax reform process, often focusing on details, and the court had proceeded cautiously, continuously adjusting and refining over the years.

And yet, even so, a situation like Heqing County could still arise—and this place was separated from Luoyang by just a single river!

If the river is this clear, one can only imagine what the situation is like elsewhere. The clever bureaucrats under heaven are surely not limited to just Chen Ruoyu—their methods probably include far more tricks than we can imagine! No wonder grievances are so great everywhere and disturbances so numerous!

Tax reform—after all these years of reform, this is the result it has produced. For Liu Yang, this was truly disheartening.

What was even more disheartening came next: when Chen Ruoyu was brought before the imperial presence, he showed no sign of repentance and still tried to struggle a little more, spinning empty words and quibbling.

Liu Yang questioned Chen Ruoyu about the actual situation of the tax reform in Heqing County. Though somewhat flustered, Chen Ruoyu quickly composed himself and very sincerely stated that he had been acting entirely in accordance with the court's directives. Even if there were some oversights, they were deviations and errors caused by an inadequate understanding of the new policies, and for this he admitted his fault.

When Liu Yang brought up the prevalence of high-interest private lending in Heqing County and the oppression suffered by the poor, Chen Ruoyu looked even more innocent and said with great puzzlement that the court did not prohibit private lending, that it was quite common for poor people to borrow money to buy land, and that the local gentry could hardly be expected to give their land away for free.

He even claimed that he had cracked down on debts with excessively high interest, punished wicked gentry, and vigorously protected the interests of the common people. In particular, landlords who shifted the entire land transaction tax onto the peasant side had been dealt with severely in accordance with tax law. He had done everything according to the statutes, and all of these circumstances could be verified by records.

On the other hand, in the course of the massive volume of land transactions, the county office had collected a considerable amount of transaction tax, enriching the treasury. This was not a fault but rather a merit.

Of course, he was not a perfect man; he lacked experience in governance, had made some errors, had an inadequate understanding of the livelihoods of the common people, and had failed to properly observe certain conditions among the populace—Chen Ruoyu admitted to all of this as well.

After this round of responses, Liu Yang was so enraged that he nearly ordered Chen Ruoyu beheaded on the spot. Such cleverness, such sophistry—Chen Ruoyu spoke of it all with great eloquence, yet the more one thought about it, the more chilling it became. At the same time, from this county magistrate, Liu Yang also came to understand how the situation in Heqing County had developed to such a state.

Chen Ruoyu was by no means a mediocrity—one could tell from what he had done. He could even be called a capable official, with an exceedingly nimble mind, constantly skirting the edges of the law while constantly producing results. It was just that, as the father-and-mother official of the people, he had never once sat on the side of the common folk, but instead actively leaned toward those filial sons (local gentry) and worthy grandsons (landlords).

If all the bureaucrats under heaven were like this, it would be not only the suffering of the common people but also the tragedy of the Great Han Empire. And the problem was precisely that Liu Yang had no idea to what extent the situation in various regions had developed, or whether it was even worse than in Heqing County.

Not to mention anything else—at least in Heqing County, public order was still relatively stable, and Chen Ruoyu had controlled the situation well. But what about the places where disturbances, popular unrest, and even judgments had occurred?

Of course, no matter how Chen Ruoyu quibbled, he could not escape the suspicion of deceiving the emperor. However, after that speech of his, Liu Yang for the moment truly set aside his intention to execute the man.

That night, at the county seat's guesthouse, Liu Yang again had a long and frank conversation with Xu Shilian. He said with great melancholy that the tax reform had developed to its current state, and had reached an extremely difficult juncture.

But through these problems, he had also discovered that many of these various issues could in fact have been avoided. What he could think of was to implement more comprehensive, more frequent, and more deeply penetrating oversight—if not to eliminate the chaos in the localities entirely, then at least to improve it.

Liu Yang said with deep emotion that the people of the Great Han deserved more care and protection from the court.

To be realistic, if the fundamental problems were not resolved, all one could do was still make improvements, resolving some surface-level matters.

However, if the small farmers and common folk were all to turn over and become masters themselves, then would this Great Han Empire, this Liu family's realm, still be worth keeping?