Chapter 345: Opening the Port (12)

The structure of the Zuo Clan was identical to all other clans: the Clan Leader was the central figure, holding the authority to distribute the clan's public assets—the Public Wealth, Public Fields, and Public Office.

At the same time, the most prestigious elders of each branch would join the Clan Leader to form a Dual Council, used to deliberate on internal clan affairs.

Recently, the clan had been holding meetings noticeably more often than before.

When the Land Requisition Office first entered the village a few days ago, the clan held a meeting, and the only Consensus reached by all families was to "wait and see." Not long after, however, a second emergency meeting was convened. This time, the Agenda was how to deal with the clan degenerate, Zuo Ping.

As for Zuo Ping, this man was a peculiar one. Among his generation, Zuo Ping ranked seventeenth, so people usually called him Zuo Shiqi.

Zuo Shiqi was the second son of the Sixth Branch. After coming of age, this gentleman received the property rights to seventy mu of land from the family. Unexpectedly, after both his parents passed away, he suddenly developed a gambling addiction. After a few years of frittering about, he had pawned and sold over thirty mu of land to fellow clan members.

Normally, no one would bother with such matters—which large family doesn't produce a few degenerates? In fact, many people were watching coldly from the sidelines, just waiting for this guy to lose his next bet and release the land deeds so everyone could continue bidding.

Unexpectedly, a bolt from the blue: the Rent Depot... the Land Requisition Office had arrived.

With competition came comparison. After observing for a period, Zuo Shiqi discovered that this Rent Depot buying up land was indeed honest and fair, dealing in genuine Silver, and so his mind began to stir.

One must know, he now only had 40 mu of land left in hand, and the Majority of it was not good land, just ordinary medium-to-low-grade fields.

If he exchanged land according to the conditions offered by the Rent Depot, he could get 60 mu of neat, uniform low-grade fields in another county. In this way, his assets would invisibly increase in value significantly. Whether he continued to rent it out or divided and sold it off after future gambling losses, it would be a case of advance to attack, retreat to defend.

And so, after Zuo Shiqi secretly ran over to Fengxian to look around and inquire about the specifics from those few wealthy farmers who had been the first to try, this gambler was truly tempted.

However, wanting to Sell the land was not so easy. There was a hidden problem to resolve: theoretically, he could only sell the land to the clan.

This point was mandatory and beyond reproach: a clan was not a modern-day joint-stock Company. If unworthy descendants were allowed to sell land to outsiders, the clan would vanish like smoke in a few generations.

But Zuo Shiqi truly wanted to leave the clan... All he wanted now was to get Far From those clansmen who constantly mocked him as a waste and were waiting to take advantage of him.

He was a man with dreams; he didn't want to be trampled underfoot his whole life. He had waited these past few years precisely for an opportunity to charge into a gambling den, dominate completely, and become rich overnight. Then he would tell everyone that what he had lost, he would definitely take back!

Now that the Land Requisition Office had appeared, Zuo Shiqi's chance had finally arrived. So, without any further hesitation, he went to knock on the back door in the middle of the night, Intending to have a good talk with these land buyers.

The result of the talk was very satisfactory to him: the Land Requisition Office agreed to resettle his land parcel over in Xiaoshan. That way, he would effectively have run off to Shaoxing. In the future, separated by the Qiantang River, the clan couldn't do anything to him.

And so, a certain someone excitedly went home to prepare his land deeds.

What Zuo Shiqi did not expect, however, was that early the next morning, he was escorted by force into the Ancestral Hall, where the members of the Council of Elders were arrayed in solemn readiness.

Who had betrayed him? His elder brother and sister-in-law, separated by a single wall.

Under the Reminder of Family Law (the Red Lacquer Rod), Zuo Shiqi quickly spilled everything. After This, he received an additional round of beatings and was then confined to his home to recover from his injuries, forbidden from going anywhere.

As for his land deeds... after public discussion within the clan, they were to be kept in custody by his elder brother. If Zuo Shiqi wanted to sell the land in the future, his elder brother would handle everything.

To be honest, from the clan's perspective, this outcome was already very fair and very Merciful. Apart from suffering a beating, Zuo Shiqi hadn't lost anything. If he truly wanted to sell the land, he could still get the silver, just at the clan's internal price.

But matters on the ground were never that simple. The egg was already cracked—could one expect the flies to leave it alone?

Just as Zuo Shiqi was finished being disciplined, a certain Clerical Staff from the County Yamen got wind of it and rushed to the injured man's home to offer condolences. After this, Yu Bende clasped his hands behind his back, hummed a tune, and strolled leisurely to the Zuo Family's door, requesting an audience with Zuo Hongtang.

Zuo Hongtang naturally dared not be negligent and hurriedly invited Yu to the main hall for tea.

In terms of broad class divisions, ancient times had the explicit ranking of "Scholar-Farmer-Merchant-Artisan." However, this was merely a crude division. Within each class, many further strata emerged based on differences in strength.

For the "wealthy" stratum of the Ming Dynasty, there were likewise several layers of division.

Setting aside those Huangqin Guochi, the ones occupying the top of the food chain were naturally the Gentry Class. True Gentry referred to "Advanced intellectual families" where someone in the household held an official post, or at least had a provincial graduate or retired official residing in the village.

If such a family was managed properly, with someone securing an official post in every generation, then the clansmen could carve the high-grade plaque of "Poetry and Books Passed Down" on their foreheads. This title sounded very elegant, but it represented top-tier nobility that devoured people without spitting out the bones.

The government was completely helpless when Facing such families. Xu Jie was the best example: during his career as Senior Grand Secretary, the Xu family Constantly encroached upon the fields in their hometown until they reached hundreds of thousands of mu.

Later, after Gao Gong appointed Hai Rui as the Ying Grand Coordinator (Jiangsu + Shanghai - Provincial Party Secretary), the super anti-corruption hothead Hai Rui was Prepared To beat the Local Tyrants within his jurisdiction. When he discovered that the Xu family was the Largest Local Tyrant in all of South Zhili, he began confiscating land and also arrested Xu Jie's son.

Yet this was of No Use: the retired elder comrade Xu Jie pulled some strings, spent some silver, and had Hai Rui transferred away—as people said at the time: a retired prime minister at home could banish the imperial inspector.

This was the power of a top-tier Gentry family: even Hai Rui was dismissed with a couple of casual moves, so the ordinary officials, big and small, were even more entangled in the web of officialdom's relationships.

Therefore, such Gentry families were in fact the nation's Largest parasites: they turned large numbers of Owner-Farmers into their own tenant farmers, and the vast amounts of land they occupied paid no taxes, which was equivalent to stuffing the national treasury into their own pockets.

To some degree, this was the true essence of "the sovereign rules together with the Scholar-Officials": the Emperor allowed Advanced Scholar-Officials to share in the nation's tax revenue.

Below the top-tier Gentry were the ordinary Gentry Class. These were typically families where the first generation had just entered officialdom, or where the older generation had passed away and the younger generation hadn't yet taken up the mantle, but the connections at court still remained and residual prestige still lingered.

Even this kind of Gentry was not someone the government could push around. The household paid taxes on 500 mu of land, but another 1000 mu went untaxed—the entity collecting taxes was the County Yamen, and whether it was a lowly county magistrate or a lowlife petty official, they were equally helpless before such a household.

Next came the rural Local Tyrants who constantly had "Farming and Study Passed Down" on their lips.

This kind of family was the third tier of the pyramid. No high officials had emerged from the clan, but there was a constant stream of minor officials and clerks. Deeply entrenched locally, hiding fields and households was routine, defaulting on taxes was standard procedure, and they were perpetually in a mode of bargaining with the county tax clerks.

The Zuo family, whom Yu Bende had come to meet today, was at the lowest tier of the pyramid: rural Local Tyrants.

This kind of family was the most numerous of the rural Power Bases. They had no political energy to speak of. Their ability to dominate locally and default on taxes relied on tonnage: a clan of several hundred to a thousand people, united in a battle of wits and courage against the tax clerks.

The reason Yu Bende had originally chosen Zuo Family Village in front of Xiong Dao was also because he knew his own limits: the village's proximity to the port was one aspect; the other was that there were no "Farming and Study Passed Down" political families here, so a petty official like him could barely operate.

... After entering the main hall, Both Sides took their Seats, and tea was served. Yu Bende was not the least bit hurried at this moment. He unhurriedly lifted the lid of his Tea Bowl and watched intently as the water droplets on it fell into the bowl.

The square-faced, big-eared Zuo Hongtang lacked this kind of composure. One must know, when the Land Requisition Office first arrived, he had sent someone to privately invite Yu Bende, but had been refused.

So he had been waiting all these days to meet Yu Bende: "Master Yu, I've finally been hoping for your arrival today. What exactly is the inside story Behind the Scenes of this land purchase? Please, do enlighten me!"

Yu Bende nodded with a beaming smile. Although he hadn't visited Zuo Family Village many times and wasn't very familiar with Zuo Hongtang, today he could clearly sense that this Family Head's confidence was lacking.

"Country bumpkins, unaware of the stakes." Thinking this, Yu Bende finally opened his mouth: "Elder Zuo, this land purchase matter was ordered by a big shot above. I am merely running errands, offering some Assistance."

Seeing this Old Official so assured, Zuo Hongtang couldn't help but feel a tightening in his chest: "Oh... then may I ask, has the quota been met?"

"Naturally, it has not." Yu Bende curled the corner of his mouth. With a family possessing no political energy, his tone was very equal: "Counting all the land in Zuo Family Village, it's probably still a bit short."

"Ah!?" Zuo Hongtang was shocked: "What sort of big shot is this? His appetite is not small!"

Yu Bende couldn't be bothered to explain to these country bumpkins. Even if he did, what the recruited and amnestied Vice General of Xiamen represented would still be beyond the grasp of these country bumpkins: "Just a high threshold in the prefectural city. The steward is still in Xiancheng. I'm not too clear on the rest."

After this perfunctory Reply, Yu Bende finally revealed his purpose: "Elder Zuo, obstructing official business doesn't seem like the act of a sensible man such as yourself, does it?"

Zuo Hongtang still hadn't recovered from the earlier shock. In his impression, it seemed only Huangqin Guochi had the ability to uproot an entire local population, so his attention was somewhat scattered at the moment. Only after thinking for a bit did he react that Yu Bende was laying blame: "Master Yu, please speak plainly. In these past few days, when has the Zuo family ever obstructed your official business?"

"Heh heh, Zuo Shiqi is already lying in bed. What further obstruction do you need?"

Hearing this, Zuo Hongtang instantly understood, and then he flew into a rage: "Punishing that degenerate beast is my Zuo family's private affair. This is none of your concern, Master Yu!"

"How Elder Zuo punishes his nephews is indeed none of my concern. However, this document here, that is precisely my concern."

Saying this, Yu Bende slowly drew a contract from his bosom and placed it on the table.